Three aggressively rude, would-be bullies in the Bunker Hill Monument

Sunday 7/26/26

I was doing stairs today in the Bunker Hill Monument, as I have for ten years. There were three aggressively rude women who created a problem I've never had in those ten years. You wonder what has go wrong with the world and for people in that world to act as these three did.

When I go up and down the stairs, I do the same thing every time. I stay as close to the wall on the right as possible. When going up, I flatten my body against said wall, making like a flounder. My chest and back right shoulder actually scrape the wall as I go.

It's a hard thing to do, going up those stairs. The sign outside says that they're "strenuous" by way of warning. Often I've watched as one person asks the other person they're with what the word "strenuous" means, but that's neither here nor there. This routine has played a huge role in me overcoming heart issues, and it's something I've done, and has been important for me to do, since I stopped drinking ten years ago. It isn't a coincidence that these two things began at the same time.

People sweat in the Monument. It's airless. Most days I'm the first one there. Today, one of my buddy rangers, whom I've known for years, opened the door, we exchanged our normal pleasantries, and in I went. He was one of the rangers who made a point of telling me how much it meant to them when I gave them a copy of that op-ed I wrote for the New York Daily News last summer, with the note on the back thanking these rangers for all they do and how much they've meant to me.

There's one other person who does stairs like this in the Monument. She comes in the winter over the past two years as part of her training for something--which I believe has to do with mountains in Europe--and is then gone until the next winter. By the end of these sessions, especially if I'm doing ten circuits, I'm wet, as one would imagine. Many people are out of shape. I don't think that's a top secret in America. Thus, many people who go into the Monument and ascend the one time, taking a goodly amount of time, are sweating.

They're also often on the wrong side of the stairs. The stairs are narrower on the right as you go up. They're tapered. The railing is on the left as you ascend. You go up the right, you come down the right. Why? There's the whole stay to the right thing as a general rule, for starters. But the railing is on the side it's on for a reason. It doesn't matter if you fall going up. Coming down, well, that could matter. Do you think most people care about this? About anyone else? You think they're trying to be their brother's keeper?

Or do you think they want what they want because it's them and they want it? What percentage of them would you guess believe the railing is theirs both ways because...it's them? Also, if you're coming down and you don't have the rail, that side without the is tapered. It's easier to wreck and break your neck. (You could also make some sort of intelligence test of why the railing is on the side it's on and go a decent stretch without anyone getting the answer correct, let alone both parts of the answer, with the more-dangerous-to-fall-going-down thing and the tapered side thing.) People have their bags down around their feet, or dresses billowing out, or they're taking more than half of the stair. They'll be standing in place, whether on one of the landings or any of the stairs, having a rest, legs spraddled. They make no attempt to bring them together. One guy today thought it'd be funny to go down backwards.

I am not like this. I look out for people. I am out of the way. I've carried people's luggage to the top, too. Not long ago, there was a woman who stopped at the Monument before her flight back to wherever she lived. You can't leave a suitcase at the bottom, for what should be obvious reasons: it could be a bomb. So I volunteered to carry it up for her. Worked it into what I was doing.

This is me. I have a hard life at present to say the least, and this is something I do to try and keep going. As in, remain alive for another day. I want no problems. I cause no problems. Things have gotten worse over the years, as people have become worse and we've devolved. Behavior has devolved. Self-loathing has spiked. Nullity has spiked. It's definitely worse post-COVID, but I'm unsure if that's because of COVID itself or, again, coincidental timing with our collective devolution. But in, say, 2019, so much as a baleful look was fairly uncommon.

I've given the example of how when I go up with a group of people the first time, everyone is all chummy. We're all in the same boat! Remind me why we're doing this again! The same jokes. The exact same jokes. "Is there a bar at the top?"

Then, we all get to the top. I've said nothing as we've gone. Slowly. Very slowly. I was just in the middle of this group of people. They all but collapse at the top. I hit the top stair and turn around. When I return to the top, they're still forgathered in recovery. Often talking about how they've "earned" the pastries they are going to eat soon at Mike's. And now, the looks start to happen. They're not so chummy anymore. This guy can do this thing we can't. And we hate that in our society when it falls within the remit of things we do do. Thinking, writing. Or exercising in this case.

When I return a third time and they're still there, I'm getting hostile looks. I thought we were chums? People want you to be like them or as limited as them. Otherwise, they will often see you as someone to resent. And if they can make things worse for you--or think they can--they will try. And such people do this repeatedly throughout all the days of their life. The more threatened they are by what they perceive someone else to be, the greater the animus, the more forceful the projection.

