Monday is Patriots Day in Boston, celebrating the battles of Concord and Lexington, and a holiday for many people in the state*, including MilliCal, who gets the whole week off. It’s also a holiday in Maine, which was once part of Masachusetts, so that makes sense.
But i’ve just learned that Wisconsin celebrates Patriots Day, too !! and has ever since 2001:
I hadn’t heard a word about this before. Why, at this late date, would Wisconsin adopt the same Holiday as Massachusetts? On the radio this morning the DJs at WROR were asking why the whole nation shouldn’t celebrate Patriots Day, but I could see why nobody else cares as much about Concord and Lexington – it’s local. Wisconsin, on its own, taking up Patriots Day seems as odd as New Jersey suddenly adopting Utah’s Pioneer Day.
Did Wisconsin need another holiday or something? Will other states start taking the Monday nearest April 19th off?
*Not me, though, in any of the jobs I’ve held here in Massachusetts. I gotta exercise more discretion in job selection.
In my neighborhood right now, the barriers are up, making it hard to walk through. There are porta potties all over the place. There is a large gathering of cops, oddly enough a good block away from Dunkin’ Donuts. There is a guy setting up an easel so that he can paint the race. (He complained that the damned runners probably won’t stand still and pose for him.)
I suspect that when I walk through there after work, it’ll look like a war zone. A drunken and obnoxious war zone.
(New England) Patriots won 18 games in a row, then failed to win the Superbowl, so their final record for the 2007/8 season was 18-1. Among those of us who dislike the Patriots it’s considered the thing to remind people of that as often as possible, with t-shirts if necessary:
My husband and I stayed at the Concord Inn three or four years ago. We had spent the day sightseeing and I was really feeling like my feet were bloody nubs. So when our last stop was at the bridge at Concord-Lexington, I begged off and said that I would just sit in the car while my husband went to take a look.
In a few minutes, he came back and said, “You’ve really got to see this.”
He was right. I don’t know what it was about that field, stonewall and bridge, but I have never seen a place more endowed with atmosphere. As I walked, I passed the place where some Englishman was buried in the wall. It was natural for me to think about his mother.
There was the Minute Men statue and then the bridge. And all the time my mind was making up the sounds of battle. It was profoundly moving to walk where my own liberty had begun at the expense of others’ lives.
High Five