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."  

The mill's not grindin'

The mills in Dorchester aren't grinding.  They've been turned into apartments and some studio-residences reserved for artists.  The collapse of the local manufacturing economy wasn't a shipwreck for Dorchester, though it certainly hasn't always been smooth sailing.

There are still a number of small machine shops in business but no small factories that I can see.  The chocolate industry dominated Lower Mills for two centuries.  People may be making whoopie in Lower Mills but there aren't any confectioners.  All that's left are the beautiful Victorian factory buildings, which are a picturesque legacy.

Jobs around the corner from one's home would be nice but in the new economy, Carney Hospital provides the local jobs that are in demand at this point in the 21st century.  Medical Billers be warned:  If you want to live in Lower Mills because you think billing and coding jobs are available via Carney, they aren't.  All the billing is centralized with another hospital in the Caritas Christi system.  Carney operations get coded at St. Elizabeth's, far away and off the MBTA rail grid.    

This may be a good reason for medical administration folk to live in Brighton.  I haven't been to that part of Boston too often but it seems to be a good enough reason.  Of course, the location of jobs doesn't guarantee that practitioners will live within walking distance.  I don't think many doctors or surgeons live in Lower Mills.  I do think a reasonable number of barbers call Lower Mills home.

Obsessions

Mrs. Eufalia Lindsay told me the following story.  She and her son have been undergoing counseling for a reason I am not privileged to know because it isn't really relevant.  Mrs. Lindsay attended group therapy sessions at a large area hospital until she decided to quit last week.  Two other area mothers were also undergoing this therapy and Mrs. Lindsay reports they've discontinued treatment as well.

The psychiatrist sat in the middle and addressed each of the mothers and their children, "You all have obsessive desires and you have subliminally grafted your personality disorders onto your children." he said.

The psychiatrist first addressed Patient A and her daughter: "You have a fixation of food," he told the chubby lady from Lower Mills, "This is why you named your daughter Candy."  The girl looked up at her mother and asked, "Is that true?"  The mother said, "No."

The psychiatrist turned to Patient B and her daughter: "You are fixated with money.  You called your daughter Penny because you can't think of anything but money."  This family lives on Jones Hill and the mother walks every day from Jerome Street to the Upham's Corner rail station passing Sovereign Bank, Bank of America and Citizens Bank.  Penny looked down at her feet.  "You do say we can't afford things, Mommy," she said.  Her mother glowered at the psychiatrist and said to her daughter, "We can't afford a pony but we're not hurting."

Mrs. Lindsay had heard enough.  Before a snap, quack diagnosis could be applied to her, she took her son's hand.  "Come now, Dick.  It's time for us to head home," she said.

Mrs. Lindsay and her family live on the street that runs parallel to Shawmut Station and, like the other mothers, she does have an obsession.  It is an obsession with her surroundings.  It is an obsession with Dorchester.  The Lindsay family gets it mail delivered to their address on Nixon Street.

Schrodinger's Dorchester

Bright boys live in Dorchester.  You can read by the light of their dreams.

Your street address won't predict your destiny, but your zip code will.  If you reside in Dorchester, good things wait while you catch up to what your future holds.

Sharp sisters live in Dorchester.  There is the teenager just becoming giddily aware of the power that resides in her body and brain.  There is the middle-aged matron whose experience has made her patient and smart as well as strong and sturdily, solidly, stolidly, unmistakably beautiful.  There is the wrinkled seer who has seen everything that has come before and still welcomes tomorrow, knowing that tomorrow, while similar, will be better than every day that came before.  Life pulses in Dorchester, Mass.

It takes a keen intellect familiar with the surroundings to cut through bull feathers and poppycock.  The people of Dorchester know how to do that.  They aren't fooled by politicians' promises.  They aren't fooled by bait or switch.  The people of Dorchester know their neighborhood like Einstein knew physics.  It's instinctive.  Like Schrodinger's cat, Dorchesterites purr in front of their hearths, contented to say the least.

Smart Boys Live in Dorchester by whaleheadking
Many tee shirt designs available at Zazzle

Paradise by Milton

Day breaks but after that everything is ship shape in Dorchester, MA. All the leaks are caulked. There are no drafts to dodge. Snug as bugs in a down quilt, Dorchesterites hunker down and sleep the slumber of the unencumbered.

Where's Dorchester? Look Mac, if you don't know I can't even call you pal... Look Stranger, if you don't know where Dorchester is you'd better take a Duck Tour to find out. This is the time of year to do it. Bundle up as you trundle out. Keep your eyes peeled on that goose chase and stay downwind.

