Old Things R New

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

My Boston friend had suggested I take the “T” Commuter train from outside the city to avoid traffic and parking problems. So I plugged the Braintree “T” Station address into my Garmin (We call her Greta) and headed north. When Greta announced “Arriving at address on the left,” all I saw was a row of warehouses. I drove around looking for the station with no luck. Finally I asked a guy coming out of one of the warehouse buildings where the train station was. He pointing and said, “Turn at the light and then it’s just over there a few blocks.” I followed his directions and found the station, parked in the parking garage and bought my round-trip ticket at the kiosk. I boarded the “Red” line train to the “Downtown Crossing” station, where I transferred to the “Orange” line for the “State” station, where I transferred to the “Blue” line for the “Aquarium” station, where I got off and found the City View Trolley Tours. Shooo, was that intense!

The tour of Old Boston and the Inner Harbor was great, with on–off stops where I could visit the many famous “Freedom Trail” landmarks such as the Old North Church, from where it is said Paul Revere received his lantern signal to begin his famous ride to warn the patriots “The British are coming!”; The Old South Church (or Third Church in Boston), which was used as The Meeting House (as a bit of trivia, in 1773, Samuel Adams gave the signals from the Old South Church Meeting House for the “War Whoops” that started the Boston Tea Party); The site in the harbor where the Boston Tea Party took place; and of course, a self-guided walk-thru tour of the USS Constitution and museum.

I was especially interested in the USS Cassin Young (DD-793) Museum located there in Boston harbor, because one of my tours of duty with the U.S. Navy was aboard the USS Gurke (DD-783). The Cassin Young was a (1943) Fletcher-class destroyer, whereas the Gurke was a little later (1945) Gearing-class destroyer, but they were overall very similar. To say walking thru that destroyer brought back memories is an understatement.

When I got off the “T” train at the Braintree station that afternoon, I looked at the parking garage, and it was only 4-stories high. I distinctly remembered that the parking garage where I had parked that morning was 5-stories. After many questions to the station attendants, I finally realized that the guy who had given me directions that morning, for some reason, had directed me to the “Quincy Center” station instead. Now I had to buy a one-way ticket and catch the next train back one stop to the Quincy Center station to find my car. What a mess that was, and a big waste of time! Once I got to my car, I headed for the U.S. Naval Shipbuilding Museum in Quincy, Ma to see the heavy cruiser USS Salem. I didn’t spend much time at that museum as I wanted to visit the Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA which is a living museum that re-creates life in rural New England during the 1790s thru the 1830s. I tried to get there before they closed, but that didn’t work out because “Greta” took me to the wrong location again. I finally found the Village, but by then they were closed, so I called it a day, had dinner and went to the motel for some rest and TV.

—–To Be Continued—–

Tags: #amblogging, Christian bloggers, City View Trolley Tours, Sturbridge Village, Travel, Travel Series, USS Cassin Young (DD-793) Museum