Boston Massacre Redux

I can’t believe it....Boston.  Our country’s seat of liberty.  Home to Paul Revere, John Hancock, Sam Adams and his lesser known cousin, John.  Where the first cries came for freedom from the oppressors, the British.

It was in Boston that my love for American History was born...so much so that I returned to school to get certified to teach it.  I came of age when the teaching of history consisted of memorization of dates and events.  Basically, I dreaded the subject....until I visited Boston.

I walked the Freedom Trail; I fancied myself at Concord...home of the transcendentalist community.  Who can imagine anything more delicious than being in the company of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau and Amos Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May and her delightful independent mother and sisters?

The first time I visited Boston I saw my first traffic circle, which terrified me as I had no idea what direction to go or where to get off.  Boston is not laid out in a grid like Washington or New York.  It’s nothing if not haphazard, at least to a small town girl like me.

I saw my first Hare Krishnas, chanting for a simpler, more natural and spiritual way of life.  I was attracted to their peaceful living but I was not interested in such an austerity.

Cambridge just lifted me to a higher place.  I could wear my Harvard sweatshirt and head to the street theatre or watch the brainiacs play chess in the Square.  When I learned my dear friend, Annie, was the daughter of a prominent Cambridge politician back in the day of “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, I was enthralled.  John Fitzgerald was the mayor of Boston and the father of Rose and the grandfather of his namesake, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Boston was magical in so many respects but also, unfortunately, known for the massive divide between the races.  I was puzzled by the lack of true integration that I took for granted in the North.  My God, I was from the South...Boston was home of the abolitionist movement.  How could this be?  It just seemed impossible.  But, biases linger for generations.

My first visit to Boston was in 1970...on the 200th anniversary of the Boston Massacre...where Crispus Attucks was the first African American sacrificed for the American Revolution.  And, now, Massachusetts led the way to enfranchise same-sex marriage, becoming the first state to recognize it on November 18th, 2003.

The Boston Marathon is an institution onto itself.  My former husband ran in it for years.  My three grown “kids” have run marathons albeit half-marathons.  They are all runners, I was a sprinter until I was 15 and had knee surgery and two more subsequently.  I never ran again.

Plus, they all have discipline.  They’re more focused than me.  But, I absolutely love supporting them.  I am there on the sidelines screaming out their names, clapping for all the runners.

I’ll never forget the look on my oldest daughter’s face when she passed me running a half marathon in Washington, D.C. two years ago.  She was running less than a year after giving birth to her second child.  Where she found the time and energy to train is totally beyond me.  Daily, she took the train to New York City, an hour and a half ride each way, working beyond the requisite eight hours.  After she returned home, she morphed into the quality time mommy, fixing meals, giving baths and reading stories at bedtime.

Pure Joy!  That’s the only way I can describe how she looked at me.  She was running her race and she was going to finish.  She was beaming.

And, I think of yesterday....all the runners, the hours of training, running their races.  I think of their friends and families, clapping and yelling their names, eagerly anticipating their finish.  And then the bombs start exploding....turning joy to horror.

Boston becoming Baghdad, where car bombings killed 31 people yesterday.  Did anyone know that???

I’m sick.  Heartsick.  The violence.  We need to step forward.  It needs to stop.

And, yet, the people we elect cannot find any agreement on stronger gun control.  They can’t even agree to ban semi-automatic assault weapons!  Minimal expectation, folks.  How these legislators can even look at the parents who lost their children at Sandy Hook Elementary is beyond my comprehension.

We are lost.