The T is not a trash can

Monday, February 1, 2010, 1:00 PM on the E Line between Northeastern and Brigham Circle, Car # 3806B...

An outbound trolley had just passed as I my way to the Northeastern platform.  I moved to sit down an enjoy my magazine while I waited for the next train but as I turned my head I saw it exit the tunnel headed my way.  I didn't make it to the head of the platform where the sign says "First Car Stops Here" but the driver saw I was the only person around so he stopped right in front of me.

One passenger disembarked and a young lady ran up behind me from across the street.  "After you," I said.  Ladies first, after all.

The young lady took the first seat available but I headed down the car a bit, toward the second set of doors.  The backwards facing single seat on the port side was empty and I headed for it, but on my way down the stairs I was struck that this was a remarkably dirty train.

I tried to read my magazine (the current New Yorker!) but I couldn't concentrate.  I kept being distracted by the disheveled surroundings.  I took out my notebook and this is what I recorded:

Tattered and scattered pages of the Metro newspaper like a hamster would leave behind if a hamster were the size of a person....sand and road salt everywhere...crumbs in three consistencies, five colors and six shades...one Hershey's Dark chocolate bar wrapper...one twisted rope of an individual serving Lay's potato chip bag (original flavor)...a Starbucks cup upside down and drooling light brown ichor...a phone card...a shred of cherry flavored Chap Stick wrapper...a golf pencil...a sheaf of lottery tickets uncurling on a bed of three discarded, scratched scratch-offs...wadded up tissues stained and held into their haphazard origami by earth toned, natural glues....a crumbled Chipotle Grill bag...a trail of Chipotle Grill napkins that led from the bag to the door....

The train arrived at Brigham Circle and I had to stop writing.  I don't blame the MBTA for this state of affairs at this time of day.  I'm looking at you, fellow citizen.  Don't be a litterbug.

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.

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.

Chagall on Huntington Avenue

Do people float head-over-heels in Boston's turgid humidity? You bet they do, and not just the college students attending summer semester. The fog is so thick you can swim in it. I did somersaults suspended ten feet over the sidewalk between The Savant Project Bar and the Punjab Market on Tremont Street off Brigham Circle. We all scream for ice cream and J.P. Licks is nearby.

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.