Remember the Bastille!

Above image from the internet; Marash Girl was not present at the storming of the Bastille.

"Remember French Bastille Day? They stormed the prisons to release those wrongfully held for political power. History repeats because the passions of man never change. Hand someone power and it far too often consumes them."  

Deron asks, "Why is the French Revolution more romanticized around the world than the American Revolution? 13 years after the beginning of the French Revolution , Napoleon was consolidating power.  13 years after the Declaration of Independence, the United States was a representative democracy with a constitution." (Please comment below if you have thoughts on this question.)

Both Independence Day and Bastille Day evoke memories for Marash Girl and Marash Boy. Every summer in Wilbraham, the family celebrated Independence Day by going to watch the annual East Longmeadow 4th of July Parade.  In the early years, the family watched the parade from the driveway of the Gralia Construction parking lot.  In later years, the family watched from the front lawn of Armen & Shirley Tashjian 's house.  After the parade, the family returned to the mountain for an Independence Day feast, Armenian-American style: hot dogs and shish kebab; strawberries and homemade paklava. After dark, from the mountain top, the family watched the fireworks of the cities and towns in the Pioneer Valley. 

On Bastille Day, Marash Boy would serve French wine and freshly baked French Bread and French Brie (there was a circular wooden box from real French Brie that for years decorated the top of the kitchen door frame, until the tornado took the box, the door frame and all), while the kids built a "bastille" of branches that had fallen from the century old oak that graced the front of the cabin. (Untouched by the tornado, the oak is still there, though the cabin is gone.)

After the kids had captured their Uncle George (Dr. George Charkoudian) and marched him into the "bastille", all of them at once would "storm" the bastille with shouts and laughter, and tearing down the "bastille", rescuing Uncle George and marching him to the marble topped picnic table where all would imbibe in a French feast!