Any bum can rush to Dorchester, but it takes a certain kind of dreamer to linger long enough to catch a Talbot Avenue bus. A Dorchester adventure is an invitation from Fate to a footloose freebooter to bind his or her ties to a geography that includes more three-story buildings than the whole State of Kansas contains and as many active citizens as Vermont's voting population. Dorchester is wild and wooly while being conveniently served by mass transit and civilized amenities. Dorchesterites sip their Dunkin Donuts coffee with pinkies raised.  They are generous tippers too.

When the Red Line splits at JFK/UMASS, conductors announce, "Change trains here for Braintree. This train's final stop is Paradise." Paradise for many, perhaps, but others abandon hope when they enter Dorchester. Dorchester isn't for the hopeless.  Hope springs eternal from under a rock in Dorchester Park directly behind Caritas Christi Hospital's maternity ward.  Hope is the gasoline that lights Dorchester's fire.  The hapless souls who lack hope are welcome to stay to nurture their tinder but most head back post-haste, pre-trauma, on a one way ticket back to Porter. There are no downers in Dorchester, only up-and-comers.  Smile!  The Dot's got your back.

Even if Ashmont isn't the paradise you are looking for in Dorchester, take a transfer to the Mattapan High Speed. You'll find your paradise at the Milton stop.  At the southernmost tip of Boston, there's nowhere to go but uptown and inbound.  Even if it takes a few connections to reach your eventual destination, those connections are easy to make in Dorchester.

Necco needs a Dot Bar

We're spoiled in Boston because we still have our own regional candy factory. Everyone knows that Necco stands for New England Confectionary Company. You can go to any convenience store and pick up a roll of Necco Wafers, well aware that they were made a few miles north in Revere.

Between 1764 and 1965, chocolate was milled closer to home, inside city limits, at a location that is the crown jewel of stops on the Mattapan High-Speed Line, almost criminally named Milton rather than Lower Mills. Why doesn't Dorchester have it's own candy? The neighborhood certainly has its own flavor. Maybe Necco can send some confectioners to Dorchester to concoct a local equivalent of their popular Sky Bar.

The Sky Bar is a candy box in a single wrapper, a candy bar consisting of four separate compartments, each containing a different filling. A Dot Bar, constructed in the same manner with each compartment representing a different Dorchester neighborhood, would likewise contain a differently flavored, sastifying, lip-smacking, finger-licking filling.

The Sky Bar's four flavors are: fudge, caramel, peanut and vanilla. These don't correspond to anything or have any symbolic values. They happened to be the most popular candy flavors when the bar was introduced in 1938.

Some people complain that all the compartments of the Sky Bar taste similar. I admit, I probably wouldn't be able to tell one end from another in a blind taste test. In 2009, the Dot Bar should be made up of strong and discernably tangy flavors more in keeping with modern sensibilities that prefer shock over subtlety. This recipe would also mirror Dorchester's nature. Of course, Fudge should still be one of the Dot Bar's compartments in honor of the Walter Baker Factory in Lower Mills. This would serve as a historic and thematic tie for the Dot Bar to it Necco-produced predecessor as well as Dorchester's long cacao pedigree.

That leaves three compartments to fill. I suggest the following, in keeping with the idea for strong flavor and the unexpected shocks Dorchester delivers. Next to Fudge I would include Barbecue, like the kind found at the Pit Stop in Morton Street Village. That's one taste that dominates the air in that corner of the Dorchester. Brown sugar and tomato may seem odd in a chocolate bar but, as has been proven before, sometimes two great tastes go great together.

I would fill the third chamber with malted milk like the kind found in Easter candy. The malt is reminiscent of the Guiness found in any Dorchester tap room, though suitable for children and, after all, Easter is one of the most Catholic of holidays. There isn't a large Orthodox population in the Dot, otherwise maybe mint flavor to accompany lamb might be better. That's an issue for the makers of the Roz Bar to decide.

What for the fourth chamber on this proposed Dot Bar? It would have to be something Vietnamese. You can't really expect a pho concentrate in a chocolate bar can you? Something along the lines of the tamarind/ginger sweets I find in the local Vietnamese markets would work just fine. A little off the typical New England taste meter, fruity and exotic and savory enough. A little chewy too rather than just sweet goo. Something to mull over as you taste it and grow to like it.

What an assortment. The Dot Bar would be more than a candy box in a bar, it should be a whole neighborhood available for consumption for less than a dollar fifty. If any Necco executives are reading this, please send me a royalty check once you've worked out the manufacturing process. I know at least one part of Boston where this will be a best seller.

