still blooming

The library's Christmas cactus is still in full bloom. (The link is from a three year old photo.) It did begin blooming in December, as it was supposed to, right when we were getting new carpeting and everything was in an uproar. I took some time off to avoid any new-rug smells which might have been bothersome, and expected I'd miss the flower show. When I came back to work, it seemed almost finished, but something made it rally and continue making buds - we don't know why! I checked it today and there are several more buds forming, so it isn't done yet. We're quite amazed.


I've finished reading the depositions from witnesses to the beginning of our War of Independence from Britain. As much as I love that era, I hadn't realized that there were provocations from the red coats which caused everything to escalate to the point of war; I guess I just thought that a war was the only way the forefathers could finalize the separation from the mother country.

"I, John Parker, of lawful age, and commander of the militia in Lexington, do testify and declare, that on the nineteenth instant*, in the morning, about one of the clock, being informed, that there were a number of the regular officers riding up and down the road, stopping and insulting people as they passed the road, and also informed that a number of the regular troops were on their march from Boston, in order to take the province stores at Concord, I ordered our militia to meet on the common in said Lexington, to consult what to do, and concluded not to be discovered, nor meddle, or make with said regular troops, if they should approach, unless they should insult or molest us; and upon their sudden approach, I immediately ordered our militia to disperse and not to fire. Immediately, said troops made their appearance, and rushing furiously on, fired upon and killed eight of our party, without receiving any provocation therefor [sic] from us."

The book contains quite a few accounts, all legal depositions, including that of Paul Revere, briefly describing his famous ride to warn the townspeople about the British. What Longfellow's wonderful poem doesn't get into is that our hero was accosted by the British afterward and told they'd "blow his brains out" - a familiar threat, according to many of these testimonies - but he said he had nothing to hide and told them what he'd been doing and they could do what they liked with him. They finally just confiscated his horse and he had to continue on foot. I'm glad this booklet crossed my path. It's enabled me to picture the circumstances of that night of ordinary men being extraordinarily brave. 

*almost everyone used this term, "instant", but not in the way we use it today