Jungle love

With a blanket of snow over Dorchester, we were surprised to hear the soothing sounds of exotic tiki music wafting out of an open, third story window on Sagamore Street. The ukulele strains were so hypnotic, a gaggle of Dorchesterites had stopped in the middle of the middle of the street with ears cocked upward. Nobody was doing a lot of driving today but the streets were thick with pedestrians heading though the snow flakes for milk, malt liquor, bagged snack food and pizza made to order.

A young man sporting a frizzled beard was one of the people stopped on Sagamore Street listening to the music that issued out of this apartment. He said, "I feel like I'm in Hawaii." He said it spontaneously to no one in particular and he was quickly hit with a snowball by a companion who said, "I couldn't do this in Hawaii, buster." The whole group guffawed and scooped snowballs from around their feet and started pelting the guy who exaggerated the situation too much.

It didn't feel like Hawaii in Dorchester or any other part of Boston today. It felt like New England in winter, the worst time to live here. Despite that, it did feel care-free. There is something about a snow storm that makes everyone congenial. We are all in this together. The inconvenience of not being able to travel as far as you choose forges a bond with other people in the street, in the stores, in the pizza parlors...we just want to get out a bit and see that the world is getting on. It's nice to be alive in a winter wonderland. Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, Eastie, Charlestown, Chelsea, Southie, the Back Bay, the South End, West Roxbury, they are all pretty places but they become even prettier under a blanket of snow.

One of the women who stopped on Sagamore Street, she was 60 years old if she was a day, said, "This music puts me in mind for the beach." She looked at her squire and said, "Why don't we take the Blue Line to Revere and walk the beach?" He said he would load his ipod with tiki music as soon as they got home and then they would be off like a shot for Kelly's Roast Beef and a stroll along the picturesque shores of exotic Massachusetts Bay.

Dorchester breeds daydreams along its shortest streets.