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July 7, 2004
Hate zoos. Love aquariums.
I love walking around Boston with my Dad. Actually, I love walking around Boston with either one of my parents, but they both have completely different perspectives on the city.
My dad is 67 years old. He grew up in a poor Irish family in East Boston, one of five kids born to my grandparents, who were immigrants from Newfoundland. Dad used to take the ferry over from Eastie to the North End to work when he was a teenager, washing dishes in Durgin Park. This was back when Quincy Market was a real market, not the overpriced tourist trap it is now. Fishmongers, produce vendors. Most of the inside of the market building itself was taken up by butcher's shops. The place was always crawling with sailors ("white-hats", Dad calls them) and merchant seamen.
My dad quit school in 8th grade. Ran away to sea when he was 16, in the Merchant Marine. At 17 he got his dad to sign the papers so he could enlist in the Coast Guard. He enlisted at the Customs House in Boston, a block away from Faneuil Hall. Worked on a light ship off Monomoy Island, worked in Chatham Light for a while (actually he lived in Chatham Light, which is kind of cool, considering what a big tourist attraction it is now). Shipped off on an icebreaker as part of Operation Deep Freeze, made three trips to the Antarctic, four to the Arctic.
We got to walk around in the Mariner's House in the North End yesterday. It's right next to Paul Revere's house, but most tourists don't know anything about it. It's basically been a boarding house for seamen for the past 200 years. They've renovated it now so it's outrageously expensive, but not even ten years ago, Dad would pay only $3 a night to stay there, since he had his papers showing he was active in the Merchant Marine.
$3 a night to stay in a room overlooking Paul Revere's back yard. Only in Boston. And only if you're a sailor.
So we got to hear lots of stories, over Italian ices outside the Aquarium and steamers at Legal Seafood and walking up Hannover Street and down Richmond Street past the old Italian guys sitting on the sidewalk in their chairs outside a non-descript building that said only "Members Only" on the door (and Gina and I both were thinking how much this looked like something we see on HBO every Sunday night). And we got to hear about how everything is different now, but how everything is so much the same.
Oh, and of course we went to the aquarium. I love aquariums. Hate zoos, for some reason; they smell bad, and I always feel sad for zoo animals in captivity in a way that I don't feel for fish in an aquarium. I've been going to the New England Aquarium ever since I was a little kid, and sure, it's starting to look kind of old school compared to places like Monterey Bay, but I love the big central tank, I love standing at the window with my kids and waiting with them hoping the shark will glide by, and when it does all three of us go "coooooool!" and wish we were in there with it to pet it.
That was yesterday. Today we're taking the harbor cruise with Dad, and I'm quite sure it will be just like the North End tour, with his stories more colorful and interesting than anything the cruise guide will have to say, because he didn't learn any of this from a guidebook, he learned it by growing up with the neighborhood, with the harbor, with the sea, for his entire life.
I think I might just fill up a disc of video of just him, looking out at the water and the islands and talking like he's just talking to us, and he'll be totally oblivious to the crowd of people who will gather behind him to hear his stories.
I love my Dad. My drunk, crabby, Dad and his crazy, tragic, fascinating life.
Posted by ray at July 7, 2004 7:27 AM | Permalink
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