I can see, it took so long just to realize I’m much too strong not to compromise Now I see what I am is holding me down I’ll turn it around Oh, yes, I will — Boston, Don’t Look Back
When you go to a concert to see a band play, are you looking for new or familiar? Go to an Eagles or Paul McCartney concert and it’s a greatest hits collection where you know every song and everyone around you does too. It becomes a sing-along festival. Tasty, but not exactly pushing your boundaries.
Think about the last time you went to see an up and coming band with all the buzz and you didn’t know any of their songs at all, but want to see what all the fuss is about. That was a voyage of discovery, one that carried you to places exciting and new. You knew you were going to know those songs soon enough when that band broke like a wave over the airwaves.
That band that you’ve known for years knows the score. They want to play you the new stuff, because that’s what excites them the most. But they know people pay to see the songs they love performed live. So they layer in the new with the old, hoping the ratio is just right to keep the crowd from going flat.
We humans play our own greatest hits in our head. We tell ourselves we’re going to change but stick with the same soundtrack we had on yesterday and the day before. Maybe we have a circle of fans around us that only want to hear our greatest hits and feel uncomfortable when we start to change. It’s easy to get trapped in that old soundtrack.
The trick to turning things around is to layer in the new songs. Change a small habit, then another. Learn something new today and stretch even further tomorrow. Pretty soon you’ll find that you don’t look back so much anymore because you’re so busy becoming what you want to be next. We might even find that our best fans enthusiastically go along for the ride, changing with us.
“Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station.” – Paulo Coelho
Traveling by regional train is such a treat when you’ve been subjected to the indignities of air travel and commuting in the relentless grind of traffic. Taking an Amtrak from Boston to New York is not the fastest way from point A to point B, but my gosh it’s surely the best way. Give me the rolling scenery without the stress of distracted drivers and unpredictable traffic, thank you. Give me actual leg room in coach over whatever they think proper leg room is on a regional jet between any two cities in the United States. The train is the best way from here to there if the option presents itself.
There are two options when taking the train from Boston to New York (or Washington beyond). The first is the Acela, the “high speed” option. The second is the regional train. The difference is in top speed the trains can travel at, and the number of stops the train makes along the way. For all the potential of the Acela, it only gets you there about 30 minutes faster. I’m quite content taking the regional most days. Sit on the port side going south for the coastal views and the sunrise, or the starboard side for the great view of the city as you make your final approach to Manhattan.
Days blend into weeks, which blend into months. Years fly by and suddenly you can’t recall how many times you’ve done this particular trip. Last week I was flying up and down the East Coast, this week I’m doing a portion of that trip ten feet above sea level. In the last month I’ve been in nine states and when I land in my hotel room tonight I’ll have slept in 12 different beds. Clearly I’m inching back to my old nomadic lifestyle. With travel as with life, I’ve found that it’s usually far better when you’re taking the journey with someone than running solo. But most trips that’s not the way it works with business travel.
The world changes, that’s not a negative statement, but a simple fact of life. And we must keep adapting to change, and keep authoring our own life story. To stay in one place seems a waste to me, when there’s so very much to see out there. Why not explore the world while you have health and mental faculty on your side? We’ve seen how it goes when you wait too long. Life isn’t fair, it will brush you back with a fastball and strike you out with a nasty curve before you know what happened to you. Get to it while you can, and don’t ever strike out looking.
Travel by train gives you the time and mental space to think. To appreciate how far you’ve come, and not stress out about where you’re going. You’ll get there, just stay on the train. Life is like that, isn’t it? Stick with things, keep moving forward and things tend to work out for you. Trains and baseball analogies, all in one post. Isn’t it funny how far a rolling coastal view will take the mind?
Yesterday afternoon I changed up the routine and watched the Boston Red Sox play the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park. Day games are a different vibe than night games, and all games are a different vibe during a pandemic. But we’re slowly coming out of it, and going to a baseball game on a beautiful day felt pretty cool.
