Major without the majorettes

Though I've seen majorettes in the Dorchester Day Parade, I don't know of any marching bands based in Dorchester.  They may be there, I'm not too savvy on the school system.  There aren't any adult marching bands that I know of....we are in Boston after all, not New Orleans.  The only parade I see on any other day but Dorchester Day is the march of commuters heading to the T station.

Some people like their lovers big and naughty.  Dorchester is certainly both.  It is Boston's biggest neighborhood and it attracts is share of notoriety.  Dorchester's Marching Band wouldn't be light skinned, though it would include Caucasian saxophone players and snares.  It would be the usual polygraph of hues found on all continents except Australia (yet...there isn't an aboriginal enclave in Dot to date) that wander to and fro between Dot Ave and Blue Hill Avenue.

Dorchester could have a marching band, and I know what it would look like, even if more melatonin would be in the real version.  Dorchester should have an ambassadorial elite that represents the neighborhood at official functions.  Destination unknown?  Poppycock!  Destination Dorchester.  Spank up the beat and get dancing...celebrating...living the Dot life.

Dot Islands

A tip of the fedora to Dotmass for providing this fun fact: the Lydia Clapp House at 6 Percival Street was the first dwelling to be renovated on the television program 'This Old House." If you caught that episode, you may remember the neighborhood, right next to Saint Peter's Church on Meetinghouse Hill, in Dorchester.

The hammers didn't stop swinging when the TV crew pulled out in 1979. Like any thriving neighborhood, Dorchester is in a permanent state of perennial renewal. Some streets are a tad more down-and-out than others but this provides the neighborhood carpenters, roofers, electricians and whatnot with steady paychecks. A day doesn't start in Dorchester without the whine of power tools modernizing the local architecture. It's no wonder all the major construction unions make their headquarters in the Dot, it's not only where they live, it's where there bread is buttered.

One particle of proof is Mount Bowdoin, between Meeting House Hill and Upham's Corner. Take a turn off Hancock Street past Cataloni's bar and you will enter another world. The 'mountain' is covered with beautifully maintained homes, some of them one family, some of them mansions with breathtaking views that have been subdivided into condominiums. The old Saint Margaret's Hospital is there. It is still run by Caritas Christi as a center for women, though what they use the building for exactly is beyond the scope of my investigations, not being a woman.

All in all, Mount Bowdoin is a tidy oasis with reasonable accomodations and nearby amenities. If you are thinking of moving to Dorchester, this is a neighborhood to investigate. Like many things in Dorchester, it is hidden from easy view, a secret.

Good company

There isn't a mass exodus out of Dorchester. It is quite the reverse. People are moving in droves, attracted by low rents, easy amenities, creature comforts and that certain Dorchester je n'est c'est quoi that no one can put their finger on. It's as apparent at the Sugar Bowl as it's apparent at the Mud House as it's apparent at Saint's Diner. Dorchester exerts a magnetic pull that attracts the iron in Bostonians' blood. Going out of business? Not in Dorchester.

Red Line ridership is up and we don't mean the Braintree branch. People are flocking to the stops headed toward Ashmont, Ashmont itself, and on to Mattapan beyond. UMASS Boston and Laboure College are located in Dorchester, but this isn't the most academically minded part of Beantown. This is the working part of the city, full of regular Johns and Janes and Luk Nows and Mimis and Taneshas and Marys and Tyrones and Nathans and Bryces and Toms, Harrys and Charlenes. This is the place where chowderheads and chuckleheads and layabouts and tramps and gypsies find a place to lay their heads and get by, one day after another. The fish are jumping in Dorchester Bay and the living is easy further inland.

Smart boys live in Dorchester. Smart girls do too.

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New York vs. Olde Boston

No one off the baseball diamond enjoys comparing Boston to New York City. Boston can be compared to parts of NYC. Boston can be compared to Brooklyn, for instance, but all of Boston cannot be compared to the whole of America's financial and cultural capital. One can compare parts of Boston to parts of New York City; Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale and Hyde Park to Staten Island, perhaps, but what's the point?

Anyone can compare a seven course meal to a cold, egg hard boiled the day before. The egg has all the building blocks of life and can satisfy an appetite, but there is really no comparison. Boston may cradle powder kegs between its legs, but New York City is the place that shoots off sparks, using its stockpile of ammunition to showy, profitable, pyrotechnic advantage. Both cities are of similar age, but one is a tall man and one is a short one. Every shrimp quickly learns that a Napoleon complex won't get you the girls or respect in the end.

Boston keeps itself content doing what it does best. New York City is two states removed by rail. Boaton well knows that the higher one reaches the harder it is to keep balanced on tippity toes. The higher one swings, the harder the tumble. The faster the boom, there's no stopping the bust. Step on a crack and you'll break your mother's back. There isn't a smooth patch of paving in Boston. This is a city that steps gingerly, minding its peas and queues.

Boston is wise.

Connecting the Dots

A new advertisement for Caritas Carney Hospital is posted oustside Gene and Paul's Meat Market on the corner of East Cottage Street and Dot Ave. It is written entirely in Vietnamese. I don't know what it says but I think it is spot-on. Carney is Dorchester's hospital and they speak the local lingo.

5-minute prostate exams were offered at the Shaw's Supermarket on Morrisey Boulevard today. A local sports radio station had set up a table outside with speakers and a freezer full of frozen pizzas on offer at sale price. The local post of the Disable American Veterans is selling paper poppies by the supermarket's entrance. You should purchase one for your lapel not only memory of the graves in Flanders fields but also to support those who come home with deep, undeniable scars.

Boston's Mammography Van is making the rounds in Dorchester. It stops at Neponset Health Center on May 22 and at Bowdoin Street Health Center on May 27. To make an appointment, call 617-632-1974. Dorchester is sunny today. We should enjoy it to the best we are able.