Final Letter from Boston

Revolution

They call it, “the freedom trail.” The small case letters for a big case concept. Small case letters that seems to whisper a solemn “small d” democracy.

Everybody in Boston knows what it is.

Most school kids have done class trips to one or more of the places along “the freedom trail.” The bartender at J.J. Foley’s in Boston’s South End rolls his eyes when I mention it to him, remembering his own class project in grade school.

For my part, I last visited “the freedom trail” when I was 14 years old. The year was 1976. Bicentennial of the birth of our One Nation, Under God. My parents loaded us into the green, wood-paneled, Ford family station wagon. We were going to New England to visit Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, the Old North Church. (“…Do not make me pull this car over!!!”)

I return to these places now — with my youngest son, Jack. He, too, is now fourteen.'>>>

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