September 11, 2018

Today is the 17^thanniversary of the day that planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and a Pennsylvania field. Any American flag that we saw today was flying at half-mast.

We were in Boston, Massachusetts where the morning temperature was 19°C and the fog was hanging over the tops of the skyscrapers. The ship was docked at the Black Falcon pier, a former navy base.

The routine for collecting the excursion tickets was a bit different. The staff were handing out numbered stickers coded for each excursion at the entrance to the theater, rather than one person of a party having to go all the way to the stage and get the stickers and then walk back up. The Royal Caribbean ship “Serenade of the Seas” was also in port today.

The tour started at 9 a.m. with everyone on the bus with guide, Mersine, and driver, Doug. We passed the huge Boston Convention Center in the Innovations District as we left the port. If stood vertically it would be taller than New York’s Empire State building. Then we drove through the traffic tunnel known as the “Big Dig” , The nickname was given since it was an underground project that went over budget and took longer than expected to complete. It caused tax payers to “dig” into their wallets. We also passed Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, on the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to visit Harvard University.

We stopped in Cambridge, where the original New Town was established as one of the settlements of 11 ships that took the Puritans to the New World in 1630. The parking spot was in front of the Harvard Lampoon newspaper building. Its’ front entrance tower is supposed to remind people of a smirking face. Among the Harvard Lampoon alumni are writers for Second City TV. Here in Cambridge we walked into the almost 100 year old new Harvard Yard, later we walked a short distance to the historic old Harvard Yard.

In the new Harvard Yard center is a recently constructed yellow art installation by Teresita Fernández, called “Autumn (…Nothing Personal)”. One of the surrounding buildings is the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library. It was commissioned by Harry Widener’s mother as a memorial to her son, who with his father was a victim in the Titanic sinking in April 1912. She donated his book collection and had a building designed to hold all the books of all the other Harvard University libraries with plenty of extra space for future books. She also stipulated that all Freshmen receive swimming lessons and that on Fridays every Freshman could get free ice cream. This library has filled all its “extra” space and the university had to decide how to keep the promise of a central library, when they could not add structures to the sides or the top. The solution – to build five levels of space below ground under the library and under the new Harvard Yard under the colourful installation and to under the steps of the World War 1 Memorial building. Across an expansion lawn from the library is the World War 1 Memorial building. It is on its steps that diplomas are presented to graduates. Each year there are 10,000 applications to enter Harvard but only 2,000 are accepted. The tuition for year one is $75,000 US. Students can apply for assistance and can receive up to 75% of the tuition cost, but are expected to pay for the remainder. To get the flavour of the campus, all freshmen must live in the dormitories right on the campus. Each freshman is given a list of the former students who have occupied their room.

We walked about 400 meters to the historic old Harvard Yard and found the statue of John Harvard , Founder, which has the nickname of the “Statue ofThree Lies”. John Harvard was a young educated minister from England. He was told that if he sailed to New England he would be cured of his Consumption (Tuberculous) - Lie #1. He took his extensive library with him to Cambridge whose college already existed. He died and left this library to the college. The college directors decided to rename the institution after John Harvard. Lie #2, the plaque states that he founded the college. Then a statue of him was commissioned but since he was dead, another man was used as the model - Lie #3. For good luck at exam time, students rub the statue’s toe of the left shoe.

Opposite the statue is one of the entrance gates to the university and two of the oldest red brick buildings on the campus. Across from them was the wooden Harvard Hall where John Harvard’s book collection was housed. One night the building burned to the ground and all but one book was lost. At the time students were not allowed to remove books from the library, but one student needed a book for a paper and snuck it out expecting to return the next morning. It was the only book surviving.

Back in the bus the next stop was Lexington, Massachusetts and Lexington Battle Green; it was here that the first shots of the American Revolutionary War were fired. The war lasted until 1783. There is a plaque where the belfry stood and the bells pealed to warn the village. Across the street was the yellow Buckman Tavern built in 1779 where Samuel Adams, John Hancock and the Lexington militia men met. There were several monuments on the green. Each village had a trained militia for defend against native Indian attacks. All men between 16 and 60 were members of the militia who regularly trained in the village greens.

Here on Lexington Green, 77 Lexington armed militia men stood just to let the 700 British soldiers know that the townspeople were aware of the army’s presence, as a company of over 1,000 British soldiers surrounded them (against orders). Since the militia leader, Captain Parker, was hard of hearing he did not hear the command to drop weapons and someone fired a shot that lead to the deaths of several of the militia men as their families watched from the houses that surrounded the green. This incident caused the sharpshooters, who were Minute Men and were also fast runners, to disperse with the news that casualties had occurred and they set up ambush locations for the other company of British soldiers that had proceeded to Concord in search of stockpiled supplies.

Leading up to this clash, the northern New England colonists were educated, lived in villages where the men met in pubs and discussed current events, and had roads between the villages for easy communication. They were disgruntled by the taxes that the English crown was levying to pay for their wars with the France. The original colony charters said the colonies would not be paying taxes to England. The middle colonies were settled by other nationalities such as Germans, Swedes and Norwegians and didn’t have as much interest in politics while the southern colonies population was spread out in large plantations of 6,000 to 12,000 acres and their transportation was by rivers; there was little communication between plantations. The new taxes were on many items including coats which the colonies were not allowed to produce for themselves. The final straw was when the British sent a ship containing 342 chests of tea and applied taxes to that too. The Bostonians would not allow the tea to be unloaded and there were discussions amongst the authorities and the colonists. As the deadline approached the colonists met and were split as to whether the tea shipment should be unloaded or returned to England. During the meeting Samuel Adams, leader of the Sons of Liberty, stood up and said a phrase that was a signal to his followers that they would meet later after dark. The group disguised themselves as native Indians in clothing and war paint. Adams spoke to the tea ship‘s captain and suggested that the captain and his crew go below deck and go to “sleep”, then Adams and his raiders dumped the tea into Boston Harbour. The cargo was worth the equivalent of two and half million US dollars today. This infuriated the King and he sent soldiers to disarm the colonist militias, who spies had advised that the colonists been stockpiling supplies and ammunition.

