An Evacuation Day Letter

March 17, 1776

An open letter to General Howe:

It has come to our attention while observing your military maneuvers against our army in Boston that you may not fully understand your position. Thus we are writing to bring to your attention to two features of the situation.

First, you could continue your action of evacuating your forces from Boston and relocating to Nova Scotia. This would be a great strategic victory for General Washington, boost morale on the colonial side, and serve to increase their support among the rebellious population.

Second, with end of the recent unfavorable weather, your position is strengthened should you instead choose to attack. While we understand your wish to avoid another situation like the recent battle at Bunker Hill, we feel that we should point out that you did win that engagement.

What this means is that while an attack would no doubt be costly, you could achieve victory here, potentially nipping the revolution in the bud and eliminating the General Washington as an ongoing threat to your control of the colonies. The next commanding general would be in a weakened position and a future colonial army would be unlikely to challenge British rule.

We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of the strategic situation and promotes understanding and clarity as your suppression actions continue.

Sincerely,

The Tories 

Winter Wonderland

How much am I loving this winter season? Oh so much. Did I love the coldest January in a century? Who wouldn't? Did I just love the long stretches of sub-freezing temperatures? Of course I did. And the snow, am I loving all the snow? Well, until today I wasn't so sure, but now I know, I love the snow. When the snow on my neighbor's rooftop let go all at once and crashed down on my head like a giant white hammer, all doubt was gone. I love the snow.

Sanity was a small price to pay.

Next Stop, Dunkin' Donuts

The folks that run our mass transit service, the MBTA, are considering the notion of selling naming rights to subway stations.  I love this idea.  For one thing, it's practical.  The service is, as the local papers like to say, "cash-strapped."  That just means that the quality of their work is diminished while the price is going up.  My monthly commuting bill just jumped by 15% but my daily ride doesn't get any better or more reliable.  Anything that could help pay the bills works for me, so I say lets get this program going.

I can't wait to hear that there are delays at JetBlue station.  Beyond that there are some real possibilities here.  Maybe we could get Febreze to sponsor North Station, just to see if they could find a way to deal with the the infamous North Station Stink.  We could see Boylston become Glass Slipper Gentleman's Club Station.  That would liven things up a bit.  Hynes Convention Center could become Heinz Ketchup Station.  Harvard Square could become The Gap, finally recognizing that the old Square is just a tarted up mall these days.  One stop down would be Supreme Liquors Station, formerly Central.  On the Blue Line you could ride out to Kelly's Roast Beef, or maybe just out to Aquarium, which would be re-named . . . Aquarium.  Or maybe Aquarium Gift Shop and Snack Bar Station.  Out in Allston we could stop at Blanchard's Liquors, since we're going there anyway.

This being Boston I can see some confusion likely to crop up.  In a system that already has two St. Paul and two Chestnut Hill stations, it might be a problem when we end up with seven Dunkin' Donuts stations.  But then, your average Bostonian is kind of used to that by now.  Driving directions around here are often like this:

Sully:  So how do you get there?

Kevin:  Real simple, you go past Dunkin's, take a left a the next Dunkin's, go past three Dunkin's and the Honey Dew.  Then you take a right at the Dunkin's.

Sully:  The one with the drive-thru?

Kevin:  No, the one next to the packie.

It's pretty much impossible to find your way around here now, so this will be just fine.  Wake me up when we start selling ad space on cruisers so the police can afford bullets.

Ye Olde Lunch

My best pal had to go to the dentist today, which she didn't want to do. To cheer her up I decided to take her to lunch to a place where I've not taken her before. We both love a bit of seafood so we sallied forth for the Union Oyster House, also known as Ye Olde Union Oyster House, also known as the oldest restaurant in America.

The building went up sometime in the early 18th century. No one is quite sure when. Its had a number of different occupants. One of the country's first newspapers, the Massachusetts Spy, was published for a while on the second floor (they had to move out of town when the revolution started to get kind of shooty). During the war soldiers of Washington's army would go there to get paid. A few years later a guy named Louis Philippe started living there. He made a living teaching French to young ladies (ooh la la, and all that). Thirty four years later he became the last king of France.

It still looks pretty much like this

In 1826 a couple of guys opened a restaurant there. They built a half circle shaped oyster bar. Sitting where we were, in booth #1, I could look at the old bar and imagine Daniel Webster sitting there as he often did, slamming brandy and downing plate after plate of oysters. Up on the second floor is booth #18, John F. Kennedy's favorite spot.

Today the clientele is a funny mix of seafood and history loving locals and tourists. Depending on the time of day you see mostly tourists as the place is right on the Freedom Trail, halfway between Faneuil Hall and Paul Revere's house. A lot of people make a big show of being annoyed by tourists, but I kind of like them. Yup, we do have an interesting town. Yup, we locals are a colorful lot. So here's to you, Mr. Japanese Guy taking photos of the lobster tank. Enjoy your visit.

And I enjoyed my visit to Ye Olde Union Oyster House. The hostess steered us to our booth gruffly, which is how we old Bostonians prefer it. I was reminded that this was the place that hired the first waitress in American history, Rose Carey, back in the '20s. I briefly wondered if she would on duty today when a nice young lady named Elizibeth came over to take our orders. My best pal ordered fried scrod and fries. What is scrod, you ask, you poor out-of-towner you. It is a hunk of white fish. What sort of white fish? Cod? Haddock? Pollock? None of your damn business, you nosy bastid. And who cares, really? It's fish and it's good.

Me, I had something called New England fish cakes. I have no idea what was in them, but they were really good and really filling. They came with a side of fries and Boston baked beans. Damn but I love a good plate of Boston baked beans. The beans, the molasses, and that little unctuous touch of pork fat that pulls it all together. Oh my.
This was preceded by a lovely bit of cornbread and Union's justifiably famous clam chowder. Thick, creamy, with lots of clams and potatoes, a bowl of that could have made a meal in itself.

