The bright lights of Mission Hill

I was in the Walgreen's at Brigham Circle on Thursday to buy a roll of cinnamon Mentos.  The guy in front of me in line struck up a conversation with the cashier, who is a friendly, chatty chap to begin with, just the kind of upbeat person you would want manning a cash register.

"It's been a while since I've been here last," the customer said.  "It looks a lot brighter.  You didn't change the fluorescent lights did you/"

"Yessir," the cashier answered, "The company changed all the bulbs about five weeks ago.  They came in and replaced all the fixtures.  The electricians told me they're using a new kind of bulb."

I thought so...I thought so," replied the customer, "It really looks good; brings the color out on the labels.  I noticed it as soon as I came in; the store seems so much brighter.  I was thinking that the last time I was here was a month and a half but you're probably right, it probably was only five weeks."

The cashier remarked that Walgreen's is always trying to improve the shopping experience while the man in front of me was counting out exact change for thirty-nine cents using the smallest denomination coins possible.  When the two of them had concluded the transaction, the customer left on his way telling the cashier, "Tell your manager I really appreciate the effort.  The lights look great."  The cashier said he would.

I don't visit this Walgreen's very often but I didn't notice anything except that the Valentine's Day merchandise had been replaced by beach-themed, summer toys.  The man in front of me must have been particularly attentive to his surroundings.  I noticed that he was wearing sunglasses indoors.  Perhaps he is photophobic.  That would explain his attention to ambient light, but not why he thinks brighter lights are better.

Just what Mission Hill needs

No one will ever accuse Mission Hill of suffering a shortage of pizzerias but there's apparently an unfulfilled craving up by the big church and the hospitals because a new pizzeria is moving in.  There are seven pizzerias in Mission Hill.  I know.  I've eaten a slice from them all.

There is AK's by Roxbury Crossing.  There's Chacho's Pizza on the opposite side of Tremont Street on the way toward Brigham Circle.  There's Tremont Pizza, the self proclaimed Best in Boston.  There is Huntington Street Pizza just round the bend on the way to the VA.  There is Kwik-E Pizza that has been around since the 1950s and has an original, framed menu to prove it.  There is Penguin Pizza in Brigham Circle itself and there is Il Mondo Pizza on the corner of Huntington, Smith Street, and Wigglesworth.

A new batch of pizza chefs will be spinning the dough and ladling the sauce soon.  Though the storefront and interior are being renovated under cover of plywood blinds, a new sign is up announcing a new pizzeria across the street from Mission Park, halfway between Chacho's Pizza and Tremont Pizza.  Some people will now have a shorter walk to get their fix.

A temporary sign is over the obscured front door.  "Opening Soon: Cripsy Dough Pizzeria."  Their web site is still under construction but their logo doesn't promise authentic Neapolitan pie.  One of the counter guys from Tremont Pizza was getting some fresh air after the lunch rush today.  I asked him if he was worried about Crispy Dough siphoning off business.  He said, "Who?"

Three Dorchester flea markets

We criss-crossed the Dot this Saturday morning to visit three local flea markets in quick succession. It was quick because the first two didn't take a lot of time.

The first was sponsored by fleyewear.com. I'm not sure what the connection is. I got the tip on the markets location from a postcard posted in the J.P. Lick's in Mission Hill, and the website doesn't offer any tie-in. Nor was there any promotional material on site.

This is the second time this market has been held at the old Dorchester High School on Peacevale Road, off Norfolk Ave at the Codman Square end. About twelve tables were arranged in the cafeteria offering CDs, homemade chocolate, used bric-a-brac, and one table supporting a number of steaming chaffing dishes we didn't investigate. We did spend a bit of time exploring the school's ground floor which is largely untouched by the hand of time. The gymnasium is like the gym the nuns dream about in the film, "Bells of Saint Mary's" with a running track elevated above the basketball court.

