Estrogen and tonic

Dorchester, Mass. is home to Boston's most refreshingly resilient women. You can cast your vote for mayor, but the real people who can turn this city around reside between Washington Street and Blue Hill Avenue. While some talk about charter reform has been bandied about the electorate recently, no one has proposed what would probably be the most effective form of reform: a Dorchester-based matriarchy.

You may argue that this form of government has some reverse sex-discrimination issues. I reply, let the best women do the job for which they'll be elected. I'm not talking about an Amazon kingdom [sic] but a council of legislators who have experienced the best and worst Boston has to offer: the single mothers, the married mothers, the mothers who are involved in commited relationships without the benefit of legally binding contracts, the women who know how to balance a budget with no fat to cut and keep miniscule economic units running within an unfathomable machine between booms and busts. With that much common sense and hard sense around one table, Boston would have the best bond rating in the world.

Bad economy? The women of Dorchester know how to weather that and come out ahead at cycle's end. Tight credit? Dorchester's women know how to haggle and leverage advantages. Slow job growth? Dorchester women know how to keep many hands occupied and out of mischief.

Sam Yoon was right about this: Boston needs change. Business as usual is working but business could be better and Boston needs a shot in the arm. Mr. Yoon was partly right with his prescription. There does need to be less testosterone at the top. Boston needs a shot of estrogen and tonic. What neighborhood is better equipped to provide it than Dorchester, a place where households defy all odds to keep their hearths welcoming, nourishing places where the next generation of upwardly mobile citizens learn their lessons, get their bearings and learn to stand on principals.

There is a League of Women Voters in Dorchester. It's about time there was an official League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen ensconced in City Hall. This would at least be a layer of bureaucracy that people could identify with. Everyone has a mother and most people have a sister. Quite a few men have girlfriends. Few Bostonians have their own lawyer.

A citizen of Dorchester is called a Dorchesterite, this includes both genders because English doesn't distinguish. In Italian, they are divided: Dorciestriano for a man and Dorciestriana for a woman. In the 1960s and early 70s Dorchester's women would be called Dorchesterettes! with an exclamation point added for extra allure. If I may borrow a hackneyed metaphor to title Dorchester's women, I suggest we call each one a pillar of the community. Every man in Dorchester should wear a hat. That way they can tip thier hat in respect to the Dorchester women they pass on the street.

Dorchester excelsior!

Today's editorial was going to be the usual pie-in-the-sky, rosily tinted view of life in Dorchester that most of the reports here turn out to be. This article came across the teletype today and I read it with interest to get to the meat of the Dorchester-related subject matter toward the end. If the author doesn't mind I'll include a pertinent quotation, however, I encourage you to read his thoughtful observations in their entirety:

"Once, when I was living in Dorchester, MA, and we had had several gang-related killings, the community packed into a huge meeting with the mayor. What did they ask for?

"Longer hours at the library. More staff at the community youth center. Midnight basketball. Lunch programs in the summer for kids who eat their only good meal most of the year when they get lunch at school. A warrant-sweep to get gang leaders into confinement, at least until the schools were open, so good kids could take advantage safely of the library, the community youth center, midnight basketball, free lunches."

This was the original springboard for what I was going to introduce today and I juggled on how to approach the subject: 1.) That must have been a long, long time ago. Today's Dorchester is a virtual Eden. 2.) He must have moved away yesterday. My sunny disposition naturally drew me toward Door Number One. Preferring the easy mark and the easy jest, I'll always pick the lady over the tiger.

Before I had started writing though, this report came over the news wire. One person's joke is another person's tragedy and the lack of good taste in my original tone wasn't lost on me. When the police say a man is pronounced, they don't mean he is pronounced the groom on what should be the happiest day of his life. They mean he is dead. It's not a reason to yuk it up. A young man was killed and he probably wasn't Pol Pot. He was a neighbor. A young man was shot to death a few blocks from the zoo.

People outside Dorchester may say to other people embarking on a visit, "It's a jungle down there." It isn't. I have spent at least two thirds of just about every day here for the last two years. I've never been the victim of a crime and I have never witnessed a crime. Contrary to what you may have been told, Dorchester is not a den of thieves and cut throats.

