The Day Sam Got the Franchise or Adding A Dash of Lime to the Melting Pot.

Well, after 4 years of paperwork, check writing & waiting (mostly in reverse order of shown), Sam Negus became a citizen of the the good ol' US of A yesterday. It was a morning like any other, except that we woke up really early.

We then motored up the freeway with large quantities of E-quadrant drones to the USCIS office up near the airport. The man on security was exceptionally jovial. We took our seats in the big room, myself on one of the side aisles and Sam among the other 60 or some other multihued candidates in the middle. The ceremony was about 40 minutes, more laid-back than I would have thought, and generally a good time aside from the conspicuous absence of the national anthem and substitution by Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be An American” with accompanying video.

Before the ceremony I whispered to Sam, "What would the Queen think?" His reply, "She probably wishes she could leave, too."

Also, our friend's Snapple bottle cap yesterday portentously offered the old advice, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Below are some snaps of the day:

Some light, pre-ceremony reading. Note boots, classy choice.

Sam has his document inspected to make sure he has neither become a Communist or terrorist nor traveled anywhere shady since his interview.

Sam stands and waves his mini-flag when the UK is called. There were representatives from about 30 or so countries from Vietnam to Cote d'Ivoire to Belarus. Half the room stood up for Mexico.

Sam promising to bear arms for the US, etc.

The President welcomes everyone as citizens, urging them to embrace the civic responsibilities that come therewith. Pretty good speech.

Sam with official certificate of citizenship & official mini-flag with mini-Lady Liberty.

What new citizen would be complete without a t-shirt like this? Took literally less than 60 seconds to find at our local thrift store.

Champagne toast! "My fellow Americans...etc etc."

Beantown

I did actually do more than go to baseball games during my time in Boston. Apart from packing in a drink or two I also followed the Freedom Trail (Boston's historical site of interest walking tour) and hung out a little at Harvard in the hope of imbibing some extra IQ.

Beautiful Boston Common.

The Massachusetts State House.

The dome was originally plated in copper by Paul Revere's company.

The Old South Meeting House. Many gatherings of disgruntled Bostonians took place here in the run up to the Revolution. Basic items on the agenda included: "Is having a King totally dud?"

The tomb of the Winthrops, the first family of Massachusetts history.

Paul Revere's grave. Amongst many other interesting highlights in his career Revere led a group of riders out of Boston to warn the militia men in the Eastern Mass. country side that the British garrison had left Boston to come looking for them. This led to the 'battles' of Lexington and Concord, the first real shots of the Revolution.

Paul Revere's house. Not many cities of this size in the world retain any wooden house dating to the early 18th century. Good luck finding one in London.

The old North Church, which lit the first beacon of the back-up warning system lest Revere's famous ride fail.

Inside the North Church. Cool historic flags.

Faneuil Hall. Also a site of important meetings of grumbling.

The scene of many a grumble.

Charlestown, Mass. just across the bay and now contiguous with the city. At the bottom of this hill is a tavern dating to the early 18th century at which many revolutionary types including Samuel Adams are reported to have eaten/drunk. Me and Michael Wood are recent visitors of noteworthy note. Some grumbling was done, mostly about SEC football.

The Bunker Hill monument. There are 300 hundred steps inside to the top. It seems like a great idea to climb it. Let me save you if you've never been but one day will.

IT IS NOT WORTH IT. DO NOT CLIMB THIS.

Great view. Big whoop. Good luck walking home after.

No one sight reminded me how much Boston has changed over the centuries than this. The graves of Revere, Adams and other political heroes were highlighted prominently and well maintained. Me and Michael had to look around for this grave and found it in total disrepair. Increase and Cotton Mather were two of the three most important New England divines in American history. Their histories and theology were milestones in American thought and religious life. Now, they're just dead clerics.

Those changes to Boston at large began here, at Harvard. One time divinity school now elite university. Not so religious these days.

The Harvard boat house on the Charles River. Various domes and spires of HU behind.

Harvard Hall, one of the older buildings.

The first Parish of Cambridge, Mass., dating to 1636. Then it would have been Congregational. Now it is Unitarian Universalist. Another barometer of Harvard-led change.


I don't think the Parish's physical address is supposed to be a joke, but it made me laugh.




This is clearly the most important structure in all of Boston, though for some reason I was the only tourist looking at it. This is Harvard stadium. Built in 1903 it is the first purpose-built college football stadium in America. It hasn't changed since. No seats, no bleachers, no frills. Just a beautiful Greco-Roman revival style for the sole purpose of watching pigskin.

Shame about the fake turf.