G-8 memorabilia for sale

Tiffany Peabody reports falling on hard times. "Mr. King," she writes, "Like many people who have suffered during what's being dubbed as The Great Recession, I find myself with credit overextended and the wolf at my door. Though my 401(k) is of little use to me and my investments have gone sour, I still have my great-great-grandfather's legacy in my possession. I hope to sell off some artifacts to interested collectors of World War I memorabilia and I was hoping you could help in publicizing my need and my earnestness to do business."

G-8 and his Battle Aces aren't well remembered today. They were certainly as daring as Audie Murphy, but G-8 never became an actor. After the war he retired to Dorchester to live out his days quietly, out of the limelight. He had seen enough excitement in the skies over the European trenches and he was never one to look for glory. He did have some glorious adventures however.

The Nazis are accused of all sorts of outlandish, occult exploits. Young people today who have learned all their history from video games and films can be excused for thinking that the Nazis mastered evil. While Nazis dabbled in occult and pseudo-science their success (in the sense that they achieved their goals) happened through rather mundane and pedestrian, brutal foot pad and cut throat means. In fact, it was the Reich that fought the First World War that really pulled out the stops when it came to over the top battle tactics, enlisting dragons and cavemen and monsters as well as invisible, poison gas. The Nazis industrialized thuggery. Their predecessors were more esoteric. G-8 foiled the Germans in WWI. He was too old to enlist in WWII, though he was a special adviser to the Army Air Corps' Division of Paranormal Combat.

G-8, as one of the Allies' top aces, confronted a bat staffel, a vampire staffel. and invisible staffel, a spider staffel, a blizzard staffel, a gorilla staffel, a sword staffel, a headless staffel, a staffel of floating heads, and a blood bat staffel, not to mention the aces of the damned, the flying coffins of the damned and the red fangs of the Sky Emperor. Needless to say he triumphed over these adversaries and many, many others in 110 chronicled adventures and many, many more that weren't reported since to this day they are still classified as 'Top Secret.'

I had to inform Ms. Peabody that I'm not in the estate liquidation business, nor is the Dot Matrix particularly set up to handle inquiries about what she has for sale. G-8's legacy is located in Dorchester, however and his spirit and courage are part of the weft and woof of Dorchester's matrix. For that reason, I include this report. G-8's exploits aren't well remembered and that is a shame. The beginning of the 21st century needs heroic exemplars beyond politicians. Great men have done great things in the past. Against all odds, Good has trumped Evil. The lines may have been more clearly drawn in the past, but I think G-8 sets an example that some young Dorchester men could learn something from in these ambiguous days.

While I wish Ms. Peabody all the luck in the world raising enough money to pay off her bills by selling her great-great-grandfather's souvenirs, I hope she can see it in her conscience to donate some memorabilia to the local schools or the public library for an inspiring display of what courage and clean living can accomplish against fearsome foes.

A little more G-8 history.

Shazam!

The door in Dorchester is always open. The porch light is always on. There's always some soup being kept warm on the stove top. There's always room for one more at the table. Strangers welcome. No one leaves this house hungry.

Do you like coffee? Do you like tea? I bet you'll like Dorchester and it will like you if you give it a chance. Do you like soda pop? You'll find Dorchester sufficiently fizzy. Do you like sweets? Do you like romance? Do you like to daydream? Do you like clean streets, manicured parks, decent schools, friendly neighbors, efficient public transportation and room enough to stretch your legs, exercise your muscles and reach your hands to the stars that twinkle like promises overhead. You can reach the stars in Dorchester. They are caught in the waters of Dorchester Bay and they wink against the lapping shores of the Neponset River. You can touch them. You can drink them. They tickle.

Wanted: a good, loving, capable woman who lives in Dorchester. Send a picture of apartment. You can't swing a yardstick in Dorchester without hitting a good, loving, capable woman. You can't walk a block without bumping into some Dot-bumpkin who will excuse himself and say, "Golleeee, Mister, I'm sorry!" He'll shake your hand, dust off where his shoulder hit yours and offer to buy you a cup of coffee. If you really lost your balance, he'll offer to buy you a sandwich to go along with the coffee.

From the northernmost tip of the Polish Triangle, along Dot Ave's hypotenuse, to the third point on Morton Street, Dorchester is full of the salt of the earth. Some people feel small, confused, crippled, almost. They move to Dorchester and they have a secret word that gives them strength and power to overcome their limitations. People excel in Dorchester. They make good despite what others may think. In Dorchester, a little goes a long way and a lot of good things happen where the sun shines. What's the secret word? If you have the urge to ask, "What is it?" you should come and make a visit.

You bet your life in Dorchester. You take your chances and you roll your dice. Every Dorchesterite's a winner. Luck is always a lady in the Dot.