Our next stop was the Dorchester Flea Market on Adams Street close to Fields Corner. This market has been in operation since at least this past winter. The entrance appears to be a well-appointed clothing shop. We headed toward the back and through a hallway where booths have been set up, but the operation still seems a bit disorganized. Leather jackets and clothing were for sale in two booths and there was an attended kiosk in which people were using a computer but it wasn't clear if they were selling anything. There was a collection of used furniture scattered throughout but little foot traffic.

We then headed toward the grand daddy of Dorchester flea markets, the Maxwell on East Cottage Street, tucked away between Uphams Corner and Newmarket Square. I've passed this old box factory a few times and read reviews of it. Since this was flea market day, today was the day to visit. It is extensive and there is a mix of sellers and buyers. Some of the booths are professional. You can buy home made cakes, sealed videos, all sorts of used furniture and clothing, food, electronics, and root vegetables. A watchmaker has set up shop here and we observed him making repairs with tiny tools through a magnifying glass.

The Maxwell Flea Market is well stocked, we saw three fireplaces with flues for sale and a score of vintage metal file cabinets, but we made no purchases. You can't cart a credenza on a motorcycle, especially when two people are riding. On the way out, through the back parking lot reached by Harrow Street, we overheard a merchant telling a customer that the radio he was inspecting wasn't functional. "Take that one over there," he instructed, "That one works and it's five dollars."

What does the gym at old Dorchester High look like? You'll have to see the movie if you can't get to Peacevale Road. I recommend the film.

What a neighborhood.

What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs? Matt. What do you call a part of a city that gets little respect but deserves a lot more? Dorchester.

Travelling from Longwood to Savin Hill this evening, I went from one world to another within the same municipal jurisdiction. Both are Boston. Both have their part to play in this urban opera.

Huntington Avenue, between Brigham Circle and Symphony, is crowded with bright-eyed youth full of half-digested book smarts untarnished by experience and without a scar to show they've earned their place in the sun yet. Tremont Street is another story. The farther one gets from Brigham Circle, the darker and more sparse the city seems. Mission Church has a chapel filled with crutches from those who cast them off after being healed by miracles. After the church are a few pizzerias and then the wide, concrete and asphalt, sterile intersection of Roxbury Crossing.

I was on my motorcycle by the time I hit Roxbury Crossing. The light turned green and I rocketed down Malcolm X Boulevard, a street with few features, canyoned on one side by dynamited puddingstone and on the other by factory-facaded school buildings and an enormous, institutional post office. My speed was just right and I passed through Dudley Square and all down the length of Dudley Street without hitting another red light. Dudley is a place where no one gives up hope. They mill between destinations like the city's grist that gets leavened into airy bread. Self-contained, little wrong is committed in Dudley. It is a half-charmed place in which Fate never forgets to bestow a few blessings.

I passed the over sized, bronze pear in Everett Square, a symbol of Dorchester's fecundity if there ever was one. I parked my motorcycle on Dot Ave, walking the street to pick up some sundries before I settled home for the evening. The sidewalks were just as crowded as those in Longwood, but a different breed of humanity was out and about. I passed the bleary-eyed, the watery-eyed, the cross-eyed, the legally blind, the blue-eyed, the brown-eyed, the almond-eyed, the mystically third-eyed. I passed among the bloated and the spindle-ribbed, between the straight-backed and the wearily bent, the chalk-faced and the rosy-cheeked. Young and old, adolescent and senescent, addled and sage, the only homogeneity was provided by context and common experience. Dorchesterites. Dorchesterites all. Human beings foremost, Bostonians of course, citizens of Dorchester in the end. What a city.

School without a science teacher

I have volunteered to conduct science experiments with fourth grade students at a local elementary school. The school doesn't have a science teacher. This is in Boston, a city known for its progress in biotechnology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a science corridor of high-tech companies along the Route 128 beltway. I will be volunteering at a private school but a public school, a block away, is in the same straights and relying on volunteers from the same program to expand their science curriculum because the public school also doesn't have a science teacher on staff.

