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Memoir - Think I'm Going to Boston Part 1


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Posted by Pete on August 02, 2022 at 03:13:00

Life has been busy... I've been working on writing down some stories from my childhood, including a lot of wackywet experiences. I haven't had time to write in a while, but I'm trying to get back to it. I know some folks here probably don't like my stories, and I'm sorry for that. I'll also warn you all upfront, there's no wackywet stuff in this story here - I'm just setting the stage. But I promise, there's some good wackywet stuff coming next. I totally understand if you just want to skip over this one, and I promise the one right after this will have some of my favorite wackywet memories from growing up.

--

As I've said before, I grew up in rural West Virginia with my parents and my older brother, Cole. The area I come from was (and still is) very very poor with all kinds of social problems to deal with - alcoholism, drug abuse, broken families, unemployment, poor schools and health care, all kinds of fun stuff. Needless to say, our tiny little poor town didn't attract a lot of tourists, and it was big news anytime anyone from "not from 'round here" happened to stop in our town for anything other than filling up at the gas station. Well one summer, when I was probably 11 or 12 years old, some outsiders DID visit our small town. A family in town happened upon some tough times thanks to a death in the family, and their cousins from Boston had to come to visit to help get their affairs in order then help them move out of our small town. While they were there, their two kids - one named Dylan, who was a year or two older than me, and his brother named Hayden, who was about a year younger - both stayed with us at our house for about a week. And, let's just say, they were the talk of the town. They didn't dress like us, they had thick Boston accents that made them hard for us to understand, they didn't go to church, and they didn't eat pepperoni roles at least once each week. We quickly became good friends, and by the end of their week staying with us, we'd mostly converted them to our way of life (except they still had that Boston accent.) When they left to head back to Boston, all four of us - me, my brother, Dylan and Hayden, were all upset, and all of us wanted to get to visit each other again.

Of course, that wasn't super likely. They'd finished their business moving their cousins out of our little crap town and had no reason to even return. And as far as I knew, Boston might as well be as far away as Beijing. My family was fairly well-traveled by the standards of the area - we'd usually head to a beach or lake town in Virginia or North Carolina for a long weekend each year, and my dad occasionally traveled to conferences in nearby cities like Charleston or Asheville, North Carolina. Up until then, Asheville might have been the largest city I'd ever seen (and while today its something of a tourist destination, back then it was just another collection of grubby buildings in the mountains.) For a couple months, me and Cole would hound my parents about whether we could go visit Dylan and Hayden, or whether we could invite them to come visit us. They'd gently deflect those questions, and suggested we instead write letters to our friends in Boston, but neither Cole nor I were interested in that, and I figured we'd just lost touch with them, and that was that.

Until one afternoon, maybe in April or so, the phone rings. My mom answers it, and then yells that the phone is for me. She handed me the phone with a suspicious glare - phone calls weren't free back in those days, and usually we'd just talk to our friends in person.

"Hello?" I said into the phone, confused as to who would be calling me.

"Petey?" The voice on the other end said - it sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

"...yeah? Hello?" I stammered.

"Its Dylan! How've you been? Hey, I was thinking, do you and Cole want to come visit this summer?" "... Yeah! Of course! When? Also, how are you? What's new? How's Hayden? Do you still have a scar on your leg?..." I responded, eager to catch up with my friend.

Dylan cut me off. "We'll have to figure that out. Hey not to cut you off Petey, but put your mom or dad on the phone, I'm calling long-distance and we'll have to catch up later. My dad needs to talk to your parents."

My dad just walked in the house, home from work, and I thrust the phone into his hands. "Dad, it's Dylan. His dad needs to talk to you." My dad was caught off guard, but calmly took the phone and said hello. Then, he sat down at the small desk in our kitchen, pulled a yellow legal pad from his briefcase, and started writing down notes. That was a good sign - my dad loved yellow legal pads, he'd buy them by the case full, and anything important would be written on one. I had an idea, and tiptoed upstairs to my parents bedroom, where there was a phone extension installed, that'd I'd learned to use to eavesdrop on phone calls undetected. I carefully lifted the phone and positioned it so I could hear the conversation without breathing into the receiver.

"That's very generous of you, but we couldn't impose like that," my dad was saying.

"Oh, please, we'd love for them to come visit! For the past 9 months all our kids have been talking about are their friends from West Virginia and how much they want to see them again."

"Well, that's very kind, but we can't ask you to put up two more teenage boys, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

"Tony, listen, we owe you so much for putting up with our two kids last summer. We love your family, our kids love your kids, please, let us return the favor, it would mean a lot to us."

"Well..." I could hear my dad start to relent, "When are you thinking, how long would you want to put up with them?"

"Anytime this summer. We'd insist they stay at least a week, if they're coming all this way. But they could stay the whole summer if they want. They won't get bored here, you know how much there is to do. Museums, the beach, Cape Cod... We're supposed to go visit the in-laws in August, but otherwise our summer's wide open. You just tell us when you're coming."

