Each day of my life, I do something unlike what anyone else in this country does: I work out inside one of the oldest historical monuments in the nation.
This would be the 294-stair Bunker Hill Monument in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood, which sits atop what is actually Breed’s Hill, where 250 years ago, on June 17, 1775, our colonial forebears fought — and gamely lost — the most important battle of the Revolution.
Why was it so crucial? Because it was the first moment when the people of what was to become these United States thought, “Huh…maybe we can actually beat these guys,” and the idea of freedom got a lot more real.
I began running circuits in the Monument nine years ago, after I had put an end to 20 years of alcohol abuse, my heart gimpy, its beat irregular. On the streets of Boston, I am often hailed as “the stair guy.” Usually 10 times a day, and upwards of 20, I am inside of that obelisk, because doing so helps me keep going.
What people don’t know about the Monument is that it wasn’t erected back in 1843 to directly commemorate our republic’s most famous Pyrrhic victory, but rather to honor the ideals of service and sacrifice. There are so many ways in which to give, and yet we seem to neglect most of them, just as we typically fail to realize in this myopic age that giving to others is also a way of giving to ourselves.
As I run my circuits in the Monument, doing my best not to sweat in those narrow confines on the tourists that have traveled here from all over this land, I see our country and what it has come to be. How we think — or don’t. How readily we spread misinformation without a care. How overconfident we are in what we think we know, which is more a case of all that we have no clue about.
For instance, I couldn’t guess how many times I’ve heard some dad tell his kid that the very structure they’re standing in was built to defeat the British. Not only that, but those dogged Colonists shot flaming arrows from out of the slits in its walls. Paging Errol Flynn!
The kids accept this as gospel.
I’ll consider how these adults think events must have transpired, with the Colonists building a 20-story granite edifice under the cover of darkness and then really, really, really hoping that the Brits showed up to fight here and didn’t insist on another setting, which would scupper the plans.
There’s a railing on the left-hand side when you go up. The reason is simple: If you fall while ascending, it’s no biggie. Fall coming down, you have a situation. So, stay to the right.
What do you think many people do? You guessed it — they want that railing in both directions, regardless if they’re in the prime of life. If I say to them, “I assume the railing is yours coming down, too?” they’ll look as nonplussed as anyone I’ve ever seen, completely frozen by…common sense. Fairness. The idea that others exist.
Increasingly, we want what we want when we want it. We want to be seen as right, never mind whether we are.
What I’d respectfully submit is that we’re doing a great deal of self-shackling these days. That we’re ever less skilled at being free. When that’s the case, overlords get excited. It becomes easier to subjugate people. And harder for them to mount the precious sortie.
A sortie is an attempt to reclaim ground. To say, “You may try to move me from this spot, but I will try harder not to have it taken from me.”
For this we need knowledge. We need to take the time to get something right. To make sure we’re doing our best on behalf of impressionable minds. Our children. Children in general. Leading as an example of someone oriented to service and sacrifice.
These trends have only increased over the years I’ve been running these stairs. For such a confined space, the Monument provides an expansive view of where we’re at and explanations as to why. Don’t limit your own freedoms. Don’t stand on the bottom stair when you can go to the top. Set the example. Pass the word. Take some people with you.
As I say to myself every morning, “Stairs don’t run themselves, son.”
Extrapolate the idea, because that’s freedom. Before you know it, you’ll be going up and down like it’s the most important thing in the world, which in a manner of speaking it also kind of is.
Fleming is a writer.
