City living

I went to Pantry Pizza, at 931 Dot Ave the other day to order a pie to go. The lady of the house had been out of town for a month and she wanted a taste of some good Dorchester pizza after a month in Europe. Can you blame her?

When Pantry opened last year, we went a few times. It's not our favorite pie. We've recently been going to the Upper Crust on Charles Street and carrying an "Uncommon" to the Public Garden to eat next to the pond for our pizza fixes. After 8 hours on a plane, the lady of the house wasn't in the mood to take a trip on the Red Line, so, without any debate, we decided on Pantry. Not only is it convenient, it is more than good enough.

I went alone and even though we haven't been in months, the lady at the counter asked how the lady of the house was doing. She asked me if I was riding my bicycle that day, the weather being good for it. She sees me every day as I pass and when I see her noticing me, I wave and vice versa. I asked how long the wait would be. She thought about it. "Ten, maybe twelve minutes tops." I went for a stroll around the block.

I popped into Cappy's Convenience next door to pick up some Boston Baked Beans, the candy kind, thinking this would be a nice treat for someone who'd only had Haribo gummi bears for a month. The handsome kid from Nepal was on duty and he said, "Nice motorcycle weather, isn't it?" I replied it couldn't be beat but I was getting my exercise pedalling at the moment. I asked him if he's thinking of getting a motorcycle since he once told me he drove in Nepal. "No, no," he replied, "Not just yet. I take the T."

Exiting Cappy's, I stood on the corner of East Cottage Street and Dot Ave and I looked took in my surroundings. I use every business at this intersection. I shop at Gene & Paul's Fresh Meats, the oldest meat market in Dorchester. I get my clothes tailored diagonally across the street. I regularly patronize the package store, Eagle Liquors. I get my hair cut by the barber next to Pantry Pizza. I used to go to Pat Jay's Drug Store while they were still in business. I visit Tom English's Tavern from time to time for the best Pabst on tap and to watch the Sox.

None of these businesses are chains. They are locally owned and most of the employees live within blocks of each other. We pass each other while I'm running errands and they are walking their dogs or running errands of their own. We wave to each other from opposite sides of the street and exchange chitchat and gossip when we meet on the same side. This is city living in a way that was once thought of as small town living: everyone knows everyone else.

The order of things has been turned head over heels. Big, impersonal, faceless, homogenized conglomerates are in the suburbs where people don't see or interact with their neighbors. Hey! You out in Weymouth! Do you know the clerks in your supermarket anywhere besides behind the register? Does the lady you take your dry cleaning to chastise you for always dipping your sleeve in the soup week after week? Does she recognize which restaurant is responsible for the stain and know the right mix of solvents to erase a spot of the Harp and Bard's clam chowder? Are you happy to exchange money for goods and services along with pleasantries with the people who serve you, or do you drive to the next shopping mall to save a few pennies in retail if not in gasoline? Do you breathe more recycled automobile air conditioning than fresh breeze? Is your most frequent companion the radio or your cell phone? I'll take my company on Dorchester's sidewalks, in the flesh and in the round, randomly, whatever friendly, familiar face I meet.

Where I live, small business owners and their employees are not servants. They are fellow citizens. They may provide me with goods and services, but I provide them with a livelihood, while they provide me with the niceties of life. The bottom consists of supporting each other. Service with a smile. Patronage with gratitude. A community in which one hand washes the other makes the whole civic body is clean in the process.

Something is lost outside city limits. City air sets one free to be you and me. 'Nuff said.