"That's... too kind of you, we'll have to check our calendar and see if we can make arrangements..." my dad said.

"Please Tony, it would be our pleasure. Think about it and get in touch when you've made a decision."

With that, the conversation was over. I carefully replaced the phone and walked down the hallway to Cole's bedroom, where I found him lying on his bed reading a book. "Cole!" I greeted him, and he returned my greeting with an icy glare, as he absolutely hated anyone entering his bedroom - but this was important. "That was Dylan who just called, he invited us to visit them this summer." Upon hearing that, Cole's glare was replaced with raised eyebrows - which meant he forgave me for invading his room, and wanted more details. "Dad talked to their dad, and he said he'll think about it." Cole wiggled his eyebrows, which meant he still wanted to know more. "That's all," I shrugged. The glare returned to Cole's face, and that was the end of the conversation.

At dinner that night - and for the next several nights - me and Cole both pestered our parents about whether or not they'd let us go visit our friends. Finally we got on my dad's last nerve, and he snapped at us that if we continued to beat this dead horse, then the only things we'd be seeing this summer would be the walls of our bedrooms. We stifled further questions on the topic. But, I'd sometimes overhear my parents still talking about it - they were trying to figure out how we could possibly get to Boston. The drive was too far for my parents to take us, considering they couldn't take time off of work. A train? "The schedules don't work out." A bus? "I'm not putting my children on a Grayhound!" A plane? "That's far too expensive."

Til one day, a couple weeks later. It was raining, me and Cole had walked home from school in the rain and we wet and muddy. Cole, of course, went to take the first shower, and I was sitting on the back porch talking to our dog (hey, with Cole in the shower, I had no one else to talk to, other than the dog.) My parents both walked in, home from work, and looked like they had something important to share with us. "Where's your brother? We have to talk to you two." my mom asked, and I pointed upstairs, meaning the shower. Finally, Cole emerged from the shower and padded downstairs. "You going to go shower, Petey? You're still all wet," my dad said, taunting me just a bit. "No, I'm OK... you said you had to talk to us?" We all sat down at the kitchen table. My dad placed his briefcase on the table, and with a flourish, produced a packet of papers, one for each me and Cole. It was a brightly colored envelope with the US Airways logo on it, inside of which was an official looking printed document which I'd never seen before. It had my full name printed on it, along with a bunch of other information, and strange codes I couldn't understand.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Well, let's see... there's your names, Peter Davison and Adam Davison," my dad slowly explained, pointing out the different information on the papers, "And here it says you're booked on fight number 4651, and it leaves Charleston on Wednesday June 3 at 11am, and arrives in Boston at 4pm. And Cole is assigned to seat 5A, and Petey, you're in seat 5B."

Cole and I both looked stunned. Not only were we getting to go to Boston to visit our friends - but we were going to be flying there! "What about you and mom?" Cole asked. "We're staying here. You two are old enough to do this trip on your own."

The next few weeks ended up being fairly unpleasant. My mom gets frazzled easily, and she's always been insecure about where we lived and how we compared to people in other parts of the country. She spent far too much time making elaborate lists of every piece of clothing we'd need to pack - what if we went to a nice restaurant? What if we needed more than one set of swim trunks? Did we need hiking boots? Dress shoes? Sandals? Nail clippers? Should we get haircuts before we left?" I awoke one Saturday morning to my mom tearing apart my dresser drawers, angry with me because of the 40 different socks in my sock drawer, 30 of them had holes in them, and the remaining 10 didn't match and make even a single correct pair. "How can we send you across the country without matching socks?" she fumed. I was less concerned about that problem, but we did make several trips out to buy new clothes, which my mom carefully supervised us in packing in our suitcases.

We ended up flying out to Boston the day after our last day of school. The night before we left, we had some friends over to our house for a kind of going away party. Our friend Link seemed almost jealous of us, while our friend Jilly seemed to resent that we were leaving - from an early age, he adopted the common attitude in the area that anything outside our poor little county was to be treated with suspicion, and couldn't imagine why we'd want to venture out there. I, on the other hand, couldn't wait. I certainly didn't dislike where I lived, and had some great times with my good friends growing up, but I was also eager to see somewhere else.

The following morning, we left the house early for the airport. My mom and dad gave us careful instructions - the plane was going to stop in Pittsburgh, but we were not to get off the plane - it would then head to Boston from Pittsburgh. Once we got to Boston, someone from the airport would meet us, holding a sign with our name on it. We'd follow him to where Dylan's dad would be waiting for us. My mom gave us both a pocketful of coins in case we had to use a pay phone in an emergency, and had stashed slips of paper with our name, our parent's names and phone number all over our clothes, our luggage, and I think if my mom could have she'd have tattooed it across our foreheads. The trips started ordinarily enough - the airport in Charleston was a small affair. Like most buildings in West Virginia, it was modest, with a small waiting room painted a ugly pale green color, and one or two doors out to the tarmac where they'd board the planes. My dad, always the engineer, kept us amused while we waited by pointing out the planes outside the window, and talking to us about the rudders, ailerons, and other parts of the plane. We'd never been to an airport before, and I assumed that this is what every airport was like. Small, quiet, relaxed, and with John Denver's recording of "Country Roads" playing over the PA system every few minutes.

