Storyland in City Park

This is the 900th post on this blog.  That's a lot of bytes. 

With the amount of ink that's been spent trying to describe New Orleans, you would think the whole city would be referred to as Storyland.  In fact, Storyland is a special nook in City Park dedicated to bringing children's stories to life, or at least to three dimensions.  It is full of whimsical statues brightly painted.  Today's photos were taken the other night during Celebration in the Oaks.  There are twenty-five exhibits.  

Pinocchio atop the whale, a particular favorite of mine.

Though I am 45 years old and have little patience for children (though that's changing the older I get), I have a fascination for toys and cartoonish things.  I have no patience for Sponge Bob or whatever is popular now but, as someone who loves old things, I find a stroll through Storyland charming.

I may be crotchedy but I am also whimsical, subsisting on a steady diet of daydreams and poppycock (a word with very off-color Latin roots).  I am an honorary citizen of the Land of Cockaigne, having spent many an idyll on Rock Candy Mountain.

 Of particular interest to me was this frog.  An exact replica of the one in the Ryan Playground in my beloved Dorchester, Mass. the biggest and best part of Boston.  

I spent many a moment with this frog's Bay State twin.  It was the only sculpture in the park, tucked away in a corner painted an identical shade of green.  When I eventually move into my new home I hope to find two siblings to guard my front door.  I will call them Patience and Fortitude in honor of a couple of lions I know.  

Speaking of moving, there seems to be some kind of snafu (another word with off-color roots, these an acronym) at City Hall.  I read about this in the paper a week or so ago, so I expected it.  No one knows when the closing will take place because there is some trouble researching the deeds and conveyances.  I'm told few things go smoothly in New Orleans unless you get involved with your City Councilperson.  I don't know about that and I prefer to think things will work out for the best.  After all, I'm a citizen of Cockaigne, expecting freshly baked pies to fall off of trees and fully cooked pigs running around with a knife in them, offering an easy slice of ham as they pass.

A salute to Dorchester, Massachusetts!

You may think you've never heard of Dorchester, but you have.  It's Boston.  To those who live there, it's called Dot for short.  It is Boston through and through, more Bostonian in many ways than downtown.

It's not the North End where Wednesday is Prince spaghetti day.  It's not the part where Mystic River was filmed (though much of it looks like that).  It's not where Bunker Hill is or where Paul Revere set off on his midnight ride.  The Boston Pops don't play in Dot.  It's not where a lot of tourists go unless they are visiting the JFK Presidential Library.  Some tourists visit.  They are either the smart ones or the ones who leave from the wrong side of the JFK/UMASS T station.  Either way, they enter the best part of Boston and when they get back on the Red Line they don't see Boston the same way again.  They have seen its true, better nature.

Dorchester is the biggest of Boston's neighborhoods, some people (present company included) say it's the best.  I lived in Dot for three years and I wouldn't trade those years for the world wrapped with a ribbon.   Plenty happens in Boston...plenty, but much of it involves college students and professors, scientists, doctors, engineers, politicians.  Dorchester life is the common life sprinkled with the kind of minor miracles that make it a pleasure to get out of bed.  A neighborhood of neighborhoods in a city of neighborhoods, everyone is pleasant, they get to know each other and they work together to make a livable place enjoyable for a few blocks or a few miles as far as the eye can see.

Ethnicities rub shoulders and elbows and jowls and bellies in Dot.  If there is any friction, it is smoothed by common courtesy and cordiality.  Bad manners have no place in Ashmont, the Polish Triangle, Lower Mills, Codman Square, Upham's Corner, or at Port Norfolk.  If there is a circle, it is the gravitational orbit that centers around where the Neponset River empties into Dorchester Bay.

Despite the impression of rampant gang warfare and weekly shoot-'em-ups you may cull from the daily newspapers, Dorchester is an overall peaceful and congenial place in which to raise a family and spend a lifetime.  Generations have done it.  A few bad apples can't spoil a bushel or a barrel filled with golden eggs, none of those rotten.

