I couldn’t get either child to touch “Johnny Tremain” before our trip to Boston, but both of them read it after we spent more than two hours with our costumed guide, who hiked up her petticoats and led us on the Freedom Trail, up Beacon Hill and down to Faneuil Hall.
“We are good, God-fearing Puritans,” she told us as we crossed the Common, “so what do we do when the king displeases us?” She took a deep breath and bellowed, “WE RIOT!”
We paid for an hour-and-a-
half tour, but after two hours another costumed guide came looking for us because our guide was having such a great time that she was late for her next tour.
Hang around the original 13 colonies long enough and all your childhood myths will get exploded. The first Thanksgiving was not a happy feast between the Pilgrims and the Indians; the Boston Massacre was sparked by a misunderstood command and exaggerated by the rabble-rousing popular press. (Sound familiar?) The staid Calvinists rioted at the drop of a hat. What were they supposed to do, have a conference call?
Growing up back East, our history education was very heavy on tricorn hats. It went something like this: Columbus, Magellan, Jamestown, Pilgrims, French and Indian War, American Revolution, Christmas break; then Constitutional Convention, Manifest Destiny, Andrew Jackson, secession, the Civil War, Reconstruction. By that point, it was “and then we settled the West, let in a lot of immigrants, and fought two world wars.”
By contrast, Sara had to explain how the Cliff Dwellers built Mesa Verde, and Mark wrote an essay about why Andrew Jackson didn’t belong on the $20 bill after what he did to the Cherokee.
No bored kids
I love that my children are learning the history of the whole American continent, not just the Boston-to-Washington corridor. And we’ve trekked to places I only dreamed of as a child: Vail, Santa Fe, Monterey.
But Mark and Sara are missing all my childhood vacation places: Gettysburg, Williamsburg, Washington, D.C. I’m tickled that they not only don’t object, but actually enjoy reading inscriptions on gravestones and checking out the furniture in historic homes.
The guided tour of the Freedom Trail was Sara’s idea as soon as she met one of the guides who hang around the Information Center on Boston Common drumming up business. I was afraid the kids would get bored or footsore on a 90-minute walk, but far from it.
Here’s how we managed the Freedom Trail: We did it over two half-days. First, the guided tour from Boston Common to Faneuil Hall; and second, a walk through the North End, including Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church, and over the bridge to the Charlestown Navy Yard and the U.S.S. Constitution.
On the first day, we stopped for lunch at Durgin-Park restaurant, famous for clam chowder, fish cakes, beans and snappy waitresses. After that, we allowed Mark to pick our next activity and wound up in the blessedly air-conditioned New England Aquarium. From looking at fish, we moved to eating fish at Jasper White’s Summer Shack across the street from our hotel, the Sheraton Boston. This enormous convention hotel, which we got through the Hotwire luck of the draw, proved to be a good choice; it was close to the T (subway) and has an enormous pool with a retractable roof.
On the second morning, the kids actually suggested going into some of the buildings we had walked past the day before, including King’s Chapel and its burial ground to find the grave of Gov. John Winthrop, from whom Mark gets his middle name (by way of his great-grandfather). Can you beat that?
We weren’t going to propose a walk across the Charlestown Bridge to the U.S.S. Constitution until Mark spotted the ship from the top of Copp’s Hill. He wanted to see both Old Ironsides and the neighboring U.S.S. Cassin Young, a World War II destroyer. Then we finished the day with a ferry ride back to the Quincy Market area and a fine Italian dinner at La Summa in the North End.
Sara now tells anybody who will listen her favorite fact: that’s actually Paul Revere on the label of Samuel Adams beer. Sam Adams, though a brewmaster and a patriot, was too old and homely to feature on a beverage label, so the brewers redesigned John Singleton Copley’s famous portrait of Revere holding a teapot. We found this out while paying our respects at Sam Adams’ gravesite in the Old Granary Burying Ground.
“He was a TROLL,” Sara says, quoting our favorite costumed guide.
INSIDER’S GUIDE
Public walking tours of the Freedom Trail with a costumed guide (thefreedomtrail.org/groups.htm) leave every day at 11 a.m., 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. from the Visitor Information Center, Boston Common, and 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. from the Bostix booth at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Cost: $12 adults, $10 seniors, $6 children (12 and under). Info: 617-357-8300.
Check out the beer label switch-
eroo: Paul Revere’s portrait by John Singleton Copley is here: artchive.com/artchive/C/copley/revere.jpg.html. A real portrait of Samuel Adams is here: nndb.com/people/732/000048588/. And the beer bottle is here: gobostoncard.com/attractions/ Samuel-Adams-Brewery.html. While at this site, check out the Go Boston Card, which includes admission to almost everything you could want to do or see in Boston, from the Swan Boats to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
DINE
Durgin-Park, 340 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 617-227-2038, durgin-park.com. New England food, including pot roast, baked scrod, Indian pudding, prime rib. Lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday, dinner Sunday.
Jasper White’s Summer Shack, 50 Dalton St., 617-867-9955, summershackrestaurant.com. Beach food and upscale seafood from a celebrated chef in a funky setting in Back Bay. Lunch and dinner daily.
La Summa, 30 Fleet St., 617-523-9503. Southern Italian, housemade pasta, seafood. Dinner 4:30-10:30 p.m. nightly except Monday.
STAY
Sheraton Boston, 39 Dalton St. at the Prudential Center, 617-236-2000. Weekend rates from $143.