I am more a romantic, intuitive dreamer than a hard-nosed analyst. If I am teaching science to youngsters, something must be wrong with the system. I would prefer to lead field trips wandering around the neighborhood appreciating abandoned buildings and well-crafted brickface facades, but that is an indulgence that comes secondary to productive, deductive thinking. I understand how electricity works and how density allows for flotation and the biological food chain and whatever else our experiments are supposed to prove. With that background, I have the leisure to appreciate the more ephemeral aspects of my surroundings.

That children who attend schools adjacent to the Longwood Medical/Academic Area don't have a science teacher doesn't pass the smell test for a well-rounded education. Mission Hill and Roxbury are lucky to have responsible corporate neighbors with deep pockets who can pay their employees to lend a helping hand and provide staff, however marginally qaulified, to guide students through a few, pre-packaged experiments. Do Dorchester schools have the same resources available to them?

I assume the corporate entities in Longwood employ more college-educated persons than the businesses in Fields Corner. I don't think Tedeschi Food Mart or Mad Rag are offering their employees to help out at that neighborhood's schools.

Something is broken and that something needs to be fixed. I don't have the answer but I will do my part to shed a little light of enlightenment and the miracles of critical thinking about natural facts for one hour a week in Mission Hill. I can only hope someone else is doing the same in the thick of Dorchester's school system. Boston, and the world, needs more children who will grow into adults, who grasp the basics of the universe's mechanics.

A conundrum of neighborhood names

We all know why the Back Bay is called a bay. It was once a shallow, fetid, stinking backwater of a bay filled with sewage and carcasses before it was filled in with soil to form an arc parrallell to Cambridge to become the eastern picturesque shore of the majestic Charles River. Pricey land, perhaps, but solid land just the same. All the expense that went into filling the bay demanded a solid investment. It remains so to this day, thus far. What of other Boston neighborhood names?

Why is East Boston the northernmost part of the city? Why is South Boston the part that stetches most to the east into Boston Harbor while all of Dorchester spreads below it on a map? Why is West Roxbury at the city's southern edge? Why can't anyone tell Allston from Brighton so much so that the two are always referred to together as Allston/Brighton?

Why is Lower Roxbury right next to North Dorchester though both neighorhoods share a common border and latitude? Why do we travel uphill from the Orange Line to get to Jamaica Plain? Why does the Mission Hill branch of the Boston Public Library have 'Parker Hill Library' carved over its doors? The Mission Church was built before the library and only a puddingstone's throw away.

How does a city known for its parochialism get away with naming neighborhoods, in Dorchester at least, complete with signs from the mayor welcoming travellers, Morton Street Village or Adams Street Village? Morton and Adams Streets are long. Am I to believe that no one ever had a better name for these nodes of commerce and community? Pull off I-93 in Dorchester and you will be greeted by a sign on Columbia Road. It says: "Welcome to Columbia/Savin Hill." Can anyone think of a clunkier monniker? Yes. The Red Line T station on Columbia Road is called JFK/UMASS. There may not be graft involved in this but there is certainly some grafting.

7-11 Coffee

I was making pleasant small talk with the woman behind the register at the 7-11 franchise at Brigham Circle. I was buying today's Boston Globe and a pack of mentholated cough drops. She asked me, "Why don't you buy coffee here?"

I said I work at One Brigham Circle, the office building/retail complex across the street. It's just easier for me to go to J.P. Licks and take the elevator up to my desk. There is less chance of spilling. She said that was okay as long as I didn't go to Dunkin Donuts which is a few storefronts up Tremont Street from the 7-11. I asked why.

"Dunkin Donuts!" she exclaimed and then she made a hawking sound in her throat. "Dunkin Donuts!" she repeated, making the same sound but this time pointing her index finger into her mouth while sticking out her tongue. "You know what I think about Dunkin Donuts?" I had a fair idea but she told me anyway.

