Minnesota Lawyer Blog

I hope everyone had a good Independence Day. When I think of the 4th of July, I recall growing up in Massachusetts, where they know how to do patriotic holidays right. My parents would never take us into Boston for the huge crowds to hear the Boston Pops play, instead we would go to a suburban fireworks display, which would prominently feature some band from the American Legion or the like playing its heart out on some gazebo in the town square. (There were seven kids in my family, which may explain our parents preference to stay local.) We would go out in the sweltering July night air, get eaten alive by mosquitoes, listen to some extremely marginal renditions of Sousa tunes, watch the pyrotechnic display and feel patriotic.

Our parents would also take us to the annual reenactment of the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19. We'd cheer on the minutemen as they took on the red coats as if our involvement might somehow rally the troops to do better in a battle that was fought 200 years earlier. I recall being disappointed when I found out that Revolutionary War hero was not an actual career choice.