Some drink champagne

Some drink champagne and some die of thirst. Better bubbles down your gullet than gall.

There is nothing wrong with monomania as long as it brings you joy. While I have not always been delighted by Boston, especially in winter and during prolonged rainy, summer weeks when the temperatures hover in the sixties instead of the more summery 80+plus degrees Fahrenheit, I am quite content to live in Dorchester. The details that unfold as I pass along the now familiar streets day after day continue to pique and satisfy my curiosity. I am glad to be neighbors with the people with whom I gratefully share this neighborhood, full of foibles and friendliness and honesty and hokum on all our parts. I've never had a bad day in Dorchester, though I've had my share of disappointments within the rest of Boston's city limits.

I haven't seen a lot of champagne bottles uncorked in the Dot. I've seen more pint glasses of Bud Light being hoisted in toasts and then drained. Better bubbles down your gullet than gall. I've seen some bitterness, but a swallowful of beer makes the medicine go down and all in all, life seems to be good for the people who spend theirs in Dorchester. Complaints? I've heard a few and they are enough to mention, but now is not the time. Coming home to Dorchester after the rat race through a dog-eat-dog day downtown doesn't put one in the mind for complaining. It is time to relax. Out of Dorchester endlessly rocking on the shores of Dorchester Bay, the surf laps the shore with a sussuruss that hushes frayed nerves and the Bay's breeze is a rum that is balm for an aching head.

Not every sourpuss will turn his or her frown upside down, but it's easier to do so in Dorchester. It's why people move here. It's why people stay. It's why I've stayed I don't regret it a lick. DBC is what they say around here: Dorchester By Choice. Some natives think that by birth is better. I can't really comment on that but I am glad I settled here.

Hope for the best, expect the worst. That worst hasn't come to Dorchester yet. I don't see any signs it will.

A tip of the fedora to Mel Brooks, James Lileks, Mary Poppins, Sinatra and Walt Whitman for providing all the phrases I've recalled and appropriated to write this essay.