Dorchester, Mass. through the ages

Plucky tykes full of vim and vigor gambol along Dorchester's sidewalks and through its playgrounds under their mothers' watchful eyes. As they grow up, they still see the Dot without judgement or rancor. Dorchester is a good place in which to savor your first bites out of life. Innocence begets joy and Dorchester provides plenty of joy for the imps who play in its environs. It is a family-friendly neighborhood, a fecund cornucopia of newborns and just-borns and toddlers and pre-schoolers who find pleasure and adventure in each others' supervised company. Adventure and new discovery await around every corner.

Around age nine or ten, Dorchester's children become a bit more hard-edged. They have seen their share of hard feelings shared in the harshest manner. They have learned to be rude when the occasion calls for it. The can cuss. They can insult in the time-tested manner of street urchins the world over. They aren't jaded yet, they aren't flinty. They just have a taste of the slow corrosion that a city breeds when people are packed tightly together and a knuckle sandwich or a few well-greased greenbacks smooth the way more easily than proper, meritorious civility. It may take a village to raise a child, but a burly city raises adults schooled in hard knocks.

Teenagers in Dorchester think they've got it all figured out and in some ways they do. Sometimes nice people finish last....at least it seems that way. No matter how many priests staff the parishes and how many evangelists take to the street corners; no matter how many social workers intervene and no matter how many politicians bemoan the lack of law and order and do their best to hire more policemen, Dorchester defies good intentions. So many people packed so tightly together invites a contagion of vice and the young, who haven't much immunity, are susceptible to the lures of the easy buck, the cheap sensation, the feeling of being that comes at no apparent cost until the the effects of snowballing actions catch up.

Young families set up house in Dorchester every day. Some are offshoots of more established families that have existed in the neighborhood for two, three, or more generations. Some couples move here cold and inexperienced, warm to the idea of living close to neighbors and sharing a block of three-deckers. Children are born. Children are always born and life begins anew whenever two people love each other and decide to live together. Diplomacy begins on a mattress and hopefully those good intentions and that goodwill will spill out the bedroom window, over the streets and into the schools and courtrooms and convenience stores. Maybe money will grow on trees or maybe wishes will be fishes and all anyone will have to do to eat is think good thoughts and click their heels. Maybe a smile really can serve as an umbrella.

Middle-aged couples spend their excess pocket change dining out and shopping while squirreling away whatever they can salvage for their offspring's college tuition. Few people think of sending their children to Dorchester colleges. There is UMASS Boston at the tip of Harbor Point and there is LaBoure Nursing College, but beyond those options, there aren't any institutions of higher learning. Not officially. Anyone can get a job in Dorchester and learn as much and more working day-to-day in this hustle-and-bustle community. They won't get book smarts, but street smarts. They won't be philosophers unless they choose to think too much but they will know how to navigate the business world and make right by giving good service. What is life, after all, but providing needed services to our fellow human beings?

There are worse places in which to spend a life from cradle to grave than Dorchester, Mass. Generations have travelled from womb to tomb without venturing farther north than Andrew Square or farther south than Lower Mills. The shores of Dorchester Bay was the limits of their eastward horizon and they turned back after venturing too far into Franklin Park's convoluted, wooded pathways.

A spinster has given up hope for a groom and she sleeps contentedly on the second floor flat she's rented for three decades on Pearl Street. Her dry cleaner's wage pays all the bills and she feels entitled to die at this address. An old man, his back bent and aching from laying bricks all his adult life, sits on his front porch on Bowdoin Street, suspended two stories above the traffic on the road and he smiles as he watches the sun set over the buildings as the shrieks of children and the easily tossed, profane curses of adolescents drift up to his rocking chair. He once squealed as a babe on these very streets. He once swore a blue streak for no reason but his anger. He isn't angry now. He is content living in Dorchester where many things begin and many things end.

Snipe hunting

Is anything so predictable as rain on a weekend in Boston? Even in Dorchester, "The Neighborhood with the Sunny Disposition," it rains more often than not come Saturday. This year especially. This year especially.

The good news is that this weather is the best weather for snipe-hunting and early morning banter at McKenna's Cafe over coffee and omelets confirmed this. Some of the early risers who take walks in Dorchester Park down in Lower Mills reported more than one snipe sighting.

Chubby was eating his usual beans and eggs when he spotted Big Gut walking in the door. "Hey, Big Gut," he shouted over the dining room chatter, "The snipes are running in Dot Park." Big Gut ambled over to the stool next to Chubby's. "I know," he said. "They're as thick as mosquitoes down there in the brambles round by the ball fields. I think I'll get my net later if the weather doesn't take a turn toward sunshine.

