AN INTERLUDE - BOSTON…
Forgive me for delaying the third part of “My Visit To Sapelo Island,” but I’m getting ready for a long flight tomorrow and running out of time. I’ll see if I can’t wrap up the Sapelo Island story for next weekend. Allow me, instead, to quickly recount an incident that occurred in the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts during a visit there last month with my daughter-in-law, Marci, and my two grandchildren - Max, four and a half, and Ruby, 17 months. Their daddy, Nicholas, was hard at work elsewhere that Thursday afternoon, in the Boston scientific community.
First, let me say that driving into downtown Boston from Arlington is not for the fainthearted. In my trucking days, I remember having to pick up a candy load in the center of Boston with a 53 foot trailer. After fighting my way through crushing Interstate traffic to the address in Cambridge, I had to back the rig down an incredibly narrow alley to a virtually invisible dock. As to the demented citizenry - including not a few old ladies racing all manner of vehicles down get-on ramps only to race off again one ramp later - well, I’m simply not gonna go there!..
True to fashion, our progress to the Boston Museum ran us into a monumental traffic jam that started building as we ran along the Charles River Basin. The Red Sox were having an afternoon ballgame, and Fenway Park happens to be smack in the heart of Boston! I won’t delve into the traffic details, as I am trying to keep my blood pressure down this afternoon as I pack…
Well - mirabile dictu - Marci dove into a parking spot some errant soul had abandoned, seconds before, right in front of the Museum. We pumped the meter full of quarters, loaded Ruby into the two-seater stroller and began our tour of the riches within the imposing structure.
It was soon decided that nutrition aced our interest in art. Seeking refuge from the thronged hallways, from our floor plan handout we located the basement cafeteria. Snacks were acquired for the kiddos, along with a more formal lunch for Marci and myself. Everyone stayed busy for a few moments, but Ruby, wearing a devilish smile, began shifting uneasily in her stroller seat. After hurling several cooked green beans to the floor (and one or two across the room), she changed the forbearing smiles of two matron ladies at the next table to disapproving scowls.
Ruby’s shrieks are rather like the wheels of an overloaded freight train hitting a tight curve at sixty. Even before we abandoned the Cafeteria Mommy knew what was up: Ruby wanted out of the stroller. Let me say that Ruby is one tough customer to argue with - and tougher yet to hold back when she gets to pushing a stroller. She’s headed toward being the athletic wonder of the family; it won’t at all surprise me one day to see her in the Red Sox lineup.
She pushed that empty stroller for the next two hours, me gripping the handle for dear life against a runaway. That gal is one tough little trooper! We pushed through Egyptian antiquities, mummies, the French masters room, fabulous collections of gold and silver - Ruby’s eyes fixed not on the treasures but on the floor immediately before her next footsteps. All this time brother Max had been angelic, his attention fixed on the Boston Museum’s riches. (Max was later to nominate the mummies and the elevator buttons for his own first place award.)
Unfortunately, it all went to hell when Ruby stopped by the Stradivarius, in the middle of the classical musical instrument display. Once again, Ruby let out with those damnable railroad wheels comin’ round the curve… Max clapped his hands to his ears and began to howl; Mommy pushed the empty stroller ahead with an air of desperation; and, without realizing it, I began to fall back into the crowd. And, here, we come to the crowning moment of the afternoon…
The same two matrons, who’d been sitting next to us in the cafeteria, happened to be following us. One of them put her hand gently on my shoulder, advising in motherly tones, “That’s it, dear, you’re going at it beautifully! It’s the only way to handle it. Just fall back a few steps further and pretend you don’t know them….”
See you next week.
