What Boston Means to Me

I'm not from Boston and I've only been there five times, but I felt the need to write my little tribute to the city.  Boston is home to my favorite basketball team, the best beer company in the country, and my favorite baseball stadium.  But when I think of Boston, these are not the things I think of first.

Of the 50 biggest cities in the country, I've spent some time in 15 of them.  Boston and Los Angeles are my two favorites.  (In case you were wondering, Las Vegas is my least favorite since I haven't been to San Francisco yet.)  For Los Angeles, it's pretty much because of the Dodgers and the weather.  For Boston, it's because of the history and my experiences there.

Let's start with the history.  As you probably know, I love the United States of America.  Philadelphia might be the birthplace of our nation, but it was conceived in Boston.  John Adams is one of my heroes.  As I've said before, I believe George Washington is the greatest American ever.  But Adams doesn't get the credit he deserves.  Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but it was John Adams that pushed Congress to act.  Adams belongs on that same level of Revolutionary heroes with Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin just below Washington.  Even before the Declaration of Independence was written, you have the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's ride, Washington's liberation of Boston, etc.  Without everything that was going on in Boston, our nation might never have been born.

And then there are my personal memories of Boston.  I first visited Boston in 1995 when my brothers were looking at colleges.  I don't remember much from that trip other than going to Fenway Park and seeing Mo Vaughn hit a grand slam against the Twins.  As it turns out, I also saw an incredible rarity in baseball, a save in an 8-run game (baseball-reference.com is probably my favorite website).  Of my four other trips to Boston, three of them involved sports (two Red Sox games and a Celtics game).  I love Fenway Park and I had some really good times with John.  We did a day-drinking bar crawl on the Freedom Trail one time and we went to the Green Dragon Tavern (which is where the Boston Tea Party was planned) another time.  But my favorite trip to Boston was the one that didn't involve sports.  It was my first trip to Boston in 13 and a half years, John's Christmas party in 2008.  Vin was up there and Molly, Darryl, and I made the trip up.  That's most of my best friends from camp.  Since those guys started leaving camp in 2006, there haven't been many times that all five of us were together (I can't think of anything other than that Christmas party, John's wedding, and 12 Bars of Christmas).  Even though I had to put up with some nonsense from John's Boston College fan friends, that party was a lot of fun.  Vin took a great picture of me unconscious in a suit, tie, and the fake old-school Notre Dame helmet that he gave me, but unfortunately his phone couldn't send it to me or something.  I remember that we wanted to go to the Sam Adams brewery the next day, but none of us got up early enough so we went to the Harpoon Brewery instead.  John had to go back to Long Island at the end of the weekend, so John, Darryl, Molly, and I drove back together.  It's one of my favorite random weekends ever.

I love Boston.  I've said it's a city that I could picture myself living in (whereas I would never live in New York City).  Boston has been attacked.  Justice must be done.