Chubby and Big Gut are two of Dorcheseter's most renowned snipe hunters, so when Big Gut said this the dining room chatter dimmed a bit to hear whatever snipe hunting tips could be eavesdropped. The two men dropped the subject altogether after glancing over their shoulders. Chubby asked, "Did the Orioles play last night? What's their standing?" Big Gut replied, "Meh," and ordered a Grampian Champion.

Never seen a snipe? According to these two, experience Dot hunters you can spot one at Dorchester Park just past Carney Hospital on Dorchester Avenue. It's easy to reach via the Mattapan High-Speed, which will whisk you within a stone's throw of the ball fields at Butler Station.

Dot Aquarius

When the Moon is above the William Clapp House and the two ends of Dot Ave are aligned, then peace will guide elections and Love will steer the Red Line.

Let's tally the signs, shall we? One: The moon does regularly raise above the headquarters of the Dorchester Historical Society on Boston Street in the Polish Triangle. Two: While Dot Ave doesn't really run as straight as a rifle shot from Gilette's World Shaving Headquarters to the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory, it is easy to get from Point A to Point B with minimal leaning on the handlebars. Three: If the slowly unfolding yawnfest that is the upcoming mayoral election is any indication, politics in Boston are as worry-free as Tom Sawyer's float down the Mississippi. Four: Love does steer the Red Line, a love of professionalism and a fervent devotion to superior customer service.

We have all the signs of the dawning of the Age of Dorchester.

Harmony and understanding? Check. Sympathy and trust abounding? Check. No more falsehoods or derision? Check. Golden living dreams of visions? Check, depending on what this is supposed to mean. Mystic crystal revelation? What??? I suppose so. And the mind's true liberation? Oh, definitely check. Definitely. Dorchester is a helluva town.

Ready to topple the Back Bay and Beacon Hill as Boston's premier address, The Age of Dorchester is dawning. Rumor at Brothers Diner has it that Senator Kerry is shopping for a pied-a-terre in Mattapan.

A wonderful town

Dorchester, Mass! It's a helluva town. Andrew's up and Lower Mills is down. People ride in a hole in the ground! Dorchester, Mass! It a wonderful town.

Dorchester is a visitors' place. People live there on account of the pace. 100,000 folk with plenty of space. Dorchester, Mass. it's a wonderful place.

Dorchester women dress in silk and satin, or so the fellas say. Dorchester gals are both thin and fattened and they smile all through the day. "No way!" you say? Okay...

When sailors pull into port they head to Dorchester, where the most robust good times are to be had. If you've only got twenty-four hours in Boston before shore leave ends, you might spend a few hours touring downtown, but once evening nears, it's Dorchester that pulls the sailors in like a siren. On a sailor's pay, military scrip will buy more Dot grog than Back Bay Manhattans. The company is better too, more in tune with a swabbie's sensibilities. Simple pleasures and earthy talk.

Just as some sailors have a girl in every port, some Dorchester girls have a sailor on every ship. Dot hospitality is known all over the wide, undulating breasts of the Seven Seas. Many a seasoned bo'sun has been a Dot maid's boatswain. Keep that under your foc'sle and don't tell the coxswain you've been worming the cuntline all the time you've been on shore. No one will believe you've been pulling duty in Dorchester, that seaman's paradise.

Dorchester's whereabouts is well known. Every Master-at-Arms, Pharmacist's Mate, Seaman Schmucketelli, titless WAVE and powder monkey has been to Dorchester at least once on a tour. Those stationed far away have heard marvelous tales of the delights found along the shores of Dorchester Bay. Neither compass nor sextant is needed to find good times in the Dot. Old hands guide raisins loaded with rubber hooeys for the good times sure to roll after the pucker factor has subsided. (Translations here.)

Dorchester, Mass! It beats New York for port call.

A cure for what ails

My friend had a fever and a nasty, nagging cough. "I've had enough of Dorchester!" she hacked, "I'm moving to JP!" If you are going to stay in Boston, why trade the Dot for Jamaica Plain?

Dorchester, at six square miles and almost 100,000 citizens offers more opportunities than the vaguely demarcated JP with quantified inhabitants unknown. Dorchester is an expanse of one neighborhood sub-divided into sub-neighborhoods and parishes, where one street needn't necessarily be like the next. It is a nest of mansions and warehouses, of factories and cottages, of machine shops and tea parlors, of saloons with spittoons next to chic martini bars, of machine shops next to salons, of green grocers alongside bloody-aproned meat cutters. Anyone can find what they want in Dorchester. Who would trade a spacious third-floor Dorchester apartment, convenient to a Red Line T station for a cold water walk-up a block from a bus stop on Centre Street in JP? Someone was suffering from the vapors.