Do you want proof that Dorchester isn't a thief's paradise? I owned I bicycle I hated that I bought at Target. I rode it three times, hated it each time more than the last, and decided I wanted it stolen. I left it unlocked by my porch. It took six months for that bike to disappear in the dead of night. Maybe that says more about the uselessness of the bicycle, but it did ride okay, just not to my liking. I think it says more about the quality of the people who pass my yard every day at all hours of the night. I know they pass, I hear them through my open windows and I slumber feeling safe protected by only a scrim of fly screen and a flimsy wisp of curtain fabric.

There are rough and tumble sections of Dorchester. Denying that would be disingenuous. I have tried to include those parts in my essays though, I must admit, though I pass through them, I don't often linger. This isn't because I feel unsafe. There just isn't much to do or look at to hold my interest or my commerce. There are only so many haircuts a man can get in a month and I'm not really in the manicure or hair braiding market. After I buy a bottled drink at a corner store, how long can I linger on the sidewalk sipping it before I am off to elsewhere?

Dorchester isn't really a place full of attractions beyond being an overall attractive place to live. Much of the living attraction comes from affordable rents or from accessible businesses that cater to day-to-day needs. Well, most places have businesses that cater to day-to-day needs, tourists don't visit Dorchester to tour the Fields Corner Shopping Center. If you can afford the rent in a waterfront condo, you'll live closer to the water for the views. While Dorchester's repetitive three-decker streets have a beauty all their own, they don't match the sea breeze or the view of sunrise over the Harbor's mouth at the edge of the vast Atlantic beyond.

Murders happen in Dorchester. This is an unfortunate fact. Another fact is that murders happen everywhere. If they are more common in Dorchester, this is our communal lament. Longer library hours won't change that, but perhaps the people who demand them know in their bones something the rest of us don't realize. Maybe, given the choice between two types of culture, people will follow their better instincts and improve themselves through book smarts rather than street smarts. Hopefully, a library contains the best fruits of the best minds at work, as well as DVDs of collected television sitcoms and 'Ghostbusters.' Street culture is full of sharp intellects at work too, but as often as not they end up in a result that while a game and a joke for some, is a tragedy for someone else in the community. Dorchester needn't be that way and I don't feel it trends toward anarchism red in tooth and claw. This is a fine neighborhood pregnant with good intentions and instincts.

It takes one bad apple to spoil a barrel and Dorchester has its share of worms. It also has its share of honorable townspeople who live what they believe in practice as well their unarticulated theory. They are the majority. You can throw a pebble in Dorchester without hitting a church or community center. Dorchester is solid so that pebble will create few ripples. This isn't a hypocritical community. It is a place where people suffer their burdens and deal with them as constructively as they can.

A bit of Latin to end this on a civilized note: Dorchesterii carpe vita exceslior! Dorchesterites seize life ever upwards!

And to end on a light note:

...or you can check it out from your local library branch when it's open.

A Dorchester katzenjammer

Heads are hurting on the Monday after Dorchester Day. It's not from overindulgence, can anyone imbibe too much Dot magic? It's from the concussive booms and brass that accompanied yesterday's Dorchester Day Parade, a miles-long extravaganza that tried the tympani of eardrums more used to the sounds of the wind's whisper off the harbor.

The parade was led by a phalanx of emergency vehicles with their sirens blaring, announcing the main feature. The main feature was made up of marching bands, stereo speakers on flat beds, dancers, revellers and police motorcycle escorts. The BPD drives Harleys, which aren't the quietest bikes on the road. Perhaps they should enlist a Vespa patrol to sneak up on the perps.

The crowd lining Dot Ave was enthusiastic and vocal. They cheered when appropriate and cheered for no other reason than unabashed Dot Pride at the drop of a hat. Normal conversation measures 60 decibels. The sidewalks along Dot Ave regularly exceeded three hundred, such was the verve of the crowd. The seismograph atop the Hancock Tower registered 1.2 on the Richter Scale yesterday afternoon at 2:21 PM. Scientists attribute it to Dorchester Day.

If the collective pride of Dorchester can vibrate the foundations of one of Boston's most well engineered landmarks on a whim, think of what it could do if this energy were harnessed. You wouldn't be living in Longfellow's Boston anymore. Bars would be open around the clock, and the T would keep the same hours. Hammers would be hitting nails every hour of everyday as everyone worked hard to earn a paycheck building this city better.

After so much excitement, you would think Dorchester would be sleeping off its bender the following day, but no. Dorchesterites reported this morning with their usual gusto. They know a city doesn't just run on pride. It takes hard work and stamina.

We call it Dorchester, by gum!

