America needs another Paul Revere

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What America needs… are more citizens like Paul Revere. From research I have done, Revere was an average guy. He was a craftsman who worked hard to support a large family. When needed Paul Revere got on a horse and communicated the way it was done back in that day. He rode all night and delivered the message in person. Revere did what needed to be done and his efforts helped get us through the American Revolution.

Fast forward to 2008. New kinds of communication but the continued need for the average American citizen to step up and be counted. In the part in the poem I am sharing the phrase that really jumps out at me is “a cry of defiance and not of fear”. Americans, this is what we need today- some boldness – some rebelliousness. The media and even our elected officials have us all running scared. We have sat back and let others make decisions for us. Mostly gone is the defiance that put Revere out on his horse going from town to town in the middle of the night. We have gotten too comfy.

I have been waiting for someone to step up, speak out and give us something to listen to that will inspire us to get motivated before America is lost as we have known it. Maybe the trouble is that there are so many speaking. Pundits and others yelling over each other to get their points across. Campaigns that have been going on so long that we are very “sick and tired” of almost everyone and everybody. Americans who are busy being mean and nasty in what they think, write, and do. It is easier to criticize and whine than to do something.

So, I wait, still hopeful for a modern day Paul Revere. Wouldn’t it be great if someone emerged who just decided to make a difference and not care what all of the experts think, how he or she would be treated by the media? Someone with great character and a grasp on leadership skills.

I know – it is a different place. It is a different time. We sure need someone and soon. We sure could use someone like Paul Revere: “a patriot in the name of freedom”.

Paul Revere’s Ride   by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."

http://www.theamericanrevolution.org/ipeople/prevere.asp

“An obituary in the Boston Intelligence commented, “seldom has the tomb closed upon a life so honorable and useful”.  This seems an accurate representation of the life of one of the more modest and trustworthy men who ever walked the face of the earth.”

Yes, we need someone “trustworthy”, “honorable”, and “useful” like Paul Revere.