Independence Day

Several years ago, I started reading the Outlander series, by Diana Gabaldon. It's a pretty amazing series; it's historical fiction (not usually my cup of tea), it's science fiction, it's romance...it's a lot of things. And I have to confess, I was loathe to read it. My stepmom and my dad recommended it, and we tend to have really different taste in books. But they were persistent and finally I gave in...and I fell in love.

Diana Gabaldon books are meticulously researched and beautifully written. You believe in the characters and want to know more about their lives. Outlander takes place mostly in Scotland, but as the series progresses, the hero and heroine find themselves in colonial America. And believe it or not, this is where my interest in The American Revolution began.

It was the hero's internal conflict over the coming revolution that attracted me in the first place. Here's the thing: history books, high school classes, movies....they've all led us to believe that our Founding Fathers were 100% on-board and dedicated to their mission. Not so...at least, not exactly.

I think it was after reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes that I became intrigued by the notion that not all of our Founding Fathers were so totally committed to the cause of liberation from England, and I wanted to know more. So I read a little about that. I read David McCullough's 1776 and Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, and I was amazed.

Many of our Founding Fathers were human beings - normal guys who thought they saw something going wrong, but weren't quite sure if they wanted to get involved, how much they wanted to be involved, and how they wanted to approach resolving the problems they saw. Benjamin Franklin himself was a British loyalist who was very conflicted and took his time making the decision to join the Revolution.

I like knowing this stuff. Before I read any of these books, I had a hard time relating to the American Revolutionaries. When I look at the world around me, I often feel conflicted by various issues and solutions. Many issues are multi-faceted and many solutions yield positive results with negative side effects. How can anyone see the world in black and white? So whenever I thought about the people back then, I found it hard to understand them or connect with them in any way. But after I learned more, I discovered that in fact, many of the patriots of that time were just as conflicted and confused about the world as I am. Yet they still took action and made a difference to their world and ours.

 

One a semi-related side-note, during the time in which I was reading all this stuff, I visited Boston and took The Freedom Trail walk. It's a long walk, about 2.5 miles, and it was summertime. By the time I reached Bunker Hill, I was sweating, tired, and ready to be done. And there, near the top of the hill, was a little girl with a table and a sign that read, in patriotic red and blue markers, "Liberty Lemonade 25¢" What a brilliant little entrepreneur! She knew people would come walking up that hill at the end of their Freedom Trail tour, hot and exhausted, just like me, and she was there to solve their problem while capitalizing on their need. Absolute genius....which is exactly what I told her as I was drinking my third cup. :D