Boston...to the finish line.

(From previous entry)...As I did this, 30,000 others were discovering it too, marching like soldiers from Hopkinton to its boundaries. …


continued...
Once I had been like these soldiers. I qualified for Boston, and showed up at the starting line 2 months pregnant with Kate. In a day similar to today’s heat, my conscience forced me to stop. All the pregnancy books said you must be most careful 2 months into pregnancy if you want a kid with an unscrambled brain. I must have made the right decision because today she reads a book a day. My mind was wondering and without regret, my journey continued. I looked downward and noticed I stood on hallowed ground. I was on the site of The Boston Massacre. I knew the subject well, because I recently studied for a test on it. (Having a kid in 5th grade has its privileges).  I was on the best type of field trip, one with no soggy brown bag lunches or busses with noisy kids.  There was one question swirling in my mind…why is Boston called “Bean Town”?  I stopped and pulled out my husband’s Iphone and Googled it.  Satisfied with the answer, I remembered that I was no longer a lightweight in Boston. I was hungry and I had meandered into the perfect place, Little Italy. Within minutes I was devouring a cream puff the size of my head. With powdered sugar likely still on my face, I sat and stared at Paul Revere. He looked at me horrified that I wouldn’t share with him.  I would begin the long venture through the Boston Gardens to see my husband make the marathon's final turn turn from Commonwealth Avenue.  It wasn’t just another day in Bean town; the heat and the crowds were downright suffocating. I stood high up on an electrical box. 10,000 people later, I had missed my husband's fleeting feet. Today, there were more skinny white guys out there in white spandex shirts than could be counted.  As any race lugger knows, you take a chance knowing that a quick blink can be a certain miss.  Following a route back to find my husband would make an old “Family Circus” map seem ridiculously simple. He would be just where he said he would be, at the “S”.  Looking up, he would smile pointing to his medal. I would laugh, as it’s his 11th Boston Marathon medal and still, he gets excited when he gets his reward. I would congratulate him as today would mark his 75th marathon and his first race as a 40 year old. Boston, I enjoyed rediscovering you and for some reason, I have a feeling I’ll be back again soon.

Why is Boston called Beantown?

Back in colonial days, a favorite Boston food was beans baked in molasses for several hours. Back then, Boston was sort of awash in molasses - it was part of the "triangular trade" in which slaves in the Caribbean grew sugar cane to be shipped to Boston to be made into rum to be sent to West Africa to buy more slaves to send to the West Indies. Even after the end of this practice, Boston continued as big rum producing city - the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 (which killed 21), ocurred when a tank holding molasses for rum production exploded.

Today, Boston baked beans are something of a rarity - there are no companies in the city making it and only a few restaurants serve it. 

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