Big things are afoot in Dorchester.  It is a part of Boston where things happen under the radar while regular citizens reap the rewards, spin filigree from flax, glean kernels from chaff, and chafe at a bum rap, all the while getting along, getting ahead, getting together, and having a good time.  Loving one's neighbor is easy in Dorchester and the high proportion of churches ensures it is a chaste affection exchanged between passing pedestrians.  Playgrounds are populated with well behaved, impish scamps who don't know the word "truant."  They scamper about harmoniously with a twinkle in their eyes, bright smiles, and evident good breeding, respect for others, and a sense of fair play.

There are worse parts of Boston than Dot, much worse.  If there are better parts, that's a matter of mistaken opinion.  If you are thinking of moving to Boston, talk to your realtor about Dorchester.  Don't believe the nay-sayers, distrust the haters.  Visit yourself, walk the streets, witness the camaraderie and kindesses and civic pride that is on display.  Walk into the shops, witness the landscape, the streetscape, the peoplescape.  Say hello.  Introduce yourself.  Ask yourself, "Can I picture myself living here the rest of my life?"  When you ask yourself this question, after plumbing the reaches of your soul's needs and measuring the existential bounds of what makes a good life, the answer can only be, "Yes.  I can."  

Four days and five nights in Houston

Magazine Street, New Orleans.  I haven't seen anything like this in Houston.  I've seen plenty of Chili's outlets though.

I'm headed home tomorrow afternoon.  It's not soon enough.  Nothing against Houston but it isn't for me.  I've never lived anywhere that is so brand-spanking new and spread out.  Blocks of architecturally unimaginative apartment complexes are punctuated by strip malls and glass office buildings.  Houston architects must all subscribe to the same copyright-free newsletter.  Either that or they got their degrees from a correspondence school.

I've got nothing against the 600-odd square miles that make up Houston.  The city just doesn't charm me.  This is not a coquettish place.  I have no desire to return any time sooner or later.  God bless the people who call this place home.

Everyone complains about the heat.  I've seen people drive a hundred yards to have lunch.  I walk during my lunch hour.  I travelled two miles today in a suit.  Based on the reaction when I returned you would think I walked to the Gulf of Mexico and back.  I have no idea how far I am from the Gulf.  The landscape is generic and without anything I would call a landmark unless you count the Home Depot between my hotel and where I spend nine hours a day watching power point presentations.  It seems to be a city in which imagination slumbers due to boredom.  I know I said I have nothing against Houston.  Let's think of this as a non-judgemental, subjective observation.

People complain of the heat.  As a New Englander from birth, I eat dinner on restaurant patios and the wait staff comments, "You must not mind the heat."  If it's not snowing I'm going to be outside.  The heat is nothing compared to the New Orleans summer I just spent the last three months enjoying.

I'll be happy to be back in New Orleans where places stay open late, the music isn't all pop pap piped over the juke box, where food isn't made in a New Jersey factory and then trucked a few thousand miles for reheating in a chain, commercial kitchen by "chefs" specifically trained in the arts of the convection and microwave ovens.

Ah well, no use crying over a less-than-stellar week.  Looking at the bright side, I have confirmed in my mind that I made the right choice to move from Boston to New Orleans.  I am happy in New Orleans, ecstatic really.  I doubt I would be able to same the same thing after living three months in Houston.  One week in Houston makes me appreciate the three years I spent in Dorchester (Boston's biggest and best neighborhood) which seems like it passed in the blink of an eye compared to this past Sunday night and now.

Celebrating Dorchester Day

As poetic Fate would have it, my last full day in Boston is Dorchester Day.  I had to be elsewhere much of the day but I caught the tail end of the parade since I live only a few streets from the end of the parade route (the length of Dot Ave).

My last full day in Boston is also the day that celebrates the part of this fair city that I have enjoyed the most.  I find this as fitting as it is accidental.  I really wasn't paying any attention this year.

