#msexpose

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Inside the NEHGS Dispatch 5

By Samantha Mellman

People develop hobbies to relieve the stress of a workweek or as a life long avocation. Here in Boston, you will see people running up and down city streets or walking in their favorite local park. There is one building on Newbury Street that isn’t a boutique shop or restaurant.

The Boston Duck Tours route drives down Newbury Street every day. The New England Historic Genealogical Society is one of those places that garners attention. The building’s façade has that trivial old Boston look. The foundation first two stories have stone roman architecture. Above the engraving of the NEHGS name a red brick high-rise sprouts an additional seven stories.

People visit the NEHGS for a very specific hobby, genealogy. Genealogy is the study of family history. The society was founded in 1845 by a group of five Bostonian men. The location of the society moved several different times since it’s founding but in 1964 their permanent home became 99-101 Newbury St.

The building used to be the New England Trust Company constructed in the 1920s. As you walk into the entrance, the inside still has the original rotunda of the bank. Now the teller’s windows are filled in and the floor space is surrounded by bookshelves. The wood moldings, gold-framed mirrors, antique paintings, and crystal chandeliers complete the 19th century look. Through an archway opening in the back, a bank vault has been converted to house rare books and manuscripts. 

The society is the oldest and largest of its kind in the United States. The NEHGS is a non-profit research center where people use the resources to trace back their ancestry. Five floors in the building are open to the public and the intermittent three levels are staff only.

The first floor is where people can acquaint themselves with genealogy research. Then you can ride the elevator or hike up the stairs to the fourth floor. Here you will find the storage area for microtext resources. There are four different decades of microfilm machines throughout the floor that can be used to view microfilm records.

The ScanPro 2000 is their most modern scanner. The machine virtually projects the film to a desktop computer where it can be manipulated. For example, making it brighter or magnified. With this technology, instead of coming to the research center every time you want to look at a specific microfilm, the record can be saved directly to a flash drive.

The fifth floor is where people request manuscripts, local history collections, and use resources from the American Jewish Historical Society. The final public floor is a reading room that boasts perfect views of Newbury Street. The seventh floor has early New England sources and published family histories. A person could find out their family lineage leads all the way back to the first settlers of the US.

The first glimpse of the NEHGS invites you inside, but then you’ll leave wanting more. Unraveling your story may start out simple at first, but one lead turns into another and researching a family tree can be a life long discovery.  

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Young and Care Free Dispatch 4

By Samantha Mellman

On a Saturday afternoon in late September, not a single cloud graces the sky and fall is taking the day off. A group of people just shy of drinking age are sitting in a circle under a tree at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park. The group is made up of twelve boys and two girls. They are all fashionable without trying too hard. One boy has a cap with the visor bent up that says “YOLO”.

Another boy has thick black-rimmed glasses with a grey beanie on his head and a shirt with a Keith Haring art design. He is the judge in their game of Apples to Apples. The point of the game is to match the best noun with the adjective. Whoever has the best match wins the round and gets to be the next judge. He reads the green apple card aloud: “furious.”

“Is everyone in?” he says.

The other friends pass in one red apple card each. He reads off the player’s nouns one by one: “Demi Moore, Jim Carrey, Tibet, Elephants, Chimpanzees…” They all start to giggle like children as the words are listed. The judge decides Chimps wins the round.

In between rounds a plastic jug of icetea is passed around, then a bag of Oreos, followed by a box of Mike’s Pastry’s.

A boy with a blue and grey horizontal striped shirt won the previous round and draws the next green apple. The adjective is American. He collects the red apples and says: “splinters, summer camp, Jodie Foster, shopping mall, nuclear power plant, Mike Tyson…” Again the sound of laughter circles the group, but as quickly as cards are drawn, they end the game and move on to other entertainment.

One of the boys grabs a neon yellow frisbee. They toss the yellow saucer to each other attempting not to hit other people. A woman walking across the grass with her golden retriever tries to keep the dog from chasing the frisbee. One pass hits the tree I’m sitting under and just misses me as it falls to the ground. No harm done.

 A guitarist by the water plays the melody of “Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones. A few of the friends start to sing the catchy lyrics. Meanwhile, the group splits up into their own conversations but slowly come back together to decide what to do next.

“Do you guys want to take the T or walk?” one boy says.

“Whoever walks the snacks are coming with us,” he adds.

“You got to walk of those cannolis,” says another.

They walk away and so do I. All things whether they are stories, songs, or Saturdays, start with a beginning and lead to an end.       

