Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the 1950s that gives some background to the entry below.
Markin comment:
Not all the entries in this space are connected to politics, although surely most of them can be boiled down into some political essence, if you try hard enough. The following is one of those instances where trying to gain any “political traction”, or as I am fond of saying drawing any “lessons” would be foolhardy. I should also note that this entry is part of a continuing, if sporadic, series of “trips down memory lane” provoked by a fellow high school classmate who has been charged with keeping tabs on old classmates and their doings, even those of old-line communists like this writer. Go figure?
The Old "Beat" Town, Circa 2010-A Fragment Of A Thought
Crossing the Riverside bridge from the Boston side ain’t like it used to be, what with that new, higher, ever pot-holed, unevenly paved, unfriendly, ugly slab concrete bridge that routes traffic, hither and yon, to the beach down Shore Drive or to Main Street up pass the high school and beyond to the Downs, and then to the downtown Center. It’s silly to get misty-eyed over it but I miss the old drawbridge of my youth with its gates to stop traffic and the lonely tower (and its poor, bored keeper, or tender or whatever you call that guy, and it was always some old guy who looked like he could swap stories, buddy to buddy, with King Neptune) to let the bigger boats make their way to dock or, better, I hope, to get clearance to the open sea, and more adventure than I could even dream of.
And now it has that parallel “Red Line” subway extension crossing that used to be part of the Old Colony railroad that used to scare me silly as a kid when the whistle blew at the old Atlantic station near my grandmother’s house on Welcome Street. That river bridge though was always, to me, back in the days, more than a mere stone or concrete barrier separating the world of Boston and beyond that to Cambridge and all their charms, real or imagined. Some of those were real enough and some turned out to be just imagined enough, as well. Coming in over that bridge anytime, and I mean anytime, always meant the end of some trouble-filled adventure, or more likely, the need to brace myself to take ‘guff’ from Ma about one thing or another that I did, or didn’t, do, or later when I got older more often than not just heading back the other way when things got too crazy to think about. Or do much about, for that matter. Too bad Ma wasn’t more easy going like Dad, who knew how to roll with the punches a little, as much as it cost his self-esteem. Damn, that man was righteous, even if it only took me about fifty years to figure that out so I never adequately got the chance to acknowledge that little gem of wisdom.
Ya, that bridge was more like some latter day rite of passage and I crossed its grated drawbridge, cars whizzing by making different-sounding, fearful noises different from regular pavement noises like that old bridge was going crack open and I would be swallowed by the waters below. Maybe, that was the start, or a part anyway of my love/hate thing with the waters of the world. Or maybe I was just scared: of the too many times that I went back the other way too soon when things went bad at the house as I tried desperately to get away from home, from teenage problems, from myself. A far bridge, indeed.
Markin comment:
Not all the entries in this space are connected to politics, although surely most of them can be boiled down into some political essence, if you try hard enough. The following is one of those instances where trying to gain any “political traction”, or as I am fond of saying drawing any “lessons” would be foolhardy. I should also note that this entry is part of a continuing, if sporadic, series of “trips down memory lane” provoked by a fellow high school classmate who has been charged with keeping tabs on old classmates and their doings, even those of old-line communists like this writer. Go figure?
The Old "Beat" Town, Circa 2010-A Fragment Of A Thought
Crossing the Riverside bridge from the Boston side ain’t like it used to be, what with that new, higher, ever pot-holed, unevenly paved, unfriendly, ugly slab concrete bridge that routes traffic, hither and yon, to the beach down Shore Drive or to Main Street up pass the high school and beyond to the Downs, and then to the downtown Center. It’s silly to get misty-eyed over it but I miss the old drawbridge of my youth with its gates to stop traffic and the lonely tower (and its poor, bored keeper, or tender or whatever you call that guy, and it was always some old guy who looked like he could swap stories, buddy to buddy, with King Neptune) to let the bigger boats make their way to dock or, better, I hope, to get clearance to the open sea, and more adventure than I could even dream of.
And now it has that parallel “Red Line” subway extension crossing that used to be part of the Old Colony railroad that used to scare me silly as a kid when the whistle blew at the old Atlantic station near my grandmother’s house on Welcome Street. That river bridge though was always, to me, back in the days, more than a mere stone or concrete barrier separating the world of Boston and beyond that to Cambridge and all their charms, real or imagined. Some of those were real enough and some turned out to be just imagined enough, as well. Coming in over that bridge anytime, and I mean anytime, always meant the end of some trouble-filled adventure, or more likely, the need to brace myself to take ‘guff’ from Ma about one thing or another that I did, or didn’t, do, or later when I got older more often than not just heading back the other way when things got too crazy to think about. Or do much about, for that matter. Too bad Ma wasn’t more easy going like Dad, who knew how to roll with the punches a little, as much as it cost his self-esteem. Damn, that man was righteous, even if it only took me about fifty years to figure that out so I never adequately got the chance to acknowledge that little gem of wisdom.
Ya, that bridge was more like some latter day rite of passage and I crossed its grated drawbridge, cars whizzing by making different-sounding, fearful noises different from regular pavement noises like that old bridge was going crack open and I would be swallowed by the waters below. Maybe, that was the start, or a part anyway of my love/hate thing with the waters of the world. Or maybe I was just scared: of the too many times that I went back the other way too soon when things went bad at the house as I tried desperately to get away from home, from teenage problems, from myself. A far bridge, indeed.
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