So, when the British soldiers started their early morning march on April 19, 1775, to a farm in Concord, Paul Revere made his famous ride calling “the regulars are coming” to warn Samuel Adams, John Hancock and the others. Most of the colonists were British citizens as were the soldiers. The soldiers were referred to as “the regulars” since they were not from the community militias but were in the British army. The 3,000 soldiers had to cross the Charles River by boat to their landing spot in the dark; it was not on a beach, but rocky shoreline. The soldiers had to get out of the boats into the water, soaking their boots and trousers and then march inland in the dark.

The soldiers continued past Lexington along the Lexington Road, not knowing of the Minute Men nearby. Some soldiers entered Concord while others guarded the Old North Bridge on the other side of Concord. They started to burn some stockpiled supplies and an elderly woman scolded them to put out the fire. They did, but the water on the fire produced steam and smoke and militia men stationed on the other side of the Old North Bridge thought that the soldiers were burning the town and attacked the soldiers. This was the start of the American Revolutionary War and what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “The shot heard around the world”. As the soldiers returned along the same road that they had used earlier in the day, they were ambushed suffering hundreds of dead and wounded.

Today we drove along the same road and we saw British flags in places. These are the graves of the killed British soldiers. Landowners where the soldiers died were required to bury them and to this day the British consulate replaces the flags annually. We saw the well maintained 350 year-old colonial houses and newer homes along the Battle Road Trail in Minute Man National Historic Park. We passed the houses of Nathaniel Hawthorne; Louisa May Alcott family, Orchard House. She wrote the books starting with “LittleWomen”.; and then finally the white colonial house that was essayist and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s family home. There was the Colonial Inn which in 1775 was the home of a doctor who treated the wounded of both sides. He had his servants remove all furniture except tables so that he could operate on the men.

We arrived at the Old North Bridge location where the Battle of Concord was fought also on April 19, 1775. Nearby in the Olde Manse where both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson lived. A park ranger explained the history and that the current bridge was built in the 1980s since many previous bridges over the centuries had been washed away by flooding. There is a bronze statue on the “American” (militia men) side which was created by the same artist who 40 years later created the Washington, D.C. statue of President Lincoln sitting. Then the bus drove back to Boston.

On the way back to Boston we travelled on the highway, and noticed just a few trees with some coloured leaves. Boston had nine neighbourhoods. We were headed to the Financial District to have lunch at the Union Oyster House restaurant established in 1826. In the days of the revolution, if a person did not know about references to the “Grasshopper” (it is weathervane on top of a building in old town Boston), then people were immediately suspicious that they were a spy. The Union Oyster House is located on land that was filled in by earth from the nearby town of Quincy that took 10 years of continuous 24 hour a day seven days per week work filling train cars. The land around Boston that was filled in is predicted to be flooded by rising water from global warming between 2030 and 2070. By 12:30 p.m. the fog had dissipated and the skyscrapers tops could be seen. Our lunch was cake textured Cornbread, New England Style Clam Chowder, Scrod fish with boiled baby potatoes and coleslaw and Gingerbread cake for dessert. Scrod fish means “Seafood caught rightoff the dock”. Across the street from the Oyster House is the New England Holocaust Memorial consisting of six glass towers representing the 11 million people killed in the six Nazi Concentration Camps between 1933 and 1945. Six million people were Jewish; the other five million were Gypsies, Jehovah Witnesses, political dissidents, and the mentally and physically disabled. The towers contain the identification numbers of all the people killed in the camp.

By this time the sky was sunny and the temperature was about 23°C. We were shown the grinding stone attached to a brick wall, which is the point from which distances from Boston are measured. Steps 7791

Next the bus dropped us off to climb the Copp’s Hill to see the Old North Church, also known as Christ Church built 1723, passing an old 1659 Burying Ground (or cemetery). We followed the red brick route enclosed in cement, that is the Freedom Trail which leads people to14 historic sites in Boston. We were in the historic center of Boston. As we crossed the street, one of the Hop On Hop Off trolleys passed us. We arrived at the waterfront where Mersine pointed out the TD Garden where the Bruins and Celtics play and the harbour where the USS Constitution sailing ship is berthed. Each evening at sunset two cannons on the ship are fired. Up on the opposite hill was the monument on Bunker Hill in the Charlestown area.

Back on the bus, we travelled past Quincy Marketplace and along Newbury Street, where the high-end stores are located, to our final stop at Copley Square. All the buildings here are built on piles to prevent sinking into the filled land, including the Boston Public Library, the first lending library, and the modern glass John Hancock Tower. Trinity Church of Boston was the first building to be built on the site. About 500 meters away near the stone Old South Church is the official finish line for the Boston Marathon. On the way back to ship we passed Boston Common, a large park for all people to use.

We had an enjoyable dinner in the Dining Room with Bob and Carol from Florida and New Jersey and Rose Maria, Luke and Martha all from New Jersey. The show was a singing group with flashy sequinned blazers and good voices. We danced to some pre-recorded ballroom dance music in the Revelations Lounge which played five tunes of the same dance before changing tempo. There were only about six couple intermittently dancing. Bob and Carol arrived early for the Trivia Game and we talked to them in between dances.

Final steps 14,109