Dot riddle

Q: What comes after 75? A: The Spirit of Dorchester.

A fact that is as little known as it is uninteresting is that I don't wear sunglasses, just clear, prescription lenses. There's no dogmatic reason really. Natural light doesn't bother me, I don't want to carry an indoor pair of glasses and an outdoor pair... You say they make lenses that change with the light now? The next thing you'll tell me is that I can send a written message without a stamp! I just never got into the habit of wearing sunglasses and thus have never missed them. A simple man of simple tastes who generally leads an uncluttered life.

When I lived in Connecticut, I didn't have to wear a motorcycle helmet. Not having to, I didn't. Since moving to the intrusive nanny state of Massachusetts I am forced to wear one and I've gotten used to it, so much so that for the past year I've been wearing a full face, astronaut model. The face shield was getting a bit too scratched for rainy night driving, so I purchased a new one recently. The old one was clear, no frills as befits my usual tastes. The new one is polarized orange with full UV protection. I used to ride all the time with the old face shield up. Since getting the new one, I keep it locked in the down position.

It's like driving through a different world. Details are clearer and colors are sharper. Though I am looking through an orange window, the greens that paint Boston's many trees are greener than anything I've ever seen. I took a longcut home through Franklin Park today and, since traffic was light and it was good weather for girl watching, I meandered to Codman Square via Washington Street.

Once I stopped in Codman, I parked my trusty motorcycle in an available gap between a delivery van and a Ford Focus and stretched my legs. Since only a fool walks around town wearing a full face helmet with the shield down, I carried the helmet on my forearm.

I sat on the steps of the Great Hall and looked across the street at the front lawn of the Second Church. The grass was waving in the breeze and the trees whispered sweet nothings that travelled over the intersection, over the rooftops, and into the alleys while whisking breathily and unhurriedly along the main streets and the side streets, mingling with the hum and rattle of vehicular traffic and underscoring the conversations, both urgent and idle, and the tapping or padded footfalls of pedestrians. I put my helmet on to take in the view with polarized vision and I took it off to see it again with untinted eyes.

I'll tell you what: Dorchester is best experienced in the round and in the rough, without filters. It's a beautiful, vibrant place that doesn't need to rely on gadgets or spiffing up. True, some places could use a coat of paint but just to freshen up, not to whitewash. This is no Potemkin Village. Warts and all, Dorchester is pretty plumb easy on the eyes.

There have been two murders in the past two days in Dorchester. That's nothing any civic leader will crow about, but in a dense neighborhood of more than 100,000 people, these regrettable things happen. And, while they are regrettable, they are out in the open, reported, and investigated. People discuss local current events and try to get involved in being a cure rather than a symptom of any overwhelming civic malaise. Dorchester is not lawless. Neither is it falling apart. With so many people packed so tightly together in many different income brackets and at so many different levels of desperation and unbalance, Dorchester is holding together at the seams quite nicely, all things considered. The bond of the social glue is still holding tight. The human condition is playing out according to rhythms etched in all of our collective DNA. Ugly things can happen in beautiful places. Dorchester is proof of that.

Did you know that people even get murdered in Hawaii? That doesn't stop tourists from visiting that island paradise even when it is farther out of their way than Dorchester is.

Q: Knock! Knock! Q: Who's there? A: Lettuce. Q: Lettuce who? A: Come to Dorchester and you'll find out. You will be pleasantly surprised.