Thursday 12/7/23
An imagistically-tilted entry. I don't put up a great deal of photos in this record for various reasons. It's not a picture book, and eventually all of this will end up in book form. Also, logistically-speaking, when I copy and paste these entries into Word docs, it's easier not to have to stop and pluck the text out from between the images. But I took these the other day and I liked them so I thought I'd put them up.
This is the Mariner's House, which is in North Square. I pass it when I go out to run stairs at City Hall, which I was doing on this particular day. It was before the sun came up, hence the darkness. The Mariner's House, as one would expect, is where mariners can stay when they're in town, and has been since 1847. It's right next to Paul Revere's house. The red bricks on the ground are part of the Freedom Trail. Don't be fooled by the cobblestone; it hasn't been there going back to the days of yore, but is of a more recent vintage. The church across the street is where Melville got the idea for Father Mapple and where I wrote the first story of my first book.
I've mentioned the disused tollhouse from the 1950s that I do push-ups next to, and here it is, as seen from Cross Street, with Hanover Street at your back. The tree in the foreground is the one I cited as the tollhouse tree. Sometimes I sit with my back against the tollhouse, too, and think. I'll drink coffee there. I don't think anyone else has a clue what it is, save tour guides, perhaps, but they don't bring it up. I'm glad it's still there. You figure by rights it shouldn't be. I like things like that.
Obviously we have the Bunker Hill Monument here, but note the workmen near the top. I stood directly under--well, as close to directly as I could get--and looked up at the planks. They weren't that wide. There was space on each side of them--a lot of space. One guy was climbing on that pole at the far right, like he was bored. He was in a safety harness, but all the same, I could barely look. Note how many leaves remain on the trees. It was raining yesterday, so when I go today I'm expecting a lot of those leaves to be gone.
Speaking of leaves: On the way home from running stairs in the Monument that day I saw this tree in Charlestown, holding its leaves as well. I wonder why.
Then right next to it was this tree, whose leaves were still green, for the most part. You don't see that in December in Boston, do you?
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