Miss Nichols will see you now

It was fun staying at the Parker House, imagining Jacqui's whispered response to the call of history and an improved wardrobe ("Was that a yes Jacqui?") but not so much fun listening to every conversation of my neighbours through the paper-thin walls. I didn't find 'low-talking' to be a Boston characteristic, any more than I could claim it as a feature in my own arsenal of uncorrectable flaws. The online reviews of the Parker House seemed on the mark (tiny rooms, unreceptive receptionists, shabby furnishings, steep prices especially with all of the construction noise going on outside); but there was the history of the place, and that made up for a good deal. It was simply a matter of stepping across the street to reach Beacon Hill, the Massachusettes State House, the Samuel Adams Courthouse, the Nichols Museum, Louisburg Square, the Freedom Trail, the Black Heritage Trail, the Granary Burying Ground, Boston Common, and so much more. So I tramped about in the sleet, crossed the river in a Duck and tried to make sense of a subway which in places doesn't make sense, all of the time surrounded by Europeans who, like me, are happily taking advantage of a very favourable exchange rate.




I did think of making a trip to Amherst on my last day, but when I rang Emily Dickinson's number she wasn't there. It's 3 hours each way, quite a long journey. You have to go by Peter Pan (bus). I've been a bit disorganised since I got here, dawdling about in what seemed like limitless time. I confess I've even spent some mornings in the beautiful Boston Public Library, reading Ian Hamilton's book about Robert Lowell, at times accompanied by a woman reading aloud through the knitted hat pulled down over her eyes. I couldn't think of a better companion for a morning spent with Lowell, one time patient of Carl Jung.





By good fortune I caught a discussion on court TV, on the workings of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which I think is an appellate court only. As well as sitting in on some of the real-live process in action, with all of the judges happily interrupting the lawyers and each other during the presentation of legal argument, the Chief Justice then spoke to camera about the way the judges distribute the writing of decisions among themselves. She made the observation that they almost always reached unanimity with one another over the legal points at issue, I presumed because of the highly interactive manner in which the appeal was heard. The US judicial process, like its legislative process, seems wonderfully open to the society it serves. But is the other side of that a kind of national solipsism?



Reading newspapers, listening to the radio, watching TV, it always seemed the same: parochialism on a truly grand scale. But I did see a tiny paragraph in one of the give-away rags you get on the subway. Queensland doctors had kept an Italian tourist alive by feeding vodka to him intravenously for 3 days. And I'll never complain again about the amount of sports coverage in The Courier Mail. The Red Sox won something important, and well, that obviously matters a great deal.

SPORTS FAN

Even more than Brisbane, Boston seems at the mercy of engineers, politicians and town planners. Besides the massive and ongoing Big Dig, an apparently never-ending process of tunneling, widening, ripping out and re-building, some subway stations seem in a permanent state of semi-repair. But at least they have a subway. Transport issues, car accidents, poor urban planning: watching the nightly news was déjà vu all over again for me. One thing that wasn't was the horrendous gun slaughter. Boston Police now have a device which pinpoints gunshot by a kind of GPS system; as soon as the warning system picks up a shot, cop-cars swarm to the scene. And can it really be true that a teacher is claiming her right to bear arms in the class-room? You can see the logic…




My favourite place in the end was the Nicols House Museum, the former home of Miss Rose Standish Nichols, Boston Brahmin, landscape gardener, carpenter, pacifist, suffragette, and all round amazing woman. She spoke a number of languages, had friends all over the world and helped found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. And she didn't believe in marrying. Unlike Miss Bouvier, Miss Nichols was an heiress.

Boston has been tremendously interesting, and very beautiful, except for the bits the urban planners have got at. Last night I ate snails, drank pinot noir, and enjoyed myself talking far too much to Clare's good friend Janet, from the Harvard Law Library, who as it turns out will be in Toronto next week at the conference I'm going to. I've begun to think of law librarians as a kind of international cabal; everywhere I go there are friends, or people off the INTLAW list, or others with useful connections into and out of our own not very self- contained little research realms. Meeting up has been part of the fun too.

HARVARD PIX -I liked the little gardener's truck most of all