My friend said, "I feel hot. I need to eat something to cool down. The best ice cream I've ever tasted was at J.P. Licks. The best coffee too. I like the Peruvian blend." I agreed that's a nice cup of coffee but getting to J.P. Licks wasn't an easy proposition.

"What's better," I asked, "Sitting in a crowded bus stuck in traffic or rocking along in a car on the Mattapan High-Speed Trolley?" She answered without hesitation: "The High-Speed." I said to her, "Let's see if we can find a cure for your fever along the Red Line extension."

We did. We went to the Ice Cream Smith in Lower Mills and we each had a pistachio cone which we savored walking up to Dorchester Park, strolling around, and then walking back to the Milton Station. My friend said, "You're right. I don't feel so heated now. There were real pistachios in that cone and I feel much better now. After the ice cream and the walk, my stomach, my fever and my spirits are more settled. I think I'll stay in Dorchester a while longer. Who needs JP?"

What's in a name?

I ran into an old acquaintance the other day. She was married when I first met her and her name hasn't changed so I assumed she was still bound by the ties of matrimony. She set me straight in short order.

"You're last name is King, you'll never see any need to change it,"she said. I admitted the idea has never entered my mind. She continued, "Imagine going through the first half of your life as Jennifer Tukus? When I got married I clung to my new last name like a life raft. The best thing my ex-husband gave me, the only good thing he ever gave me aside from our daughter, is my new name. Until something better comes along, I'm going to keep calling myself Jennifer Winner." She had a winning point.

Why is Dorchester called Dorchester, besides the usual accidents of history? What does Dorchester, Mass., a part of Boston, have to do with Dorchester, England? Very little if anything at all anymore. Savin Hill, Neponset, Lower Mills, Codman Square...all these neighborhoods have an organic reason for their designations, but Dorchester? Why? Because Englishmen from British Dorchester settled here four centuries ago? I can walk down every street in the Dot swinging a broom and I won't hit one limey.

I'm not in favor of changing Dorchester's nom-de-guerre for marketing reasons. I'm not in favor of Shadyvale or Pleasantville. Quite the contrary. If Dorchester elects a new name, I think it should reflect the facts on the ground. Palookaville springs to mind. So does Affordabletown, Work Acres, Hope Flats, or Meltingpot. If we want to keep the ties to history, just Dot works fine.

As we have pointed out again and again, Dot is not an disparaging name and the label puts a pointillist focus on a self-contained orb that spins according to rules of its own making. Dorchester is a bull's eye to be aimed at. On Boston's canvas, it is like a spatter of paint that didn't get laid on a Jackson Pollack canvas, one that held all the creator's intended meaning but will never be seen because it's on a potato barn floor somewhere out of sight. It is on the edge of the main show, forgotten and neglected. Only the artist saw its worth but once the paint had dried it was too late to change the picture. The final picture sold for a trillion bucks at auction decades after completion. Dorchester is a work in progress.

I guess it doesn't matter what you call yourself. Dorchester is Dorchester when the day is done. It is full of palookas and hope and affordable rents and the hurly-burly, hurdy-gurdy, sing-song grunt and weft and sweat and chance and happenstance that close company breeds. Dorchester is a Dot, but a name means little on the streets. What is the moon except the thing you see in the sky? Is there a man there looking down? Wave hello. That is the Dorchester way.

Landmark price

I love Lower Mills. I remember the first time I saw it, out exploring, approaching from the north along Dot Ave and hitting the intersection with Washington Street on the right and Adams Street on the left and the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory dead ahead in that little vale through which the Neponset River runs. I've seen some beautiful parts of Boston, but Lower Mills is still my favorite. Its a little out of the way for me to want to live there but I don't think I'd mind one bit if I did make the move.

They don't build apartments like this anymore, let alone factories. The conversion from industrial chocolatier to family dwellings was a wise and welcome decision. When these bricks were laid, people cared what the finished product would look like, not just how many pennies they could squeeze out of a square foot (though I'm sure that was part of the equation). A building had to command attention through respect rather than head-scratching scorn. The architects weren't interested in making a statement beyond the fact that a chocolate factory can be beautifully imposing. They succeeded in ways the Brutalists never did.

What price would you put on the Baker Chocolate property? Someone has paid $17.75 million. That translates to $133,000 dollars and change per apartment according to some calculations. Should the property be converted to condos, the units will still be a fair price considering the setting. Even at a regrettable 150% retail markup.