Again, today, I heard a slur that grates on my ears. I told someone I live in Dorchester. He replied, "You mean Poor-chester, don't you?" He said it with an elbow in my ribs and a wink. The jab to my chest was enough to almost spill my beer. My indignation came just shy of my shooting beer out my nose like a dowsed hen.

No. I didn't mean Poor-chester. I meant the much-maligned Dot. I meant the biggest and best part of Boston and I am not ashamed to say that I live in Dorchester. Snobs can look down their noses at Dorchester, but I don't. Neither do all the other good people who choose to make a home here. Those are the people who stride into a new day with puffed out chests and imperial bearing whether they have the status or situation to command the respect they justly deserve.

Dorchester is an empire of dirty fingernails, of street smarts, of mechanical ability, of earned experience honed to an edge that cuts through flimflam and cuts to the beating heart of all that is wrong in Boston. You can't make a city of students who will move away after graduation. You can't run a campus without janitors, secretaries, technicians, assistants to all the bright minds around which Boston's much vaunted glory and reputation revolves. The real smarts are in the struts not the strutting.

If you don't like Dorchester, don't visit. It's obvious enough that most people vote with their feet or their Charlie Cards and don't leave their calling cards in Dorchester. The neighborhood is none the worse for wear because of their ignorant decisions. Who needs people who don't have the eyes to see beauty under the blemishes? Dorchester isn't a catwalk at a fashion show, all surface and little substance. Dorchester is where raw meat is seasoned and cooked to provide a toothsome and satisfying meal.

My companion on Charles Street took a sip of his beverage. "Doesn't the trash bother you? Don't your feet stick to the sidewalk?" he asked. Yes on both counts, but the trash on Dot Ave or any Dorchester side street doesn't bother me as much as the flotsam and jetsam that I find on the sidewalks puking up their guts after a late night bender downtown. I have yet to see a Dorchesterite vomit into the bushes or urinate in plain sight. The people of Dorchester have a sense of propriety. What happens in Dorchester usually stays there and the wider world is none the wiser that great things happen here.

Sneeze into your elbow

Without going into the reasons why, I attended a lecture by a certified CDC epidemiologist today on Swine Flu and Bird Flu. This gentleman thought the Swine Flu currently all the rage in the news was a flash in the pan and a dead issue, so to speak, while the threat that Bird Flu presents continues to keep him up nights.

How is influenza virus most commonly transmitted? The lecturer said, "We cough and sneeze all the time into our hands and then what do we do?" To illustrate, he turned to his right and said, "Nice to meet you," while pretending to shake hands with an imaginary friend. He went on to say, "We are teaching school children to sneeze into their elbow," and he demonstrated by fake sneezing into the crook of his arm. "It may look odd to us but we can learn something from what the kids are learning to do. It could prevent a pandemic."

Customs and social norms change. In the Middle Ages, if you were at a banquet and your face itched, good manners commanded that you scratch with a piece of bread crust. This was because forks and other eating utensils didn't exist. Everyone served themselves from common platters with their fingers. To scratch you itchy zit and then put your hand into everyone else's food was bad form. Don't try scratching your face with bread in a restaurant today.

I was at the Ryan Playground on Dot Ave this afternoon and I saw a boy of about twelve sneeze into his arm. Good boy. It was probably a touch of hayfever, but it could be Swine Flu or the more dreaded avian variety. He won't be transmitting any germs unless someone takes an inordinate interest in the weave of his shirtsleeve. A local outbreak has been prevented.

Hello cello

Some people think that the only instruments that produce music in Dorchester, Mass. are harmonicas playing the blues and car stereos spewing out obscene, hip-hop lyrics at high volume. Well, they haven't been on Boston Street where the cars exhale polka melodies, and they haven't heard of Tony Rymer.

Young Mr. Rymer plays the cello. You've heard of it? It's a big violin, like a bass in a jazz band but played with a bow. It requires practice and perfection and a long-earned familiarity with the instrument. Cello players don't usually play in garage bands. They need to read music. I'm sure there are a few gritty cello players who teach themselves, the way there are punk sousaphonists and self-taught violinists like Ian Anderson or any Okie who fiddled the Devil back down to Hell. Mr. Rymer has chosen a different path. He is learning to master his craft.

