My sister's birthday is coming up, so we need to concoct an adventure.
In the last year or two, we've had some amazing highjinks that included Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, and beyond. We've stumbled across bear scat while hiking a mountain, stayed in a hotel so close to a fireworks store that we feared an explosion if anyone near us lit a cigarette, visited a mansion that could be the Titanic's landlocked twin, woods-bombed on snowshoes through private property, and faced a very pissed-off river animal while kayaking.
Today's exciting adventure ends up being a trip to Salem, Massachusetts. The first thing people think about when anyone mentions Salem is that crazy-ass mental people live here who sincerely believe they are witches and warlocks. Newsflash! The Salem Witch Trials were more about land grabbing and church snubbing than anything else. There were no witches, and I say this as someone related to John Proctor and Susannah North Martin. I've read transcribed notes from Martin's trial, and it's pure and malicious horseshit. Nonetheless, Salem is nicknamed Witch City, and it's a real money-maker for the locals at all levels.
So, for the day, we pretend that we are tourists rather than people intimately connected to the history of the city and its surrounding towns, pretend that we don't live (or, in my sister's case, used to live) in one of the "other" witch towns involved in the 1692 debacle. I pretend that I haven't spent more than a decade traveling in and out of this city while one of my kids and then, later, I earned college degrees here. Nope, today we are just like every other camera-toting out-of-towner.
Today we are Birthday Bashers disguised as common tourists.
We have our routes mapped out, which each of us did separately, but this is how similar we are; like the time we went to Poughkeepsie and brought the same games along: two Yahtzee games, two decks of cards, and two Cribbage boards. We have many things in common that we want to see, but we are starting at the Peabody Essex Museum. There are many amazing exhibits here, and after seeing thousands of diverse pieces of art, I save the best for last. I know my sister likes early American history, so the maritime exhibit, one of the permanent collections here, is the final stop.
So starts our search for Hawthorne.
We go from the PEM to the Old Burying Point to find Hawthorne's warped relative, Judge Hathorne, the dude who contributed to the deaths of John Proctor and Susannah North Martin, et al. Crossing Hawthorne Boulevard, we wave to the Hawthorne statue in the grassy median. After a wrong turn by the Witch Museum, we find our way to the House of Seven Gables, where we discover a horrid, blatant spelling error in the huge timeline meant to educate visitors about Nathaniel's life. Way to go, dumbasses! Hawthorne must be rolling in his grave.
From there, we head over to the Custom House, the one where Hawthorne worked and the same one he made famous (or, if you hated the general prologue, as did I, the same one he made infamous) in The Scarlet Letter. Unfortunately, the Custom House, like the candy shop across from the House of Seven Gables, is locked up tight and we cannot get inside to look around. After wandering over to see the tall ship Friendship, we end up back on Hawthorne Boulevard.
After all, it's almost her birthday, and what better way to celebrate than by connecting with a swoon-worthy young author who has been dead for nearly 152 years.
