50 States: Massachusetts (6)

May 2nd, 2008 · 2 Comments

50 States: Massachusetts

What to say about the Bay State? It’s the first place I lived after leaving home, and the state I’ve lived in the longest after Alaska (nine years between 1993 and 2005). From Amherst in the west to Cambridge in the east, I’ve enjoyed the beautiful foliage, the collegiate atmosphere, the wonderful back roads, the perfect small towns, and of course, the great friends I’ve made there. I’ve met some of my best friends – George, Amanda, Josh, Michael – in Massachusetts, and though I didn’t technically meet Aimee there, Brookline, Mass. will always be the place we got to know each other, from picking out videos at at Videosmith, eating ice cream (nearly) every night at J.P. Licks, walking to Sox games at Fenway, and watching movies at the Coolidge Corner Theater, during my first summer in Boston.

The first time I traveled to Massachusetts was in the summer of 1985, during the big two-continent family vacation that started in Boston, stretched up to New Hampshire for my dad’s college reunion (Digby!), and then over to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the U.K. I don’t have too many memories of Boston the first time around except crazy driving, the Union Oyster House, and “Boston Logan’s Airport,” the pilot’s gaffe that will live on in our family lore, inexplicable as all persistent family catchphrases like that are. I went back to Boston a few more times in the intervening years, on a college scouting trip for Scott, and a weird, too-early college trip for me, tagged onto the strange student leadership thing in D.C., which involved checking out lots of places I wasn’t really interested in, like Harvard and Williams, and taking my PSATs at Amherst Regional High School (“No one here is from out of state, right, so I can skip this section? Oh, you are? Where from? Alaska? What are you doing here?”), because who in his right mind visits colleges the fall of his junior year? And who is his right mind has already decided where he wants to go to college by fall of his junior year? It all worked out.

I headed to Amherst in the fall of 1993, and have been going back ever since. Between a genuine appreciation for the beauty of the area, a fondness for the campus, an interest in the history of the school, and some hard-core food nostalgia that doesn’t let go, I’ve had plenty of excuses to re-visit the Happy Valley. The photo above was taken at my fifth reunion, during my unfortunate “really pretty short” hair stage, with Michael and the Lord Jeff of that year. I loved going to school there, and took every opportunity to head back early, stay over January term, and work during reunion weekend. George and I have talked about how we wish we could do it all again – to think, those professors, teaching a huge range of classes on fascinating subjects, and we could choose whatever classes we wanted with no requirements, what a luxury! – but I hope that I appreciated it enough the first time around. Amherst still looms pretty large in my life, with the Amherstiana I’ve been collecting and putting up online, and the news and discussion I started documenting but haven’t had much time for lately, and of course, the friends I made, two of whom live in L.A. and we’re lucky enough to get to see fairly often.

After graduation and three years spent in a state to be named later, I returned to Massachusetts – more specifically, to Aimee and Abby’s couch while I waited for my lease to start – and spent six heady months working at the tail of the dot-com boom. This time around brought more firsts – my first layoff, my first temp job, my first time living in a big city, (albeit a big city with a small-town feel), and my first exposure to the field where I find myself today. Going back to school meant moving, and I moved in with friends of friends in idyllic Cambridgeport, equidistant from school and work, the first of three apartments I bounced among in Cambridge. My work at the archive at Harvard led me to seek more training in the field, which meant leaving Massachusetts after five years, the month after Aimee and I got married. We’re back all of the time, of course, visiting her family and our friends, and I’ll end by tactfully avoiding any discussion of “when” and “for how long”…

Add another dot to the map.

Tags: Amherst · Cambridge · Photos · Travel ·

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Mari // May 6, 2008 at 5:58 am

    Even though I’m technically only a “friend of a friend”, your entry on the Bay State made me incredibly nostalgic for those Cambridgeport years! Great post : )

  • 2 Brian // May 6, 2008 at 10:16 am

    Thanks, Mari – glad you enjoyed the post, and I’m sorry there wasn’t more about the 507 days… I wrote a whole post and then accidentally erased it, and you know how it is trying to recreate something you already wrote… Anyway, maybe I’ll do apartments I’ve lived in next, and there’ll be a whole post about the Bonita, guitar lessons, and the meth lab. Hope you’re both doing well.