John Hancock was an asshole
Uhmmmm... everything you've ever learned about Boston is fake, false or just a straight up lie. Don't read any further if you don't want to know that you've been lied to your whole life. (And yes, I am of course, pretend over-reacting. Calm the eff down).
So, Liz & I went on the Freedom Trail tour today since we've lived here about - oh I dunno - 26 years and haven't done that yet (reminder to self: I still haven't done the duck tours or swan boats).
First, our tour guide kept calling the revolutionaries terrorists.
If you go to the Granary cemetery where Paul Revere, Sam Adams & John Hancock are buried, one of the first things you see is a huge stone that reads "Franklin" on it in giant letters... but it's just Ben Franklin's parents - not him. Jam scam.
Ok, next, in the cemetery, we found out that the grave stones aren't actually technically anywhere near the bodies they are supposed to be memorializing because some grounds keeper couldn't get the lawn mower around the crooked, thrown about head stones so they uprooted them all and put them in nice, neat lines.
Apparently John Hancock was a huge douchebag. Our tour guide told us about how cocky he was (and I guess it makes sense since his name is like 100 times bigger than anyone else's on the D.O.I.) and how much like all the famous freedom guys hated him. Good thing Massachusetts voted him governor 19 times...
Mother Goose was a real woman.
One of the biggest upsets was that Sam Adams not only did not brew beer (and guys back then didn't really drink beer - they drank something called flip (look it up - it's this disgusting heated egg yolk, beer, molasses concoction you couldn't pay me to drink)) BUT ALSO IT'S NOT EVEN HIM ON THE LABEL - it's Paul Revere... because Sam Adams apparently was disgustingly gross and not attractive enough for someone to draw him on a beer label.
Don't even get me started on Paul Revere. This is something I already knew but he did not even make that stupid nonsense ride that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completely made up. Side note: thanks to my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Morris (or Morrison?) for making me memorize the entire four pages of lies. "Listen my children and you will hear of the midnight tale... that never happened that we will force 12 year olds to uselessly memorize." (Samir, Kaitlin, Angela - do you remember this?) I knew there was a reason I hated poetry. I am bullshit about this. That was the worst couple of weeks of my life. I have been traumatized ever since I found out in college that it never happened and that this guy drank before going out, fell off his horse in front of the British soldiers and was taken into custody... Think of what a good oral lesson that would be for middle schoolers - don't drink your ass off before potentially doing something great. But I guess it would be a false moral story since even though that is what happened, he is remembered for being a hero. Oh, and also, to further add to this atrocity, Paul Revere/the other guys who actually made the ride NEVER said, "THE BRITISH ARE COMING". They said, "the regulars/lobster backs/red coats are coming". And all the guys who made the ride got wicked drunk before going out. Why did I become a history teacher? It was all lies.
The King's church or the first Anglican church was built right on top of a cemetery... gross.
Ben Franklin's statue proudly stands outside of the first public school in America... which is ironic because he dropped out of that school.
Then Liz & I went to visit my dad whose boss has an obsession with Enron and its fall so he bought the real Enron E that was on the building and we got our pictures taken with it. Weird day though.
I'll leave you with a quote we came across in our travels... "We can erect thousands of buildings and put down miles of concrete but unless the next generation can say that Boston is a better place to live, we will have achieved nothing."
So, Liz & I went on the Freedom Trail tour today since we've lived here about - oh I dunno - 26 years and haven't done that yet (reminder to self: I still haven't done the duck tours or swan boats).
First, our tour guide kept calling the revolutionaries terrorists.
If you go to the Granary cemetery where Paul Revere, Sam Adams & John Hancock are buried, one of the first things you see is a huge stone that reads "Franklin" on it in giant letters... but it's just Ben Franklin's parents - not him. Jam scam.
Ok, next, in the cemetery, we found out that the grave stones aren't actually technically anywhere near the bodies they are supposed to be memorializing because some grounds keeper couldn't get the lawn mower around the crooked, thrown about head stones so they uprooted them all and put them in nice, neat lines.
Apparently John Hancock was a huge douchebag. Our tour guide told us about how cocky he was (and I guess it makes sense since his name is like 100 times bigger than anyone else's on the D.O.I.) and how much like all the famous freedom guys hated him. Good thing Massachusetts voted him governor 19 times...
Mother Goose was a real woman.
One of the biggest upsets was that Sam Adams not only did not brew beer (and guys back then didn't really drink beer - they drank something called flip (look it up - it's this disgusting heated egg yolk, beer, molasses concoction you couldn't pay me to drink)) BUT ALSO IT'S NOT EVEN HIM ON THE LABEL - it's Paul Revere... because Sam Adams apparently was disgustingly gross and not attractive enough for someone to draw him on a beer label.
Don't even get me started on Paul Revere. This is something I already knew but he did not even make that stupid nonsense ride that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completely made up. Side note: thanks to my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Morris (or Morrison?) for making me memorize the entire four pages of lies. "Listen my children and you will hear of the midnight tale... that never happened that we will force 12 year olds to uselessly memorize." (Samir, Kaitlin, Angela - do you remember this?) I knew there was a reason I hated poetry. I am bullshit about this. That was the worst couple of weeks of my life. I have been traumatized ever since I found out in college that it never happened and that this guy drank before going out, fell off his horse in front of the British soldiers and was taken into custody... Think of what a good oral lesson that would be for middle schoolers - don't drink your ass off before potentially doing something great. But I guess it would be a false moral story since even though that is what happened, he is remembered for being a hero. Oh, and also, to further add to this atrocity, Paul Revere/the other guys who actually made the ride NEVER said, "THE BRITISH ARE COMING". They said, "the regulars/lobster backs/red coats are coming". And all the guys who made the ride got wicked drunk before going out. Why did I become a history teacher? It was all lies.
The King's church or the first Anglican church was built right on top of a cemetery... gross.
Ben Franklin's statue proudly stands outside of the first public school in America... which is ironic because he dropped out of that school.
Then Liz & I went to visit my dad whose boss has an obsession with Enron and its fall so he bought the real Enron E that was on the building and we got our pictures taken with it. Weird day though.
I'll leave you with a quote we came across in our travels... "We can erect thousands of buildings and put down miles of concrete but unless the next generation can say that Boston is a better place to live, we will have achieved nothing."