Dorchester smells like sweat

Labor Day. Dorchester, Mass. is home to the headquarters of organized bricklayers, masons, carpenters, electricians, welders, ironworkers, sheetrockers, framers, subcontractors, pavers, stevedores, teamsters, railroad workers, teachers, firefighters, policemen, government janitors, postal carriers, and healthcare workers. Labor Day passes, a restful break for all the busy hands that keep Boston running on time and on budget.

Hot dogs on the grill, a bun in the oven, relish on the side, sweet potato salad...these are the things that make Labor Day in the Dot a holiday to be savored. It's not just the enjoyment of rest between routines that makes Labor Day Dorchester-specific. It is because Dorchester, like few other parts of Boston is a neighborhood where people have dirt under their nails and grease in their pores that a scrub brush can't erase after only one pass. Dorchester is a sweaty place, where garbage men retire to sleep the sleep of the exhausted and their wives and girlfriends get accustomed to the smell. Dorchester is a place where a worker earns a paycheck from the sweat of his or her brow and the ache of overextended muscles.

It isn't easy being a hod-carrier. It isn't a walk in the park to dig ditches, shovel to soil hour after hour. It isn't easy to maintain the skyscrapers and office parks that information workers take for granted. Someone has to tighten an elevator's cables and someone has to fine tune the escalators. Dorchester's working folk trudge up and down endless flights of stairs and ladders to get into and out of tight places, making sure everything transpires as it should, without a hitch. If a belt doesn't slip, if the gears turn as intended, if everything is well-oiled and all the parts fall into place, if a toilet flushes, chances are that a Dorchesterite has done the job to spec.

Dorchester smells like sweat: clean, honest sweat that pours out of a working person hard at a thankless chore. A wet forehead gets mopped by a wet hand swung cavalierly without any thought but to keep a hammer swinging without missing a beat. No candles or perfumes can disguise the scent of Dorchester. It is as natural as Adam and Eve being cast into the Garden of Dorchester and laboring to build a home for themselves. There is no shame in being ripe.

Dorchester, Mass., brawny and savvy Dorchester, Mass. Boston would be weaker without the good folk who inhabit the Dot. Boston wouldn't be Boston. It would be frozen without lubricant, without electricity, without workers, without hope, without anyone able to jerry-rig a broken part in a complicated, interlocked machine. Labor Day is Dorchester's day. Boston should observe a moment of silence in respect for the people who inhabit Dorchester's three-deckers while they stroll the Common and the Esplanade.

New look!

Take a new look at ye olde Dot with fresh eyes. It's not your grandparents' Dorchester. It's yours, ripe for the picking. Succulent fruit like a Clapp pear picked off a sagging branch at the cusp of an autumn midnight under a harvest moon, Dorchester is nourishing and sweet. Whether you're hankering for a roti or a slice of pizza pie or grilled octopus or barbeque, you'll find the nourishment that satisfies your craving in Dorchester, Mass. Food for the soul. Dorchchester is full of savory flavors to fuel your internal combustion. It's yummy It's umami.

Ye olde Dot is older than Bostonia itself by a few months and it looks the part of a coquettish sibling. Dorchester is flirtatious. It is rambunctious. It is full of vim and pep and piss and vinegar. Dorchester doesn't mind speaking its heart. Dorchester has the soul of a child in an wizened body. It's a regular Benjamin Button.

Dorchester keeps what is best of its old parts but it is sleek and modern and streamlined. It's arte nouveau. It's l'arte moderne. It's je ne c'est quoi. You can't put your finger on what makes the Dot so good but you can feel it's pulse. It's a thumper too, like a jackrabbit that's just outpaced a pack of greyhounds and is ready to bed down in a hutch with a bevy of does. Ooo-la-la! Dorchester still has that old black magic called love.

If the electric company could harness all the energy in Dorchester a green revolution would be underway and no one in America would have to worry about oil independence. The Dot is hotter than greenhouse gasses. Dorchester exhales volts and megawatts. If you plug into Dorchester you can tune out the rest of Boston. Drop into the Dot. Dorchester's thermostat is always turned on high without any waste of heat.


I've never read the story but my son and I saw the movie and we enjoyed it very much. The story is probably different and better, the way these things usually work. Watch your local newspaper listings in a few years for the debut of the Dot Matrix movie coming to a theater near you!

Can Dorchester stand alone?

If you haven't spent 50 cents on this week's Dorchester Reporter, check this out. Local freelancer Adam Pieniazek has researched Dorchester's history and posed this question to thoughtful local residents: "Can Dorchester stand alone?"

I gave the twee reply that the Dot would just be another Quincy if it did and who needs two? Our correspondent from the Polish Triangle justifiably didn't report my response. While it is quotable, the observation doesn't apply. Neither does something someone said to me recently in passing, that if Dorchester had rejected annexation it would be a twin of Brookline. This also isn't exactly accurate. After a hundred odd years being under the aegis of Boston, itself, you can't go back again and rewrite history.

Unlike Quincy, Dorchester doesn't have any undeveloped land that I've ever seen. There is no room to grow, only room to improve. Unlike Brookline, which carves a hole out of Boston's silhouette, Dorchester is built up mainly for function rather than vanity. You won't find many empty parcels on which to drop your corporate headquarters and you won't find many majestic mansions on shady, meandering streets. Brookline and Quincy are suburbs. Dorchester is part and parcel of a bigger city, there is no cutting the cord this late after delivery.

Dorchester has no room to grow, only to improve. That sentence sticks in in the soul of every Dorchesterite. The neighborhood can only enhance not expand. It can get taller, more dense, more electric, it can bulk up on its muscle. In a place that is home to so many sheetrockers, roofers, carpet layers, masons, and pavers, more muscle is something they want to build in order to take on more work. Dorchester is proud of its strength. Like any body builder, it wouldn't mind having more health, stamina, focus, or heft. With its shoulder to the puddingstone, Dorchester is primed to push Beacon Hill off kilter on its foundation. The day will come. Mark my words.