As I drive down the Mass Pike tomorrow morning I'll being thinking of Dorchester as I cross the Allston line into Newton (I think it's Newton).  A Huzzah to Dot in it's 380th year!  I wish I could stick around for many more of them.

Wearing a motorcycle helmet

I've been a little lax on posting recently because I'm occupied packing my saddlebags and poring over maps for the BABE run that starts on Sunday.  Taking a motorcycle from Boston through New York City to New Orleans should be an easy, if long, affair.  Interestingly, Connecticut and Pennsylvania are the only states on the route that don't require use of a helmet.  These are two states that I won't be spending much time in if I stay on course.

I'm from Connecticut and until I moved to Massachusetts, I didn't wear a helmet.  Never liked them.  I still don't like them but I've gotten used to wearing a helmet.  In fact, I'm so used to it that I wouldn't consider taking it off to feel the cool breeze in my hair.

I have both a full face helmet and two visor helmets (five button).  I'll be taking the full face down to the Big Easy.  I'll be wearing the padded jacket and thick pants with armor over the knees.  I'll be wearing the touring boots from Aerostitch that cost so much I can't bear to get rid of them though I rarely wear them.  It's for a ride like this into terra incognita that you need combat touring boots.

So with all the cartographic study and essential packing, I haven't been singing Dorchester's praises.  I am distracted.  I intend to be posting while I'm on the trip though:  A Dorchestarian on the road, as it were.  Once I arrive in the Crescent City, I'll resume my normal schedule of near daily missives to the ether.  I'll be back in Dot at the end of May for a brief stay and then its another cannonball run, that time via UHaul.

Sing along with Dot

Sing along with every dandy, bloke, schoolmarm, spinster, cripple, thug, harlot, tyke and babe that calls Dorchester home!  You know the tune...

Dorchester Man!

Dorchester Man!

Does what no other Bostonian can!

Is he strong?  Listen Bud,

He's got puddingstone in his blood!

Hey there!

Look out for the Dorchester Man!

Can he afford a loaf of bread?

Take a look overhead:

Wherever there's a tightrope,

He always speaks the right trope,

He always walks a fine line

Always just at the right time,

That makes him the Dorchester Man!

In the gloom of night,

At the scene of a crime,

At the speed of a stop light,

He arrives just in time

(to stop one not to commit one)!

Dorchester Man!

Dorchester Man!

Does what no Allston habitue can!

High degrees, he's ignored

Community is his reward!

He finds his thrills on the sidewalk!

He appreciates some straight talk!

He doesn't have any hang-ups,

He's had his share of bang-ups,

Wherever there's a tight spot,

He knows there's a home in the big Dot,

That's why they call him the Dorchester Man!

I did a pastiche on the same theme just seven months ago.  I don't mind returning to the same material to polish it up though.  This version is different and I think much better.  You decide.

Viva  Dot.

The Iron Bride of Dorchester

There's a new reality show on a cable network called WZMY (MY TV, get it?).  I don't have cable, so I can't comment on the quality of the programming, but they apparently reach 2.4 million homes in eastern New England so maybe you've watched some of their shows.

They have a show that's in its second season called Iron Brides (TM).  Brides compete to win a videography package for their wedding worth $9,000.   The new episodes hit the air on Saturday, April 24 at 2:30 PM.  It might be worth marking your calendar if it's supposed to be raining this weekend.   All of Season II's contestants are from Massachusetts.

Even though I won't be watching the shows as they are broadcast, I'll have someone record them for me.  It should come as no surprise who I'll be rooting for...none other than Dorchester's own Eileen Weir!  Though I disagree with her favorite restaurant, I agree with her choice of neighborhoods.  The website doesn't say how many episodes it will take to decide who wins the $9000 prize but one thing's for sure: Dot Rats prevail.  I'm sure Eileen is going to give that Rebecca from Sandwich a run for the money.

Thanks to Hollywood East Connection for bringing this to my attention.  Anyone want to meet on Saturday afternoons at Tom English's to cheer Eileen on?