G-8 in Dorchester

World War I, the War to End All Wars, is a memory preserved in textbooks and on granite monuments in Dorchester and Boston. We talk about "being in the trenches" but is was nothing compared to the men who actually lived the battles and boredom that gave birth to this phrase. Even today, three people won't light their cigarettes off the same match, two is the limit, in Dorchester. This custom became common in WWI, the first Big One.

Tiffany Peabody is preserving part of the legacy of the war that defined modern times. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the renowned battle ace, G-8,who isn't known by any other name. Peabody is this lady's married name and she doesn't give her maiden one. As she explains, "Everyone called my great-great grandfather G-8, his fellow legionnaires, the people at Saint's Diner, his children and grandchildren. Even his wife. During and after the war he was G-8 and no one ever said any different."

Ms. Peabody has a roomful of G-8 memorabilia stored and sorted in a walk-in closet in her apartment off Dot Ave. G-8 was born and raised in Dorchester and, after the Armistice, he returned to live a life that was uneventful save for watching his children grow and a next generation take the reins from them. G-8 passed away at Carney Hospital in 1963, though there aren't any obituaries on microfiche to commemorate that detail. Perhaps his exploits seemed too fictional to grace a newspaper of record.

That said, Ms. Peabody has shoe boxes full of medals and mementos that offer testimony to G-8's courage and daring in defense of liberty. They are a treasure trove of memorabilia that reflects the values of Dorchester in days long past that still have relevance today. Many little G-8s are growing up in Dorchester in the 21st century. It would do them well to know of the brave men who went before them.

Slap Happiness

You make your own happiness as surely as you decide where you want to live. You wear your neighborhood like a cloak. It could be a hair shirt or it could be a velvet cape. You can be Batman in Dorchester or you can be a midnight can collector pushing a rattling shopping cart. Both are on midnight patrol.

Dorchester...Dorchester...Dorchester...Dorchester...Dot. The Red Line rumbles a lulling rhythm along its tracks through Sydney Street back yards. Dishes rattle, bicycle bells vibrate, pressed pants slip off of hangers, neckties are loosened and tossed cavalierly over a chair. Dorchester is a stiff drink that goes down too smooth for argument...ask the patrons at the Harp and Bard. Whiskey and bubble tea are Dorchester's drinks of choice depending on the season and time of day.

Dash-dash-dash-dot! A melody descends to it's high point. All is well and good in Dorchester. Look around and you won't see an unhappy face. People take pratfalls but they dust themselves off and stride off, starry-eyed to a job interview. Dorchesterites can't lie low, they are too proud and straight-backed, too used to conquering the world or, at least, Boston, to sleep a day away. Flash me a V for victory and I will draw you a swollen-bellied D for Dorchester. The proof is in the calligraphy.

Turkey patrol

I met with the Edison Kid in the apartment he shares with his mother and sister on Edison Green in Dorchester, just south of Dot Ave's intersection with Columbia Road. Edison Green is the street's name as well as the name of the park that the pavement surrounds, and it is the name of the apartment building that makes up the hypotenuse of this quintessentially, strangely shaped Boston street. I vote in that that building. The street runs in four directions. You won't find that in Oklahoma City.

The Edison Kid is fourteen years old and he asked that I keep his secret identity anonymous. Because he is a minor I agreed. He wore a domino mask a-la the Lone Ranger and the Two-Gun Kid while we spoke, though his family's name was prominently written on the mailbox by the front door I knocked on to gain access.

"I'm going to keep turkeys out of the park," the Edison Kid told me and he said it like he meant it. What does he have against turkeys? I told him I hadn't seen any turkeys in our neighborhood and that I walk about just about every day, keeping tabs on what's going on in our shared jurisdiction. "I think the turkeys will eat all the hickory nuts in the park," the Edison Kid replied. "If they do that, the squirrels won't have anything to eat. There'll be no turkeys on Edison Green while the Edison Kid is on watch."

I'm no turkey biologist but I always thought turkeys eat grubs and forest dander. "No, no," the Edison Kid corrected me, "They're scavengers. They'll eat anything that isn't nailed down. They're the goats of the bird world. They're opportunists. They'll even eat tin cans if they have to."

I asked the Edison Kid how he meant to drive the turkeys away. He was wearing a pork pie hat that was a few sizes too large, and he pulled it down so the brim touched the top of his mask. "I'll show you," he said and then he marched into his bedroom to come out again armed with a wrist rocket slingshot. "Is that legal in Massachusetts?" "Sometimes a vigilante doesn't obey the letter of the law," he replied.

