Tea for Two

While tomorrow is the official Patriots' Day, today was the true anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution. In a nutshell, during the night of April 18-19, Paul Revere made his famous ride from Boston out into the countryside to warn the colonists that the British were heading toward Concord to destroy ammunition hidden there by the patriots. Minutemen from the surrounding towns marched in toward Concord and successfully trounced the British in the first skirmishes of the American Revolution.

These days most, if not all, of the small towns around Concord and Lexington still have groups of minutemen. These groups are really ceremonial now -- people who participate in their town's celebration of Patriots' Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and so on. Each year on Patriots' Day, these groups assemble around dawn at their town's common, and reenact the march into Concord. Most towns will do this tomorrow morning, including the very small group of minutemen from my very small town. Today, however, the minutemen from Sudbury, Massachusetts marched the 12 miles/19 km to the Old North Bridge in Concord -- the mecca of Patriots' Day -- where 234 years ago, patriots fired the "shot heard 'round the world."

I took lots of photos of the Sudbury minutemen including their drum and fife corp and the volley they fired from the North Bridge upon their arrival, but the scene that most made an impression with me was this one. I wondered if it occurred to these two modern-day patriots that tea was kind of what started all the trouble in the first place.