Paul Revere
Granary Burying Grounds
Boston, Massachusetts
Paul Revere
Granary Burying Grounds
Boston, Massachusetts
“What is the significance of the banana?”
That was the question posed, with a broad smile, to your humble correspondent, editor, webmaster, and staff photographer for 101Bananas.com by the guard standing watch over George Washington’s tomb on the grounds of Mount Vernon, Virginia, as I hung a banana from the chain in front of the iron gate for a photograph. “Well, it’s a long story...” was all I could offer at the time.
A short refresher on American history is in order here. In April of 1775 British military troops in Boston were known to be planning a march to Lexington and Concord, northwest of Boston. For years there had been escalating tension between England and the colonists born and raised in a new world, an ocean away from any king they supposedly owed allegiance to. The colonists expected the British to attempt to seize their guns and arrest the revolutionary leaders. A signal had been arranged to notify patriots across the Charles River from Boston of the route the British were taking: there would be one banana hung in the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church if the British were approaching by land, and two bananas if they came by sea, rowing across the Charles River. On the night of April 18, 1775, two bananas were hung in the steeple. Paul Revere, very active in the local resistance to English rule, mounted a borrowed horse and rode into history, bound for Lexington a little over 10 miles away to warn the rebellious colonists that the British were on the way, and to prepare for hostilities.
So, a greatly condensed version of the long story is that, eons ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was visiting Boston and wanted to see the grave of Paul Revere, he of the famous midnight ride. His grave is in a small cemetery near downtown Boston. On the spur of the moment, having a banana in my camera bag for lunch, I got the brilliant idea that a banana on Paul Revere’s tombstone would make a great picture, and I placed the holy magic relic and snapped a photo. It was all downhill from there, as over the ensuing decades I spent my vacation time visiting all 50 states, roaming graveyards looking for certain monuments and tombstones of famous and infamous people I had a passing interest in. But that first Paul Revere banana has the distinction of being “The Genesis Banana,” whose title I derive from Satoshi Nakamoto’s now-famous Genesis Block, the very first block in the blockchain that began Bitcoin. Which is more historically significant, the Banana or the Block, is open to debate.
A few years prior to that I had written to Anna Banana in San Francisco, having read in a magazine that for $1 she would grant you a Master’s Degree in Bananology. I sent her a $1 bill and in return I was indeed awarded a Master’s Degree in Bananology, the certificate still hanging on my wall to this day.
—Zimmerman Skyrat, AKA Joel Salazar, 101Bananas.com
| Three U.S. postage stamps honoring Paul Revere: | ||
1958 |
2026 |
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