It’s been decades since I’d seen that many empty seats at Fenway Park. Social distancing requirements demand low capacity, and we were among the lucky few to get in to see the game. Honestly the game was a mess of bad pitching and horrific defense for both teams, with 21 total runs scored. But being back inside the park after a couple of years, and especially the last year, made it special.
The entire experience, like everything else nowadays, occurs with appropriate precautions. They zip tie the seats you’re not supposed to sit in, and have some ushers walking around asking you to put your mask on if you aren’t eating or drinking. I saw plenty of people breaking this rule, but people are spaced so far apart that it didn’t matter much. The group I was part of is fully vaccinated and more comfortable than we might have been otherwise. No food vendors walking up and down the stairs pitching hot dogs and popcorn, and there were limited options below. But we were still at Fenway Park and loving the afternoon vibe.
Back at home in New Hampshire and ready to call it an early night, I heard the calls of Barred Owls in the woods behind the house. Loud. Close. And what sounded like three or four owls. We don’t generally have Barred Owls in the neighborhood, mostly because we have Great Horned Owls and they stay clear of each other. But here they were, and the night was filled with the apocalyptic sounds of Barred Owls in the night.
You can’t just slip away to dreamland when there’s a cacophony of owl calls outside. So I walked outside on the deck and stood listening to them in the dark. High up in the tree canopy, making baby Barred Owls or at least deep in negotiation. I thought about the contrast between Fenway Park and the woods of New Hampshire on this beautiful day in May. I’m not sure what this “new normal” will be, but if this was it, I felt lucky to have been a part of it.
If you live in Boston or Halifax you likely know Boston’s Christmas tree is an annual gift from Halifax. Since 1971 Halifax has sent a tree to Boston. Fifty years of tree giving. This isn’t inconsequential. The cost of transporting a tree 700 miles to Boston surely add up. So why make the commitment at all? The story behind that tradition is lesser known.
In 1917, at the height of World War One, a French ship named the SS Mont Blanc was loaded with munitions and set out from Halifax Harbor for Europe. The ship would never leave Halifax. She collided with another ship in the narrows and caught on fire. When the fire reached the munitions there was a massive explosion that wiped out part of Halifax, killing over 2000 people and injuring another 9000. At the time it was the largest manmade explosion in history. And it occurred in a heavily populated area.
When Boston’s Mayor Curley heard about the tragedy, he immediately sent a group of doctors and nurses to aid Halifax with medical supplies. Boston’s response was actually significantly faster that Ottawa’s. The team of doctors and nurses spent Christmas 1917 in Halifax, decorating Christmas trees in the hospitals. The bond between Halifax and Boston was forever fused.
The connection between the two cities goes beyond Christmas trees: Halifax broadcasts Boston’s WCVB and also has a large following of Red Sox and Patriots fans as the games are broadcast there. And then there’s family connections. Since the Port of Halifax was the Ellis Island of Canada, many New Englanders are descendants of immigrants who came through Nova Scotia. The bond is indeed deep.
In 1971, within the lifetimes of many of the people who lived through that tragedy, Halifax began donating a tree every year. I bet there were several survivors of the explosion who shed a few tears the day that first tree was shipped to Boston. Boston remembered as well, and the tree serves as a reminder of the common bond between the two cities. Today is the lighting of the Christmas tree in Boston, and we turn our eyes north to our friends in Halifax.
The pandemic has closed borders, blocking access to people and places we took for granted. With the border closed even the Christmas tree took a unique route to Boston in 2020: It was shipped from Halifax to Portland, Maine and then driven down the rest of the way. Many of us look forward to having the borders open again so that we may once again see our friends and kin up north.
