Personal Effects: Boston

I’m going to start a new series of posts, “Personal Effects: [topic]” These are going to be posts that have info about who I am, and what I want to be. I realized that I don’t want to sound preachy, but the blog is devoted to my heros, Jesus and Grandpa. I figured that it might be good to say what kind of guy I am. A bit of context you know. Today's post will be about Boston.

I met my wife in Boston. I got my first graduate degree in Boston. I fell in love with Brazilian food in Boston. I first heard of Boston as a child. I would sit in our family room, while my parents folded laundry, and watch M*A*S*H. Charles Emmerson Winchester III was from Boston, and talked fondly about his favorite city. I now see that he was named after the river, the famous writer, and a suburb, (or the gun, I'm not sure). I used to come to Boston with my family, we would go to the Museum of Science, and make a day of it. We'd also visit Quincy Market, where they have the biggest selection of food stalls I've ever seen. I think that for my parents, the difficulty of managing three children in the big crowd at the market was offset by not having any of us complain that we couldn't find something on the menu that we wanted.

I came to Boston to see A Christmas Carol when my cousin Richard the stage manager, after the show, we got to go backstage, before he went off to the cast party. I thought of going to college at Gordon, which is just north of Boston. All the while that my family would visit New York City, I always knew that if I was to live in a city, that I wanted to live in Boston. I liked the flow of Boston, the size, and the ease of getting around in Boston. I came to Grad School at Umass Boston, and studied Dispute Resolution. While there, I met my wife.

I'm back in Boston for a couple of days, though I'll be off to CT by the time this is posted. I love Boston, I love the restaurants, the people, the city. Though I now live in Cleveland, I was almost moved to tears when I got off the train here in Boston. The smell of fall in the air, the rustle of wind in the crisp leaves, the shriek of sirens, it all felt like home. I'm really happy to be here.

Boston gets ragged on for having bad drivers, and unfriendly people. Both of these are justified in my experience, though I would defend Boston on both of these points. Though the drivers here are bad, though they sometimes seem to be malicious, trying to run you off the road, they are very good at being bad drivers. For an entire city of bad drivers, in a region of bad drivers, there are incredibly few accidents. The accidents that do happen tend not to be bad, and not to turn into those ugly multi-car pile-ups. Bostonians are not an open, friendly people. Though, if you happen to be on the subway, looking confusedly at the map, you are likely to have several people offer you help of one sort or another. Being myself an immigrant to this city, I always tried to offer a stranger help with getting around, frequently, I was beaten to the punch by another helpful traveler. I have seen strangers go out of their way on their journeys to shepherd someone new to the city to their destination. Bostonians tend not to be friendly for a variety of reasons. However, one side effect of this cold presentation is that when you make a friend here in Boston, you can be sure that this person will be a real friend to you, that they will be there for you through thick and thin, that they are not going to abandon you when the going gets tough.

Boston is a city of history, one of my brother’s favorite bars here, “the Green Dragon” was frequented by Paul Revere, and John Adams. Boston holds a lot of good memories for me, and a lot of good friends. As I’ve said throughout this post, it’s been lovely to stay here, and I’ll be sad to leave.