Boston's tall ship festival happened to be going on while we were in town, but the harbour was so packed we did no more than walk past. This is the Eagle, the US Coastguard's training Brig.

And the Shakespeare award goes to...

This year's nominee for Best Line from a Love Postcard featuring the Harvard football stadium:

"It is dan having you on my sideline."

Fenway

I went to Boston last weekend. While I was there I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Fenway Park, the famed home of the once hapless, now resurgent Red Sox.

One of the last parks to fight off America's craze for knocking down old buildings and replacing them with modern crap.

Beer did not cost this much in 1912. It also was neither light nor Bud.

Keiran "K-Dog" Hassler. An old Bristol University pal. British born, Rochester, NY raised, Bristol 'educated', now a New Hampshire man. Basically nuts.

The infamous Green Monster. Basically Boston didn't have enough space in the neighbourhood around the park to put in a full sized right-field. So they built this. Right handed hitters hate it. Somehow I managed to see five home-runs over this thing in two nights. One cleared it by about 50ft. It was impressive.

Less impressive was our "restricted view" seating on my first visit.

Who needs to see the pitcher really?

Old-timey wooden seating. Takes me back to the football grounds of my youth.

This Washington State grad tool on the left features in the story later. He sucked.


A view from our brief sojourn in some temporarily unoccupied seats with a better view. We were soon bounced from these when the owners of the corresponding tickets arrived. We moved forward one row. Same thing happened. By this point we were annoying a few locals and becoming 'those guys'. But honestly, who doesn't try to get away from seats with a post between them and the mound?



The joke was on the grumpy types who objected to our attempts to emancipate ourselves from restricted view slavery when 2.5 innings into my career as a Sox fan I got a foul ball. It came into our section, landed in the aisle, and rolled past my crappy seat as a bunch of butter fingered dudes clamored for it. I just reached down and picked it up. I'll probably never get anywhere near a ball at a game for the rest of my life.
Later in the game, when almost the entire section behind us had emptied, we moved again. But we had the misfortune to randomly sit in our doochey Wazzu friend's seats while he was at the concession stand. Rather than ask us to move down a few seats he immediately called security, who returned us from the three rows of unoccupied space back behind the infernal pillar.

The view was a little better from the outfield on my second visit.

The game was also incredible, with about 800 hits and several dozen runs. Even better, all the Kansas City scoring madness commenced after the former Atlanta Braves legend, starting pitcher John "I refuse to age" Smoltz, had left the game at the end of five innings.

Michael Wood was in town from Fort Worth, largely to visit Fenway and generally have a rocking time. Which I think we managed to do, despite the pain he felt at seeing Smoltzy in a foreign uniform.

Or you could just knock your stadium down, build another one and slap 'new' on its name. Genius move Yankees. What's next? New Notre Dame stadium anyone? That thing's junk.

Sox fans are a very committed bunch.

Newport

So, rather than just surreptitiously posting about my summer under Laura's name I figured I would just add myself to the blog. I realise no one was fooled into thinking that Laura was posting pictures about historic boats and such.

I recently went with the institute on a walking tour of Newport, Rhode Island. This town has the most surviving colonial and early Republic era buildings in America. I tried very hard to get a picture capturing a typical street that would truly represent the historic ambiance of the town, but I couldn't. The camera just didn't do justice. All I can say is, visit Newport. It's wonderful

This is the old Colonial Hall and later first state government building. It used to have a beautiful weather vein replete with not cockerel but whale. Unfortunately said vein was stolen in an elaborate heist involving a helicopter. The crime remains unsolved and the item has yet to surface on Ebay. I kid you not.

This house was at one point during the American Revolution the head quarters of George Washington and French General Comte de Rochambeau

This building, the Decatur House (circa. 1720) is now an historic Mexican restaurant.
In Rhode Island.
That amused me.

The town's first municipal jail. Now a B&B.
The sign says "vacancies". That also amused me.

America's oldest surviving house of worship. The Quaker meeting house, circa. 1660.

This is the spire of Trinity Parish. Though not the original building this was Rhode Island's first Anglican Parish, founded by order of James II in the restoration era when he learned that Rhode Island had no Anglican Parish and obviously therefore no religion.

Though not the original building the church that stands is old enough, dating to the late colonial period. George Washington is said to have worshipped here in some capacity, though the Anglican clergy had booked it with the loyalists. Obviously all true practitioners of real religion are loyal to the crown.

This is John Hattendorf, our guide. He is a professor at the Naval War College and is also the most knowledgeable naval historian alive in the world. He is a legend. Several of his former students have the word 'supreme' in their actual job description. Including characters like this.

That by him is a model of the HMS Victory.