As shiny as today

  

It's as new as tomorrow and just a little bit older than Boston itself.  It's Dorchester, as wide as a mother's love and as deep as Socrates.  Dorchester, Mass., Boston's biggest neighborhood, is so big that three or four old Bostons could fit in it.

If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.  This could be Dorchester's motto and I would submit it so the City Council if someone translates it into Latin for me.  Dorchester already has an unofficial motto, which used to take precedence over all others.  Nowadays, its motto is the same as Boston's.  Something about being founded in 1630 if you look at the city seal.  This is probably best, Dorchester is part of Boston now, lending its geography and multitudes to the greater city to handily deliver votes and secure federal grants.

There is something nice about Dorchester's old motto: Piety, Literacy, Industry.  None of these go out of style.  As new as tomorrow and as shiny as today.

B.A. on the P.A.

 +

I was musing the other day about how Mr. T would be a good celebrity master of ceremonies in the Dorchester Day parade, marching beside Dorchester's honorary mayor.  People outside Dorchester may wonder how someone qualifies to be Dot Mayor for a year.  They raise the most money to support the parade.

I don't know how much Mr. T, nee Laurence Tureaud, is  charging for personal appearances nowadays but it must be less than when he was riding he crest of popularity of Rocky III and the A Team.  In my book, diverting a few parade dollars to nab Mr. T to ride shotgun in the mayoral float would trump any total dollar amount.  It would be like Louis Armstrong leading the Zulu krewe.

Aside from Dot Day speculations, wouldn't Mr. T be the perfect spokesman for the MBTA?  Again, I would like to point out that in both real and inflationary dollars, the illustrious Mr. T's fee is probably less than it was in the late 1980s/early 1990s.  I wouldn't mind hearing Mr. T warn about trash causing fires on the electrified tracks or advising me to take the T to see the Bruins.  "Fare evasion is a crime, fool!"  Mr. T knows how to deliver a message and he does it much better than the droning voices currently on the T's PA system.  

Imagine standing on the outbound platform of South Station.  Mr. T's voice booms out, "The Ashmont train is now approaching!  Ashmont!  Step back if you want Braintree, this isn't your train!  Braintree's next, wait your turn!  Good things come to the people who wait!  Stay behind the yellow line, don't be a fool!"

Don't pity Dot

Some people say Dorchester will take a man and chew him up before the neighborhood spits him out as far as Charlestown or even further: to Somerville or Chelsea or Everett.  Untrue.  Some people say Dorchester will chew a good man up and spit him out the way a junkyard dog devours a tender lamb chop and leaves only shreds of cartilage and bone fragments gnawed free of any marrow scattered willy-nilly on dead pavement.  Also untrue.

Look at Dorchester's outline.  Lower Dot swells like a pregnant belly and the silhouette of Columbia Point could be mistaken for a breast taken out of context from a National Geographic photo.  Dorchester doesn't mutilate.  It builds character.

Can Mr. T serve as a symbol of Dorchester?  Despite the similarities between Mr. T's character and Dorchester's the answer is probably No.  It's hard to have a name like T in Boston and be associated with pride, good service or respectability.  There's no need to pity Dot, indeed, most people who live here would wrinkle their noses at the idea.  People who visit Dorchester don't pity it, they respect it.  Tourists who wander a bit off the Red Line return to wherever they are from with a fresh, independent understanding of what Boston really is: a vibrant, working city rather than a Revolutionary War time capsule.

I think Mr. T's picture above will reappear again and again this month.  He isn't a perfect match for Dot Pride, but there are worse spokespeople we can imagine embodying Dorchester's essence.

Who could put the T in Dot?

We all know Dorchester is the best part of Boston and some people would try to convince you this is a direct affect of the Menino administration.  I doubt it, even if he specially picked his spokesperson, DOT JOYce, for her name.  Personally, I'm surprised she wasn't required to change it to Roxie Mandela when she was hired.

