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Boston

Richard K. Williams

    It was the tail end of the summer of 2021 when I was unceremoniously laid-off from my job, which also coincided with my son being asked to leave the home of his fiancé never to return. These catastrophes coupled with the costly mistake of my hiring a crooked contractor who left a large section of my home open and unfinished to the entire Maine winter, and both my and my wife’s cars took this opportunity to have major mechanical failures. Adding in the worldwide pandemic made 2021 a year to put behind us and rapidly as possible to forget. However, on the brighter side, just prior to officially slamming the door on the summer of that awful year, my son called me and explained that he had taken a couple of days off for a long weekend getaway that was supposed to be with his fiancé and her daughter. He asked me if I wanted to spend some time together. He offered to drive up to Maine from Jersey and we could spend a long weekend together traversing the streets of Boston. I accepted his offer immediately. Over the years my son and I have spent many a weekend walking the length and breadth of Manhattan visiting museums, restaurants, bars, street art displays, and tourist attractions, Boston would be an exciting and fun adventure. A prime opportunity to spend some quality time with my son. As well as creating at least a few fond memories of an awful year.
    My wife arranged a hotel for us just outside of the city. We checked in early Thursday and took the hotels free shuttle to the T train station. After a short ride it deposited us in the center of Boston. The weather was perfect. Bright, sunny, with a slight breeze which kept us cool but not cold enough for jackets. We located the Freedom Trail and immediately followed it toward the north end to get lunch in an Italian restaurant. My son was going to make his comparison of the Italian food offered in Boston to Manhattan’s Italian food. I had been to Boston with my wife several times sampling the fare in various Italian restaurants and was certain he would not be disappointed.
    We walked through the city passing famous sites like Ye Olde Union Oyster House where, a few years back I bought a beer for a Ben Franklin impersonator in full costume whose family haled from Richmond, Maine where my wife and I were living at the time. After my son and I spent some time perusing various restaurants lining the narrow streets constituting Boston’s north end we stopped at an Italian restaurant with outdoor seating that my son picked out. He used to work in restaurants, so I left the food choices to him. As I expected he was not disappointed, the food was delicious.

We continued our trek on the freedom trail up through the north end. Upon reaching the end of the trail we turned around and began walking back the way we came. Over the next two days we saw all the sites along the trail from Boston Common to Bunker Hill and everything in between including going off trail for a stop in Cheers the bar named after the TV show. No one there knew our names, but we did meet a couple from New York and we spent an hour or so exchanging our experiences.
    Because Boston is a smaller city than Manhattan we literally walked the Freedom trail at least three times including wandering around the common and visiting the Museum of fine arts. We walked down to see the USS Constitution, the destroyer Cassin Young and the related museum. As we left the Constitution having walked about a block, we met a young couple pushing a baby carriage who stopped us. The young woman asked. “Where is the Constitution?” I turned and pointed to the clearly visible masts rising above the buildings and said. “It’s right there.” “No.” she replied. “The Constitution!” “What, the paper one?” I asked. “Yes.” She replied. “In Washington DC, the Constitution here is the ship, Old Ironsides from the war of 1812.” She and her husband appeared disappointed. Sullenly they thanked me and they walked away. My son and I laugh about that to this day.
    During our wandering the city my son asked if I wanted to go see a Red Sox game. “Sure, why not.” I said. He got on his cell phone and got us tickets to the game that night. Neither of us had ever been to Fenway Park before but that didn’t stop us from walking there. We arrived early and visited the multitude of street vendors surrounding the stadium. When the gates opened, we got in line for the security check only to be stopped because I had a small backpack which contained a couple of jackets I brought in case it cooled off in the evening. I was not allowed to bring in the backpack. Attendees are not allowed to bring anything into the stadium larger than a ten inches square. So, we left the line and paid ten dollars for a locker across the street to keep the backpack in during the game. It was then I noticed there were lockers for rent all up and down the street. Nice way to scam a few more bucks out of unsuspecting attendees I thought. We got into the stadium and found our seats. We both were surprised at how good our seats were for having purchased them that afternoon. It had been a while since I had attended a pro baseball game perhaps even decades, so, I attempted to absorb as many sights and sounds as I was able to. There were some things I saw that surprised me like; at no time during the game were all the spectators seated. They were in constant motion. Groups of mostly young people wandering up and down the stairs. The seats beside and in front of us changed occupants at least four times.

Groups of young men and women consulting cell phones locating friends and rushing off to join them. I don’t think there was a single moment when the stairways were not full of people moving up and down. But the most surprising sans amazing thing we saw was, at one point, I think it was the third or fourth inning an entire section of the stands stood up and in unison began chanting “Yankees Suck, Yankees Suck, Yankees Suck!”
    The game we were attending was between Boston and Cleveland. The Yankees were nowhere around.
    That’s some deep Boston style hatred right there.

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