The Shot Heard Round the World...Concord, Massachusetts

Current read: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, Seth Grahame-Smith


CONCORD HYMN

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Yup. April 19, 1775. Yet still so real.

And being there, on the North Bridge, seeing the gentle flow of the Concord River...feeling the heroism that still lingers...seeing the Old Manse where Waldo's grandfather watched those first fired shots was a moment to encapsulate in my head and relive over and over.

Oh I loved this poem the first time I read it. Taught it. When a student essayed on the "Conquered" Hymn on a test, I hardly minded.

Forever and ever. Amen.

Tanya Writes About Paul Revere's Ride

Ditsy Tanya's Almanac #10

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Yes...on this date it all started, the freedoms you and I enjoy. I learned this poem in school, loved it, but it wasn't until visiting New England that I got it.
We even learned on a tourist talk somewhere during our visit that Paul Revere didn't actually row anything LOL. Lexington is a horse's ride from Boston Harbor. But it makes for glorious poetry.

The Old North Church was amazing. Sadly, the other day we attended a funeral at its exact replica at Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. (more on that later.)
So was staying at the Concord Colonial Inn where Sam Adams and other revolutionaries held secretive meetings. On the place reeks of history.





This weekend the inn is celebrating its annual Patriots Day complete with parade. Ah, how I wish I could be there.


And sometimes I wish I'd lived there, then. Or later on and hung out with Louisa May and Henry David. And Waldo himself, who I'll write about later, too.

Or not...hmmmmm. Since there weren't flush toilets or antibiotics or....wait for it, computers. The accouterments of daily living I can't imagine living without.

Thank you, patriots. Minutemen. Founding fathers and mothers. God bless America!

Tanya Writes About Concord Where She Lived and Died

Louisa May Alcott.

The Christmas I was eight years old, I received a life-changing book. No, not some Dummy how-to or Chicken Soup. Little Women.

Thank God there were two sequels so I didn't have to say good-bye. Little Men and Joy's Boys. And she penned other favorites like Jack and Jill, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom.

When Ned died in Jack and Jill, I sobbed my brains out. Still tightens my chest when I recall that scene.

But it was meeting Jo that let me know I wanted to be a writer. Amy burning Jo's handwritten manuscript in a fit of rage was a true tragedy. Especially in those days with no hard drive, flash drive, e-mail storage or writable CD's.

(Okay, Tanya. It was just a story. But it was based on real events of Louisa's life.)



So visiting Orchard House in Concord and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and (wait for it) Walden Pond were so on our list of things to do a year ago. Louisa was a teen when Henry David spend his landmark 22 months at the pond. They all hung out with Emerson and Hawthorne. Gosh, I'd have loved to have been a fly on a wall of the old Manse.

Or better yet, a real life person hanging out with that group.

So Louisa inspired me, still does. Thoreau taught me not to get to the end of my life and not have lived. Emerson reminded me to be selfish when the muse hits. (Although my sweet hero doesn't get that LOL.) Hawthorne, dang, he was nothing but a 19th century X-File writer.

And it was memories of that perfect autumn day at Henry David's leftover homestead that brought me through that darkest hour during my hero's ordeal. When the chemo almost killed him and he lay in an ER bed, gray and drawn and I thought he had died.

Concord rocks for another grand reason. On the rude bridge that arched the flood...was fired the shot heard 'round the world. Thank you, Ralph Waldo.


I got to say my own good-bye to all of them at Authors Ridge.

I've got some books to re-read. (Yes, I did buy another copy if Little Women at the Orchard House bookstore...as well as a LMA pen and ruler! It was a gift set.)

What a time it was. A time blazed in my memory. My heart.

Hopefully, my words.