The Great Boston invasion

Dear Congressman,

In a few more days some of my fellow classmates from the early eighties at the American School of Paris are planning to invade the Financial district Hilton for the weekend and have a class reunion. I am sure by now the Boston riot police have already been put on alert for this rowdy crowd of mid-forties adults that plan to wreck havoc on the town's liquor supply.

To prepare for this trip, I thought it only prudent to do some research on facts about Boston, as my only previous experience with this city has been extensive stopovers at Logan Airport. In fact, when I left Paris in June of 1981 to move to Texas, my flight was into Logan on now defunct TWA, then on to Dallas on now defunct Braniff. And they lost my luggage.... which goes a long way to explaining why they are both no longer operating as airlines.

Anyway, back to Boston facts..

Boston has eight sister cities, one of which is Melbourne, Australia. So, Bruce England, even though you can not make to the get together, at least your place of residence is twinned, so have a drink and make a toast to us, and we will return the favor.

The Boston subway is the oldest in the United States, built in 1897. Now this is pretty efficient considering Edison only rolled out the incandescent light bulb around 1880, and I would dread to think what the subways would have been like with kerosene lamps.

Of course, you can't mention Boston currently without thinking of "the Big Dig", the re-routing of I-93 under the city. Estimated to cost $6billion (1985 adjusted for inflation), all told it will end up costing a total of $22 billion, or $36,123.43 per resident of Boston. Barney Franke summed it up well before the project even started:
"Rather than lower the expressway, wouldn't it be cheaper to raise the city?"

It appears the official dessert of Massachusetts is the boston cream pie, an invention of the Omni Parker House in Boston. All the more reason to have some while visiting.

I would discuss their sports teams, each having won a major championship in the last decade, with the exception of their hockey team, but as a long suffering Cincinnati Bengals & Reds fan like myself I don't think we need to dwell on that.

So I will endeavor to learn more about Boston this week, and to pass on information gleaned from my visit.