Vermont —Day 1

We’re terrible parents. We like taking advantage of the three day Memorial Day weekend in order to escape town for a bit and go camping. This year, we got a bonus day. When Kati and I found out that we were each getting Friday off due to unused snow days we decided to go extend our camping trip for a day. Why hang out in NJ if we didn’t have to? However, neither one of us thought to consult G3’s school calendar. It turned out that unlike the two of us, he didn’t have off today. Oh well, the school will have to survive without him for a day. My dad never approved of me—or anyone—skipping school for any reason aside of serious illness, but it’s the end of the year and with two teacher moms it’s not like he’s going to miss something important that we can’t teach him at home. Besides, you know me, there will be educational stops on the itinerary, which means he could learn more on the road than in the classroom.

It seems appropriate to start off Memorial Day weekend visiting a battlefield where thousands of men died in an effort to break away from Britain and establish the country in which we live. When I was a kid in middle school, we studied the Revolutionary War ad nauseum. It’s was as if there was no history prior to the war and little after. And the teachers rehashed the same things year after year as if there were only a half a dozen battles and a dozen other critical events. The Battle of Saratoga was once such event that we learned about yearly without the teachers bothering to go deeper or build on prior knowledge. It’s no surprise really that so many people hate history, when it is presented in such a boring way. The Battle of Saratoga was important, as I first learned in fourth grade, because it was the turning point of the war. The world’s mightiest army surrendered to the rebels, handing the colonists their first major victory and signaling to France that they just might have a chance of winning. It was this battle that handed Franklin what he needed to convince the French to join the fight.

What none of my teachers ever touched on was the fact that Benedict Arnold was the hero of the battle. He charged onto the field, rallying the troops, and was shot through the ankle—an injury he carried the rest of his life. Three years later, bitter and resentful over they way his superiors treated him, he betrayed the Americans by giving military intelligence to the British. His name is now synonymous with being a traitor. Therefore, the Boot Memorial on the battlefield is in honor of him and his heroic victory, but it does not mention his name.

When we arrived, we stopped in at the visitor’s center and watched a short film about the battle. I learned more in ten minutes than in years of studying history at school. G3 and I then took a short walk on the battlefield. I wanted to do the full 4 mile loop but G3 wasn’t interested. He kept asking if we could turn around. Finally, I got tired of him asking and we headed back to meet Kati at the visitor’s center.

Our next stop was Philip Schuyler’s house. We got there too late for a tour but there were rangers positioned around the house to answer questions. We learned that Schuyler was a quartermaster during the French and Indian war, but he never had much experience in command of troops, which might partially explain why he lost at Fort Ticonderoga. After his loss, General Gates replaced him and went on to win at Saratoga.

We are camping at Bomoseen State Park. The woman working at check in was really friendly. She is a retired teacher and very happy to no longer be in the classroom. Once we got to our site, we set up our tents and then cooked dinner—taco meat for son and spouse, beans for me. After we ate, we sat around the campfire pleasantly chatting. It’s dropping down into the 30s tonight—I hope we get some sleep in the cold.