My work trip to Chattanooga ended very nicely. I even found time to walk around their downtown, which is darn nice what with the river walk along the Tennessee River, the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge, and the spacious, wide sidewalks leading to loads of quality restaurants. The nice thing about doing consulting work with schools is that you are typically done by 4 p.m. at the latest.  I am happy to report that many a Frisbee floated in the Chattanoogan sky that eve.  If that city wasn’t in the South, I could totally see myself living there.

While at our client’s school, I was able to admire some of the artwork in the library, including several prints by John Falter. In fact, I liked them so much that I did a little bit of research on a few of my favorites. “The Bridge” stood out for its chaotic layout and stark portrayal of a Revolutionary War era battle, soon-to-be Americans bayoneting the hell out of some British jerks (no offense, Dan) who were trying to cross some bridge, hence the title (no image online of this painting as far as I could find, dern it). After a bit more Googling, it turns out that the bridge in question is The North Bridge of Battle of Concord fame, a integral moment in American history and one of the reasons why I had today off from work.

For today is Patriots’ Day! Most of the workin’ folk of Maine and Massachusetts had today off from toiling thanks to those long deceased minutemen. I spent the day most patriotically, starting off with a nice three-hour yard raking session. “The Pond” has all but dried up in the back, and I am determined to make use of as much of our property as possible. Those American revolutionaries didn’t charge into battle with rifles that couldn’t shoot a man with his finger in the barrel just so I could sit back and let a full third of my half acre estate fall into forgotten disrepair. No sir. As a true patriot on Patriots’ Day, I left no leaf unraked, no fallen branch uncollected. I’m happy to report that the yard looks a large percent better and ready for some shade gardens and such. And I even unearthed an action figure — a humanoid camel who turned out to be none other than Sandstorm, the cool camel captain!

Following all this patriotic lawn work, I loaded the family up and drove us all over 40 miles to the nearest Target for some all-American consumerism. Truthfully, we just needed to stock up on some things for Hazel’s first day of daycare, which is tomorrow. Rather than just settle for our local Wal-mart, we made a day of it and head to Augusta, our state’s fine capital. How could we have better paid tribute to those fallen nascent Americans than by touring the cerebral cortex of Maine’s democratic government? No better, fair readers, no better at all.

America, we breathed you deeply today, this glorious day, this Patriots’ Day. Amongst the olfactory tinge of the Union worker on the line, the immigrant family yearning to be free, and the odorous smoke of freedom-ringing fireworks, we sniffed fries and burgers. So, on the way home, we had a drive-thru dinner, like true American patriots.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Historical Assault, Maine, Politickery, Travel, Work It.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.