Ask anyone in Dorchester if the city or the Commonwealth is run right. They'll tell you they could do a better job.

Intensive care

The owner of a particular hair salon in Savin Hill asked that no revealing details be told in this report. We respect his wishes. By naming the shop's neighborhood we are not letting any cats out of any bag. Like everywhere in Boston, Savin Hill is flush with hairdressers as well as barbers, manicurists, convenience stores, pizzerias and Chinese take-out joints. To say that one catagory of establishment is in any broad jurisdiction is not a secret; there are dozens within blocks of each other.

The salon in question doesn't have any remarkable features if one looks through the front window. It is clean and stylish enough to entice women and metrosexual men to stop in for a hair cut. The receptionist at the desk looks welcoming and unintimidating enough. There is a special room in back, however, that maintains its sterility through positive air pressure, where a few special clients are admitted access. As the owner told me, "We don't like to advertise our services. We already serve clients beyond capacity and, really, the facilities are for emergencies only."

Before we started our tour his cell phone rang. He listened intently and barked a few questions: "How long has this been going on?...Mmm hmmm...How rapid are the contractions?...Mmm Hmm...Do you feel you can drive? Should I call an ambulance?...Okay. Get here as quickly as you can." Then we started our tour.

I was ushered past the chairs and mirrors and sinks and that make up the main salon through a locked, panel door that opened with a whoosh that blew my forelock back on my scalp. What greeted me was what may be Boston's premier intensive hair care unit. It was empty at the moment and this allowed the owner to show off and demonstrate all the equipment. The room is about the size of a typical pantry and most the wall space is lined with shelves holding bottles and polystyrene bags of exotically colored gels and small, mad scientist-style machinery. At the rooms center is a typical barber chair covered with a foam, egg crate mattress to prevent clients from developing pressure ulcers while they undergo treatment.

We proceeded clock-wise. The owner explained, "Here we keep our nutrient protein-enhancers and on this shelf we store the collagen formulae. Down here are the coco butter and lanolin for easy access at hip level in the case the patient, I mean client, goes into split arrest." He directed my attention to a device that sprouted a kaleidoscope of telephone wire tipped with alligator clips. "This is our follicle defibrillator," he said, "And over here is our parenteral conditioning unit." His tour was full of descriptions about micro-sebaceous pumping mechanisms and trans-dermal vitamin infusions and cytogenetic dye spectrometry. I have to admit I didn't follow most of it but he seemed to know what he was talking about.

As we wound up my visit a young woman wearing a turban burst through the front door. "You have to help me," she exclaimed, "I'm going to a party tonight and I can't go like this. I tried to do a touch up job bleaching my roots and now my hair is falling out!" The hair stylist on call took her pulse for thirty seconds and then fetched a flashlight out of his pocket to check her pupils. He turned to me and said, "I have a serious case here. Do you mind if you show yourself out? I'm going to be very busy for the next hour or so and I can't be disturbed. Lock the door behind you, if you don't mind." I said I understood the gravity of the situation and I did as he requested. As I closed the door I heard the stylist call to his assistant, "Fire up the autoclave. We've got a case of acute, achromatic alopecia here!"

We Need More Traffic Lights

The City of New London votes for a new charter today. If the referendum passes, the city will have a strong mayor in charge of its government. This will be a good thing. Hopefully one of the first things our new executive will enact is longer red lights, especially after dark when there are few cars on the streets.

The State of Connecticut surveyed the city's streets two years ago and found that New London is behind on its pothole quota by 64%. Hopefully the new mayor will dispatch the public works employees with pickaxes and correct this situation. Our streets are too smooth to meet state mandates. What our asphalt needs is a little grinding and pocking.

While on the subject of traffic, all 'Walk/Don't Walk' signs should be set off mandatorily for the nonexistent pedestrians on Colman Street and they should all employ the buzzer for the blind with the volume turned to maximum. The lengh of time they flash 'Don't Walk' should be doubled at least.

New London also needs more one-way streets and summer as well as winter parking regulations. Bus service should be expanded so that it takes two hours to traverse our five square mile city so that every street is well served. School busses should just make random stops with their mandatory stop signs extended so that people can enjoy the scenery on their way to important appointments.

These are just some of the suggestions our new mayor can consider to make our city more livable in the twenty-first century. If you agree, get out there and do your civic duty. Vote for change in New London.

Unpaid Bills

A nice place to pay your utility and phone bills is at Honey Plus on State Street. Yes, you could write checks and send them in the mail. Yes, you could make the most of modern technology and use your computer. Given the choice between paying bills from the comfort of home and vistiting Honey Plus, the answer is obvious.

This store opened a few years ago featuring candy barrels overflowing with sweets for sale by the pound. The business has expanded over time. There is now a line of off-brand grocery products, handmade incense, tobacco products, glass smoking pipes, hardware, small tools, household sundries, perfumes, hygeine products, clothing a hot dog machine, and assorted gift items for the person who has everything but an Atlantic City ashtray or plastic snow globe.

You can pay your gas, electric and telephone bills at Honey Plus. Here is how it works. You stand in line while customers buy cigarettes and lottery tickets. When it's your turn, you hand the clerk your bills. He tallies the amount on a calculator and you pay him cash. Then the clerk enters the payment information for each company into a clicking, whirring machine hidden under the counter. He hands you a receipt for each utility printed on a stiff, cardboard stub as big as an airplane boarding pass.

Whalehead King drove through the rain to pay his bills today. The machine is out of order until Sunday. Hooray! He gets to go to Honey Plus again next week.