Spitball Army

The 1980 Presidential election took place in the Fall of my Junior year in college. The campus was flooded with propaganda in the form of buttons, pamphlets, stickers, and, of course, a full schedule of lectures and speakers.

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On a sunny Friday in January 1985, I sketched this while sitting on the steps of the State House in Boston. There must have been something of a chill in the air, judging by the woman’s coat. The bas-relief sculpture on the right, completed in 1897, was created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, an Irish-born American sculptor.

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A home-owner using a blowtorch to melt ice on his back porch accidentally set fire to his North End triple-decker Monday, officials said.

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About a week ago, on the Facebook website, someone posted an event entitled “Election Day.” Members were asked to choose whether they were “attending” or not, much like R.S.V.P.’ing for a dinner party. I selected Yes, and added a note: You would have to kill me to keep me from attending. I haven’t always felt this way.

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This morning, my radio alarm clock announced the arrival of a new day with the strains of a string quartet. I lay in bed trying to identify whose quartet it was. It sounded like Beethoven, perhaps even Brahms.

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There was so much vinyl – multiple copies of many titles, and what seemed like endless rows of classical music – that I was overwhelmed. The two guys working the store seemed overwhelmed, too, wedged in behind a small sales counter that was piled high with boxes of new vinyl arrivals.

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If cat Barbara could have ever been named after a particular person, though, her namesake would most likely have been my first grade teacher, SAM (our acronym for Sister Augustine Mary, who later changed her name back to Sister Barbara Mason), who telephoned me on my birthday one year and played “Las Mañanitas” on her trumpet.

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The subway system no longer takes tokens. They have taken the “branding” approach, as well, as the tickets that you buy from a machine (automation again, as at the airport) are called “Charlie,” as in “Charlie on the MTA!!” It took me awhile to figure out how to buy one. The lines to buy with cash were very, very long, and no one was purchasing at the credit card line, so I did that. It wasn’t easy, at first, all touch screen technology and menus, but I would be a pro a second time.

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There are hardly any of those great used music or book stores left. I especially miss the one on Church Street, which is now a bunch of offices. Thank God there seems to still be no McDonald’s in the Square, but there are plenty of Starbucks storefronts, which is just plain odd in an area with sooooo many great small indie coffeehouses.

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Of course, there is always something that can go wrong, and my driver’s license expired on 9.1, so I was flagged as “SSSS” or “special screening.” It basically meant nothing more than being sent through a separate line and being paid extra special attention. That was OK by me.

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