"What's your ammunition?" I inquired. He reached into his pocket and shook a 25-cent box of Boston Baked Beans. "Any baby can buy candy," he told me. "I buy these beans for shot. They won't kill the turkeys and they won't give 'em lead poisoning, but they'll scare the bejeezus out 'em and keep 'em out of Edison Green."

Feral turkey sightings have been on the rise in Boston recently in the most improbable places but so far they haven't been seen in North Dorchester. Is the Edison Kid responsible? He admits he hasn't seen any himself but he is on the lookout. Turkeys beware.

Three cheers for earthworms!

Worm casts are popping up all over Dorchester. It's a welcome, if not exactly pretty sign of spring. It is a sight that warms a gardener's heart however. The earthworms are active and busy turning the soil and keeping it productive. Worm casts are those little piles of granulated earth that you find all over the ground without every seeing why. The worms prefer to do their work when no one is watching.

It is dung is a sense, but it doesn't attract any beetles. The casts really don't bother anyone at all. Stepping in them is certainly better than stepping in what dogs leave behind. If only people would keep worms as pets and take them for walks. The sidewalks would be more pleasant and no one would complain about owners ignoring curbing laws. Are there laws in Dorchester demanding that one pick up after his or her dog? I know people do, but I also know there are people who don't. I'm not too fond of the people who don't.

So, in honor of the humble nightcrawler and his noble, unobtrusive work, a salute. Most species of worms have five hearts and it's no surprise. They give and they give and ask nothing for themselves. They make the world fit for flowers and fruits, vegetables and shady trees, wine, hops and medicinals. Three cheers for earthworms!

Sharing wealth

Dorchester is a warren of streets, a labyrinth, a maze in which rats seek cheese and innocent pedestrians lose thier way. The tangled streets of Dorchester, Mass. lead out into the rest of greater Boston in one direction and into a horn of plenty in the other. Dorchester is shaped like a tortured gall bladder but its stones are not calcifications cemented with hardened bile. They are not pyrite either. They are the real thing, nuggets of pocket change to be spread around willy-nilly, for good cause.

I was at the Fields Corner Shopping Center this afternoon, picking up carrots and a bottle of hot sauce. A well dressed man approached me in the parking lot. "Excuse me sir, I have a flat tire and Auto Zone up the road charges $13.95 for a plug kit. My son is sleeping in the car, you can see him, can you help me out?"

I am usually dubious of such things, but this was a well dressed man, one gentleman to another, with a plausible story. I was admiring his outfit of light pants, navy jacket, woven leather loafers, crisp, white shirt and red tie sporting a tasteful green seahorse motif, as he walked from Dot Ave to my position. I thought it was a little early in the season for such an ensemble but he wore it well. As a person who travels on two wheels and doesn't carry a spare, I felt his pain. He said, "I work for Verizon, across from South Station. I pass people every day asking for money and now I'm one of them. I guess sometimes bad things happen to good people." I wasn't about to pass judgement on his goodness but I was inclined to help someone with a flat tire, having been in the same straits more than once.

The man had a Carribean accent. When I handed him fourteen dollars he said, "I'm sorry. You misheard me. A plug kit costs $30.95. That sounded more believable since the plug kit for my motorcyle cost $45. I emptied my wallet. He said, "You can take my cell phone number. I work for Verizon." I said I didn't want to be bothered with a lot of follow-up. I gave him my address and told him to mail me what he owed me. "I will," he said, "You'll have faith that there are honest people in the world,"

Perhaps I will. I'm out thirty-five bucks and while I'll miss them, I won't miss them overly much. It is better to waste money with good intentions on a confidence scheme than to squander it on loose women and booze.

I don't go to church. If I did, I would be making donations to give help the needy. I figure I'm cutting out the middleman by giving it to those who have the nerve and need to ask directly. I won't be fishing in my mailbox for reimbursement, but I will be contentedly surprised to find my trust in humankind rewarded with a payback plus an extra five-spot tacked on for my troubles.

An American werewolf in Dorchester

Tonight's happy hour led me to the Dot Tavern where I was sitting next to a bearded chap with a Southie accent. We didn't talk at first which suited me fine. I was finishing up the horse racing news in the Herald and preferred not to be interrupted from my studies. After I put my paper down, the 'gentleman' gradually engaged me in conversation.

