OK, I stole that title from AFM. But, since we're lacking content around here lately, theft is on the table. So is recycling, and that's exactly what I'm about to do, recycle an email that I sent to Shah-bow earlier today. You see, our hillbilly hero from South Canada, aka Northern Vermont was getting some advice on how to navigate the T from Kendall Square to the $65 a night Motel 6 in Braintree that the skinflint was using for A BUSINESS TRIP! But since there would be alcohol involved, public transit was preferred, and I guess the Quincy Marriot was just too pricey for the already over budget turd polisher project. With any luck he'll be able to scam a few Natty Lights from the wife-beater clad dudes in the room next to his, saving a few more bucks. And of course more good news is that the Red Line is a straight shot from Cambridge to Braintree, with one caveat: the fork in the line. I reminded him to make sure he got his drunken ass on a train marked "Braintree" and not "Ashmont." Which reminded me of a story. Somehow I think maybe I told this one before, but I searched the blog and found no traces, so here goes.
You guys know that I'm a Red Sox fan of sorts. Never been to a Bruins game, nor a Celtics game, and only once went to a Patriots exhibition game. But as a (poor) kid, somehow I still managed to go to a shitload of Red Sox games, and these days I try to attend at least once a year. In elementary school, we used to take a private Brush Hill Transit bus from Stoughton into Mattapan, where we would get the trolley, go to Ashmont, get on the subway, go to Park Street, and then take the green line to Fenway for the afternoon games. I hope all you overprotective parents are paying attention here. Blows me away that people don't let their kids do anything these days. But anyway, one time we go and we of course we spend nearly every dime we have on Sports Bars, cokes, etc. Getting into the game was only 50 cents sometimes when they had the after-school special on right field grandstands. Bleachers were $1.25 at the time. So we each save a quarter for the ride home. The private bus didn't run at night, so my Dad (who would be 82 today, Happy Birthday Dad) was picking us up in the 'pan.
But... we make the mistake of getting on a Quincy line train, which was brand-new at the time (and did not go all the way to Braintree either), and so it confused us, as in the past all Red Line trains went to Ashmont, where you got a free transfer to the trolley.. We get to North Quincy and realize our mistake, but luckily that train deck is in the middle of the tracks, and we can just get out and get right on an inbound train without paying again. But geniuses that we are, we get out at Andrew, where the platforms are on the outside of the tracks. We leave the station... And cannot get back in the outbound side. The guy at the counter is a dick and won't let us in for free, even though we are obviously helpless kids from the suburbs, and not urban hoodlums. Nightfall is approaching. This is in the days before cell phones of course. We use our one remaining thin dime to call Mom at home. Collect, because it is long distance. She calls my Uncle Joe back at the Foley homestead in Hyde Park, and he drives to Mattapan to tell my father of our plight. My dad is there, and has already rescued three of our other stupid friends who had also gone to the game, successfully made there way back to Mattapan, and then realized they too were stranded because the private bus didn't run after 5 pm. So my dad drives in to Andrew and finds us huddled on the sidewalk in big bad Dorchester (just a few blocks from Upham's Corner where my Mom grew up, but still...). Then he gets into it with the T guy who wouldn't let us in, and the guy calls the cops, so we all pile into the Oldsmobile and flee the scene. Good times.
So of course there are a few morals to this story. One, let your fucking kids out of your sight once in a while, so maybe when they're 50 they won't just be writing stories about how they played X-box and went on play dates and took ballet lessons. And two, ASHMONT TRAIN MOTHERFUCKERS! Unless you're Jerry, then make sure you take Braintree.
