Little Revolutionaries

“Ezra? Why are you going into the basement?”

“I’ve gotta get some really sharp tools.”

Okay, let’s back up a minute.

There was no school today.  When the boys found out that the public school kids had the day off, they too wanted the day off.  What was the occasion, you ask?  Saint Patrick’s Day, you wonder?

Good guess.  It is Boston, after all.  But even here it’s hard to get the government to give you a day off to drink green beer and wear pins that say, “Kiss me. I’m Irish.”  So those clever Irish came up with an end run and passed a state law mandating that our county celebrate Evacuation Day.

What?  You never heard of it?  Of course not.  All the real holidays were taken.

So they had to go digging, and they came up with Evacuation Day.  Where we celebrate the expulsion of the British from Boston, after their eleven-month siege of the city.  To be fair, it did happen on March 17.  Still, we fool no one. We celebrate this monumental, patriotic holiday with, drumroll please, a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

The boys knew none of that, though.  They were just psyched that we took the day off to play outside with friends.

But there must be some military history in the air.  Because after seeing a makeshift fort at the park, they came home and started one of their own with large branches, cardboard and a tree.  It doesn’t yet have the grandeur of the canons that George Washington placed atop the hills of Dorchester Heights in Boston, fortifications that sent General Howe and the Loyalists packing for Canada.  But my little revolutionaries have only just begun.

And when last I checked, they were in the backyard with a large saw, a power drill, and a rubber mallet.  Who knows what traditional, loyal-to-the-king types they might scare away?