By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am the son of several generations of German-American farmers. My father’s father and his father’s father ploughed the black loam of northwest Ohio almost from the beginning of that state’s existence in 1803. When I read Emerson’s immortal poem about the farmers taking a stand for freedom, it reminds me of our own immigrant legacy.