Saturday, July 23, 2011

34 Claybourne

Yesterday would been my dad's 98th birthday! He grew up on Claybourne street in Dorchester. They took in renters so he and his brother slept in the living room. He never had his own room, leaving for the service before his brother - at about 35 - left to be married. I lived there a little while as a young child. The place is nice now, was nice then. Was not so nice when we visited during some bloody times in Boston.

On clabourne street we went walking. We went down there one day and the old place was abandoned. the doors opened. Tires and refuse in the yard. Inside the house there was this strange disarray. But inside the house there was still this sense that all was well. And I could imagine my father feeding the coal furnace on a winter's morning. Or waxing the hall bannister on a summer's saturday. I could imagine because he described it, including the ravenous desire to be out playing immediately ball.

34 Claybourne on Google Maps.