So, about six months ago I hopped on a plane and took a holiday in New York, which included a brief one night stay in Boston. I’ve had this long lingering obsession with Boston since my teens, which is mainly because it’s a hometown of Letters to Cleo (the first rock band I was really into) – so I used to love reading the Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix, idealising the city as a place of sunny sophistication and American cool. I was fiercely anticipating my trip to Boston in late October 2014, but it was also one of the most blissfully satisfactory travel experiences of my life. In my notebook I jotted “Boston, love it… it has a calm and quiet charm that is lacking in the dirty accelerated exaggeration of New York. The leaves are falling. There is the absence of New York City’s wall of sound and there is the sense of being pleasantly at ease.”
Whilst being a major city, it has an idyllic New England charm and the people exude a warmth. Everything, about my single day strolling around in Boston was so utterly pleasing, plus I manage to be there during a visit from President Obama, as well as a historic home victory by the Red Sox.
So, this came all came back to me a couple of weeks ago, with the commemorations and reflection over the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Bostonians were still in shock from the bombing in October, which I picked up on in an email I sent out to a few friends after my visit – detailing my experience of Baseball, Red Sox and Paul Revere:
Until I came to Boston I had never heard of Paul Revere. In brief, he was a prominent member of the community in Boston in the 18th century, who initially made his name as a silversmith, but is more widely known for his involvement in the Independence movement. Every child in America knows him from ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that provides a somewhat embellished account of his horse ride from Lexington to Concorde in order to warn American Revolutionaries about the arrival of British troops in Boston.
His fully restored house was the surprise highlight of my day trip to Boston. The house itself is fairly interesting, filled with décor from the period. It is not that polished and you don’t get the impression that it has a huge amount of funding…. but it has a hokey quality, which is really quite endearing.
What really makes this exhibition splendid are the resident guides, who are on both floors and are available to answer every single question imaginable question about Paul Revere. They are consummate storytellers; capable you delivering detailed tales of the past that carry significance and wit. You get a real sense that they are bubbling over with enthusiasm for Paul Revere, history and all things Boston.
The most interesting information I gleaned was not about the emergence of the Independence movement or the intricacies of colonial politics, but instead it was about what was happening on that night… 30th October 2013… on my only night in Boston.
A guide on the upstairs portion of the house got chatting to me about the legend of Paul Revere and what he has come to symbolise. She was a greyed-haired lady, who held the warmth and charm of a motherly primary school teacher. “Have you seen the statue of Paul Revere? Well if not, you’ll see him later on along your walk. You know, if there if ever a sports event or a TV show about Boston… they normally show the Paul Revere statute, so he has sort of come to symbolised Boston.”
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| Lots of protesting placards intended for Obama |
sports events… namely when the Red Sox (Boston’s fervently supported baseball team) plays. “So like tonight… the statute will be dressed in Red Sox shirt, actually it’s a really interesting day to be in Boston, we could win the World Series tonight! Actually today is a real headache for the police, since you would have seen the crowds down the road since Obama has come to town … this is causing all sorts of problems with the police blocking off the roads. But the President apparently promised the Mayor that he’ll leave town by 7pm, so everyone can get to the game on time.”
From speaking to her, I realised that the bombing really shook Bostonians hard, harder than I’d thought, coming from the perpetually bomb-threatened London. Boston has a really small downtown area, occasionally giving it the feeling of the suburban town… and for a fairly safe place where everything is in walking distance, the bombing must have felt like their own personal 9/11.
The Red Sox have been part of the “recovery” that is the centre of the ‘Be Strong’ campaign. A ‘B Strong’ was etched into the grass in Fenway Park Stadium’s baseball field, so it could be clearly seen during TV aerial shots. The lady recounted with pride an infamous incident involving star hitting David Ortiz, saying “you might have heard about David Oritz… in the first game since the bombing in April, he grabbed the microphone and live on TV he said”… and in hushed shout she gleefully whispered “this is our fucking city!”
After telling her that I was staying in Berkeley Street near the Back Bay, she told me “Oh! Now I know I’m going sound like your mother, but you be careful since the crowds are going to coming down from the stadium. The police get really worried if the Red Sox win a game, because in Boston… we have all these students who love to get drunk… and to some people their idea of celebrating is to set a car on fire”. She told me about this absurd setting-car-on-fire-celebration with a worrisome sincerity that made me crack up with laughter.
So I made sure to watch the game somewhere close to my hostel later on that night. I took the decision go to the normally hip and happening Tremont Street, known for its cultured nightlife and trendy restaurants. However, it was really hard to a bar… and because of the game… the street was dead quiet. As noted in the papers the next day, “the normally bustling Tremont Street corridor in the South End sat quiet Wednesday night”.
Eventually I was able to find a restaurant with a large bar area and screen. It was my first time watching a baseball game, though I’d gathered a vague understanding about the rules from years of absorbing American popular culture. I was immediately struck by the immense amount of stats that litter the screen and the commentary. Fortunately someone at the bar was able to explain the key parts of the game to me and point on the star pitchers. A little fact that I found really interesting was that some of the Red Sox’s best pitchers are Japanese – in fact, the Osaka born Koji Uehara was the pitcher that dealt the winning strike-out that won them the World Series.
The Boston Globe reported the post-game incidents with about as much relish as the game itself, writing, “Nearly 1,000 people blocked traffic and a handful began climbing on cars. About two dozen revelers tried to flip a car parked in front of the Talbots stores as the police arrived to clear the crowd. Boston Police said another car was flipped near Charles Street… Some jumped into a flatbed trailer attached to the back of a Boston police pickup track, leaping up and down in unison as the trailer bounced”.
It was felt to as a triumphant day for Boston. I think there is an American traditional of overcoming tragedy through sport, like when the team from New Orleans won the Superbowl, marking a recovery of sorts from the damage wretched by the Katrina Hurricane. Much like Paul Revere, a town’s sports team can be a depository of a community’s aspirations and ideals. Like Paul Revere’s ride, the Red Sox first victory on home soil since 1918 is to be recounted as a triumphant story of All-American resilience.