She said, "They think they have the best coffee. I make this 7-11 coffee every morning, freshly brewed, I can't tell you how many flavors. I make it and people like it. People come in every day and pour their own cups of coffee and fix it just as they like it. My coffee customers are good people. What does Dunkin Donuts do for you? They overcharge you and give you whatever they want. People overpay for that swill and then they come in here to buy cigarettes or phone cards or jujubees or a taquito. All the time they are sipping coffee out of their precious, Dunkin Donuts, styrofoam cups. 7-11 uses paper cups. They sip their coffee like Dunky Monkeys thinking they're so much better than the people around them drinking the coffee I made. I hate Dunkin Donuts."

I paid for my newspaper and cough drops and crossed the street to J.P. Licks.

What makes Dorchester so good?

Knowing my love for the Dot, someone posed this question to me today. I didn't have to scratch my head to come up with a witty reply. I spoke from my gut and from my heart. I looked my inquisitor straight in the eye and I said, "You know, buddy, where I'm from people don't ask foolish questions like this, but if you need an answer, I'll tell you."

We were standing on Mission Hill across the street from Mission Church, between Tiny's Flowers and Mike's Donuts. I pointed to the east and I said, "You see that sun rising over yonder? That's Dorchester, my friend, a place where all good things begin. You can lay your head down to sleep in the Dot and when you do, you know you'll wake up to a better day. The future is bright in Dorchester. From Lower Mills to Andrew Square, from Harbor Point to Mattapan and everywhere in between good, honest folk wake up every morning in Dorchester to get to work making thier part of Boston the best part of all."

My companion snuffled a bit into his sleeve. I continued, "You live in Needham so you don't know what it's like to be down on your luck but up to snuff. You don't know what it's like to have the whole danged world against you but you still gather up enough pluck to show up every live-long, ding-dong day to make your mark and make it stick. Boston runs on Dorchester. Its made up of good people with good intentions."

I continued some more: "The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions but the road to Dorchester is paved with hard work, good will and sweat equity. You drive to work every day and pay $30.00 to park so that you can get home to your precious Needham as quickly and as alone as you can. I take the T to get here. Me and thousands of other Dorchesterites. We're a part of Boston. We like each others' company. We like to rub elbows as much as we like to bend elbows and bend each others' ears. We don't use Boston to get a paycheck. We live here. That's what Dorchester is about, pal. It is about living in a city and making it work."

My companion snuffled into his sleeve again. Whether he had a cold or was misty-eyed from my rhetoric, I don't know. He said he needed a cup of coffee. I agreed. I went into Mike's Donuts. He walked to Brigham Circle to Dunkin Donuts.

The Best Beard in Roxbury

Jackanape Jones, who rides the most tricked-out Lambretta on the Boston side of the Charles River, was paying a visit to the Peppermint Squad's satellite depot on Meeting House Hill on Tuesday evening. Mr. Jones is not one of the squad's active members. He is reservist who can be called to duty in the case of city-wide emergency as declared by either Boston's mayor or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' governor. He has a special "Peppermint Reserve" badge cast in tin and shaped like the grasshopper atop Fanieul Hall and enshrined in the mosaic at Park Street's T station. Inscribed on the back is this legend:

"During a state of emergency declared pursuant to Massachusetts Civil Defense Act, Acts 1950, Ch. 639, as amended, or by other government authority, this identification will serve as a pass though police, fire and armed services checkpoints. The bearer of this identification is an essential member of an elite team of first responders and is required to report to the disaster team coordinater or the personnel pool as directed by the President ex officio of the Peppermint Squad, Dorchester, Mass."

It was a quiet night at the depot. Bella Donna and Trixie Herlihy were manning the phones and the phones weren't ringing. Jackanape Jones borrowed a squirt bottle of vinegar and water and polished the many mirrors mounted on his Lambretta's legshield. He would pause before he wiped down each one to admire his reflection. Trixie noticed that his pant leg rode up over his sock whenever he got in and extreme crouch. She observed, "Jackanape, you have very hairy legs."

Mr. Jones ran his hand through his hair and looked at Bella Donna as if she had made the observation. He said, "Yes, I'm very hairy on top of my head and below the waist. I don't have a hairy chest or hairy arms, thank goodness, but I've got a good shot of testerone running through me." He winked at Bella Donna.

