Flying from LA to Boston took only a tad over five hours, but it was truly like going to another country. If the West and California has spectacular landscapes with the coast and desert and mountains, then the east coast is steeped in history. It is all the history that seems curiously absent from California. It is not that the buildings (or at least a sizable proportion of them) are grand. They are multi-leveled but they have not been made from granite or marble, but tend to be non-descript redbrick or clap-board. There is clearly a sense of history that is absent the San Diego housing (and particularly the condominiums and town houses) that look like the facades from the back lot of Universal Studios. The law conference we were attending was held at the Suffolk University Law School, which is located in the old, old part of town. It is a matter of hundred metres away from the Boston Common, which is of itself central to so much of the history of the city. It is strange that this space, which is not all that appealing in the manner of Central Park or even Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens (or San Diego’s Balboa Park if truth be told) is so central to the Boston identity. It is an undulating, bare stretch of ground that was probably not at its best coming out of winter. Still it is a hub of activity with Bostonians walking, running, hanging out.
The Law school is also located directly opposite an old Bostonian cemetery called “the Granary” that has the graves of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, the woman who came to be known as “Mother Goose” and Ben Franklin’s family (although not Ben himself). Given that it was the cradle of the American Revolution it is unsurprising that so much history confronts you at every turn. In fact De wryly observed that everything seemed to be (probably truthfully) “the oldest “of its type in the US. So there was the oldest statue in the US (of Benjamin Franklin), the oldest continuously operating tavern (the Bell in Hand tavern), the oldest restaurant in the Union Oyster House. And in fact the Parker House Hotel, where we stayed, claims to be the oldest in the USA – having opened in 1856. In the past it was home to Charles Dickens for stays of up to five months while he was on his US speaking tours (and it is rumoured that his ghost still roams the tenth floor of the hotel). In fact the hotel also claims a ghostly presence that causes the lift to travel to the third floor unsummoned and there are tales of guests being woken by the apparition of the hotel’s founder, Harvey Parker, and the appearance of strange orbs of light on the tenth floor. I didn’t sense any of the spectral comings and goings but if there were going to be ghosts it would be the place for them to frequent. Other notable historical personalities who have trod the carpets of the Parker House hotel include Ulysses S. Grant and Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, in the month prior to his killing of the President. By all accounts it also had Ho Chi Minh working in the bakery of the hotel and Malcolm X was a bus boy in the time that Pearl Harbour was attacked. The hotels most famous period probably came in the 1850s when the so-called “Saturday club” would meet in the hotel on the last Saturday of each month for seven course feasts washed down with copious amounts of “elixirs” (as the hotel display puts it). The group included such literary luminaries as Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne and also Oliver Wendell Holmes. If that was the heyday of the hotel it continued to be a hub for politicians over the following years (JFK had his bachelor party there and announced his candidacy for Congress at the hotel). These days it is looking a little battered but the Hotel still has a great restaurant and numerous bars (“The Last Hurrah” was a favourite haunt for the conference crowds) and the most amazingly ornate elevator doors.
With all that history and the proximity of so many cemeteries it was hard to escape the sense of being surrounded by the ghosts of the past. This was particularly true of some of the sites on the Freedom Trail, which snakes its way through the old part of the city, and takes you on a trek through many significant sites of the American Revolution. . Interestingly the site of the Boston Massacre is marked by fluorescent orange paint in the middle of a traffic island. There was no other memorialisation that you think would mark such a significant site and it struck me as odd in a place that so fervently embraces its history. There are traces of the violent death everywhere in the city but strangely the local Native American tribes seem to be absent, save for one bronze bas relief sculpture on the Boston Common which has two groups of Pilgrims greeting each other with the Native Americans at the base of the grouping, totally removed from the central figures. It is as if the history of the US begins with the war of independence and the dispossession and killing of the Native Americans is glossed over totally. For all these reservations we followed the path of the “Freedom Trail” which led us past the Old State house where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and the home of Paul Revere where he lived with his wife and eleven children in a very non-descript (and cramped) double storey, four room house. The trail links to significant halls and churches that served as the rallying point for the patriots, through the fantastic Little Italy area, past the Copp Hill burial ground to the dock where the USS Constitution is moored (the oldest commissioned warship in the world…of course). The trail finishes at Bunker Hill where the first major battle of the American Revolution was fought against the British forces.
While Boston was significant for the ever-present sense of history, it has to be said it is almost as famous for its distinctive cuisine. For the duration of our stay I gorged myself on the seafood (lobster and clam chowder and oysters) but managed to restrain myself from gorging on the Boston Cream Pie (that was apparently created by the chef from the Parker House and is now named the official dessert of Massachusetts) or the other delicacy from the Hotel that is called “Boston Scrod” and is a phrase to describe any white-fleshed, fresh, young fish (a dish that also apparently came from the Parker House kitchens). The other notable Bostonian culinary contribution is Boston beans, but the choice between stuffing myself on the humble baked bean (however good) and having another serve of the local seafood was a no-contest. After all, I have to say I am rather dubious about beans in a recipe that also included mustard, brown sugar and molasses.
