My first Appleseed experience

Cory and I attended our first Appleseed event this past weekend. We’re both giving the experience a thumbs up review and have already made plans to attend the next event in September. I can honestly say that Appleseed is a great way to learn the history of the battles at Lexington and Concord, especially for kids that have found it difficult to focus on history lessons in school.

As a father of a boy, I can attest to the difficulty of getting a boy to sit still and learn dry subjects like history. At least, that is usually the case for history classes in public school, where the emphasis is placed on memorizing dates and names. But put those same boys in the field under a bright sun, surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of a rifle range, and you have a completely different experience. Here, a boy can feel the energy of the topic, relating directly to the emotions our forefathers must have felt as they hefted their Brown Besses to meet the British on Lexington Green where the first shot was fired. They can imagine the skills of the Minutemen through the firsthand experience of trying to hit those small targets with their own rifles.

Besides Cory, there were several kids at our first Appleseed, ranging from 8 or 9 up to 15 or 16. Some of them were shooting so well I found myself envying their steadiness. But I found myself smiling often at the enthusiasm I saw in their faces, and not just for the marksmanship portions of the day. These young men were listening with rapt attention to the stories of the Three Strikes of the Match. I saw excitement in their eyes when told of the battles, an excitement echoed in my own beating heart as I thought of the men who answered the alarm that early morning. I watched as the excitement was tempered by the understanding that many of those men died on the field that day, both Regulars and Militia. There were tears wiped surreptitiously from many an eye as we heard the tales of the heroes that fell upon the Green before their Lexington homes.

Not only were the attendees listening to the stories that conveyed the history of Lexington and Concord, we discussed the meanings behind the actions taken that day. This is something I was hoping to find among the adults at the Appleseed, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the youngsters taking part as well. Even Cory perked up during these parts of the day.

Saturday was easily the hottest day we’ve had this summer. Everyone was sweating heavily and frequently drinking from bottles of water. I remember pushing a water bottle into Cory’s hands over and over, and yet as the day wore on, he was suffering more from the beginnings of heat exhaustion. Near lunch time, one of our hosts took Cory aside and made him sit in the shade while she gave him some coconut milk to drink. This, combined with some Doritos, got Cory perked up again. We still decided to get him back to the motel room where he could get out of the heat while I went back to complete the day’s lessons. He was ready to hit the field again on Sunday, and did better even though he chose to sit out most of the AQT cycles (he wants more instruction before trying those).

We struggled through the effort of learning the positions for the shooting. I had expected the prone position to be the hardest for me, since it puts pressure on my bad neck, but was surprised to discover that the sitting positions caused me more trouble. And then there were the gear problems. Cory had some trouble with the sling on his rifle. I had a lot of trouble with my scope position. On Sunday, I got the scope adjusted as best I could and sighted in again. By then I was getting dehydrated and feeling the pain too much. We stayed until mid afternoon before thanking everyone and packing up to head home.

We had the privilege of seeing one of the attendees receive his Rifleman patch before we left. I had shivers running up my spine as we all cried huzzah three times, as I recalled from the Three Strikes that the British Regulars had celebrated their “victory” on Lexington Green by three cries of huzzah, inflaming the anger of the Colonists as they tended their wounded and dying. Now, all these years later, our voices rang out in that same call but this time in celebration of our comrade’s achievement. I knew in my heart at that moment that the American Experiment is alive and well as long as there remain citizens that are learning about our rights and responsibilities and exercising those rights.