Trixie said, "Isn't it a bother? You know swimmers shave thier legs to increase thier speed. Have you thought about shaving our legs to get better mileage on your Lammy?"

Jackanape Jones looked over at Trixie. He said, "No. The leg shield covers my legs too much to allow for much wind drag. It's a pretty aerodynamic rig. I have been thinking about shaving my head however."

The phones weren't ringing and there wasn't much excitement that night. Both women looked at Mr. Jones and asked in unison, "Why?" They weren't breathless, there just wasn't much else going on.

Jackanape Jones said, "I've been thinking I can grow a good beard. As you can see, I don't hurt for hair on the top of my head. I'd like to see what I can do with my chin. I want to shave my head and grow a beard. Not a hipster goatee, but a real, Walt Whitman, old, Jewish prophet, St. Anthony of the Desert kind of beard. Such a big beard may cut down on my scooter speed, but I think it will be very impressive blowing in the wind. I have to wear a helmet according to state law, so this haircut doesn't really do me much good on the road. It looks good when I'm in a pub, but I spend a lot of time on my scooter with my helmet on. I want people to see how much hair I can grow while I'm on prowling the streets."

Trixie asked, "Why?"

Mr. Jones answered, "As you know, I live in Roxbury. I am represented on the City Coucnil by Chuck Turner. You know the guy: Bold, Bald, Bright? He's got the best beard on the City Council. Its a real Roxbury beard. You know the only men who have Turner's beard beat? They're the monks at Mission Hill Church. Those monks have beards that put Chuck Turner to shame. If a man of God can sport a beard like that, I think Jackanape Jones can grow a beard of equal proportion out of his love of motor scooters."

Bella Donna said, "Jackanape, you're starting to sound a little sacriligious."

Mr. Jones said, "It's only an idea. I saw a picture of Chuck Turner the other day and he inspired me. He inspires a lot of people. I see the monks walking down Tremont Street almost every morning when I go to Mike's Donuts for my cup of coffee. The monks inspire me. I'd like to be an inspiration to somebody and I think a beard is a good way to assert my particular qualities."

Trixie said, "You've got enough enough chrome on this scooter to accentuate any qualities you have. You take this Lammy to a rally and everyone gawks at your twelve mirrors, your bumpers, your crash bars, your front rack, you back rack and your foot pegs. What more do you have to prove, Mr. Jackanape Jones."

Mr. Jones finished wiping down the last mirror, the factory installed one over the clutch on the left handlebar. He said, "I want to show that its not what you can buy, but what you are that makes you a character."

Bella Donna sighed and the phone rang. She got up to answer it and took notes during her conversation. When she hung up she barked out, "Jackanape you have to clear the premises. Trixie and I have a call to respond to. Trixie, we've got 325-a on East Cottage Street that needs our attention."

Mr. Jones suited up and headed back to his Lower Roxbury apartment. Bella Donna and Trixie Herllihy suited up, mounted thier scoots and headed to East Cottage to join a bucket brigade to douse a charcoal grill fire out of control.

Always the Weather

As a native New Englander I am used to complaining about the weather, but enough is enough. Why does it rain every day? This is more Florida than Massachusetts except that the rain isn't refreshing. No surprise there. It punishes as it pours out cold wet from the thunderheads.

Global warming or bad luck? We'll see as the next decade progresses, but jeez louise! This isn't what I think of when I cabin-dream about summer in February. All is well in Dorchester, though, which seems to receive less precipitation than Mission Hill a mere three miles away. We are talking the warmer months. In winter, the Dot can be snowbound while Mission Hill only gets a dusting. This past June, July and August thus far, Dorchester has been bone dry while Mission Hill's gutters overflow. A city really can be its own cosmos.