He saw what I had been studying in the newspaper so the talk started with palaver about the ponies. While he regaled me with tales of his well chosen trifectas I noticed that his eyes always wandered when a lady walked past. The woman in question could be young or old, attractive or not, blond, brunette, redhead, bluehair, cross-eyed, snaggle-toothed or super-model. If they belonged to the fairer sex, which naturally they did, his eyes would follow them from behind my left shoulder to the hairy edge of his left ear.

"I've been drinking beer all day. I could use me a nice goose right about now," he told me. I suggested he visit Gene and Paul's Meats just down the road. This grocery has the freshest meats of all varieties from any flesh-bearing, land bound animal one might wish to consume.

He said, "Naw, I don't cook. I just want me a little tickle." Then he pointed with a crooked finger at a spiky-haired, crew cut brunette lass sitting in a booth. "That's the goose I want to pluck," he said, extending his finger out then pulling it back a few times. I excused myself.

I introduced myself to the ladies in the booth. It was all, "Hello, I'm Whalehead King...it's a nice night compared to yesterday...what do you do for a living?... uh huh, uh huh...do you live close by?...do you know that the creep who keeps looking over his shoulder at us and licking his lips isn't watching me but you?"

It turned out to be last call for the ladies though the evening was still early, hours before cutoff time. I offered to escort them home but they refused. I said I was leaving anyway, and we left together, parting company at Columbia Road. The goose hunter didn't follow, which is just as well.

Broken down car

We were wandering down Dot Ave, as is our habit, when we were stuck behind a young lady yelling into her cell phone. Apparently her car had broken down, the transmission shot, and she was displeased because she had just purchased her vehicle. She shouted into the phone, "I want my money back! I've got no money and I'm stranded in Boston! I don't know anyone and I can't get home!"

When she concluded her tirade against whoever had sold her the car, she started to trudge down the sidewalk, head down, fists in pockets, with no hope for satisfaction. I approached. "I couldn't help but overhear," I said, "I think the whole neighborhood knows you're a stranger to these parts."

She replied, "I'm stranded in Boston." I told her she was stranded in Dorchester, the best part of Boston, and pointed out that there were far worse places to be lost in. Having eavesdropped on the conditions of her unplanned exile, I offered her a drink at C.F. Donovan's and a meal, though I couldn't offer her a place to rest her head overnight. She accepted.

We had apple martinis and shared a plate of nachos and a platter of the house comfort dish, macaroni and cheese. She seemed in need of comfort food. She vented her frustrations about the state of her new (to her) car and how she had been ripped off. I listened, letting her relieve the pressure on her chest. After we were done eating and our glasses were empty, I paid the tab and reassured her that she was in friendly territory.

As I fished dog-eared dollar bills and quarters out of my topcoat pocket for a tip, the lady said, "Thanks for helping me get through this." I assured her that after my departure another benefactor would soon appear to solve her more pressing problems, maybe even a mechanic who would rejigger her transmission to jet efficiency. Plenty of tradesmen live in Dorchester who are more handy with a wrench than I am.

Full of cheddar and Monterey Jack and starch, we parted company. I went home to sleep the sleep of the contented. She went in search of an answer to her problems. I am sure she will leave Dorchester contented as well. This is a neighborhood of people who help each other as best as they are able according to their talents. I'm more barfly than mechanic.

Bagels in Dorchester

We were at Logan International Airport yesterday and purchased a coffee at the Bruegger's Bagels in Terminal E. The professionalism of the clerk impressed us so we picked up an application to join the Bruegger's team to "have fun and make dough," as the brochure says.

According to the official listing on the application, Bruegger's has four locations in Boston: on School Street, on Longwood Avenue, on Congress Street, and, under a heading all its own, at 644 Beacon Street in Kenmore Square. I noticed something was missing and not just the airport franchise. People in Dorchester enjoy a good bagel as much as the folk that crowd Downtown Crossing.

The Ba Le Bakery is proof enough that Dorchesterites appreciate specialty bread. Dot Ave is usually congested with double parked mini-vans in front of this shop for their buy-two-get-three deal. The very fine Mud House down in Neponset has bagels but they aren't the house specialty. Dorchester could use a good bagel shop that specializes in bagels even if it is a chain, even if it is Bruegger's and not Finagle-a-Bagel. There is a vacuum that needs to be filled.

