"Are we there yet?"
He pulled a red wagon, its contents full of things for the walk; plastic water bottles, a panaxonic radio playing disco tunes, hats, visors, lunches. His small son walked beside him, his long white "Walk for Hunger" tee shirt pulled over him. The entire family wore the matching white tee shirts as they walked alongside the disco wagon.
She closed her eyes. All she could see was the Charles River, its refreshing blue waters peeking from between the trees.
Is this the bridge yet? She did not realize there would be several more, before passing finally, from Cambridge into Boston.
Beach Field. Nice name for a checkpoint stop. Laying on the grasses beside the Charles River. A brass band started to play. No vocals, just some enthusiastic players bowing and dancing to their own music.
On Commonwealth Avenue, one woman held up a sign. "YES!" it said.
The proper town of Newton, where young college boys sat on the porches of white Victorian houses, pretending to read The Globe and listen to radios as thousands of Bostonians walked by.
How many more miles?
Beacon Street. Back Bay. Lovely. Something like New York. Elegant. So long ago.
Boston Common in the Spring. The Public Garden on a dewy Spring morning. Swan boats all in a row. Fenced tulips in rose, yellow, lavendar. An arch of balloons, bobbing over the entrance to the Boston Common. Thousands, although it's only seven o'clock in the morning. Free hats, visors, plastic water bottles, stickers.
Chestnut Hill Reservoir. Isn't there a trolley that runs through here?
WALKATHON IMPRESSIONS 91
Harvard University. What a place for a campus. Elegant lawns overlooking the Charles River.
It first became visible through a sprinkling of trees, small boats in a quiet cove.
Dusty paths ambled through woods and thickets as trees dipped down to rest in the River.
Lavendar cherry blossoms clustered its banks. A dixie band started to play on the riverbank and someone let out a scream. "Yeee-hah!"
Girls wearing Indian dresses and skirts danced to the beating of bongo drums on Harvard's campus
UP NEXT: GOING HOME (the decision to move back to Connecticut) and a side visit to SCITUATE, the home town of my bosom buddy at the time, Pam Mitchell. (You can friend her on Facebook.) Here's to you, "Boston Pam!"