Good Enough

"The downside of everything getting better is that people forget the virtues of just good enough."
James Lileks wrote that today on his "Bleat" at lileks.com. I couldn't agree with this sentiment more. He is specifically talking about coffee today, and I sympathize. I go to J.P. Licks every morning outside my office and I have to order a large Peru. I would like to just order a cup of coffee the way I do at Mike's Donuts up the street. Lileks doesn't need a shout-out from me; the reverse would be nice but unnecessary

I take the Orange Line to Roxbury Crossing and I either get a coffee at Butterfly, located in the station, or at Mike's Donuts a little further up Tremont Street. I don't need to specify what kind of coffee I want at either of these places. I don't particularly care what kind of coffee I get as long as it is hot and black and unflavored. J.P. Licks operates on a different, more newfangled model. I am expected to be a connoisseur at Licks. They have about thirty-wonderful flavors of ice cream and because of that, I suppose they feel they should be offering as many varieties of coffee. I just can't be bothered. Diner coffee is good enough for me.

The staff people at all these places are very nice. The ones at Butterfly and Mike's have worked there a long time (at least in the morning at Butterfly; after the crack-of-dawn shift, art students take over the carafes). The staff at J.P. Licks comes and goes. They are mostly art students also from what I can tell. They are used to persnickety orders. At Mike's you get coffee and you can get a donut if you want one. I just get coffee and the newspaper. Then I cross the street to Mission Hill park to read the paper before I go to work. It's a nice routine, one that is good enough.

My routine wouldn't be made any better with a better cup of coffee and not just because I don't care. I like to sit in the park with Boston's skyline in the distance. I read the Globe or Herald and look up. I gaze north and see the tableau where all I have been reading about takes place. The other day I read a story about a child being shot in Roxbury by the Mission Main apartment complex. I pieced the details together and realized I could see where the tragedy occurred. It was fifty yards away but whatever happened the day before, it was peaceful that morning. There was just a man reading a newspaper enjoying a cup of plain coffee. A city is like that. There are so many fleeting details. Just good enough is good enough most of the time.

Acorns

Out of a little nut a majestic tree will grow. The oaks along Huntington Avenue beside Harvard Medical School are flush with acorns. They hang heavily on the ends of branches while leaves unfurl thier glossy, green leaves like stoutly inflexible pennants.

Longwood is not the most cheerful neighborhood in which to take a lunch hour stroll. The classrooms and labs have taken over the neighborhood and there aren't many shops and there isn't too much shade to paint a picturesque streetscape. Despite that, there are a few trees, like the 10-year-old oaks already mentioned, and there are benches where diners tuck into pizza slices and sandwiches. This is also ideal weather for girl- and boy-watching depending on your inclination.

I wouldn't recommend Longwood to tourists unless they are the type that groove over medical students, art students and people wearing hospital johnnies. Longwood is modernist ugly but it is lively. It doesn't thrum with an urban vibe, rather it hums with medical administrators ambling about the sidewalks killing time until the return thier cubicles. There are worse sights.

Smith Street, Mission Hill

Smith Street is a little smidge of a road off Huntington Avenue just before Brigham Circle. It meets in a Vee with Wigglesworth Street, where Il Mondo Pizza is located. Il Mondo serves one of the better slices of pie in Boston.

Organize-It Software recently renamed itself Roxbury Apple Service. They have a spiffy, new, handpainted sign with the name and a handpainted Apple logo. Its not as splashy as the Apple Store on Boylston Street, but it is comfortable and accessible. They have been authorized Apple distributors and technicians for quite some time, so if you feel uncomfortable with glitz and want your Mac serviced, this might be a good option for you.

Smith Street, though very short, has one other address of note. It is an Irish pub called the Squealing Pig. Both the food and the staff there are very good and satisfying. I had a tasty Dutch brew there called Delerium Tremens. It had a pink elephant on the label. I know someone who had thier first taste of cream soda there. Nothing she has tasted since has matched that wonderful elixir.

A new, tall building is going up on the north side of Smith Street so it will be hard to see these establishments when passing by on the E train. They are worth seeking out though. It's a short street, but a nice one.