Felicitations From Fairhope #12

Felicitations From Fairhope #12

21 October 2021

 

Hello there… Rodger French here.

 

Before I begin this account of our recent trip to New England - specifically Boston and the State of Maine - please indulge me in a short, but brief, backstory.

 

I lived in Boston in 1970-71 while in the Navy. My ship (U.S.S. Mississinewa, A0-144) was homeported in Newport, RI and every single day it was actually there, I carpooled 140 miles round trip with three other sailors. Ridiculous? Ayuh, but Boston was a boatload more interesting than Newport. The ship, however, was also constantly undergoing repairs at the South Boston Naval Annex, making for a significantly shorter commute. The point is, it’d been 50 years since I lived in Boston.

 

Anne, who has travelled the world, had never been to Boston. This could not stand.

 

A few years later, having learned to juggle pretty well, I fell in with a motley crowd: Vaudeville performers, many of who lived and worked in Maine. So I ended up spending a lot of time there (often with LaBanana, my juggling partner) studying and learning more about “New Vaudeville” and playing my accordion for anyone who might listen. My last trip was with the Ben & Jerry’s Road Show in 1991. So… it’d been 30 years since I’d been to Maine.

 

Anne, who has travelled to all the continents except Antarctica, had never been to the State of Maine. This. Could. Not. Stand.

 

[Travel Advisory Sidebar - U.S. airports are still overcrowded, security-crazed hellholes and mandatory masking (which I firmly believe in) is nonetheless a massive pain-in-the-face. Business Class (Thank you, A.J.!) is the only way to survive.]

 

Alright, enough background. On to the highlight reel.

 

Boston - We spent four nights in a hotel near Boston Garden, in a slightly dodgy neighborhood convenient to the “T” (subway) and home to roughly a zillion sports bars. Boston is the sports bar capital of the universe and, since there are literally dozens of colleges/universities in the city, bars (and the T) teem with “yout.” Boston is still a wicked cool city for young people.

 

[Tourist Emergency Sidebar - On our FIRST MORNING, I awoke in severe pain. I’d been down this road before: kidney stone. Fortunately, Mass General was nearby, so we taxied to the Emergency Room, checked in, ran some blood work, and while I was collecting a urine sample… behold! The little boulder fell into the cup and I was OK. In and out in two hours, could have been worse, let us speak of it no more.]

 

Anne had a list ready: Boston Common and Public Garden (with busking Italian accordionist), the Museum of Fine Arts (replete with familiar portraits of our slave-holding Founding Fathers), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (featuring a surreal courtyard worth the price of admission), and the Boston Public Library (housing “Triumph of Religion,” a mural by John Singer Sargent that is simply astounding). We also made a pilgrimage to Harvard Square for Sunday brunch (the best Eggs Benedict ever) and a stop at the Harvard Coop, the country’s oldest collegiate bookstore.

 

[Nostalgic Sidebar - When I lived in Boston, several of we young Navy types would, on occasion, ingest thoroughly illegal substances and take the T to the Coop, the ground floor of which was then a wonderland of vinyl LPs. Bliss ensued.]

 

We also caught up with friends. One night, we took a commuter train to Middleboro, MA, where we met with Fred & Sylvia. (Fred and I were stationed on the Mississinewa, working in the signal gang.) They took us to a fine, local family-owned Italian restaurant, and then to their wonderful, music stuff-filled home. Both of them are classical musicians and quite lovely people.

 

On our last night in Boston, my old pal Kenny (a mensch and actual famous clown) graciously drove in from the ‘burbs, picked us up, and schlepped us around town. I had not seen the city since “The Big Dig” and many of the roads I remembered had simply disappeared underground. (At a cost of over $24 billion, sure; but such an improvement.) We had dinner at a pleasant Afghan restaurant in Cambridge and then meandered around looking for ice cream, which we found. Parking, however, we found not (just like 1971), so it was back to the hotel to exchange big hugs and get ready to head onward to Maine.

 

To be continued…