Today in 1775

"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."

I remember hearing this poem as a kid and picturing it in my head. Who knows how or why we get mental pictures the way we do but I remember seeing it all play out in my head whenever I heard this poem. It was so surreal and yet very real all at the same time. There's something about this first verse that to this day still sends chills through me.

On the night of April 18, 1775, silversmith Paul Revere made his famous ride to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British were marching from Concord to Boston that night to arrest them and to seize military supplies.

Contrary to Longfellow's poem, lanterns were not hung in the tower of the Old North Church to signal to Revere how the British were moving, "one if by land, two if by sea"; but rather Paul Revere ordered the signal to warn other Patriots in the area.

After Revere reached Lexington, successfully warning Samuel Adams and John Hancock of the coming danger he got back on his horse and set our for Concord although he never made it. He was captured by the British along the way but a companion of his escaped and road on to Concord where he alerted the Patriots there. Paul Revere was later released by the British and he accomplished what he set out to do as word travelled from town to town warning the minutemen to be ready.

We need to be modern-day Paul Revere's. We are on the brink of losing the freedoms that these men and women risk their lives to give us. We need to be the watchmen on the walls, modern-day Patriots, ready to run with the warning when we see danger approaching. When I was in Boston in 2008 I was able to go to the Old North Church which is now in the Little Italy section of Boston. I went inside the church, sat in the pews and took the picture that you see here. I was also able to go to the Old Granary Burial Ground which is one of the oldest graveyards in Boston and it's where Paul Revere is buried. I kept pinching myself all day long thinking to myself how amazing it was that I was actually standing where these very things happened. They're not just pretty words out of a poem. These things actually happened. They are very real and as Americans they belong to us. The future of the nation was in their hands. Now it's in ours. It's time to ride.