Time & Space

This morning my task was presenting to a roomful of school librarians, gathered at their state conference. ( www.masl.org ) The topic? Historical Awareness. I was going to make something of its abbreviation, H.A. Never got around to it. Bit o' stage nerves, but it was lovely talking to & with some of the best and most congenial people I know, people who spend their working days connecting kids with books, giving them the keys to the kingdom of knowledge.

So, an awareness of history: what it has to give. why we need it, H.A.! I have at least ten good reasons. I'll list them here tomorrow. For now, I only note what I did long, long ago, it seems, at the beginning of this day, that this day commemorates a most thrilling, frightening, and fateful intersection of time, space, and power. Courage, blood, patriotism. Time: Early the morning of April 19th, 1775. Place: Lexington, Massachusetts.

What a moment! And think how much was at stake.

"Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not tamely submit," wrote Dr. Joseph Warren (just weeks before he'd die in the fighting on Bunker Hill, in June, less than a week after his 34th birthday) "... appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free."