I am just getting to the July 14-16 weekend, because I only just put the pictures on the computer. We rendezvoused at the Back Bay Hilton with two other couples Friday night – Mike and Karen Riner and Paul and Doreen Novotny. Paul and Doreen organized the weekend, including picking out the restaurants (Mexican Friday night and French Saturday).
Here they are, as we headed to our French meal Saturday:
Saturday during the day was spent doing the “Red Trolley” tour, which includes a boat ride into the harbor. Here’s a picture of our Trolley, as it is reflected in the windows of the John Hancock building (the city’s tallest building) in the center of Boston.
All big city harbors are interesting, and Boston is no exception. Here’s a shot from the tour ferry of “Old Ironsides”, all decked out with pendants. The naval ship to the right is the “Cassin Young” a destroyer from World War II now on permanant exhibit (maintained by the National Park Service!). It survived two kamikaze hits, which killed 23 crew members.
In the Faneuil Hall – Quincy Market area, there were a number of street artists. One of them is an “escape artist” who put himself in a straight jacket and then had two onlookers tie him up. While working his way out of his predicament he spotted Karen Riner and took a liking to her – much to Mike and the crowd’s amusement:
Afterwards, lunch in the Ned Devine Pub in Quincy Market:
In the late afternoon, early evening Brigid and I met up with friends from the Boston suburbs, Mary and Kevin Blake. Mary Blake used to be Mary Kelliher, and she used to work for me. Mary moved down from Boston for a variety of reasons, but after six weeks she left my part-time job and entered a convent! Must have been the work environment. Anyway, luckily for Kevin she left the convent.
We met at the hotel and went to – you guessed it – a pub near the Hilton.
Sunday Brigid and I went to Church next door to the hotel (St. Cecilia’s) and then decided to stick around Boston for a few hours. The Riner’s and Novotny’s took off and we headed over to Charlestown. The Bunker Hill memorial was closed, so we went to the Navy Yard and eventually did a tour of the Cassin Young (We’d been on the Constitution – Old Ironsides – a few years ago). The tour was quite interesting, although ending on a somber note as the Park Service guide showed where non-white seaman slept – there was segregation in the Navy in World War II.
Here’s where the second Kamikaze hit. 22 men were killed and the small plaque is a commemorative. By the way, the ship is named for a naval captain who was killed in a sea battle off Guadalcanal. He had prevously been given the medal of honor for saving his ship – which was tied up next to the Arizona – at Pearl Harbor.
Boston is an excellent place to visit. Bear in mind they are nuts about sports. If you say “I’m from New York” you immediately get the reply “You’re not a Yankee fan, are you?” The diplomatic response is “I don’t really folllow baseball.” Tom Faranda’s Folly: A little humor from Boston
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