Records show that Dorchester has been very, very good before Menino came along.  Dorchester attracts the kind of people that make it better than good.  Walk around.  On any block of Geneva Avenue or Bowdoin Street you can see Thomas Menino's equal, especially in the mechanic shops.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone who can tune what's under the hood of some of Dorchester's used cars wouldn't be able to tweak and lubricate how the city runs and be just as articulate.

Speaking of articulate, it's just as well that the mayor calls Hyde Park home, but if Dorchester does need one resident who was larger than life, rather than just larger than me, I know who it would be.  Dorchesterites walk the walk and they talk the talk, but wouldn't it be nice to have someone who talked even straighter in a language we could all understand.  Could Mr. T be recruited to march beside the Dorchester Mayor on Dorchester Day?

Nola mayor-elect in Boston

The mayor-elect of New Orleans is in Boston today, spending time in Cambridge and then having a little tete-a-tete with everyone's favorite urban mechanic.  What pearls of wisdom will Boston's longest serving incumbent have to impart to the new guy?


I don't know too much about New Orleans politics at the moment, but Mayor-Elect Landrieu has convened several citizen advisory panels to help him set policy as soon as he takes office next month.  It seems Mayor Nagin wasn't very popular and didn't make many popular decisions.  He beat Landrieu in a close race in the previous election and people have been rueing that turn out in the interim.   Of note, Landrieu has served as Lt. Governor of Louisiana in the past.  That's a nice bit of experience for a city's top official to have.

If you read the Times-Picayune article on Mitch Landrieu's visit to our fair city, you'll see he has unspecified business in town through Wednesday.  I don't think he'll be coming to Savin Hill to congratulate a soon-to-be future immigrant on his wise decision but I do have a piece of advice:

Mayor-Elect Landrieu, before you head back to the beautiful. lively city of New Orleans, you may want to see the most beautiful and lively part of Boston.  Since you are going to be here tomorrow morning head up to Dorchester Heights and stand in the park at sunrise.  Face south and as the rosy sky breaks to gold and cerulean you will see Dorchester stretched out before you in all its majestic glory.  That will give you something to think about when you are considering plans to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East.  You could do far, far worse than match Dorchester's vitality.

I'm sure I'm going to love the Big Easy, but I'm going to miss Dot.

Another piece of advice:  If you want to do anything after midnight, there aren't many options but you can always go bowling.

I was a little bit slower at work than usual today.  I was employed in my usual foot dragging and feigned incomprehension, but I was yawning while I was doing it.  Cubby, the mail jerk, shouted out over the cubicles, "Hey, WK!  Ya seem out of sorts!  Whatsa matta?  Hungover?"

No, Cubby, I wasn't suffering from a katzenjammer even though I had been enjoying adult beverages only a few hours earlier.  I attended a party on Taft Street last night and, since it was within walking distance of chez King, I was able to stay until the festivities petered out to nothing since I didn't have to rely on the MBTA to get home.

No one was shot, no one's finger or ear was bitten off, there weren't any fisticuffs.  In fact, there weren't any arguments and I didn't hear one cross word or cuss word until I beelined my way homeways along Dot Ave where a couple of cabbies were arguing in front of the Ryan Playground.  It was good, clean fun, the way people entertain themselves in Dorchester.  Lacking many nightclubs or any movie theaters, Dorchesterites tend to make their own fun wherever they congregate.  Unlike many New Englanders, the people of Dorchester have a reputation for being warm, even on the last day of March, the butt end of winter.

While I was sluggish this morning, it wasn't because of the ample social lubricants that were served.  You know, when you're dancing at a Dorchester party you burn all the alcohol out of your system even if you're just running on fumes the next day.

Help!!

I alluded yesterday to the fact that a lot of crime has been going on in Dot recently.  Allow me to recap via the headlines at Universal Hub over the past two days.  We have...

Something unpleasant discovered at Uphams Corner yesterday morning.

Of course Dot was represented in this 14 minute crime wave.

