On the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's, and the Colonel's, bucket list was a trip to Maine and New Hampshire in the early fall to look at leaves and lighthouses. A flight to Boston from Memphis (the nearest airport to the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere) got them deep enough into enemy territory to be able to claim operational long-range reconnaissance patrol status, and before the leaf peeping and lighthouse looking could commence in earnest, a walking tour of Beantown was in order.
Eleven point oh one miles later (not gonna make the Colonel a liar over one one-hundredth of a mile) the Colonel and his bride proclaimed, "Check!", and headed for Portland.
Maine, that is.
"Lobsta."
Lighthouses.
Long, circuitous drives in search of said lighthouses.
Long, excruciatingly stays at the site of each lighthouse while the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda photographed each from every conceivable angle save that of a drowning sailor.
Wait, you want to know why the Colonel didn't talk about what he saw in Boston? You probably think the Colonel's love of history would have made a walking-tour immersion into mid-18th Century colonial unrest over a distant and tyrannical government's high taxation and restriction of self-governance the highlight of the entire week-long trip.
Meh. Experiencing enough of that here early in the 21st Century.
In fact, Colonial Americans enjoyed far lower taxation and far greater local political freedom than do 21st Century Americans... but, that's grist for another post.
The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda did get her picture taken in Cheers, so the Boston death march was not a total waste.
With the lighthouses of coastal Maine in the rear-view mirror, the Colonel and his best friend drove west into the White Mountains -- the Colonel wonders how long that appellation will withstand the incessant encroachment of political correctness on freedom and common sense -- and settled in for a few days of taking pictures of every single orange leaf, covered bridge, and waterfall in the entire region of central New Hampshire.
The White Mountains are quite picturesque in the fall -- no doubt about it. The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda has extensive photographic evidence.
The highlight of the trip -- for the Colonel, anyway -- was a visit to Lexington and Concord on the exfil leg of the patrol.
The Colonel is pleased to report that his movement from Concord back to Boston went a lot more smoothly than it did for the red-coated regulars on the 19th of April in 1775. He tried to imagine, at various stops on the route, the terror and frustration felt by the King's soldiers as they were ambushed and harried by a swelling horde of farmers armed with firearms that in many cases were superior to their own. "Aren't these folks British, too?" they must have wondered. "How dare they defy the King's authority!"
The Colonel also tried to imagine what motivated thousands of farmers from across middle Massachusetts to converge on the Redcoat column that day. Why did the man, whose farm and family outside of Bedford were not really threatened by the British regulars' occupation of Boston, answer the call to arms against the King's troops? What motivated him? Was he afraid that the Redcoats would expand their occupation of Boston to farms and villages of the interior? Wouldn't his, and his fellows', act of violent rebellion on the 19th of April make expansion of regular army activity outside of Boston more possible?
The Colonel doesn't believe that the man from Bedford was animated by some grand notion of American independence or a philosophical principle regarding the inherent rights of man. No, it is far more likely that the man from Bedford grabbed his firearm and joined his neighbors and friends because they were his neighbors and friends. He wasn't going to be the man to say, "No, son, I wasn't there. I didn't go when my friends went. It wasn't my fight."
The Colonel believes -- without a doubt in his military mind, and, without a qualm about the contradiction -- that what really motivates men to acts of righteous violence is love. Men dress it up in manly terminology -- comradeship..., loyalty..., honor -- but the motivator is love.
And love is local.
When the next revolution comes -- and it will come, it always does -- the spark may be a single man's action, or a single bureaucrat's over-reach. But, the fuel for the fire will be the bonds between neighbors and friends.
So it was in the spring of 1775. The farmers who chased the regulars back into Boston, and who then formed the thousands occupying the heights around Boston, had far more pressing personal requirements. They had planting to do. But, the majority stayed on the heights. Not for American independence -- that notion was still a year away from Jefferson's illumination and the Continental Congress' grudging declaration.
The man from Bedford stayed on the heights because his friends and neighbors stayed.
Liberty springs from local love.
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