I miss Boston today.

God, sometimes I miss Boston. One thing I miss is the camaraderie and the banter and the crazy neighborhoods. I miss the humor and I miss the pathos. Bostonians do have something special going on. Probably all cities do.

I was substitute teaching in the North End one day. It was the Rose Kennedy School. The North End is the Italian neighborhood, but the school was almost all black kids because of busing. They came from a shitty neighborhood all the way across town, from Roxbury, to go to a terrible school in a white neighborhood. Go figure. It was probably a nice school before the neighborhood kids left.

The school was right next to the Old North Church and the statue of Paul Revere. I took the kids next door to the Old North Church and one bright sixth grader mentioned that he thought all the founders (John Hancock and his cronies) were probably all slave holders. I had to tell them that I thought they weren't probably slave holders (what do I know?) but that I was pretty certain that most of them had made their fortunes from the slave trade. It was a very smooth cycle for the New England merchants. The ships went from England to West Africa with textiles. From Africa they went to the Caribbean with slaves, from there they came to New England with rum, molasses, sugar. From New England the ships went to England with timber or granite. A very profitable journey.

The kid's friend then piped up and scornfully looked at the statue of Paul Revere and said,"What so great about him? All he did was freak out and race around on his horse yelling that trouble was coming. It was kind of sad, but they saw shoot outs nightly in their own streets. I was more able to defend Paul Revere. He was warning folks of a real danger.

I am certain that those kids were just as devastated by the violence in Boston this past week as any Blue Blood. Boston has a way of getting under your skin. I felt that when I was watching the line up of speakers this afternoon when the suspect was caught.  At that moment, everyone was on the same page. From Mumbles Mennino, the Mayor, to the Governor, to the cops to the onlookers, they were Boston.

I always had good experiences with the Boston cops. But, I must say that there was something frightening to me today seeing the pictures of tanks rolling down the streets and thousands of cops everywhere. I have seen that moment in Guatemala and El Salvador when the cops were not the good guys. I am highly impressed with the work the Boston cops did. I am very happy that the monsters have been caught. I think we have to be extremely vigilant to keep our rights and our freedoms so that that unbelievable show of force and weaponry can never be in the hands of unscrupulous people. Never.