While no deaths occurred, someone lost a fingertip at Florian Hall.

Brawling at Ups and Downs.  Couldn't they have taken their disagreements to Quincy?

An armed holdup at the Happy Superette of all places!

A party house where the parties turn grisly.  Don't accept an invitation here.

This is the Dot news culled from just two days.  While this unpleasantness should be reported, can't someone provide some positive spin to what's going on in Boston's biggest neighborhood.  Dottie Hottie?  Social Butterfly? Help!

Sport life

Somedays you wish you were somewhere else, especially after a few days of Dorchester-strength rain.  It isn't even April yet.  These March showers have prompted some flowers to blooming, the rain and the mild weather for this time of year.

So what does today's illustration have to do with Dorchester?  Not much that I can figure except for the magazine's title and the second feature story.  Death is all around us, even in Spring.  If you keep up with  the local media you know quite a bit of crime has been committed hereabouts recently and not the usual victimless crimes either.  If any more bodies get found in basements, Dorchester's reputation may take a turn for the worse.  It was mildly horrifying/intriguing when the dog fight arena was discovered a few blocks from my house.  When dead men are found decomposing in the cellar, its not as humorous as in Arsenic and Old Lace.  

This isn't to say that Dot isn't home to its share of dotty aunts and eccentric uncles, its just that the killing going on doesn't involve poisoned tea.  Today's capital crimes are committed using bullets and knives.  C'mon criminals!  You're dealing with people not rampaging elephants! 

Thanks to Pulp o' the Day.

1000 miles away

So I'm sitting in Bruno's Tavern, 7538 Maple Street in New Orleans' Carrolton neighborhood.  "An Uptown drinking place since 1934."  The sky is partly cloudy.  The Times-Picayune says the high temperature today is 65 but it feels like its in the 70s when the sun shines down, especially after the abrupt transition from Boston this morning to New Orleans this afternoon.

Carrolton is a beautiful neighborhood on the end of the St. Charles streetcar line.  No building is taller than two stories.  Unlike Dorchester, the homes are not repetitions of the same style repeated ad infinitum.  Each small lot has its own personality.  There aren't any leaves on many of the trees yet, the broad, ancient oaks that shade the streets.  There are leaves on the palm trees and banana trees.

The sidewalks are rough in patches.  Some of the homes are in picturesque disrepair.  It is beautiful and alive here, with people moving at a pace very dissimilar to what I'm accustomed to in Boston.  Everyone says hello.  Everyone.

The St. Charles Avenue streetcars most resemble Mattapan High Speed trolleys but people open the windows and catch the breeze.  After I unpacked I bought a five day pass for $20 and walked down St. Charles Ave to Lafayette Square.  After so many days of Boston March rain and so many weeks of Boston winter chill, I couldn't resist a half mile stroll in nothing more than a sports coat over a tee shirt.  The first street car was full and I was standing with a gaggle of people dressed for St. Patrick's day also wanting to jump on.  No problem: three more cars were visible behind.  Everyone eventually got on within five minutes wait.

There is something different about New Orleans time.  There is never a need to rush.  Good things happen no matter where you are.  The party starts when you arrive.  Something pleasant is always unfolding, little or large, on the streets, in the parks, in the bars, in the clubs, on the streetcar.

From a thousand miles away, in a very different city, I tip my fedora and bid my fellow Dorchesterites Hello.  I hope you are enjoying your day as much as I am enjoying mine.
 

Dorchester's best pizzeria

Now that Theo's Pizza is closed it's a tough call what Dorchester's best pizzeria may be.  Heaven knows there are plenty of them.  It's hard to say many of them have any defining characteristics beyond address though.