I filled out the application with black pen but I haven't mailed it yet. I don't know if I want to serve bagels and sandwiches to tourists downtown or in Longwood or at the airport, when I could be serving them to my Dorchester neighbors who need a good bagel as much as the next guy. This is the kind of minor ethical dilemma that keeps me up nights. Maybe my community would be better served if I took a second, part time job manning the aisles at the A.J. Wright at Fields Corner. I'm all for "having fun and making dough" but I'd rather do both in Dorchester. It's nice here.

Free stuff in Dorchester

There are usually free things for the taking along Dorchester's streets, especially on trash days. Many people in this ecologically conscious and penny-pinching part of Boston cannot bear to let good things go to waste. Boston's municipal dump was once located here and though part of it has become Pope John Paul II Park along the banks of the Neponset River, Dorchesterites realize that good results don't always come from discarding things that have outlived thier usefulness.

The following advertisement appeared on Craig's List this afternoon: "I have a free washing machine(whirlpool) and dryer(kenmore) in my basement. I have no idea if it works or not...but I just want it out. Call 617-719-8420 if interested. You must bring help to move it. (Location Dorchester)"

This is a neighborly offer in every way. It points out the manufacturers of said appliances in case anyone is observing any boycotts of which the author is unaware. It admits up front that caveat emptor (or, in this case, receptor) is the order of this exchange. It also plainly points out that on-site, manpower is unavailable. Party A has something and Party B is welcome to take it without interference. A+B should equal C: Party B is in possesion of a washer-dryer set of questionable utility. It could be a labor saving jackpot or it could be a waste of time for everyone but Party A.

Many people in Boston's more fashionable neighborhoods question the utility of having Dorchester as part of the larger, civic body. It is a blind spot on their part. Dorchester may be full of cast-offs, but most of what is neglected can be put to good use. Everything discarded can be recycled, and there is also a rich vein of talent and undiscovered elements in the Dot that hasn't come close to being tapped. No one looks. Good students don't advertise on Craig's List while lawbreakers are broadcasted every day in the popular news.

A call for mussels

In terms of the number of described species, mollusks make up the second largest phylum in biology. Local malacologist Kenin Czaja, who is headquartered in the neighborhood of Peabody Square, is making a special study of American freshwater mussels and he needs help collecting specimens.

Specifically, he is looking for 'lightly used' freshwater mussels shells. Complete pairs only. He is apparently scrutinizing the relationships between both halves of these bivalves. He is willing to pay a reasonable bounty for collected freshwater mussel shells, not live specimens, and will also pay the cost of shipping. Size doesn't matter. This scientist is examining his subject at all stages of development from infancy to old age. He does ask that shells not be broken, though whatever unavoidable, minor wear-and-tear the mussels have undergone over their lifetimes is understandable and of interest to him.

We do not publish his contact information here for fear he may be inundated with cranks, but those who are serious and who happen to come across freshwater mussels in their travels are encouraged to read the specifics of Mr. Czaja's needs by clicking here and scrolling down about a half a screen.

Many interests are pursued in Dorchester to broaden the scope of human knowledge in every field imaginable. Many hands make light work. We hope that Mr. Czaja will make some great discovery along that ever-stretching road that some people call 'Progress' and other people call 'Dot Ave.'

The Dotusi

The Widow O'Malley's basement on Chickatawbut Street in Neponset is full of the mingled sounds of house music and boot heels. Her nightclubbing grandchildren and their neighborhood colleagues are intent on choreographing the next dance craze they expect to sweep Boston and then the nation. Who knows? At the 2012 Democratic convention we may be watching the delegates do the Dotusi on broadcast television.

Charlie O'Malley explains: "I was watching a Batman marathon on cable one night and I saw Batman dancing the Batusi. I could relate to Adam West. This is how we dance at block parties around Neponset Circle. The hand gestures and the hip shake...they're pure Dorchester. I thought about how to make it more local and express the spirit of the Dot and I got to thinking that, really, at all the clubs downtown, Dorchesterites are lords and ladies of the dance floor. By combining the Batusi with some Riverdance moves, I think we've come up with something that combines the best elements of Dorchester in a way everyone can get on board and strut their stuff."

He and his friends went through some steps for my benefit. They made their fingers into peace signs and pulled their hands over their eyes. They shook their arms like they were holding a cape. They shook their booties for at least five seconds. The whole time they were high-stepping with their feet rat-a-tat-tat on the Widow O'Malley's cement basement floor.

