THORNBERRIES BOSTON TEA PARTY--Part III

Milner Bare Bono

The Milner Hotel, located at 78 Charles Street South, was an old remodeled hotel that was first founded in 1877. We blundered our way inside, luggage in tow, checked in and thanked the desk worker profusely for putting us on the second floor. Usually, we’re as high up as possible and have to worry about our blood evaporating in a region with thin atmosphere and a correspondingly low boiling point. This time, we quickly climbed the stairs, easily found our room, opened the door…

…and immediately smacked our noses against the opposite wall. Yes, this room was the teeniest, tiniest little packing crate we’d ever had for an accommodation. And that includes the paltry cruise ship cabin we crabwalked around on our honeymoon (February 21, 2005). This room couldn’t have been more than 11 feet by 11 feet in width. Our suitcase was more spacious. Oxygen was so scarce that each time I inhaled too deeply, Jennifer became short of breath and swooned.

A flabbergasted Thomas measures out the scope and scale of the room at the Milner Hotel.

There was no furniture other than the narrow coffin that passed for a bed, the two matchboxes that lied and said they were nightstands and the equally diminutive dresser for the television. A closet for our hang-up clothes? Hearsay. Instead, the hangers hung from a wall-mounted shelf that stuck out right into the room next to the television. Microwave and refrigerator? Meaningless concepts. Then there was the air conditioner that didn’t. In fact, it was a window-mounted unit set more than seven feet above eye level, with no way to adjust it that didn’t involve stacking the few items of furniture in a shaky sort of ladder. And the room was stiflingly hot, especially for the second week of May. Founded in 1877? I could believe it. The stains on the linens told us they hadn’t been changed since.

Almost as soon as we entered this little sweatbox, Jennifer was ready to change it. For the fee they were charging, the accommodations should have been considerably more up to snuff. In fact, before the trip was done, we would both be harkening back fondly to the opulence of our room at the Econo Lodge. That first night, both Jennifer and I had trouble sleeping because of the heat, and only by breathing slowly and staying absolutely still could one detect the baby’s breath movements generated by the air conditioning unit. Jennifer said that night that she wanted to demand another room or find somewhere else to stay the next day. But I wisely counseled patience, suggesting we open the window for the night and ask the desk person about the air conditioner the next morning.

Apparently, wisdom must be tied to body fluids, and I’d sweated out all of mine. Despite our complaints at the front desk, the room would never get better during the entire duration of our stay, and only the excitement of other parts of the trip would make the experience bearable. When we returned home, I would later read online reviews of the hotel, finding over and over that it was a substandard establishment for the category in which it is billed. There are those who are willing to sacrifice creature comforts in exchange for the quaintness and exhilaration of being part of old and historic culture. Then there are the Thornberries, who see such claims as a thin marketing veneer used to conceal what are essentially shoddy accommodations and lackluster shift-working staff. But much of this experience would be yet to come. For now, Jennifer and I rested for a few minutes before heading out into the streets of Boston for a tasty dinner.

As with our experience of the people in other large cities, we observed that Bostonians were thinner, trendy, healthy-looking people. Naturally, there was a diversity of ethnicities represented, including what we found to be a higher-than-expected ratio of Asian-Americans. Later on, we would learn that our street closely paralleled Boston’s “Chinatown” district. We did notice, even among the diverse groups, however, when we encountered someone with a distinct Boston accent. I remember smiling to myself when I heard a woman say, “Yeah, eye enjoi’d thet.” In response to a question, another stated, “Of coiss eye doo.”

What made Bostonians stand out for us, though, wasn’t their speech as much as their pedestrian attitude. We picked up pretty quickly that no one obeyed traffic signs at crosswalks. No, whether the sign said “walk” or “don’t walk,” the crowds just strolled leisurely across the street whenever they wanted. It didn’t matter if traffic was coming at full speed; the pedestrians would put their faith in their Higher Power of choice and nonchalantly stroll forward anyway.

I dunno.

Personally, we didn’t trust the damn cars that much, nor do we consider faith a replacement for caution. Between the pedestrians appearing certain the cars would stop and our observation of our cabbie’s dogged unwillingness to stop for pedestrians, it seemed to both of us parochial Kentuckian “rubes” that the downtown region of this cosmopolitan city was a diarrheic colon of disaster just waiting to explode. Jennifer and I both wondered how many Bostonian pedestrians get reduced to freshly slaughtered hamburger every year. You can be sure we probably looked like tourists, because we were the only ones who stopped and waited for the “Walk Now” sign to light up. The only exceptions were those occasions when I could see a fat guy coming; then Jennifer and I would time our crossings so that that corpulent and anonymous individual was between us and any oncoming traffic. Hey, if he’s gonna take chances with his own life, I don’t feel bad using him for a fleshy break-wall! ;)

Back to the tale, Jennifer and I were only out in Boston’s streets briefly on this particular night. For dinner, we settled on the reliable Bennigan’s, a place we’d enjoyed during our visit to Chicago the first time in March 2003. Naturally, we had to have a beer or five while we were there, and we settled on, as seemed appropriate, Samuel Adams Boston Lager. To my surprise, I personally developed quite a taste for it and would come back to it repeatedly throughout our stay in Bean Town.

As we traveled back to the room, Jennifer wanted to take a quick walk around the block, partly for the experience and partly to get our bearings for our adventures to come. Her idea turned out to be a fortuitous one, because we discovered the existence of an antiquarian bookstore that I knew I must visit before we left the city. I wanted. I coveted. I craved. êheu. They were closed tonight, but I knew this encounter was not over! [By the way, “êheu” is a Latin phrase similar to “doh” or “awww” in English).

The rest of the evening would make for a boring story of sweating, toenail clipping, teeth flossing, sweating some more and television channel flipping prior to bedtime…


NEXT: The Museum of Fine Arts!


Click for Part IV