I wish I’ve gone to more of these re-enactments. This was one we went to in April, 2018…I think it was in Lexington but I believe it was one of the re-enactments of one of the sections of the retreat? I don't remember exactly.

There was a time I would have really been geeking out this week.

Today, April 18, 2025, is the 250th anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…and the many other riders who sent out the alarm that the ‘Regulars were coming out..’

(OK, I’ll geek out on you a little bit: back in 1775 there was no America and it wasn’t like ‘Americans versus British’ - everyone was a British subject - so he wouldn’t have said “The British are coming!” as you might have heard or read some places. It was called the ‘regular’ army, so the call was that the ‘regulars are coming out’ as the redcoats boarded boats in Boston and then began their March out to Lexington and Concord.)

On the mooring of April 19 shots were fired in Lexington, and then again there was fighting in Concord and then all the way back to Boston the rest of that day.

The American Revolution had begun and as I write this I get a flash of the old excitement I used to get when I read about that content or taught about it.

But not having really been absorbed in it the way I was a decade ago I feel like I lost some of that excitement…and I also think it’s been soured on me a little bit the way some other people have tried to use those events to justify the terrible things they are trying to get away with today.

Not living in or spending a lot of time in Lexington and Concord these days I hadn’t heard much about the 250th celebrations until last week, and then things started coming fast and furious.

There have been re-enactments galore (some of which were cancelled by last week’s unseasonable weather [or, I suppose since it’s New England, quite seasonable spring snow]) and some of it continuing through this weekend - a Paul Revere ride re-enactment, lots of historical tours and related activities.

As I’m sure readers here know, that’s important. There’s a lot of attempts right now to sugarcoat history and present it in a way that reminds me a little of how I learned it as a kid - glossing over the ugly parts and glorifying the parts that are more comfortable for people to single out. But it’s important to remember history as it happened - warts and all.

American history is littered with cool moments like the morning of April 19, 1775, which I’ve spent so much time thinking about on trips to Lexington, Massachusetts. There are so many details about that morning and then later that day that are fun to dive into because all of the stars - Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams - were in one place at one time.

But to ignore elements like the slave trade and the owning of another human being is dangerous.

Monday is Patriots’ Day here in Massachusetts. (And, actually, a handful of other states, as I recently learned.) A lot of people who call themselves Patriots today are stressing ideals that are wrong. I was going to say they’re ideals that the Patriots of 250 years ago fought to prevent, but in some cases I don’t think that’s true.

Many of those patriots did not believe in full equality.

We’ve come a long way over 250 years…and now we’re headed in the wrong direction.

I am a little at a loss about how to help reverse that.

But I know one of the battles that needs to be fought is to make sure the truth is being told in all forms - history included.