As I New Yorker, I don't know if I'm supposed to admit it, but I love Boston. My grandfather was born and raised in Framingham, Massachusetts and he never lost his New England accent, or his taste for Moxie (a taste that I have cultivated, largely out of contrariness), throughout all his years in the Bronx. As a small boy, I lived in Waltham, Massachusetts while my father was a graduate student. I have vivid memories of visiting Old Ironsides. One of my all-time favorite books is Make Way for Ducklings, which will always remind me of the beautiful Boston Public Gardens, with its Swan Boats... and of the amphibious Duck Tours, with their repurposed landing craft. Throughout high school and college, there were trips to Boston, where I'd invariably run into religious kooks in Faneuil Hall with whom I'd engage in weird discussions (my great and good friend J-Co, who now lives in the Boston Metropolitan Area, still likes to recount an incident in which a beret-wearing proselytizer, upon hearing me opine that a lot of people get caught up in dogma while ignoring basic precepts of ethics, dramatically intoned, "This man speaketh the truth!"). On occasion, I'd get into a drunken lip lock with a tipsy charmer at the Róisín Dubh. Yeah, Boston's a great town, and the Bostonians are wonderful people.
I was relieved to hear that this year's Boston Marathon finished without a hitch after last year's horror. The stories of bombing victims returning to finish the race, some in spite of grievous injuries, were heart-warming and tear-jerking.
Yeah, I'm a New Yorker, always has been, but Boston will always occupy a large space in my heart. Love Boston, love Bostonians.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My only visits to Boston were a couple of trips for the game.
I had a good time there, in enemy territory...
~
Post a Comment