By Sarah Gilbert
We arrived at the hotel in Connecticut after the concert at 2 AM. Everyone was exhausted, having been blown away by an amazing performance by Bruce Springsteen. I know my eyes were closed as soon as my head hit the pillow. The next morning I dragged myself out of bed and headed to the bus. Or, should I say, our home on wheels. Once the bus started rolling I passed out. Our trip to Boston passed by in a haze of bumpy roads and bright dreams.
We woke up in Concord, MA as DJ Billy played us “Revolution” by the Beatles as our entrance song to Boston. We pulled off the highway and drove to Walden Pond, the famous site of Henry Thoreau’s withdrawal from society and the setting for his book “Walden.”
We walked along a pathway half way across the pond to a clearing in the woods. We sat down and read some passages from Thoreau and spoke about what they meant to us. Billy told us that it really tied into the beginning of our trip when we visited the Dr. Martin Luther King Center and saw a statue of Gandhi. We had learned that Dr. King based his philosophy on Gandhi who took much of his thinking from Thoreau. That is what is so great about this trip, so many things come full circle.
After that we climbed back on to our mobile home and we listened to the Boston theme song “Dirty Water” by the Standells as we drove into Boston. We stopped in Harvard Square in Cambridge. We “supported the local economy” (as Billy says all of the time) by shopping and having lunch. I am sure most of us got a taste (literally) of the local culture.
After lunch we drove to the JFK Library and Museum. It was pretty interesting to learn more about President Kennedy’s life in the White House, at home and on the campaign trail, as opposed to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas where we learned about his death. It was a gorgeous museum and had a lot of artifacts you wouldn’t expect to find.
Next was the Freedom Trail. We started in the Boston Commons where Billy told us how it provided a place for people to make speeches and help incite the revolution that birthed America. The next stop was the Park Street Church which is where the first anti-slavery speeches were given. The Old Granary Burial Grounds was next. It is a small cemetery where many famous historical people are buried. We saw the graves of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Mary (Mother) Goose, and others.
We then saw the site of where the first public school was in America and a statute of Benjamin Franklin as he attended the school.
Next to his statue is a statue of the Democratic party symbol - the donkey. We got to sit on the donkey and take pictures.
We also saw the old corner bookstore where those revolutionary thoughts that were being stated in churches and taught in schools were printed. This spurred the harassment of British soldiers which, in turn, set off the Boston Massacre. We saw the spot where the killings took place.
We visited Faneuil Hall for dinner. After that we walked through the Boston Holocaust memorial. Billy showed us how easy it is just to walk through it and not realize that it’s a memorial. Possibly this is on purpose, to symbolize the people who didn’t realize the concentration camps existed or the people who chose not to realize.
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