Patriots Day—one day on the list of holidays celebrated by some corporations, herald of schools' April vacation, and a day to cheer for favorite runners in the Boston Marathon. Like many holidays, this one has become a marker in the year toward which weary workers and students swim for respite as they make their way from January to December. And like those other holidays it has nearly lost its meaning for many people.

Some would say we have become complacent with our freedoms in this country and now take them for granted. But the untrained men and boys who faced more than 1,000 British redcoats in battles in Lexington and Concord in April 1775—which Patriots Day commemorates—thought nothing of leaving their homes and fields and taking up their meager muskets against a powerful army, in the name of freedom. Would we be willing to do the same, faced with similar circumstances?

Fifty-two of the Volunteers in Lexington fled after the shooting started; some were wounded, and some lost their lives. The brief stand made by the aspiring freedom-fighters was a bellwether in the Colonial quest for freedom. The word spread throughout Massachusetts and into Connecticut by way of drums, riders on horseback, cannon volleys, and lamps lit in windows that the war had begun, and all able-bodied men were called upon to join the revolution.

In a dispatch historians call the Lexington Alarm, General Joseph Palmer, of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, penned a note for a rider on horseback to "alarm the country quite to Connecticut." He wrote:

"To all the friends of American liberty, be it known that this morning before break of day, a brigade, consisting of about 1,000 to 1,200 men landed at Phip's Farm at Cambridge and marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation and killed six men and wounded four others. By an express from Boston, we find another brigade are now upon their march from Boston, supposed to be about 1,000. The bearer [of this message], Israel Bissell, is charged to alarm the country quite to Connecticut and all persons are desired to furnish him with fresh horses as they may be needed."

The Lexington Alarm carried by a series of post riders activated large numbers of militiamen from Connecticut to gather "for the relief of Boston."

According to Robert C. Anderson, in his book, Directions of a Town, "Many Harvard men responded to the Concord and Lexington alarms, some procuring weapons and ammunition from the common store kept at the meetinghouse." And, he says, "Harvard men served also in various of the campaigns which constituted the siege of Boston."

Today's Patriots Day observances find Boston besieged by marathoners and spectators. Some people may simply be enjoying a day off with family and friends.

We hope that somewhere along the way during the day's festivities Americans will pause in remembrance of those courageous, simple folk who interrupted their lives and stepped up against powerful odds to lead the fight that ultimately won us our freedoms.