My friend and I decide to go into Boston so she can buy a whole bunch of concert tickets for the summer. She will save $7 per ticket by coming into the city and going to the box office. Based on the amount of tickets she is buying, she will be saving $98 by our madcap misadventure.
We start by driving to the nearest T-stop, Oak Grove, but the lot is full and there are no spaces left on the street. I hate the Malden T-stop because there is parking for about twenty cars, so we decide to go to Wellington. Wellington has tons of parking, but it's located on the oft-clogged commuter routes in and out of Boston, and we are traveling during the height of the work-week. Wellington is better parking for a weekend or evening venue. On our way from Oak Grove to Wellington, we get adventurous and search for a garage near the Malden T-stop. We have an "Aha!" moment when we find a garage nearby and it's not too expensive, so we convince ourselves that the expense of the garage is equal to or lesser than the headache of commuter traffic.
Once we arrive at the station, our wait for an inbound train is about three minutes, and we start debating while on the train which T-stop we want. Since I have no idea which box office we are headed to (I only know the one at North Station), I'm just guessing based on the T-map above our heads. We are headed to Park Street, near the Common and the State House, but that requires a train change. I suggest Downtown Crossing, and my friend assures me we can walk the difference.
This is the same friend that also convinces me that any "quick trip" to Boston often involves seven miles of walking (which is fine with me), so it's hard to gauge where she is going with this revelation. We get off the subway at Downtown Crossing, a place I have not been to in decades for some strange reason. The last time I knowingly came in here was when a gaggle of us walked through to show my then-boyfriend's Texan brother-in-law the amazing and horrifying Combat Zone (porn hub) of Boston. When I was a kid, we used to take family trips to Jordan Marsh to see the Enchanted Village at Christmas time and look in the decorated storefront windows in Downtown Crossing. Now, though, Jordan Marsh has been replaced by more modern stores, and the old porn theaters have been restored to such wonders as The Paramount and, shockingly, the Boston Opera House (where I saw a ballet years ago - so I guess I have been here more recently).
All this time I've lived here and traveled in and out of the city, for some reason I didn't know that Downtown Crossing was within spitting distance of the State House. Of course, it makes perfect sense, especially thinking back on some of Massachusetts' more sexually liberal male politicians, that the Combat Zone be within lunch-hour distance to their offices. It's another one of those "Aha!" moments. For some reason, I just figured the seedier parts of Boston (or what used to be the seedier parts) were more removed from the everyday happenings. Go figure.
I also think it's hilarious that the porn district evolved into the theater district. I mean, it's all along the same line of entertainment, if you really think about it: costumes, acting, shattered dreams, hopeful big breaks, music, dancing, schmoozing with the audience, money changing hands...
It's the box office stop that truly convinces me that I do not know Boston at all. We are facing the Park Street Church, a place I have walked past probably a thousand times in my lifetime. I have taken pictures of it many times (and again today). It has a fascinating cemetery attached to it here in the midst of high-rises and skyscrapers, the Granary Burying Ground, where Paul Revere and Samuel Adams are buried. To me, this is Hallowed Ground, and I've never, not once that I can consciously recall, never, ever turned around to see what's behind me.
Directly behind me is exactly where we are going: The Orpheum Theater. How have I managed to miss this? It's right here, in its own alley, tucked away and looking a little worn but still fabulous. I mean, I must've seen this before. I used to visit my friend when she lived right next to the State House. There's no way that I did NOT know the Orpheum is located right here at Park Street Church. And yet ... it never registered in my brain, and here is yet another "Aha!" moment for the day. Just like it never registered in my brain that Downtown Crossing is two blocks (if even) away.
In the end, my friend gets her tickets, saves all that money, then we promptly spend it going out to lunch with her son who works a few streets away. All the work to make a killing on ticket fees, and we spend it having fun, instead, so it appears to be a winning situation. It is also a winning situation that I figure out more of my beloved home city. I can't help it; I am directionally challenged and cannot find my way out of a paper bag. But, I can recognize enough landmarks and streets to eventually find my way somewhere wherever it is that I happen to be.
And now, if you need tickets, I can get you in and out of the Orpheum from several different T-stops.
I am so confident in my new-found ability to actually notice things that we leave the Malden parking garage and start randomly taking streets in the general direction where we want to go. Never once getting on the highway, we manage to find our way back home with no wrong turns, eventually hitching up with a road by the Stone Zoo where we were in the first place trying to park at Oak Grove, another "Aha!" moment. Although my friend is a highway driver and tells me every time we glimpse the highway on our travels, "Oh, look, there are people going seventy miles an hour," I am the driver today, and we are taking our time going home, never once interacting with other commuters.
It is, of course, another day full of misadventures and "Aha" moments, but mostly it's a day to spend with my friend. That right there is worth any money saved or spent.
We start by driving to the nearest T-stop, Oak Grove, but the lot is full and there are no spaces left on the street. I hate the Malden T-stop because there is parking for about twenty cars, so we decide to go to Wellington. Wellington has tons of parking, but it's located on the oft-clogged commuter routes in and out of Boston, and we are traveling during the height of the work-week. Wellington is better parking for a weekend or evening venue. On our way from Oak Grove to Wellington, we get adventurous and search for a garage near the Malden T-stop. We have an "Aha!" moment when we find a garage nearby and it's not too expensive, so we convince ourselves that the expense of the garage is equal to or lesser than the headache of commuter traffic.