These three women--one of whom was wearing a Dorchester shirt--were rude, loud, and wanted to start something. They saw this guy minding his own business, and as he came down as they went up, they made sure to say, very loudly, "Please don't touch me and sweat all over me again," when this thing never happened.

I want no stress nor drama when I go to the Monument. I keep to myself save my exchanges with the rangers, and friendly people who inquire about what I'm doing and how many times I'm doing it. Children are often curious. Field trip groups. Never has a child acted rudely. Because children aren't measuring themselves against you.

If someone does act poorly, it'll be an adult. An envious adult. An embittered, and often out of shape adult. Someone projecting. When I come down and I have to go around someone, I am as polite as can be. With the kids, I personalize this with an "Excuse me buddy" and with the adults it's "Can I slip by, sir," and then I say thank you as I go past. I am hyper-polite, because this is about the only peace I potentially get and I loathe confrontation.

These women wanted to try and bully someone, gang up on him, as it were, who was doing this thing they couldn't do, and I'll leave it at that, save to say, these three weren't masters of fitness. And guess what? They were all sweating. Having gone up just the one time. You shouldn't be sweating that much from one time either.

Then they continued with the next phase of their ganging up. One of them loudly asked, "Why would someone come here when there are so many stairs outside." These weren't intelligent people, and they're clearly people who never exercise, because if one was one or the other--let alone both--this isn't a question such a person would ask. Then another said, "Why would you come here and wait in line?" in this vituperative tone. Some brilliant thinkers here. There is no line when you you are the first one there. Secondly, there is often no line at all whenever you show up. Thirdly, when there is a line, it's a brief line. Like, you're waiting a minute or two.

One would come here because there are 294 stairs in succession, which isn't a thing one finds elsewhere. The City Halls stairs at Government Center, where I'm often to be found when the Monument is closed and which became my main stairs during COVID? Fifty stairs there. One would also come to the Bunker Hill Monument because it is their right to do so, and because it is important to them. It's an honorable routine. It has helped keep me going and, frankly, alive.

I am polite to everyone. They continued with what they were doing. The baiting. I said not one word to them. This was around quarter of eleven this morning. Beautiful, sunny day in Boston. So what did these misandrist, would-be bullies do? The three of them went somewhere together to make a post minutes after leaving on Reddit. I haven't looked at it. I was there. I know what happened. I'm there every day. I was home fifty minutes after their stunt, and already the posting was there.

These people showed up the once, and they were sexist, truculent, childish. Who does that? Who leaves and, what, goes to a bar to try and "get" someone via a social post? On a Sunday morning? This is is your life? This is the kind of person you are?

That's pathetic. As in literally, as people like to say, because such a person is to be pitied. That's not a good way to be, it's not how a happy person behaves, and, more importantly, it isn't how a healthy or stable person acts. It's how a rancorous person who has teamed with other rancorous people rammed with self-loathing behave.

Most people have no idea what I'm doing in that Monument. Or that I've gone up more than once, no matter how many times I go past them. As I've documented time and again in this record, people say to me, "You're almost there!" as I ascend for the tenth time, because they think they're seeing me for the first time. For all they know, I'm another tourist. People generally assume that you are like them and doing what they're doing until they're disabused of that notion. This speaks to many things about how we are now.

I came out the other day and three guys, in their late twenties, were coming up the hill, able to see me from head to foot, having just did ten circuits in that Monument, and one of them goes, "Scale of one to ten, is it worth?" Everyone, just about, asks me if it's worth it. They don't mean doing circuits. They mean, "Going up that lone time, like you just did," because they don't have a clue I've been going up and down. My point being: these were some scurrilous people trying to create a problem because of what they are and aren't. Bad, agenda driven people.

And if I was some guy who was out of shape, trying to better himself, there'd be no problem. Or a woman. Or if I was some obese person sweating everywhere as is not uncommon, taking up most of the stair. No. The issue is what I represented to these people. And these other conclusions they drew, I'm sure. That here's some jock, patriarchy, etc. And then lo and behold, this guy is the things that he actually is.

Eat it up, I guess, if you're the type of person who likes that.

Edit: It's three o'clock. I just walked the mile-and-a-half back to the Bunker Hill Monument from here in the North End, because it takes some effort to get there as well, as I don't live in the neighborhood, and did three more circuits of stairs, and have now returned. The principle of the thing. By the way: there was a little girl, maybe six-years-old, coming down with her dad while I was going up the first time, and this little girl remarked to her father how much she was sweating.