Then of course there is the tradition of brewing that is captured in Samuel Adams beer (not the second President as I once erroneously blogged, till De pointed out my error, but a signatory to the Declaration of Independence so pretty significant nonetheless). I had already tried Sam Adams and so the main brewery excursion for the Boston visit was to the local pub (actually that should read pubs) located (far too conveniently) between our hotel and the law school. In fact the nearby streets seemed to have any number of old pubs. It was nice to go to a pub that was a real pub and not one that was from a franchise type that was dressed up like a theme park. They were grungy, loud and local and it did the heart good. That is one thing that you don’t get in San Diego – the common or garden pub. Mind you there was at least one example of the dreaded “authentic” pub experience. The only difference was that it was not an “Irish” authentic but the hyper-reality of a television bar. Crossing over the Boston Common we found the external façade of the “Cheers” bar that was made famous by the television show. I was never really a devotee of the show but De is/was a fan and so we descended down the stairs to look inside. The interior was garish and commercial and not even a copy of the set that is used on the television show, with lots of bad pub food and any number of souvenirs. The lure of the Cheers show is such, however, that there is in fact a replica of the original pub (presumably for the overflowing tourist trade) located elsewhere in the city. A replica of an external façade of a pub used in a television show…I would expect that in California but it somehow seemed…un-Bostonian!! Then again there was the ubiquitous tour of the sights of Boston that had appeared in films. So we could have gone to see the park bench that Matt Damon sat on during Good Will Hunting and the numerous street locations from the films “Mystic River” and “The Departed”.
This brings me to the final thing that, for me, distinguished Boston from the other parts of the US that I have visited. It is the strange accent that I had never realised was from Boston (or Bahstun as it is spoken) and the distinction between the Irish descendants and the other residents from the city. Since the downtown area we were staying in is largely peopled by tourists I didn’t have a sense of the local accent until I saw two thick set, burly mousey haired guys dressed in Red Sox caps and bomber jackets and heard them order coffee in the local Starbucks. It was not just their accents that set them apart, but also a palpable tension in the conversation between the Red Sox hats and the staff there. It was only after I had asked a few friends who had lived in Boston for some time (Michelle spent fifteen years there and Patrick lived there for a year and a bit) that I gleaned some sense of the divide between the University types (from the north) and the working-class Irish of city’s southern suburbs. In the other small college towns around the US I was aware of the fact that a clear divide exists between university folk and the rest of the populace, but I thought Boston would be too big for such an observation. Not so! Both of my friends spoke of the clear rift that exists between what they termed “town” and “gown”. It does make sense when you think there are nearly twenty universities in Boston and the surrounding areas and probably even more Colleges. After mention was made of the town versus gown rivalry it brought to my mind a scene from the movie “Good Will Hunting” when Will (Matt Damon) and his friends go to a university bar in Cambridge to pass themselves off as students. A grad student called Clark, realising that they are faking it, sets out to impress some female undergrads by humiliating Chuckie, one of Will’s friends. After watching on for a while Will steps in and shows Clark for the poseur that he is…and then invites him outside to settle the matter. For those who haven’t seen the film it is worth watching for this scene alone.
Will and Billy come forward, stand behind Chuckie.
CHUCKIE
All right, are we gonna have a problem?
CLARK
There's no problem. I was just hoping
you could give me some insight into
the evolution of the market economy in
the early colonies. My contention is
that prior to the Revolutionary War
the economic modalities especially of
the southern colonies could most aptly
be characterized as agrarian pre-
capitalist and...
Will, who at this point has migrated to Chuckie's side and is
completely fed-up, includes himself in the conversation.
WILL
Of course that's your contention.
You're a first year grad student.
You just finished some Marxian
historian, Pete Garrison prob'ly, and
so naturally that's what you believe
until next month when you get to James
Lemon and get convinced that Virginia
and Pennsylvania were strongly
entrepreneurial and capitalist back in
1740. That'll last until sometime in
your second year, then you'll be in
here regurgitating Gordon Wood about
the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the
capital-forming effects of military
mobilization.
CLARK
(taken aback)
Well, as a matter of fact, I won't,
because Wood drastically underestimates
the impact of--
WILL
--"Wood drastically underestimates the
impact of social distinctions predicated
upon wealth, especially inheriated
wealth..." You got that from "Work in
Essex County," Page 421, right? Do
you have any thoughts of your own on
the subject or were you just gonna
plagerize the whole book for me?
Clark is stunned.
WILL(cont'd)
Look, don't try to pass yourself off
as some kind of an intellect at the
expense of my friend just to impress
these girls.
Clark is lost now, searching for a graceful exit, any exit.
WILL (cont'd)
The sad thing is, in about 50 years
you might start doin' some thinkin' on
your own and by then you'll realize
there are only two certainties in life.
CLARK
Yeah? What're those?
WILL
One, don't do that. Two-- you dropped
a hundred and fifty grand on an
education you coulda' picked up for a
dollar fifty in late charges at the
Public Library.
Will catches Skylar's eye.
CLARK
But I will have a degree, and you'll
be serving my kids fries at a drive
through on our way to a skiing trip.
WILL
(smiles)
Maybe. But at least I won't be a prick.
And if you got a problem with that, I
guess we can step outside and deal
with it that way.
It seems to sum up the contradictions of the Boston experience – the intellectual life that is as old as the nation and the undercurrent of bawdy violence where disputes are settled with a call to “step outside”. So there you have it…Boston…the town of ghosts, literary traditions, the Boston Celtics and the Red Sox , lots of beer and good food and bubbling under it all is an ever present and unbridgeable geographic and class divide. But it is a place you feel strangely drawn to. We are definitely going to go back, and it is not just for the lobster and clam chowder.