This was all washed down with a special Sam Adams ale that you can only get in that one spot, a light brown beauty called “Colonial.” Fortified by a pint of that I was more than ready to take on a regiment of redcoats.

That, my friends, is lunch, Boston style.

We took our time, soaking in the dumpy, history soaked atmosphere. We listened as an oyster shucker explained his art to a group of fascinated tourists. We gazed at a portrait of Ebenezer Hancock, the army's first paymaster. We watched the doomed lobsters waving their banded claws at one another. And we briefly considered dessert. The apple cobbler looked good. So did the Indian pudding and the Boston cream pie. But we had to quit there, full of the bounty of the sea as we were.

A lovely lunch, all in all. So to you locals, don't forget your heritage and get yourself some chowder. And for you visitors, stop by. Don't forget your credit card (it only looks cheap). And don't forget to stop at Ye Olde Gift Shoppe on your way out.

It's More Than a Game

With the Ken Burns Baseball series now in its tenth inning, my mind turned back to an earlier time. A time when compelling documentaries were shown on PBS, and snarky public radio guys made fun of it. Here is a broadcast of NPR's Only a Game from many years ago. You can listen to the whole thing if you like, but I'd skip ahead to minute 43:20 to hear the compelling story of . . . Candlepin.

This, by the way, may only be amusing to people from New England and the Maritimes, where we play a regional variant of bowling that is, frankly, more fun.

Please Come To Boston . . .

Superman is going to go walkabout America in an upcoming series of comics written by J. Michael Straczynski's. DC is running a contest for people who want to see the Big Blue Cheese walking through their town. But darn it all, he's not going to wander in the northeast. C'mon Supes, Boston needs you. You could walk the Freedom Trail. You could have a Lobster at Summer Shack. You'd have no trouble cracking the thing open. We've got a few villains here you could sort out. I'm pretty sure I saw Solomon Grundy on the subway last week. It might have been him. He smelled like a guy who had died in a swamp. Maybe you could just fly by on your way back to Metropolis. Seriously, we haven't had a superhero since the Creeper. The Creeper? Oh man. Seriously, Man of Steel, we'd love a visit. I'll put the kettle on.

Perfectly Ordinary

Please pay no attention to the radioactive fish near the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.  Just an ordinary fish, nothing to see here, move along.

Another Good Bookstore Closes

Dammit.  PhiloBiblos reports that Rodney's Bookstore in Cambridge is closing.  Central Square is decaying before our eyes.

Boston, the Raven Has Landed

PhiloBiblos visits Boston's newest clean, well lighted place, Raven Used Books. Looks good.

Another Bookstore in Boston

More good news from the Athens of America. Raven Used Books is opening a new location on Newbury Street.

The Sky is Not Falling

I've added a French Toast Alert Level gadget to this blog so those of you in the Boston area will know when you should panic.

I saw this over at Violins and Starships and I'm kind of ashamed I didn't spot it first. The tendency of otherwise rational folks to stock up on bread, eggs, and milk before a predicted storm has been a goofy phenomenon I've been watching for three decades. Here in the Boston area we have a permanent spot in our memory labeled “The Blizzard of '78.” It was a huge storm that took almost everyone by surprise. Only one of the weather guys, Harvey Leonard, said that it might happen, but even he thought it unlikely. We got socked with more than two feet of snow. The wind blew at hurricane speeds, with gusts over 100 miles an hour. Drifts were several feet high. In some ways it was terrible. Power lines came down. Roads were impassible for days. People were trapped in their cars on the highway. Some even died. For most of us it was several days off from work and school, a bit of an adventure, and for us kids a lot of fun. My family walked through the snow to the grocery store and yes, they were out of bread and milk. It seems that a lot of people were traumatized by that. My folks bought powdered milk, walked back home, and made pancakes. I love pancakes.

Here are a few things I would like to say to my fellow New Englanders:

1. You are in New England. It is winter. It will snow. You know this.

2. It's just snow – the sky is not falling. You know this.

3. If you hear it is going to snow, don't panic. Yes, if it is bad enough the store may run out of a few things. You have some things in your pantry. There are substitutes for your usual sources of grain, dairy, and protein. You'll make do. You're a yankee dammit! Show some of that ingenuity and flintiness you're supposed to possess.

4. No, just because there are a few inches of snow on the ground doesn't mean that you don't have to go into work. You're a grown-up now, get over it.

5. On the other hand, there is snow on the ground, respect it, and don't drive like an idiot.

6. If you have a sidewalk in front of your house, shovel it, scrape it, and salt it. If you don't, you are a jerk.

7. And if you do shovel but you shovel the snow into the street where it will freeze and be a hazard for drivers, you are still a jerk.

If you are one of those people who ran to the store last week to load up on gallons of milk, cartons of eggs, and loaves of bread, then go back to the store, buy some real maple syrup (try to find something made locally while you're at it, your neighbor sugar farmer will thank you) go home, and make a lot of french toast. Then invite me over. I like french toast too.

Decisions, Decisions

You've heard people talking about seeing a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks. Yeah, we've got that in Boston too. I can stand next to the Starbucks near Copley Square and see the Starbucks across the street. But this is New England, and Dunkin' Donuts is king here. This week I happened to pass though Back Bay Station for the the first time in a while. As I entered I noticed that the pizza joint that used to be just to the right of the entrance had been replaced by a Dunkin' Donuts. I turned slightly to the left and looked at the Dunkin' Donuts that had always been there. Both of them looked like they were doing a pretty good business. That's right, two Dunkin' Donuts in the same small train station. Only Boston.