I don't know how infamous, or even famous, Baker's Chocolate is outside of Dorchester. I was in the Citizens Bank branch on Morrissey Blvd. a few weeks ago and I spent ten minutes or so in front of a a little, glass-topped display case in the lobby. The case features the history of Baker's Chocolate and contains some ephemera, as well as the legend that German Chocolate Cake takes its name not from Deutschland but from Baker's German Chocolate that was the main ingredient in the original recipe. They feature a reproduction of a Baker's German Chocolate package. A camera cannot lie. Apparently this is the Citizens branch closest to Lower Mills and the bank couldn't find any Neponset-themed memorabilia to display. Still, it's a nice touch.

I can't vouch for the Baker complex's interior. Aside from Dorchester Open Studios, I haven't been into an apartment, only the work/living spaces of the artists who inhabit one of the buildings. If the other spaces are as tidy and clean as those in the little building that sports the neon sign proclaiming the factory's name, this may indeed be a very, very nice place to live. Of course it is. It is in Lower Mills and Lower Mills is in Dorchester and Dorchester is in Boston. Also, the Mattapan High-Speed Line serves Lower Mills from the Milton Station on the banks of the Neponset River.

A compact business district with all the amenities, ample walking trails through salt marsh, a hospital 60 seconds away by ambulance in the worst rush-hour traffic the neighborhood has to offer, access to mass transit via 1940s-era trolley cars, and a Victorian chocolate factory dominating the neighborhood. Lower Mills is very nice.

The chocolate hand

They say that so much cocoa powder has been mixed into the dirt in Lower Mills that when it rains the ground smells like chocolate. I've been along the shores of the Neponset River during a downpour and I can vouch for this legend. There is another legend I cannot prove.

The defunct chocolate mills that mark the border between Dorchester and Milton have been there almost forever. It is the site of the first chocolate factory in America and eventually grew into the Victorian gingerbread brickwork that looms over the little valley today. The mills have since been converted into housing. Though the machinery has been long disassembled and sold off, memories of the industry linger in Lower Mills and not just in the architecture.

They say that Zachariah Quincy, a worker at the Walter Baker & Co. plant, injured his hand while hand-mixing a batch of cocoa powder into a corresponding measure of cocoa butter. He was rushed to Carney Hospital where surgeons couldn't reattach the severed hand. Too many major nerves and arteries and ligaments had been shorn free from their moorings. Before the hand could be sent to the Pathology Department for proper disposition, it disappeared.

Over the decades, the people of Lower Mills have reported the appearance of a disembodied, chocolate covered hand creeping along the pathways in Dorchester Park between Carney Hospital and the factory grounds. These sightings usually occur on moonlit nights after the taverns have locked their doors. Some speculate that the hand is looking for its missing owner. Others think it is looking for members of the factory's management. Still others suspect it is looking for someone to clean the chocolate off its fingers.

No news is good news

If your only source for Dorchester news is The Boston Globe, you are forgiven for thinking life in the Dot is more rambunctious than it really is. Be not afraid ye who venture down Dot Ave. There is nothing to fear but the gloom painted in the traditional press. In fact, Dorchester is a tidy, humdrum burg, albeit a sprawling one full of people from all walks of life.

No one was murdered in Dorchester today. There were no crimes beyond petty ones. A teenager left a store without paying for a Charms Blow Pop but his mother took him back to hand over his quarter and made him to pay fifty cents to make amends. After all, a Blow Pop is two treats in one. No sins were committed beyond the venial. Nothing mortal transpired today, not even this week. The parish priests are bored hearing confessions. There is little to justify even a Pater Noster.

Traffic moved along at its usual, leisurely pace. Books were returned to the library before they were due. Cars stopped for pedestrians at crosswalks. People held doors open for those after them. Gentleman tipped their Red Sox caps to ladies they passed on the street. All the talk in the coffee shops was of concern for family members and commiserating about rising food prices in a weak economy. You can still get good deals on produce at America's Food Basket in Field's Corner and at the Farmer's Market grocery store in Mattapan. For those who go and use their cards, both Shaw's and Stop and Shop supermarkets are offering values and some of their outlets are conveniently located near T stops (Shaw's at JFK/UMASS and Milton...Stop & Shop not so much).

Like most days in Dorchester, there was nothing to report. For the people who live here, that isn't a bad thing. It is business as usual.

Snow on fire

Timmy Tyrole's trick would have been a neat one if his grandmother hadn't put the kabosh on his scheme. The hands of idle boys are the Devil's insturments.