I’m thinking back fondly on some of the streets I’ve walked along when being in close proximity to thousands of people seemed desirable. Someday we’ll walk amongst others again without unconsciously holding our breath or measuring out six feet of space in our heads. Here are six I look forward to visiting again someday should the travel gods smile favorably upon me:
La Rambla in Barcelona
If you want to see Gaudi, walk down the bustling Passeig de Gràcia or take a ride over to see La Sagrada Familia. But if you want to avoid the roar of traffic and absorb the energy of Barcelona, walk down La Rambla, stop for tapas at one of the many restaurants and stroll off the calories on this pedestrian way. I walked La Rambla in January with a light coat on and it was still fully alive. I would love to visit in other seasons to see how it transforms when it’s really full.
Duval Street in Key West
Slip on your flip flops and stroll the full length of Duval Street during the day and try the same journey at night. It’s jammed full of people determined to have a great time, and that’s easy to find on this street. Start your morning at the Southernmost Point and cap the daylight hours at Mallory Square, just off Duval Street. If you’re lucky maybe you’ll see a green flash. When the sun sets return to Duval Street for some evening fun. Like many people I found my way into Sloppy Joe’s a few times for live music with something to wash it down with.
Broadway in Nashville
Wander around the honky-tonks on the lower part of Broadway and you’ll fall in love with the energy of this city. I was just there a few weeks ago, just as the world was flipping around into the new reality. Timing is everything I guess. A perfect time to visit would be during a normal SEC tournament or in the fall when the Tennessee Titans are playing just across the river. Walk back after the game and soak up the live music poring out of every bar. Walk up to a rooftop bar for a view of the city. If you love live music this is the street for you. Just make sure you’re over 21 to get into the honky-tonks.
The Royal Mile in Edinburgh
The Royal Mile is a walk in the footsteps of history. Sure, that’s cliche, but it fits well on this street, or rather, these streets. The Royal Mile is made up of High Street, Lawnmarket and finally Castlehill as you approach it’s namesake. Edinburgh Castle commands the city as it has for centuries. But a walk to the bottom of The Royal Mile has it’s own rewards with a visit to The Palace Of Holyroodhouse (open when the Queen isn’t in residence). In between is plenty of touristy shopping, some very enjoyable side trips down the many Closes, each with their own personality. Want to burn more of that haggis off? Extend your walk with a hike to the summit of Arthur’s Seat and the 360 degree view of forever. If you’re lucky you’ll catch a rainbow but avoid the source.
Boylston Street in Boston
There are plenty of famous streets in Boston, with Beacon Street, Lansdowne Street, Commonwealth Avenue and Newbury Street each offering something unique. But Boylston Street has a special place in my heart one day every year, and that’s Patriot’s Day. That’s the day when the Boston Marathon finishes on Boylston Street and Red Sox fans pour onto the street after the early game and Boylston Street comes alive with an incredible vibrancy that you look forward to all year. This year won’t be the same with the pandemic postponing both the marathon and the start of the baseball season, but hopefully a year from now we’re talking about Patriot’s Day in Boston once again.
George Street in St John’s, Newfoundland
The shortest street on this list, George Street in St John’s is jammed full of bars. This is a sailor’s town if I ever met one, and it’s highly likely most sailors have made their way onto George Street when they spend any time at all here. I fell in love with St John’s during my one visit, and I still can’t believe I haven’t been back again since then. Someday, maybe. Just like all the rest of the streets on this list.
It hasn’t been a normal winter. Temperatures are milder, early winter snow has largely melted, ponds are at best unsafe to walk on. If Australia is burning, New England is experiencing one of the warmest winters on record. The world is unsettled… but small signs of familiar are out there if you look for them. Even if these too have an odd twist to them.
Yesterday was Truck Day in Boston. That probably means nothing to most people in the world – and why would it? Truck Day is the first sign of spring on a normally cold and relentless winter, when snow storm after snow storm batters our very souls. And while the winter hasn’t spun into soul-crushing yet (there’s still time), Truck Day still highlights the rite of passage from thinking of winter to Hey! It’s almost Spring!
