Dorchester girls

Flowers bloom off shapely stems and the ladies of Dorchester plant their feet firmly on the pavement. There is something to be said about a well-shaped, exposed ankle. The observer's eye natually follows the curve of a taut calf upwards and then eventually reaches the smiling face of a lady walking down Dot Ave. They have bright eyes, those Dorchester girls.

Be respectful. When you approach a lady of Dorchester, you are not meeting up with a floozy. She is neither a tramp nor a tart, no matter what you may assume from newspaper reports. She isn't looking for easy money, willing to do anything distasteful to satisfy an illegal habit. Women make up more than half of Dorchester's backbone, keeping the neighborhood aligned and focused on what is best for every inhabitant, most especially the children.

It is true many single parent households make their headquarters in Dorchester and that single mothers are usually at the head of the dinner table. Another reason to respect the women who do the hard rearing rather than the men, perhaps? Not that the men don't do their share. Dorchester is conservative in many, many ways. Look at the poll results. Dorchester, a place of many immigrants, is not so blue as it is red-white-and-blue.

Ayn Rand probably wouldn't feel at home in Dorchester, though it is rumored she once rented a floor in a three-decker on Roseclair Street for a few months in 1952. She is on published record as not liking Boston in general but an unpublished entry in her diary reads: "Went to the JJ's Irish Pub. Had a rollicking time. Discussed Objectivism and gained a fresh insight. Maybe ingrained Catholic philosophy, through the Irish scholastic vein, is as as profitable a source of belief as Aristotle. Intend to visit St. Margaret's this Sunday to confirm. This part of Boston is very different from the others I've seen."

The next entry details a trip to a Harvard symposium with a rant about men who wear beards to cover their intellectual shortcomings. No other Dorchester-specific diary entries have been discovered thus far, but it does tantalize curious scholars how, exactly, Ms Rand found her sojourn in our neck of the woods. Based on the available evidence, it was positive, naturally.

Strong women live in Dorchester. They make their home here. They are not girls.