Boston Freedom Trail
If you ever go to Boston you have to walk the Freedom Trail, a line that takes you from the Boston Common to Faneuil Hall and beyond the North End. Along the way you see much of the origins and evolution of the United States - from the earliest colonists to the waves of immigrants who came after to the ones who are coming still.
The cemetery above - the Granary Burying Ground - is where Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, as well as Benjamin Franklin's parents, are buried. At the gate a helpful volunteer hands you a folder with all of the information you need to know about who is buried here and why their headstones look the way they do. If you are lucky (and there are so many of them that you probably will be) you will catch a tour guide telling a group the real story of Paul Revere's ride. Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you now.
It is one of my favorite stops on the trail. I always like to contemplate what it was like to be on the edge of something so new and idealistic. This time I found myself wondering where that edge is now. Are we capable of thinking, as a nation, as clearly as the folks buried here once did? Did they picture our current nation when they wrote the Declaration of Independence? What would they make of what has become of their giant leap of faith?
As you keep walking, you pass Faneuil hall, where you really should stop for a bite to eat at one of the hundreds of food stalls, or, if it isn't lunch time, have a beer. Sure, it is mega-touristy, but in a good way. Pick up a "Yankees Suck" T-shirt while you are there.
Though the trail goes further, we ended our tour in the North End, Boston's Little Italy. I love this part of town - with great looking restaurants and a bunch of neat old buildings. We stopped to buy Italian cookies, which I recommend you do. But don't go to Mike's Pastry, which you will recognize by the wicked long line out front. We had done that previously, and ended up with cookies that were way too sweet and just plain old nasty to even eat. You should, however, get a block off the main road and go to Parziale's, where the cookies are sublime and you might just find the owner sitting out on the stoop with his grandaughter.
The North End is also where the Old North Church stands. You know, the "one if by land, two if by sea" Old North Church. Seeing it really does remind you that the US had a pretty cool beginning. Marissa got a great picture of it.
Just outside of Faneuil hall, before moving on to the North End, you have to stop at the New England Holocaust Memorial. I didn't take any pictures, it just didn't feel right. But it is a beautiful and thought provoking memorial. It is made up of six columns/towers of frosted glass, with the serial numbers of those killed etched into the towers. Along the way there are quotes and statements, each designed to encourage you to slow down and think. We walked through each part of it, reading the inscriptions, looking at the structures representing all those who were killed.
With the thoughts from the cemetery in my mind - the "what has happened to this country and what does our future hold" thoughts - Marissa and I walked up behind two young girls in front of one of the inscriptions. One was reading part of the dedication statement aloud to the other. I don't know how old she was - I just know it as the age-where-reading-is-starting-to-be-fun. This is what she read, in her smart, slightly hesitant little voice, struggling with the bigger words, but eventually reading them out perfectly:
"To remember their suffering is to recognize the danger and evil that are possible whenever one group persecutes another. As you walk this Freedom Trail, pause here to reflect on the consequences of a world in which there is no freedom - a world in which basic human rights are not protected. And know that wherever prejudice, discrimination and victimization are tolerated, evil like the Holocaust can happen again."
When she was finished reading she looked up and smiled, obviously proud that she had made it through such a difficult passage, and oblivous to the fact that she had managed to move a couple of irony loving old cynics. Marissa and I both had tears in our eyes and I suddenly felt much better about our future.