Truck Day is when the Boston Red Sox roll their trucks full of baseballs and uniforms and God knows what from Fenway Park to Fort Myers, Florida to be unloaded and ready for Spring Training. It’s a light at the end of the tunnel, hope for better days ahead. Dreams of green in a brown, monochrome world. But even Truck Day feels different this year. The Red Sox fired their Manager in the midst of a cheating scandal, there’s talk of trading star players instead of excitement about the pitching rotation and the outfielders. No, it’s an unsettled winter on Causeway Street, which makes Truck Day just like everything else this winter; a bit off. Like waking up the first day you have symptoms of the flu off. And this winter, of all winters, comparing an event you normally look forward to to the flu isn’t the kind of light at the end of the tunnel that you want to see. It might just be that speeding train barreling towards you.
But that’s pessimistic talk, and Truck Day, even with the chaos in the world and on the Red Sox, is a good sign. Maybe this will once again be their year. If they can find a Manager anyway. And then it hit me, this is how we used to think before the Red Sox started winning World Series. Jaded optimism disguised as pessimism after getting beaten down year-after-year by the Yankees or (going way back) the Orioles. Yeah, that’s the feeling I was trying to place, the feeling of dread hiding behind hope, as another season begins for The Olde Town Team. Buckle up everyone.
The commute started early this morning, with an early meeting conspiring with noise in my head about getting on the other side of the rush hour traffic that would surely build with every minute. Nothing stresses my commuter self more than being late for an appointment with miles of traffic ahead of me. I don’t like commuter self all that much, and avoid his company when I can.
Traffic going into Boston is a wonder, but not wonderful; starting much earlier than you’d think possible, lingers past when you’d expect it to end, then reverses direction almost immediately to wreak havoc on your soul when you head home. You either skate your lane, distract yourself with music and podcasts or you let it get to you. I’ve gotten better at letting it go, but it’s a weakness in my character and I feel commuter self creep back into the car more than I’d like. So I play the active avoidance game when I can, and podcast the heck out of the worst of it. I once turned down a great job with a big promotion and raise because I didn’t want to crush my soul with the two hour 40 mile commute. I don’t regret the decision.
This morning I time-travelled to Boston, found a café and sit writing this blog while others are stop-and-going on the highways I just left. Coffeehouse music is playing, counteracting the effect of the caffeine and the adrenaline of hundreds of cars and trucks I spent the last hour with. My coffee sits steaming on a distressed wood table and The Lumineers and Jason Mraz are playing just loud enough that I can barely hear the diesel engines and honking horns out there. The regulars talk amongst themselves but the place is still full of empty. There was no logical reason to leave as early as I did, with 90 minutes of time to spare. But I like the company of coffeehouse self more than commuter self, and that was enough for me.
March 17th is of course St. Patrick’s Day, and Boston celebrates this day as well as anyone with the parade in South Boston and taverns overflowing with Irish and Irish-for-the-day revelers. But Boston has another reason to celebrate the day that is unique to the city. On March 17, 1776 Boston’s long siege ended as the British evacuated the city and sailed to Halifax. Boston has marked this date forever since as Evacuation Day, and it remains a city holiday to this day.
The siege may have continued on indefinitely had Colonel Henry Knox not pulled off the Herculean task of hauling cannon from Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point to Dorchester Heights. The British had the naval strength to continue controlling the harbor, meaning the siege was an inconvenience but the loyalists and British in Boston wouldn’t starve. It was only when they saw the cannon on Dorchester Heights that they realized the dangerous position that put them in and chose to pull out.
There are many people who roll their eyes at Evacuation Day as a city holiday. They surmise, perhaps correctly, that it’s an excuse to have a day off for the drinking, parade and extracurricular activity of St. Patrick’s Day. But if you’re a history buff it’s a great day to celebrate.
Today is Evacuation Day at home as well, as both kids head back to college. This is bittersweet of course, but ultimately a necessary rite of passage as they both move deeper into adulthood. My hope is that they get safely back to school before the drunks hit the road after a long day of celebratory drinking.
