Reading about a country's history in a textbook is a good thing. For me, seeing artifacts, touching buildings and reading documents has a way of bringing history to life. For twenty five years, I taught hundreds of children about the Pilgrims, Plymouth Rock, The Constitution of the United States, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, the patriotism and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and George Washington. I taught my students about the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and the amazing history of our great country. When I retired in 2009, I wanted to see the places that mean so much to us as Americans and that I had spoken of so many times in my classroom. I wanted to walk along the same places where our forefathers had journeyed and see some of the sights that they saw. In some tangible way, I yearned to experience the beginnings of our nation and soak in the history. In the fall, following my retirement (when I normally would have been in the classroom, teaching about these great places and people of American history), my husband and I took a trip to New England. We went to Boston and saw the graves of many patriots, the site of the Boston Massacre and then to Concord and Lexington, to see where a band of normal, everyday farmers fired the "shot heard 'round the world", as Ralph Waldo Emmerson wrote. It was then, and only then, that the wonderful stories from history books truly came alive to me.
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