runswithscissors

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

[Continuation of entry begun yesterday.]

So we're walking, passing a storefront that used to house a restaurant called Souper Salad where, in the late 80's, I ate now and then with friends; then a building I worked in for about 13 months during the mid-80s; then a basement sub shop I frequented during those 13 months; then a row of brick townhouse-type buildings that used to include a shop which dealt solely in wind-up toys, a place that brought some sunshine into my life in the 80s; then what used to be the Harvard Book Store Café; then a Greek restaurant I used to frequent with friends (Steve's – good food, and still there despite soaring Newbury Street rents). Then what used to be the Trident Bookstore Café, where Bill once saw Peter Falk, in town doing a show. Then J.P. Licks, where we stopped for refreshment. A funky shop with a strange, free-form counter which always reminds me of the work of Simon Rodia. Good ice cream, too. In fact, I discovered that they've come with a version to my favorite ice cream, Cherry Garcia, called Cherry Garciaparra in homage to the Red Sox shortstop of the same last name. I ordered a bowl, it was extremely acceptable.

Through all this, as I pointed at different places and spewed memories, a bit amazed at how they all seemed to be crowding in on that particular afternoon, Steve took it all with easy, tolerant grace. Labor Day weekend is traditionally the weekend when the college students arrive in Boston/Cambridge, the abundance of students and moving trucks/vans prompting Bill to reminisce about the Labor Day weekend he himself arrived in Boston – himself not a student, startled to find the city flooded with them and unable to obtain housing because of that flood. Welcome to Boston.

We sat on the large sidewalk apron to one side of J.P. Licks, often a hangout for pierced, tattooed, baggy-clothed skateboarders or pierced, tattooed, leather-clad, technicolor-coiffed punksters, talking about, er, vaguely metaphysical matters, if I remember correctly. The continuing sidewalk people-parade provided scenery and diversion while the afternoon sun drifted further and further to the west, its light looking mighty autumnal, both in color and angle as it settled slowly toward the horizon. Bill suggested we head Cambridge way, I suggested the most direct route: a walk down Mass. Ave, across the Mass. Ave. bridge (also called the Harvard bridge for reasons I don't understand, it not being anywhere near Harvard) and into Central Square, where my car waited.

Which we did, more memories accosting me as we sauntered (i.e., a basement Indian restaurant on Mass. Ave. where I once ate with friends and we discovered a cockroach trapped beneath our table's glass top). The Mass. Ave./Harvard bridge extends from Back Bay to M.I.T. across the Charles River, a small, friendly waterway for most of its winding length, spreading itself wide as it approaches its basin. It's a long, wide-sidewalked, well-traveled bridge which underwent a slow rebuilding during the 80s, a process that kept one or two of the four lanes out of service at all times – hellish for automobile traffic, but providing generous, ever-changing expanses of bike lane. My main mode of transport through much of the 80s was a five-speed bicycle, I rode into Boston across both the Mass. Ave. Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge hundreds and hundreds of times, maybe thousands.

At some point in past years, before my arrival in Cambridge in Feb. of ‘82, some M.I.T. frat guys commandeered another student named Smoot, laying him repeatedly along the walkway, painting a line every ten lengths, thereby measuring the length of the bridge in Smoots. The lines are still there, each one accompanied by a legend denoting the number of Smoots they measure. After hundreds of viewings this stuff is old hat, though it still makes me smile virtually every time I bike or walk across the bridge. This time, though, as Bill and I approached the 120 Smoots line, we saw another line close by, three or four feet Bostonward, accompanied by the legend "Rebecca's Smoot – 123," provoking a major double-take from me. Smoots I'm familiar with. Rebecca's Smoot -- this is a relatively recent addition to the show.

The pranksters at M.I.T have been guilty of impressive bouts of entertainment, such as the night they managed to round up an M.I.T. campus police car, hoisting it to the top of the Great Dome, complete with a dummy in a police uniform sitting at the wheel. A genuine feat of engineering, done under cover of darkness with superhuman stealth, the prank going undetected until the next day.

The walk terminated in Central Square -- a major concentration point of ethnic restaurants -- with a dinner of Indian food, followed by coffee at the 1369 Coffee House. When I got back to the apt., Woody was just heading out. I turned on the cable TV, finding nothing much until I stumbled the American Movie Channel, midway through a showing of This Is Spinal Tap, which led directly into a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Dammit, Janet! That took care of the rest of the evening. Though I noticed with disappointment that this version of the film ended without the reprise of the "Time Warp/Sweet Transvestite." A major misstep, in my humble, ignorant opinion.

I drove home the next day via Kittery, Maine (outlet stores) and Warner, New Hampshire, where I wound up staying with friends for quite a bit longer than planned. (For good reasons.) During the drive between Kittery and Warner, I came across the first major display I've seen of autumn color, a stand of trees alongside a turnoff from I-89. Since that sighting, I've witnessed more and more -- still minimal, but that'll change with time. One of the trees along the northern boundary of this property, near the road, now sports leaves turning orange and red down one side, something that hadn't begun when I left for Cambridge on Thursday. A drive into Montpelier today brought more of the same.

It's September. The sun is lower in the sky, coming up later and going down earlier. Native apples have appeared at local produce stands. The nights are chilly, the air crisp. A lot of songbirds have already headed south, I expect the goldfinches now making pigs of themselves at my feeders (so much for the expression 'when pigs fly') will be on their way any day now. I've got a delivery of coal coming tomorrow, a sure sign the days are streaming toward colder times like the mythic lemmings over a cliff. Soon it'll be the season for the scent of wood smoke in autumn air, for down vests, for breath turning into mist and disappearing before cold breezes. It's all beautiful, but I would love more summer. Maybe the warm weather gods will bless us in the coming weeks.

Time will tell.

7:35:13 PM

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