Monthly Archives: September 2010

“Progress is Not Painless”

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on September 30, 2010, in "Walsh's Wonderings") The National Weather Service recently confirmed that the summer of 2010 was the hottest in state history due to the number of days a southwesterly airflow brought up warm air from the south. This should sound familiar to anyone traveling near the construction zones in the South End these past few weeks. While the temperature might be dropping now that summer is officially over, things are getting heated in the Construction Triangle between West Broad Street, Main Street, and Linden Avenue. The improvements to the sewer lines in this area are critically important; after a storm, drivers in this area had to take an impromptu Boston Duck Tour without the amphibious car. Town officials are to be commended for getting this project underway. Unfortunately, progress is not painless. In this case, the Construction Triangle is the place where traffic goes to die. Trying to get to the West Broad I-95 entry ramp is like trying to steer a cruise ship through the Panama Canal. Traffic lights that serve as the locks orchestrate the painfully slow shuffle of cars as they line up for hundreds of yards around California Street and Broadbridge Avenue. While negotiating the roundabout off Exit 32 has always been an adventure, it has now been reduced to a traffic meat grinder, forcing rush hour drivers to slow from 55 (well, in theory, anyway) to a full stop a mere forty yards from the line of cars trying to enter the traffic circle. Going north on West Broad from Main Street is an exercise in negotiation. Some try desperately to establish eye contact with the driver merging next to them. Others take advantage of open windows, shouting out a plea to be let in. Others play a more dangerous game, nudging their cars into traffic until there's no choice but to let them in. This game is followed by a round of, "How quickly can I shut my car window so as not to hear them yelling behind me at the light?" The worst part of this is the hit to the merchants whose businesses must ride out the construction. Some owners saw business decline as much as 75% at the Main Street restaurants inside the Triangle, mostly because people have assumed these places were closed during construction. Others think them inaccessible, and yet only the northbound lane is closed. There's never been a better time to try these places out. The Cumberland Farms gas station at the corner of West Broad and Linden is its busiest in the state, yet the lot does not appear as full as drivers are routinely orphaned in its exit lane as they struggle to get back into traffic. I've seen the best and worst of my neighbors as I navigate the Triangle. While some bang their steering wheels and scream at every perceived injustice inflicted upon them, many others demonstrate the small acts of compassion (letting someone into…

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“Wampum Doesn’t Grow On Trees”

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on September 16, 2010, in "Walsh's Wonderings") It was while riding atop a withered horse at a painfully slow trot through the cheering throngs packing either side of Main Street that I saw it. Leading my horse by the reins in the front of the Memorial Day Parade, dressed in full feathered headband and faux-leather Native American garb, was my dad: Big Bald Eagle. And he was crying. Not the flowing, girlish tears I’d cried earlier that day when I couldn’t find my 3rd Year White Feather for my headband. No, he cried the subtle tears of that lone 70's commercial Indian on the side of the road after seeing a driver toss garbage out the window. Even in that pre-pubescent moment of drunken adulation, astride my trusty steed and waving to the frenzied crowd in my Native American splendor, this was a total shock. This was not a man who shed tears. Was it the culmination of centuries of pain inflicted on the once-proud Native American nation? Was it a swelling pride in the fact that his son had finally gotten a chance to ride one of the rented horses for our Indian Guide tribe in the parade? Could it have been the crushing irony of a third-generation Irishman and his son in face paint and feathers leading a parade that celebrated the military deaths of every American except the people we’d stolen the land from in the first place? Turns out it was hay fever. My dad was severely allergic to horses yet never said a word about it as I pleaded each year to be one of the riders in the parade. The slogan of the Indian Guides, a program for fathers and sons sponsored by the YMCA, is “Pals Forever.” My father more than lived up to that. An operations manager for General Electric with a wife and seven kids to feed, time was a precious commodity. Still, we never missed our bi-monthly Tuesday night gatherings of the tribe, a group consisting of nine hyperactive sixth graders and their bone-weary dads. The meetings would begin with the Chief asking one of us to beat the Tribal Drum, once for each of the four directions of the earth and for each boy present. After the prayer to the Great Spirit, the Wampum Bearer collected the tribal dues from each brave. My dad, brilliant with money, was the logical choice for Wampum Bearer. Wampum was the money we were supposed to earn through our chores for the week, a kind of kiddy tithing we offered up to the tribe. Like the real world outside the tribe, it was an imperfect system. Dave Crowe's mom gave him five bucks allowance each week for doing nothing, while my dad parceled out my weekly twenty-five cents as if he were donating a kidney. As we placed our wampum in the Wampum Drum, we had to say how we earned it. Dave would mutter, “I took…

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