If you've travelled New England any length of distance and stopped for a pizza, you know the standard New England pie.  The crust is neither thick nor thin but somewhere in the middle, just enough to absorb all the oil that leaks out of the shredded, wholesale, industrial mozzarella.  The sauce is ladled out of a gallon can.  The seasoning is oregano.  I haven't been to every pizzeria in Dorchester, I haven't the time, but from what I've sampled Dorchester pizza chefs don't stray to far from the New England paradigm.  They shouldn't really.  I'm a Nutmeg Yankee and I'll order a Dot slice over a New York or Chicago style pie any day.

As with many things, if you are moving to Dorchester, don't get your hopes up too high for high-faluting pizza.  As with everything, you will find that what is in Dot will hit the spot.  If you take the Red Line to Field's Corner, I'll meet you at Hi-Fi.

Dorchester tea

On a rainy day like today, you may notice the puddles have a certain multi-colored sheen to them.  It's not because there's been an oil spill in Dorchester.  It's not the result of some industrial accident.  It's just Dorchester's natural hope and exuberance leeching out of the ground.

Even when the weather is drear, Dorchester is home to rainbows.  Where do you think they come from when the sun comes out?  Yep, they sprout out of the Dorchester ground.  God stores his rainbows in Dorchester.

You might think this link is a bit incongruous but it's not.  The last song on this album is called "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."  Alice would fit right in Dot.  It's a lovely song.

Dot block rebellion

Like many things, it's not entirely clear to me what's going on at Four Corners this Saturday (March 13) at 5PM.  Though the Four Corners Action Coalition has organized something they call a rebellion, it seems to be a more usual protest, albeit one that includes a walking tour and a multimedia performance art piece.

And that is what makes Dorchester one of Boston's more surprising places.  Better known for criminal transgressions, Dorchester is a place of remarkable creativity.  The neighborhood has been remaking itself continually since it agreed to be annexed into the greater metropolis. No one will be taking a duck tour to Four Corners anytime soon and not just because it's not near the water.  That doesn't mean it's not a vibrant community in which people tangle the weft of their lives into the woof of the surrounding infrastructure.

21 Bullard Street is located on the slopes of picturesque Mount Bowdoin.  While the neighborhood may have seen more spendthrift days, the community is alive and well and rallying.  If you are interested, and you should be, the tour starts at this address at 5:00 and ends at the same place.  Food, music, video and insight will follow.

Thanks to Boston Indymedia for the tip off.

Dot manners

Dorchester gentlemen are known all over Boston for their savoir faire.  Sometimes though, some mealy mouthed schlub from another neighborhood shows up and does his best to spoil Dot's well earned reputation.  Good women know Dorchester men are the pillars upon which Boston is held high.  They make attractive mates not just for their good looks but for their virtuous dispositions.

So I was at the Harp and Bard this evening when some pie-eyed rake who had a few too many Bud Lights under his belt leered at one of his fellow patrons and commented, as a kind of introduction, "You have nice breasts."  His Hyde Park accent was unmistakable.  If you closed your eyes, you would picture a young man who may grow up to be mayor of this city once he learns his manners.

The TVs didn't suddenly switch to static, but the conversation around the bar did come to a standstill.   In the sudden hush, one of the old timers at the corner by the lottery ticket machine spoke up.  "Stop right there, chum," he commanded.  "There are ladies present, as you obviously know.  We expect you to behave accordingly."  The rake glared and the other older gents at the corner stood up and shifted on the balls of their feet.  "Apologize," the old timer commanded, "Apologize and make your way home.  We don't cotton to tomfoolery or tom catting around Savin Hill."

The malefactor mumbled his apology and stumbled out onto Dot Ave, presumably to hail a cab.  A delegation from the corner made their way to the young woman's bar stool.  Tom doffed his cap and said, "On behalf of all of us, ma'am and the reputation of good men in Dorchester and Hyde Park, heck the reputation of all the good men in Boston, I offer my most sincere apologies and I promise such a rude compliment will never again be heard here in this room. It is plain to all who can see that your beauty comes from your eyes."

Thoroughly embarrassed by all the attention, the young woman thanked the dignitaries and asked them to return to their seats.

A tip of the fedora to Percy Trout for today's illustration.