Getting old on the Green Line

Riding home from the central library last night on the Green Line, my young fellow travelers reminded me that, regardless of how young I feel, the world sees something different.

I climbed aboard a packed trolley car on a wind-whipped, rainy day and squeezed my way through college students and young professionals carrying dripping umbrellas and backpacks. A woman jumped to her feet and offered me her seat.

Old lady comin' through. For God sakes, somebody let her sit down!

Having spent the whole day seated on a wooden library chair, I thanked her and declined.

Another old lady, maybe mid-40s, looked a little worried as she studied the route map.

Spotting the other old lady in the car [that was me], a glimmer of hope lit up in her eyes.

"Do you know the stop for Kendrick Hospital?" she asked.

Boston has dozens of hospitals, but I'd never heard of that one. Sorry, I said with what I hoped was a kind smile.

All around me, the iPhones and similar contraptions came out, and the thumbs were flying. Somebody called up a map and showed the lady where the hospital was.

A Strange Week in Local Journalism

This week I covered two stories in Woburn, Mass. One was uplifting, the other baffling.

Monday I attended the MLK Luncheon sponsored by St. John's Baptist Church. Woburn is a very white place, and I've met few black residents while covering government and school functions. So I was disappointed that most of the church members at the event were not actually from Woburn, although some had lived there at one time.

The keynote speaker attended college at the height of the Civil Rights movement and went to jail for nonviolent protests. He lived with real injustices, like having to eat in the back room even at the restaurant where he worked. He went on to have a great career as an engineer and an entrepreneur and to provide a life of privilege for his children and grandchildren. But he still had a catch in his voice when he talked about those days.

He had paved the way to equality and then watched Obama take that road to the White House. I can't imagine what that felt like.

And it must have been bitter these past few months as support for health care reform dwindled along with support for Obama, whose star dimmed so quickly. This time last year, all things seemed possible, but now, Obama is just another disappointing politician.

He's so disappointing that a virtually unknown conservative Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat in the U.S. Senate yesterday. That was the second story I covered.

Speaking to voters as they left the polls, I made a disturbing discovery. People who voted for Martha Coakley identified specific reasons why: health care, gay marriage, education. People who voted for Scott Brown talked in generalities: a fresh new face, seems like an intelligent guy, no more business as usual. They knew little or nothing about his positions on the issues, or they didn't want to tell a reporter that they didn't want health care reform or gay marriage.

Even Brown volunteers had nothing to say about issues. The only Republican who actually mentioned issues to me was the chairman of the local committee. He said that people want health care reform, but they are worried that the Democrats have come up with the wrong plan.

As for the Democrats, their Coakley campaign broke all records for arrogance and incompetence, the very charges they recently leveled against George W. Bush.

Bush is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, he still deserved the respect of the office, and we liberals did not give that to him.

My sister Gerry pointed that out last month. Hearing people say that Obama is not their president and seeing him heckled by a congressman during a speech, she began to question some of the personal attacks against Bush when he was president.

And she made me think, too. It reminded me of a time at work when a co-worker, promoted to his Peter Principle level of incompetence, was really struggling. Instead of helping him, everybody gave him a hard time, including me. We were angry that he made our jobs harder. But it started to turn into bullying. That's when two of us started correcting instead of criticizing, and he improved.

I felt really horrible when I saw my complicity in what was happening to that guy, and that feeling came back when Gerry talked about liberals' treatment of Bush.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't make fun of the President. That is our privilege, even our obligation. But it has to come with some respect for the office.

A Few of My Favorite Things

The first moment of a simple pleasure is especially delightful:
When I first get under the covers on a chilly night.
The first sip of coffee in the morning.
Stepping out of the office and into Friday evening.
Pulling out onto the street with the car gassed up and packed for a trip to Harmony.

Allston coming back to life after holidays

The students cleared out a few days before Christmas, leaving Allston deserted, but now that the holidays are over, they are back preparing for spring semester.

Sunday is shopping day, and the supermarket and sidewalks were jammed with young folks toting packages. Reflecting a new atmosphere of frugality, two students picked their way down the ice-banked sidewalk, each carrying two 12-packs of toilet paper.