"Come Spring we're thinking of renting the Party Trolley to introduce this new dance to Boston," Charlie continued. "We'll start here in Neponset and then head inbound tying up traffic all the way with strobe lights, disco balls and fresh moves. We're planning on hitting Felt and Machine and then Utopia in Fenway. We'll probably stop at other places along the way. We want to spread the Dotusi wherever it will take. I think this dance has it all: blue collar, camp, highbrow, Irish, and most importantly...fun."

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."

The beer they call liquor

Haffenreffer Private Stock, that supposed scourge of the inner city, 'liquid crack', ghetto-juice, actually has a respectable history with roots in Boston's brewing history. In fact, the site where it was orginally made is home to a national brewery that is either reviled or admired depending on your point-of-view. Boston's own Sam Adams Beer is made where the recipe for this supposed, modern urban scourge was first concocted:. As the label says: "Malt Liquor...with the imported taste." The Boston Brewing Co. is doing well on the foundations laid by Haffenreffer & Co. just after Prohibition was repealed. A little history.

When malt liquor was first introduced (please don't call it beer) it was sold as an upper class drink. The first national brand was 'Country Club' sold in tiny cans for cocktail party sipping because it tasted like champagne. The breed of yeast, among other things, lends understated, flavorful undertones reminiscent of fine wines. You can find this beverage in many corner package stores not just in Dorchester and Roxbury, but in East Boston, Charlestown, the South End, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and in the surrounding communities of Somerville, Chelsea, Cambridge, Milton and Quincy.

Of course people now associate malt liquor with poverty, skid row, bums, and pocket-poor college students and hip-hop imressarios looking to make a quick endorsement buck. It didn't start out that way. I am just starting to scratch the surface of my malt liquor research (don't ask how this project came about) but one of the more popular, earlier brands was called Champale for a reason. It was intended for the upper crust or, at least, the upwardly mobile. Natty tennis players drank it. That's not an image you associate with gangsters sporting low-slung, baggy pants even if they can "sing."

Boston didn't invent malt liquor but the city, Jamaica Plain and Stony Brook in particular, played an important role in its evolution. Haffenreffer Private Stock is still made according to the original recipe and it is still sold here and enjoyed by thousands of Bostonians. To see how it matches up to other brands, click here. Indepent experts agree it stands up pretty well to the competition. Sam Adams would be proud.

If you are interested in malt liquor let me know. I prowl all the packies in the Dot and can offer reviews of what's on offer. It's a head-splitting job but somebody should do it to set the record straight.

Pennies from Dorchester

When Betsy Trumbull was burying her guinea pig in the back yard of her Tonawanda Street three-decker, she made a fortuitous discovery. It was the day after Thanksgiving. Chirples had died the day before Thanksgiving but there was a wake to be held and no one, not even a guinea pig, gets buried on a holiday. During the Thanksgiving meal, Betsy offered up the sentiment that even though Chirples was gone, he had lived a good life. He was six years old when he met his maker.

It's been a warm autumn this year and the ground in Dorchester hasn't been locked up with frost. The shovel slid into the dirt as Betsy Trumbull and her father excavated Chirples' final resting place. Her father tossed a shovelful of dirt out of the ground and Betsy noticed a velveteen bag mixed with the soil and puddingstone pebbles. She called the operation to halt to examine it. The bag was worm-eaten and moldy but still intact and drawn closed with a scarlet silk string. Inside the bag was a carefully folded envelope fashioned from butcher's paper. Inside the envelope were ten tarnished coins.

"What are these?" Betsy asked. Her father replied, "Some kid's treasure buried and forgotten. It looks like Chirples is being buried in a special place." After the funeral service was concluded with all due solemnity, Betsy and her father took the coins into their kitchen. Her father said, "Let's leave this in a glass of Diet Coke overnight and see what we've got."

By morning the carbonation had scoured the coins free of all accumulated debris and corrosion. Betsy found herself in the possession of ten shiny Indian Head Pennies minted in 1908. The following Monday (today) Betsy and her father took the pennies to the check cashing parlor on Edward Everett Square. They were informed that pennies of this vintage and in this condition were worth a dollar a piece. Mr. Trumbull urged cashing them all in. Betsy thought otherwise. She cashed in nine for nine whole dollars. She is keeping the other one in memory of Chirples and his final resting place. She knows she won't live on Tonawanda Street forever. Someday, she hopes to live on Melville Avenue and then she will be able to look at this penny and think of where Chriples is buried.