The connection between Halifax and Boston is similar to a sibling relationship. Boston receives their Christmas tree from Halifax every year as a thank you for Boston’s role in supporting Halifax after the December 6, 1917 explosion that killed almost 2000 people. Boston’s medical ships arrived well before the Canadian government reacted, and Halifax has been forever grateful.
Halifax and Boston were sister cities of the British expansion into North America, and there was strong sentiment to invade Halifax and bring it into the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. That it remained British-controlled created some separation, but eventually the cities proximity and cross pollination of people moving from one to the other brought them closer.
Halifax receives the Boston feeds of a couple of news channels and follow all of the major Boston sports teams, making them more familiar with Boston than Boston is with Halifax, but the bond is strong both ways. Part of my family came through Halifax as well, so I’ve always thought of it as a home away from home. It’s been over a year since I’ve been in Halifax, and I think I need to remedy that soon. Nova Scotia keeps calling to me. I need to return the call.
This morning I’m sipping a Starbucks Italian Roast coffee. I could have chosen Peets or something else. I’ve grown lazy in my coffee habit. I have coffee beans and could have ground them using my hand grinder, poured them into a French press and savored the rich results. Brewing coffee is a ritual. Some days I’m into ritual. Today I’m into having a cup of coffee in my hand in under a minute.
Coffee probably came to New England sometime in the early 17th century, but New Englanders were tea drinkers like their cousins in the mother country. Coffee didn’t really take off here until after the Boston Tea Party, when coffee became an anti-establishment beverage of choice. Boston still wasn’t known as a coffee mecca though. Coffee was something you sucked down to give you a boost or warm you up on a cold day. And the choices were the same as in most of America – Folgers, Maxwell House, etc.
Now anyone from Boston better mention Dunkin Donuts when talking about coffee. Some of my earliest childhood memories were sitting at a Dunkin Donuts counter eating an Old Fashioned Donut. Coffee memories with Dunkin started much later. Back before the McDonalds lawsuit, I remember the coffee was scalding hot and you had to wait it out for a bit before you could safely drink it. Being of questionable intelligence, I always tried to start drinking my coffee a bit sooner than I should have. Since that lawsuit coffee seems to have throttled back on the temperatures. Probably for the best but it does take some of the adventure out of the morning. We all must be protected from ourselves.
Like many people after college I started paying more attention to the stuff I ate and drank. Beer was the first thing to get upgraded. Coffee followed shortly after. I know it’s sacrilege in New England, but to me Dunkin Donuts is like that K-Cup coffee. It does the job, but it’s not something I’ll savor. But savoring coffee wasn’t a thing around New England for the first half of my life. It became a thing in the 90’s.
Around Boston, Coffee Connection was our first exposure to a truly rich coffee experience. It was a place you stopped in when you went to Harvard Square. Then they started growing and you could find it elsewhere. Coffee Connection peaked in the mid-90’s and then was acquired by Starbucks.
Starbucks changed the way we looked at coffee. It changed the way I looked at coffee. The first time I had it was on a ferry between Seattle and the San Juan Islands. I was in line to buy a coffee and when I got up to the front they had two kinds; “coffee” and “Starbucks”. I remember asking “What’s Starbucks?” The answer, “It’s like coffee but stronger.” still makes me smile. Starbucks coffee is not just stronger coffee. It’s more robust, more flavorful, richer coffee.
Starbucks jump-started their presence in Boston when they acquired Coffee Connection. And started a religious war in the process. Starbucks vs. Dunks. West vs. East. Lakers vs. Celtics. Flashy and expensive vs. working class. Dunkin Donuts has seized on this in their ads, and customers followed suit.
I’m an unapologetically diehard Starbucks fan. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll buy DD when I need to, and I love Peets and some of the local coffee houses that serve rich dark roast coffees. Coffee, like beer, is something to savor. And the growth of microbreweries coincided with the growth of the coffee industry. But it’s not for everyone. Just as InBev owns 45% of the American beer market, and MillerCoors owns the next 26%, Folgers and Maxwell House own the majority of market share in coffee. Sometimes taste matters, sometimes people only care about the net result.
