Boston's Beating Heart

The heartbeat of our United States of America began in 1620, when the Pilgrims, a religious group striving to break away from European constraints, landed on the north American continent. From that time onward, American Liberty was taken very seriously, expressed maximally in our Declaration of Independence in 1776, and our US Constitution in 1781. Massachusetts was the seedbed of our liberty, actualized in those early days by firebrand Boston patriots. That history is acknowledged nowadays in the name of the NFL team, the New England Patriots. With all due respect to the football team, I'll mention that the word "patriots" has a much deeper meaning than any gridiron team can represent. If you will walk through Boston today, as I did, you'll notice that this city still has an obsession with expressing and exporting Liberty and Justice for all Americans. . . because, you see. . .It all started here, in Boston. As a 74-year-old southerner, I am amazed at these Boston preservations and commemorations of our Liberty legacies. While strolling through the Massachusetts State House today (what we call a state capitol) I was pleasantly surprised to enter into a very large room, the Great Hall, where American liberties are still being actively recognized, utilized, and maximized, as citizens assemble to express themselves in a manner that can only be described as "American." 

Being a clueless visitor, I did not linger long enough to discern the purposes for which this gathering of citizens had assembled, and I could not get close enough to the orators to discern their message, but I was aware that our American "Liberty and Justice for all" was being demonstrated and actualized in this great hall of the Massachusetts State House. Paul Revere, John Adams, John Hancock, who was the first patriot to sign our Declaration of Independence . . .

and Frederick Douglass would all be proud of the heritage that these patriots had initiated by their bold demands for Independence, and for Liberty and Justice for all Americans. . . and furthermore. . . for all peoples everywhere, if we Americans have anything to do with it.  These Massachusetts citizens even have, in their State House, a Liberty Bell with no crack in it!

Glass half-Full