One of the first things that I heard on TV was that today was the 18th of April and in '75, it was the date that Paul Revere made that famous ride to warn New England settlers that the British were going to attack by "land or by sea". The poem was written by William Wadsworth Longfellow. It seems that Revere left word in Boston to hang 1 lantern in the belfry of the Old North Church if by sea and 2 if by land. As Revere rode about the country side he had been able to see the message that they were coming by land and warned the citizens accordingly. This had a special meaning to me because of an incident while I was in country school and had been assigned reading the poem as homework. I vividly recall setting around the kitchen table with our family and one of Dad's sisters who was with us that evening. The discussion had to do with whether Grandpa Vrana would have been alive in '75. It seemed that we all missed the fact that this was the beginning of the Revolutionary War and not 1875 when Grandpa would have been alive.
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