Post by Grubb.
When I visited Boston in the early 1980s I went to the top of the Hancock Building for the panoramic view. I remember the green swath of Beacon Hill, historic church steeples poking out of brick neighborhoods, and the embracing bend of the Charles River. There was also a nifty topo map of the eighteenth century Boston area that showed the lighted path of Paul Revere’s Ride. Looking down from glass-fronted Hancock high-rise (where Ella’s cousin Joey Paster worked for thirty-eight years) the layout of Boston seemed easy to comprehend. Tuesday morning, when Joey and Elaine drove us in to the center of the city, it was anything but that. Fifty years later, Boston is a different world. The quaint, simple colonial landmarks are practically squeezed into insignificance, dwarfed by towering buildings competing for architectural attention. To find a parking garage with an available space required strategical maneuvering through a welter of impatient traffic.
On foot the city was more accessible. Our first stop was the Boston Common. This large park sloping up to the golden-domed state house stands out as a refreshing pause from the surrounding mayhem. We met up with a colonially dressed tour guide by the bronze embrace of the MLK monument. (King spoke from a nearby gazebo to a crowd of twenty-two thousand people in 1965.)
Our rapid-speaking, jokey guide led us along the Freedom Trail, a brick-laid path that wends its way through the downtown. Tours these days have a revisionist narrative. No hero escapes irony, no famous incident goes without reassessment. The Puritan who built stocks for punishment ended up being humiliated by his own device when he failed to pay back his creditors; there’s a statue in front of the old state house of Quaker Mary Dyer who, after being banished twice from Puritan Boston, returned a third time to die by hanging; you can get a cold Sam Adams in the tavern across from the street from the Granary graveyard where a cold Sam Adams lies buried; in the same graveyard below John Hancock’s portrait-inscribed pillar is the headstone of his slave who doesn’t merit a last name, just “Frank, servant to John Hancock”; then there’s Paul Revere who not only didn’t do his ride alone, he failed to complete it; and, finally, the Boston Massacre which had fewer casualties than your average Saturday night domestic dispute.
So the walk was informative in an amusing way. My favorite Freedom Trail moment was when we were told that both Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X had at one time worked in the hotel across the street from Benjamin Franklin’s statue. I wondered why there hasn’t been a play written about this curious fact.
“Ho! What are you doing with your busboys slipping in orders at table three behind my back? You’re killing me!”
“You have to get your orders in quicker, Malcolm! Table three complained about your diatribe when they tried ordering the whitefish.”
“You’re going to cost me my tip.”
“What tip? You’re lucky they don’t stab you with a salad fork.”
“They’re lucky I don’t spit in their salad!”
“Just serve the whitefish and shuddup.”
“I look like Frank to you?
“Who’s Frank?”
“John Hancock’s slave.”
“Who’s John Hancock?”
What can I say? It’s hard to resist the patter when there’s a nightclub on Boston’s Union Street where Abbot and Costello worked their “Who’s on third?” routine.
Glad you were able to navigate Boston successfully. The streets were laid out on on by the random ramblings of cows in the 17th century. I’m also impressed you met the challenge of comprehending so much information conveyed to you with a Boston accent. Cheers!
The random rambling of cows?
The Parker hotel is also famous for its Parker House rolls. They are a form of buttery white roll. The kind you see from Pillsbury at Thanksgiving.
We were also told that the Parker introduced Boston Cream Pie to the world, which, along with rolls, I have yet to sample, but Thanksgiving looms…
Boston Cream Pie, one of my father’s favorites. Have never seen it here in New Mexico, though I’ve not looked very hard.