| | - "Brighter Than Sunshine" - (Check out My Trip to Boston on http://newsuburb.tripod.com/boston.)
I HAVE RETURNED! I would have updated while I was in Boston, and I should have because our hotel (the Hampton Inn Boston Crosstown Center, located adjacent to the scenic projects of Roxbury) had a little 'business center' where you could go online. But of course, The Man had put blocking software on it, so I couldn't log on to this site because it would be harmful to little kids. But I did a lot of neat stuff, and I learned a lot of lessons. For instance - did you know that Boston does not smell of baked bean farts? It's true! (What it smells of, though, is far worse.)
How do I put three days of stuff into so brief a writing as not to put y'all to sleep? Okay: It's time for brief sentences. Exclamation points! And random statements irrelevant to the topic at hand! Thus - the hotel was very nice. Brand new. Crappy neighborhood, though. Had to pass through the projects to get to Northeastern from it. I was concerned [not scared]. Also visited the Back Bay (home to John Kerry. Back Bay = Georgetown). Did not meet anyone famous. My mother's feet hurt from walking so much. DISCOVERY: THEY DO TALK FUNNY. Guy interviewed on TV news who saw a five-alarm fire in Lowell, a suburb of Bahstahn, said: "Ma said 'Rahn! Fy-uh!' and I ran out." Wahlked down Boylston Street, a boulevahd that goes through some swanky nabes (actually, that's a Toronto word) and visited Cahpley (Copley) Square, shahpping mall dripping with money that "corrupted" my pastor-mother. Also wahlked the Esplanade, a pahk along the Chahles River. My heaht fluttered to see all the ducks. Rode the "T" ("T" = very old and dirty Metro) to Leechmere (Lechmere) on bad side of Cambridge, away from snooty Hahvahd, to visit Cambridgeside Galleria (www.cambridgesidegalleria.com), another shahpping mall. (It rained A LOT.) It was very hahd getting there because they're doing construction so we had to transfer to a bus, and ended up on a scavenger hunt through the Financial District (Financial District = Downtown) to find the transfer stop. I think I rode the Mass Pike ("Last night on the Mass Pike/ I fell in love with you") in the shuttle van, but I'm not sure. Either way, I did not find love on the Mass Pike OR the Central Artery, which I definitely was on.
Passed through the North End (North End = Little Italy). There's a street named Tony DeMarco Way (which was funny for me because the character I rather shamelessly based on Tony Carter in That Novel was, as a coincidence, originally named Tony DeMarco before I decided that was too obvious.) Everyone in Boston was very skinny and very well-dressed. George Thrush (the SPITTING IMAGE of Paul Giamatti), head of the School of Architecture at Northeastern, told me all the kids there go to the gym a lot: "When I was in college (shy of thirty years ago), it was okay for me to have a gut - but not so much anymore."
So - am I sold on the city? More than I was three days ago. My biggest concerns are the distance (despite the one-hour flight from BWI to Logan Airport) and the racism. Boston's known for a lot of racial tensions - it's the only major city not to have had a black mayor, the population's still predominantly white, and the police are a major hassle. One of the shuttle drivers we had was a pretty cool guy named Charles, who told me that he wanted out of the city as quickly as possible because of the racism. Going through Downtown Crossing (Downtown Crossing = Metro Center) he pointed out policemen hassling loitering black kids who "are probably just waiting to be picked up." Charles mentioned he hadn't gotten to pick up a lot of people that afternoon, and he had gotten so bored that he drove the shuttle van down a narrow street where only commercial vehicles were allowed, just to piss off a cop who, of course, gave him crap.
I had just spent the morning at Northeastern, where George Thrush, a graduate student I spoke to named Alyssa, and an admissions counselor named Chet - all white - explained to me that yes, Boston had gone through a lot of crap in the past, but they were "turning the corner." This was Massachusetts, Chet reminded me. Gay people could marry here - this had to be one of the most progressive cities around. If I wanted diversity, he said - and not just by race, but by income level, religion, political affiliation, where they grew up, shoe size - I would want to live in Boston. So when I heard Charles talking, I was confused. Was it really that bad? He didn't say much - and for the rest of the day, I was starting to question how much I'd want to live here, if I'd have to deal with bigotry.
Then, this morning at breakfast I saw my mother talking with the hotel's manager, who looks a lot like our Lieutenant Governor, Michael Steele. (Michael Steele is black, but many people feel he doesn't care about the problems of black Marylanders, given he's a dirty Republican. When he appeared in a parade last year, people in the crowd threw OREOs at him.) But this guy was no OREO. My mother suggested I ask him about Boston's racial situation, for another opinion. "Well," he said, "I grew up in Chicago, I went to school in Atlanta, and I've lived here for eleven years. And the worst racism I've seen had to be outside of Atlanta. Every city has racism - just, in some places it's overt, and in other places, it's covert. Here, it's covert. Did you know this is the first African-American-owned hotel in the city of Boston? There have been problems in the past, but I think Mayor Menino has done a lot to help. Some of the nation's biggest ethnic festivals are here in Boston - the Puerto Rican festival, and the Caribbean festival - second only to New York . . . I hope I answered your question, but I've probably left you more confused, right?"
Surprisingly, no. It's important to get a variety of conflicting opinions . . . unfortunately, though, it still does nothing to help my decision. Northeastern and Maryland are so similar, both so perfect . . . I have to think about this. |
Laur