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Leamington Letters #77: Boston Strong

15/4/2014

11 Comments

 
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It was a year ago today. 

On the 15th April last year, at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, on Patriots' Day, two bombs exploded on Boylston Street in an horrific attack on a city in which the perpetrators had made their home and which had welcomed them as it has welcomed generations of immigrants for centuries.

Boston has a very special place in my heart - and not just because of the Red Sox, around which the city gathered in the days after the bombing last year. 

It has one (arguably, three) of the world's leading art galleries. It has one of the most vibrant music scenes in the States. It has bred writers as good and as diverse as Henry James and Robert B Parker, TS Eliot and Sylvia Plath. It has more colleges and universities than most countries. And it has some of the warmest and most welcoming people I have ever met.
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With 37,000 friends at Fenway.
I was there last week, for a couple of home series at Fenway. (For the record, we were swept by the Brewers - I know, I know - but beat Prince Fielder and the Texas Rangers.) I re-established contact with many old friends and made several new ones. I ate more oysters than are strictly necessary and drank some very good wines in excellent company.

Boston is like that. Sit at any bar and the chances are, the person next to you will be interesting, fun and loquacious. Not surprising, really, in a town which was built by successive waves of Irish and Italian immigrants.

It is the sociability and gregariousness of these two nations which, blended with Afro and Hispanic joie de vivre, has taken over a city founded by Puritans. 

I found myself, one afternoon, sitting in a bar on Boylston and Arlington, happily arguing a Marxist line against an Italian Catholic proponent of Weber - you know, the stuff about the rise of capitalism being the result of the Protestant work ethic. 

How we moved on to this topic from our initial disagreement about the merits of different Pinot Noirs and Sox short stops I am not clear. But that's Boston.

Conversation in Boston is like the weather in Boston: it changes by the minute. One minute, it is cold and hard and bitter; the next, it is warm and wet and witty.

And that's why I love that dirty water; why I love the people who live on the Charles, the Muddy and the Mystic rivers; in Beacon Hill and Kenmore, North End, Southie and Charlestown.

Boston is my kind of town. And on this first anniversary of the bombings, I send my love to the the city and its people, to Boston and the Bostonians.

Thank you.

Boston, B strong!

Today from the everysmith vault: I've been listening a great deal to Geoff Mauldaur and the Texas Sheiks, a CD gifted to me by the excellent Rick Hough from Boston; and also to some recent shows from Phil Lesh and the Terrapin Family Band, who have just announced a couple of dates in London this summer, at about the time Cassidy's first-born is due. Serendipity?
11 Comments
Frank
15/4/2014 01:50:35

I hadn't realised, until I read this a moment ago, that the Boston bombings fell on the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. The links between Boston and Liverpool extend beyond a shared ownership of sports teams.

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Scouser
15/4/2014 04:50:49

True. The way that the whole cities came together, united in grief and determination. And no accident that in each case it was the sports team which became the symbol of their feelings.

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Allan
15/4/2014 03:07:42

All true, but notable for what you don't mention. The racism, the organised crime, the corruption. Are these all things of the past?

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NeilJ
15/4/2014 07:45:29

Boston is my favourite city in the States and for many of the reasons you mention. Boston people like people, but don't take shit. And you can walk from one end to the other! Go Sox!

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CJ
15/4/2014 08:08:42

"Jazzin' the blues. It's a good little thing."

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Darren
15/4/2014 09:21:00

Your blog - and the comments - point to the importance of sports. The loyalty of fans to a team is not really to the team but what it represents for the community. That uniform is the uniform of the city. And you will hear the Sox referred to as the Town Nine. As Papi said, "this is our fucking city".

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Geoff
17/4/2014 02:05:34

Who would have thought that you would be sitting in a bar talking wine, baseball and philosophy?! Same life in Boston as in Leamington!

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Jack G
18/4/2014 06:13:13

Black, white, brown, white collar, blue collar, rich, poor, Democrat, Republican, Gobe , Herald - all united because they share and embrace Boston. So did Liverpool - United against the slurs of the Murdoch press and united in grief. Telling picture of red and blue scarves linked in a long chain. Here's to both cities.

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myers
20/4/2014 19:16:53

Great photo! I wanted to wait until Patriots Day and this years actual marathon to say I too love Bean Town. I will always have fond memories of Boston which your blog has rekindled. 2012 was a great time to visit even though we couldn't put back to back wins together! We were based, for the most part, in the Black Rose [Róisín Dubh] rear of Faneuil Hall on State Street and even met some real Irish bhoys instead of the numerous Plastic Paddy's who frequent the area.Go safe Go Sox!

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Rick Hough
20/4/2014 21:29:52

Thanks for the compliment but till greater thanks for the elegant sketch of our little burg on the Charles.
While, as one of your commenters pointed out, one shouldn't have to scuffle too much to find evidence of racism and RICO activities, a case can be made that Boston's population has taken an active role in shaping a new identity for it's city. This column did a beautiful job of characterizing that emerging identity.

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Sean
2/5/2014 07:48:25

Love that photo. Brilliant. Inspiring stuff. I keep the dream of getting there myself alive.

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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