In spite of their return, Brighton Avenue was fairly quiet late at night this weekend, thanks to bitter cold temperatures that kept the party people indoors.

Christmas week in Harmony: Part Three

Last day of a relaxing week in the little cabin in Maine. The threatened storm turned out to be powerful but brief with less than 10 inches of snow, but the wind blew all the snow off the pine trees, erasing the "winter wonderland" feel of the place.

No matter. Sunday was above freezing and cloudy with occasional slush balls falling. Our plan to snowshoe in the woods was thwarted when we discovered we had a serious ice dam on the roof. I knocked down 5-foot icicles and got hit in the face with a shard, giving me a little cut on the lip. Ralphie of A Christmas Story fame would have been impressed.

We spent several hours breaking up the ice along the edge of the roof with a hatchet and raking off two feet of snow. Actually, Spencer spent several hours doing that while I held the ladder, handed him tools and dodged hunks of ice and snow. We were both soaked and freezing by dusk, but we got it done.

Afterwards, we got into dry clothes, stoked the fire, and sipped hot apple cider while watching football on TV. The most blissful hour of the whole week.

Tomorrow I drive back to Boston over precarious road conditions, but if I can get the little Scion 0.3 miles to the main road in town, it will be smooth sailing.

Pyrography and Celtic Knotwork

Christmas week in Harmony: Part Two

On New Year’s Day, it snowed lightly all day long, covering the pine trees surrounding the cabin with white powder and softening the footprints that humans, dogs and deer left in the snow.

We walked into town for such necessities as newspapers, mayonnaise and lemon pies, and squandered four dollars on losing lottery tickets.

Since the advent of all-digital broadcast television last year, we receive only ABC and Fox. Fortunately, we could tune in the Capital One and Rose Bowls, so we got our dose of college football to make it feel like New Year’s.

Both too exhausted last night to add late-night logs to the fire, we woke at 5 a.m. this morning toasty under three comforters despite an indoor temperature of 45 degrees. With patient tending, Spencer got a nice blaze going in the stove, and by 8:00, it was 55, tolerable if you wear several layers, sip lots of black coffee, and wrap yourself in a lap robe.

The predicted big storm is due in today with high winds. I plan to trudge into town in snowshoes for a newspaper.

Celtic Knotwork

For the past few months, I’ve been drawing Celtic knotwork.

I use the word “knotwork” as a general term for the interlaced borders and panels that decorate the Books of Kells and Lindisfarne, as well as illuminated manuscripts, metalwork and stone carvings throughout the ancient Celtic world. However, knotwork is actually one of several pattern types such as plaitwork, spirals and key patterns.

I use two pattern books for reference: Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction by George Bain; and The Treasury of Celtic Knots by Aidan Meehan. One style pattern is formed by a continuous ribbon whose course is amazing to follow; others use multiple ribbons, which can be distinguished using several colors.

I plot dots for the pattern on graph paper, requiring a bit of simple math and a lot of counting, similar to needlepoint. Using a light box to see the dots, I pencil in the path of the pattern as a single line on a sheet of plain drawing paper. Next, I sketch in double lines along the path to form a ribbon, doing my best to keep its thickness even through all the twists and curves.

My partner Spencer once looked over my shoulder at my dots and intersecting lines and said, “Good Lord!” At this stage, it looks like a needlessly complicated muddle.

Now for the tricky part. Before applying ink, I follow the entire pattern and erase overlapping lines to show where the ribbon weaves “over” and “under” as it intersects other ribbons and doubles back on itself. Next, I ink in the lines with a black, felt-tip pen and then erase all the pencil lines.

If the pattern has multiple strands, I take another journey along the intricate paths to color each with a different colored pencil,.

Finally, I fill in the background with a black Sharpie.

It’s a lot of physical labor for something that could be done more precisely in half an hour in Adobe Illustrator. So what’s the point?

Following these labyrinths as the original artists did is remarkably satisfying, a kind of meditation. As the mind focuses entirely on the path, all thoughts requiring words disappear.

And in the end, you have something elemental and beautiful.

Knotwork is also an excellent subject for pyrography.