Wonderful weather yesterday. I am starting this blog on Saturday morning. Whether it gets published today or tomorrow is a question yet to be answered, still it was a beautiful and so is today. In fact the upcoming week looks especially nice. So anyway, yesterday I took a ride to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Normally I don't enjoy a trip to a cemetery, though you do eventually you have to go, but this place is special. This is the first cemetery that was landscaped, carved out a wooded area. It's on the list of national historic places and it's just beautiful especially in the Fall. There are hills, valleys and ponds. There are some well known people buried here. Of course that's well known, if you've heard of them. Isabella Stewart Gardner. In her day she was a well known patron of the arts. She was rich. Charles Bulfinch. The architect who designed the center section of the capitol building in Washington as well as our own statehouse. Buckminster Fuller, an architect and inventor. Oliver Wendell Holmes, an associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Winslow Homer, painter. Edwin H. Land, the Polaroid Corporation. Henry Cabot Lodge, Ma. state senator. Henry Wadsworth, poet, "Paul Reveres Ride."
So it was beautiful outside and I decided to go there and take some pictures. Most of them weren't my best shots but what are you gonna do?
And here's the video.
Something I've always wondered about concerns names, at least men's names. Take Robert. A nick name for Robert is Bob. How do you get Bob from Robert? I get Rob. How about William. Where does Bill come from? Amongst the most common men's names is John. Where does Jack come from? And the most unfortunate name, Richard. Rich is easy to understand, but Dick? I'll say no more. Well despite a two hours phone conversation with my sister discussing a certain car problem she was having and looking at certain new cars and then running for the bathroom to take care of a certain need only to have the phone ring again with a call from Arlene, I have managed to finish this today (Saturday). The foliage is about to reach peak around here and I'm gonna try to get some more pictures. Maybe tomorrow as there is no football game. Don't forget about daylight savings time! I'm outta here.
The other night Arlene and I had dinner at my sisters house. It was a pleasant evening. There's always a lot of laughter but it really got rolling with my brother-in-law who had poured us all a glass of red wine. He then raised his glass to make a toast. He went to say nostrovia, if that's how it's spelled, a Russian toast meaning something like, "to your health." That's not what we heard. We heard, "nice driveway". That one is gonna stick! Soon after that we started telling old stories. My sister talked about her childhood friend Charlene. She was a nice kid, a bit of a klutz, and at times would appear to be bit of a space cadet. I was there for this episode. Charlene had knocked something over and my sister said, "Charlene! You are such a S-L-O-B!" Charlene put the letters together and said, "Slobe?"
That brought up the story of another one of my sisters friends. I know I've told it before. This was years ago. They were in the next city over. It had bars. There weren't any bars in our hometown then, though there are now restaurants with bars. Any way this young lady asked the assembled group if they would like to go to a place close by for a drink? She said it thusly, "Joowanna guhdown to the connabah." Actually everybody understood the joowanna guhdown part, its the last part that raised the question, "What's a connabah?" In Boston English, "Joowanna guhdown" is translated as "Do you want to go down...", a "connahbah" is a corner bar.
This led to all of us making fun of the way we talk around here. Not just the accent but different words for things than the rest of the country. Like around here we call those long sandwiches, submarine sandwiches. They may be called hoagies someplace else, those sandwich rolls used to be called spuckies. I remember hearing this while growing up. Go to another city and ask for a spuckie and who knows what you'll get. It comes from the Italian word for a sandwich roll "spucadella" Here soda is tonic, a water fountain is a bubbler, and a rubber band is an elastic. Do you know where you're going if you're going to "Make a packy run." ? You're going to the liquor store. I guess liquor stores, in Massachusetts and some other states, are technically called package stores because all liquor purchased for private consumption, must be in a package or a sealed bottle.
We laughed at how sometimes we can't understand each other around here. Years ago a friend of mine was giving me directions to a certain location finishing up with, "It's right near the cahbahns." "What the hell are cahbahns?" I asked. That's Bostonese for an old timey name for a place where the area bus service kept their busses, the "car barns".
People around here don't say "Baston" as people from other parts of the country who want to make fun of our accent say. We say Boston or more than likely "Bostin. I personally think at times it's a really ugly accent. Very harsh sounding. I try to control my accent but sometimes it just slips in. "May I have a glass of watah? Of course I mean water." In our cars (cahs) we don't use our directional signals, we use our blinkers or "blinkahs". A shopping cart is a carriage. What everybody else calls a milk shake we call a frappe, pronounced frap. To us a milk shake is milk with flavored syrup whipped into a froth. A frappe adds ice cream. Why the mixed terminology? I don't know. One thing I can say for sure, it's quite recognizable. In different parts (pahts) of the country, say a few words and they instantly know where your from. If you are not very tall then you are "shawt". In the summer when it's hot, you put on your "shawts". After you turn thirty nine you will turn "fawty". Here's a two minute plus video with this nice young lady explaining how to speak with a Boston accent.
It was a fun night. Laughter makes you feel better. Alrighty then it's time to move off into the sunset. Hi Oh Silver! (silvah) Away! I'm outta here.
Sunday was partly sunny, mostly cloudy and quite chilly made worse by gusts of wind. The city here locally has set aside a piece of land as a memorial to the Marathon bombing victims, specifically Krystle Campbell who lived here along with her family. As it turned out she lived around the corner from me. I did not know her but Arlene did. Her daughters went to school with Krystle and they played together. Through my relationship with Arlene I became connected with the situation.
The city has dedicated a piece of land for the park and they organized a dedication. There were three bands. One from Boston University, the Boston Police Drum and Pipes and a local band. A Boston TV news anchor hosted the event. Krystle's family was there seated to the right of the podium. I'm not sure of the exact number but at least four of the over 200 bombing victims were in attendance. It was a well done, moving event climaxing with the hoisting of a huge American flag.
A fairly large crowd was in attendance though I have no way of estimating how many locals were there, as well as all the local Boston TV and cable outlets.
It was a very moving experience. Victims spoke along with the mayor, politicians etc. but the most moving moment was when Krystle's father made a brief statement and as soon as he finished a light snow fell for about a minute. Timing is everything.