Timmy is a student at Everett Elementary School on Pleasant Street. He lives on Cushing Avenue in N'orchester, but with school being cancelled due to inclement weather, Timmy spent the weekend with his grandparents in Lower Mills, a few miles south and expected to stay until after X-mas. In history class, Timmy has been studying the Eastern Roman Empire and he's been quite taken with the notion of 'Greek fire.' This was a weapon the crafty Byzantines deployed against invading navies, an unknown, petroleum-based product (hypothetically) that set the waves themselves aflame around foreign armadas that couldn't be extinguished. Timmy, though overall a good boy, likes to play with matches. He is like a moth when he is around fire.

Timmy's grandparents live on Old Morton Street in Lower Mills, a few blocks from the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory that has been converted to apartments. Faced with spending a few days exiled in Lower Mills, Timmy brought his history book to pass the time and get ahead on homework. During the recent snowstorm he was puttering around in his grandfather's workshop located in the cinder block garage detached from the main house. He was eyeing the jars and cans of mysterious liquids his grandfather has collected over the decades, and Timmy decided to see if he could replicate Greek fire.

He took an empty spackle bucket and mixed gasoline and kerosene and stirred in a pint of old turpentine that had congealed into jelly. He splashed in a dash of cadmium-based acrylic paint because red is the color of fire. His original thought was to toss the whole load into the Neponset River, the way the Byzantines would, but like a good scientist he considered the consequences and didn't want to see his experiment wash out to sea. Figuring snow, which was everywhere, is also water, he trucked his bucket into his grandmother's back yard and poured it over the snow drifts.

Luckily, Hattie Tyrole was washing the breakfast dishes while Timmy was going about his preparations. She rushed out the kitchen door and said, "What do you think you're doing, young man?" Timmy answered, "I'm making Greek fire."

Even with the wind blowing snowflakes and frigid sea breeze off Dorchester Bay, Hattie Tyrole could smell the fumes off Timmy's concoction. "No you're not,"she scolded, "You're getting yourself inside where I can keep my eye on you."

Hattie made hot cocoa and lectured Timmy while he stirred the marshmallows in his cup. "What sort of fool thing were you up to? Do you want to set the whole neighborhood on fire?" Timmy was sullen. He said, "I wanted to make Greek fire. I wanted to see if it really worked." His grandmother said, "What do you know about Greeks? All they're good for is running diners not setting fires. Why don't you be good and dry these dishes? That will be enough fun for both of us."

Timmy wasn't convinced. While he dried the dishes and handed them to his grandmother to put in the cabinets, he looked out the window at the snowdrift he had stained with his imitation Greek fire. He knew he wasn't going to get to put a match to it, the snowfall was burying it at a rate of two inches an hour. His grandmother said, "You're a smart boy, when you grow up you can experiment all you want. Just don't do it now and don't do it in my back yard."

Memorial day

We were at the corner of Richmond Street and Dot Ave this morning at 9:30AM. The Memorial Day parade was assembled and started, heading in stately grace to Cedar Grove Cemetary to honor the war dead. It wasn't a long parade, but it was an important and grand one. The veterans's organizations were assembled, and the pomp was fit for the circumstances and occassion. We hold these truths to be self-evident: a community that honors its heroes is one that will never lose its soul. Dorchester is such a place.

A bigger crowd would have been nice, but a better audience wouldn't be possible. The sidewalks were lined by onlookers who knew the import of what they were witnessing. Tose who marched did it with dignity.

I tied a cloth poppy reminiscent of Flanders fields onto my motorcycle. It fluttered in the wind the rest of the day as I made my rounds around Dorchester. Let us remember the dead today and pay our respects throughout the year at the memorials that stand all over our noble borough. Freedom is not free.

Library Fun

On Tuesdays, the Field's Corner Branch of the Library doesn't open until 11:00 AM. This is a perfect opportunity to visit the branch in Lower Mills which is fairly modern by Boston Public Library standards and more cheerful than the Codman Square Branch. The Lower Mills branch has an extensive (racks and racks!) collection of mystery novels.

Though Dashiell Hammett is credited with inventing the modern American crime novel, you won't find him in the mystery section. Two collections of his complete novels (five in all) are found agains the wall with the literature, filed with other grear authors whose last names begin with H.

For those youngsters not interested in crime, the Lower Mills branch hosts "Mother Goose Storytime" every Wednesday beginning at 10:30 AM. Each week's program consists of a half hour of "songs, stories, rhymes, bounces, tickles and fun" intended for babies, toddlers and their caregivers. The program is geared for people three years of age and under, though it is assumed caregivers will be a bit older than three. The last program this year will be conducted on May 28th, so stop by before it's too late.

The library is a short, uphill walk from the Milton stop on the Mattapan High Speed Line. What better way to spend a Wednesday morning?