Boston Musings

A few weeks ago I had a full day to wander around Boston. The weather was gorgeous so I took a walk down on the Esplanade, the green park area that follows the Charles River through part of the city.
















I have two college memories of the Esplanade. The first was a free Green Day concert during my sophomore year. My roommate Liz and I were whisked off in our friend Shooby’s (only a nickname not to worry) car as soon as our soccer (futbol) game finished that night.

As with any Green Day concert it was wild and there were plenty of crazy people. To get up to the front my friend tucked my head under his arm and kept saying over and over “excuse me, we’ve got someone hurt here, please let us through”. Fortunately, people were out of it enough not to think taking an injured person TOWARD the stage was so strange. By the time we got up to the front there 2-3 songs were played and then the police came and called a halt to the whole thing. Rather than heading home though we hung out in Boston’s beautiful public garden and made fun of the ducks.

The other memory of the Esplanade was on one 4th of July (U.S. Independence Day) when the Boston Pops Symphony play at the half shell ampitheater
















On this day half of Boston shows up (mostly drunk from 9am) for the all day all night party. I went one year with a few friends. I don’t remember the Pops so well but I remember standing in line forever to use a porta-potty and trying not to loose my group of friends in the huge crowd – remember this was the early 90s before we all carried cell phones.

Another area I always like to walk around in Boston is the Newbury Street and Copley Square area. My great aunt Donzella (what a name!) lived on Newbury Street years and years ago. She was a milliner (hat maker) for Boston’s high society women. She was also a Christian Scientist (not to be confused with Scientology) founded by prophet Mary Baker Eddy in the 19th century in Boston. Copley Square is named after John Singleton Copley seen below.





















Copley was an American painter from the Boston area in the 1800s. Around the square are two churches, Boston Public Library, and the Copley Plaza Hotel – where little ol me ate a funny and fabulous meal once in college. This is a photo of one of the churches, the Old South Church.





















Also while in Boston this time I visited the Harvard campus. Although it’s a pretty campus I have to say I think the campus at my school was just as nice at Wheaton – though it’s a bit smaller. I liked this statue from the Cambridge green. It was donated to the city by a former Irish prime minister and refers to the Irish potato famine in the mid 1800s when an estimated 1 million died from disease or starvation and around another 1 million are thought to have emigrated to escape the tragic conditions in Ireland at the time. Unfortunately, we have not achieved a world without hunger yet.