It took me several years to like Boston. I had to make the two-and-one-half hour drive about once a month to attend meetings in the Office of the President of the University of Massachusetts. The major or home campus for the university remained at its historic land-grant location in Amherst. However, when a second campus was established in Boston on a filled-in garbage dump overlooking Boston Harbor, it was necessary that the system’s central office be created independent of the sites controlled by Chancellors in Amherst and in Boston, and by the Dean of the Medical School at Worcester.
Classrooms were moved from a downtown office building onto the new site, with its built-in pipes to eliminate the gases being burped from the decaying rubbish underneath its new structures. Years later, the Presidential Library for John F. Kennedy was constructed on the Boston campus, no doubt with its own set of vents.
Since the President’s Office and central administration remained in the old office building, I had to endure Boston’s downtown traffic more than I would have preferred.
On my required journeys to Boston for meetings, I quickly learned that this city is one in which a driver can make four, consecutive right-hand turns and not arrive back at the starting point. It seemed that anywhere a colonial cow wandered, a new street was laid down to confuse any invading British soldiers. Years later, Bostonians, attempting to compensate for the lackadaisical efforts of its earlier planners, began to construct a new highway cutting across the city. It was called the “Big Dig” but many locals thought of it as the “Big Ditch” – it took several years and greatly expanded funding to complete the construction.
Fortunately, the early settlers and their descendants did leave The Commons and the Charles River in a pristine condition.
One day in early spring, while driving along the river, I spied the Harvard crews skimming over the water. It was this sight that caused me, very suddenly, to fall in love with this quintessential college-town. I soon discovered the pleasures of viewing the gardens of The Commons, even if I was forced to follow the winding and clogged traffic arteries to reach my destination.
Karen and I did take some consecutive vacation days in Boston, an experience more rewarding than merely passing through the narrow, cobblestone streets on a daytrip for business. Freedom Trail must be walked; Faneuil Hall and Old North Church must be encountered personally. Gravestones must be remembered with charcoal rubbings on newsprint scrolls. Enough time must be allowed for tasting and smelling Quincy Market and the Italian shops found in the North End. Marzipan must be viewed with amazement, even if it is too sweet to eat.
The Prudential Building cannot be avoided, although pedestrians had to look out for falling glass when wind gusts swirled in the wrong direction around this lonesome tower. At least, students passing by the W.E.B. DuBois Library Tower on the University campus in Amherst did not need to be wary of falling windows; there were tunnels of straw around the site to ward off any stray bricks released from the facade of its upper stories during wintery blasts. Those awarded contracts by the Commonwealth may have been able to bid low for a reason.
My favorite recollection of Boston, however, was formed years after we had left the Bay State. I was the best man for Todd at his wedding with Carolyn. The ceremony occurred on the Fourth of July, and they had their wedding reception on a modest-sized cruise craft. We watched fireworks explode over the harbor and heard the 1812 Overture being broadcast as it was performed to accompany the pyrotechnics on The Commons. It was, indeed, a perfect assembly of what is enduring about this colonial city and its multiple centuries of American life.