A short history lesson involving pancakes

Those of you who think Colonial Williamsburg is just a shameless collection of high-priced shops, restaurants with inflated prices, and souvenirs of questionable historical accuracy are dead wrong. It's really much worse than that. Nevertheless, there are some good things about it. For instance, Ben & Jerry's is not too far away.

But of course you do not go to Colonial Williamsburg to enjoy ice cream. You go to enjoy pancakes. At least, that is what we assume the Chamber of Commerce expects visitors to spend the majority of their time doing, judging from the number of pancake houses in the greater Williamsburg area. You can choose from the National Pancake House, Capitol Pancake House, Mama Steve's Better Pancake House, George Washington's Pancake House, Benedict Arnold's Traitorous Pancake House (which serves only waffles), etc. Pancake houses are so important to the economy of the area that the Board of Directors of Williamsburg considered requiring a receipt from one of them to tour the historic buildings, but the people at Ben & Jerry's complained about discrimination. So now you just pay money to get in, for which you will need access to a trust fund.

Williamsburg, of course, reflects the colonial period in the country's history. You might recall that there was a war going on during this time, which pitted the colonists against tyrannical pancake house owners, who were placing all kinds of outrageous demands on the colonists like charging them extra for syrup.

The colonists -- already showing that spirit of independence that would mark future generations of Americans -- responded by composing and singing an astonishing number of drinking songs, which infuriated the British, who considered their drinking songs to be superior. The colonists, banned from pancake houses, established a bunch of taverns where, during this time of war, growing economic distress, and uncertainty, they would gather to discuss strategy against the British and then compose another drinking song.

And thus began the Great Revolutionary Pancake War, better known to the colonists as the Froggy Went a Warrin' War.

Tomorrow: The programming for tomorrow's blog post is a little fuzzy yet, but rest assured it will have something to do with Willamsburg, however slight and however historically inaccurate.