Urban Jungle

Walking home from work recently a well dressed and befuddled looking man stopped me to ask, “Excuse me, can you tell me how to find Bowdoin Street?”.

For reasons about to become obvious, I am often stopped for directions. When I first moved here, people would ask me which way to this or that and I could only shrug my shoulders uselessly. It’s a real badge of honor in this loopty-loo city built hundreds of years ago to know where the heck you’re going. Nearly four years since my relocation, it feels good to show off my navigational prowess to the hapless, uninitiated pedestrians.

Even so, this was a particularly easy one.

“No problem, sir. You’re on it.”

“Oh, well then, would it kill them to put up street signs?”

“It just might. Welcome to Boston.”

Street signs? Who needs ‘em? Not Bostonians. We know where we’re going, that this street is Tremont (say it with me, “trehh-mont”) and that one is Boylston. And if you don’t? Well, there’s a reason they call us Massholes.