Sometimes you have to break eggs to make...

tempura. I guess as an American I should be accustomed to breaking down and destroying the old the 'not what I want' and rebuilding something better, even if it is made of chip board, plastic or recycled cellulose. But I have been to Europe and Asia, and understand that you can save the old, update it a bit and keep your traditions and ties with the past you can only study and imagine - so lucky that you don't have to live there.

Thanks to Rockefeller and others some of the old colonial era buildings are still maintained, Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, a few old churches and many fortifications. But they have modern toilet facilities for tourists, and no slaves/old women or children to clean them up. No long lines of horses, no growing up knowing how to move oxen, geese, sheep and goats. No knowing what effort it took to weed gardens, get hay turned, after you spent all day cutting it.

Not only do I have Master and Commander on the television, in the comfort of my home to watch (I could do it without commercial interruption), I am reading about Lexington and Concord by Arthur B. Tourtellot. I am getting a good feeling for the type of good people that lived under the King's mercy. Same King that had taken their Charter away, taken their representatives out of office, appointed judges and was vigorously getting them into their proper position in the English Empire he was creating. Remembering that the high cost of the British Army and Navy, to protect the colonies (who had been for generations without that wonderful protection while Europe was the major battlefield).

The people of Lexington, about seven hundred and some, the cows about four hundred and some, produced a militia and watch list of about a hundred and seventy, the watch list was all able boys and men, and the Training Band came from that, they elected Captain Robert Parker for their leader. And got back to business, plowing the Spring fields, almost everyone had some kind of a farm or large garden. On the day that the Training band was called out and mustered (19 April 1775) they didn't know they would be targets of poorly led and poorly trained troops. An unscheduled event, they would march out of Lexington two more times to join the fight around Boston before Captain Parker would die from his illness. Sometimes you must break eggs.