When it was time to board the plane, we hugged our parents goodby and eagerly headed out the door, and climbed up the ladder onto the small jet. I'd never been on a plane before, and to me it seemed huge, though I'm sure it was actually one of the smallest planes they'd used. We found our seats, and the flight attendant kindly introduced herself to us and asked if we had any questions before we left. Soon enough, we were airborne. Cole was in the window seat, but we both pressed our faces against the tiny window and admired a view of the mountains from above - and it looked so strange, the green mountains rising up from the ground, with the ribbons of brown and black roads winding between them, with buildings jammed in anywhere there was a large enough flat piece of land. The part of the flight to Pittsburgh was quite short, and before long we were back on the ground, and I was eager to experience a take off again. Cole agreed to switch seats with me, so I could see out the window for the second leg of the flights, and soon enough we were back in the air. This time, I experienced the novelty of eating onboard an airplane! We were each served a turkey sandwich, a glass of applejuice and a cookie, and it was the most surreal experience to eat the gourmet meal tens of thousands of feet above the ground.

On the way to Boston the weather clouded up, and it ended up that I couldn't see much out the window. It also made for a bumpy flight, which was kind of alarming for us young first-time fliers, but the flight attendant came by a few times to re-assure us, and also offered us a few extra cookies, which was certainly appreciated!

Getting off the plane in Boston is the first time it hit me that we were in a different world. The airport in West Virginia was small, quiet, and boasted just a couple gates and a small newspaper stand/coffee shop. For some reason, that's what I expected to find in Boston. What I found instead was sheer chaos - TVs blaring news and sports, bars and restaurants with businessmen in expensive suits talking loudly, family sprinting across the airport to make their flight, constant announcements about flights coming and going to cities around the world, and people lining up to board airplanes that were big enough to carry every single person who lived in my hometown. The airport employee who met us was carrying a paper with our name on it, and appeared to be from Asia, and did not seem to speak English. He also seemed to be in quite the hurry, and motioned for us to follow him as he power-walked through the terminal, and we scrambled to keep up with him. Eventually he took us to the baggage claim area, where we met Dylan and Hayden's father, who greeted us warmly, and explained that Dylan and Hayden were still in school for a couple more days, and we'd meet them for dinner before heading home. We followed him into the parking garage, where we piled into his car for the drive back to where they lived. On the ride, I noticed we were driving through a tunnel. When we asked him about it, he replied, in his thick Boston accent, that we were driving beneath "Boston HAHbah" - that is, the Atlantic Ocean. That kind of blew my mind!

We met Hayden and Dylan at an Irish pub in their neighborhood - another new experience for me, and it was very different from the fast-casual chains our parents usually took us to on the rare occasion that we'd eat out. It was great seeing our friends again! Dylan no longer looked like a hippie - his long hair was cut much shorter, but otherwise he hadn't changed much. Hayden was much taller and just as quiet. After catching up over a great meal, we drove back to their house - a duplex on a narrow street, where they occupied the 2nd and 3rd floor. I'd be rooming with Dylan, and Cole with Hayden. Dylan and I again argued about who was sleeping where - he wanted to insist that I take his bed and he'd crash on an air mattress on the floor. I assured him I'd be much more comfortable on the air mattress, and he finally relented. His room was tiny, smaller than my own, and the only way we fit was if my feet stuck underneath his bed - which meant he'd occasionally step on me on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The other thing I noticed was just how NOISY it was there. At my house, once the sun went down, it was rare to see even a single car pass by our house. And other than the moon, there was zero light outside. No street lights, no other houses, no nothing. Dylan's neighborhood was right in the city, and surrounded by non-stop traffic, car horns, traffic lights, a train that ran just a couple blocks away, neon lights from other houses and businesses, people walking by on the sidewalk talking. It didn't seem to phase Dylan one bit - he seemed to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Me, on the other hand, struggled to figure out how to sleep in this weird, bright, noisy, environment.

Before we went to sleep, Dylan asked me what I wanted to do on my visit. I had some ideas, but just said "whatever you want!" Dylan explained that he had two more days of school, and tomorrow I could go with him if I wanted. He said Friday was just a half day of school, and in the afternoon they had "Swamp Day," which he thought I'd enjoy. I didn't know what "swamp day" was, but I was intrigued. Then, he talked about doing the usual museums and stuff in downtown Boston, go to a skate park, the pool, the beach, the arcade, and a whole bunch of other kinds of places that I'd never been to before. My head was spinning as I tried to fall asleep.


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