[msexpose]

A Race Where Everyone Wins Dispatch 3

By Samantha Mellman

Spectators gather at the edge of Fan Pier in South Boston to watch and cheer on friends and family competing in Boston’s 2nd annual Sharkfest Swim. At noon on the dot the swimmers take the plunge into the brisk waters of Boston Harbor. People scan the horizon trying to see the swimmers approaching. Initially, we can only see the large orange buoys they swim beside.  

Only 10 minutes into the race the first swimmers come into view. The leader of the pack is Alex Meyer, a celebrity in the open-water swimming world. The officiator announces over the speakers the London 2012 Olympian finishes first with a time of 16 minutes and 30 seconds. Some people swim to win awards, but others swim to win for a cause.

After the first few athletes complete the race, more and more swimmers arrive in clusters. Wave after wave 385 people make the swim from Piers Park to Fan Pier, a 1500 meter (almost 1 mile) expanse. Most athletes are wearing body length wet suits, but many brave the cold waters in thin nylon swimsuits.

Envirosports, the company that founded Sharkfest, must implement safeguards for swimmers. Police and medics stand by on land while people on kayaks and paddleboats follow the athletes every length of the race.

Athletes of all ages are competing today. People admired the swimmers from the youngest a 12-year-old boy, to the oldest a 76-year-old man last to finish, but receives praise from the entire crowd.

After the race, awards are given by age divisions and separated men from women. The swimmers with the best race times receive a medal for first, second, or third place. By no means was this a process of separating the winners from the losers. Every person goes home with a t-shirt. A Sharkfest logo is printed on the front and the opposite side says, “I swam across Boston Harbor”. The race has far more personal meaning to the individuals, friends, and families who train for this moment.

Brothers Peter and Sam along with their mother Pam Finlayson swam in Sharkfest today. To finish the race was only one goal, but their larger purpose is to raise awareness for hydrocephalus. The family founded Team Hydro in 2008 as a way to fundraise and inform others about the condition. Peter and his family members wear a hospital bracelet that says, “In memory of Kate Finlayson”. Three years ago after a lifelong battle and hundreds of surgeries Kate passed away at the age of 26. “When I came out of the water and looked down at that, I started to tear up a bit, it felt really good to remember my sister,” Peter said.

Wendy Hunt and her husband established Sharkfest with the first race at Alcatraz in 1993. Since then the race is held annually in seven different U.S. states and Zihuatanejo Sharkfest in Mexico. These events stemmed from one couple’s passion for triathlons. Twenty years later they continue to help dreams come true for thousands of swimmers.   

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Tour Guide of the Dead Dispatch 2

By Samantha Mellman

The sun is setting on Friday the 13th and a cool breeze of salt-water air rushes through the wind tunnels created by the adjacent skyscrapers. Along the Waterfront area of Boston, on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and State Street, a black trolley rolls up to the curb.

The trolley has spider web decals and a skull on the dashboard with eyes glowing red as blood. A white man steps down from the trolley no taller than five foot two with a scruffy goatee and matching brown hair. His black make up made his eyes sink into his skull. He is dressed for a funeral in a three-piece grey suit, black leather boots, and topped with a black cap. 

At night, Ashton Whitlock Burns is a deceased murderer trapped to give cemetery tours to the living. During the daytime however, Burns changes from his alter ego to Ryan Jennings, a 24-year-old actor from Andover, Massachusetts. Several times a week in the past five years he plays a gravedigger for Ghosts & Gravestones ‘Boston’s Frightseeing Tour’.

In between cemetery stops Burns walks up and down the aisle reciting spooky tales of Boston's past to the passengers onboard. On the way to the Boston Commons he explains why the number 13 is considered unlucky. He said, Judas was the 13th apostle or having 13 letters combined from your first and last name are psychopaths like Charlie Manson, Albert DeSalvo, and Jeffery Dahmer.

Walking into the dark quiet Commons, Burns tells facts about the existence of 20 to 40,000 remains of colonial citizens scattered throughout the park.

Burns doesn’t turn out to be quite as scary as his character seems. Throughout the tour he lightens the mood with morbid comedy. Burns said, in Boston’s distant past criminals would be hanged in the Commons for a crowd. He said the saying, ‘your pulling my leg’ came from people yanking down on a hanging person’s legs if the noose did not snap their neck upon dropping.

Halloween’s and Friday the 13th’s have come and gone over the years and Jennings has never encountered a supernatural being.

He said, “I have never had any ghost sightings, I’ve had a lot of weird things happen to me…I do believe they are out there, but I myself have never seen it, not one.”

Jennings still believes ghosts are out there merely on “faith” and supposed evidence. On one occasion during a nightly graveyard tour with some 30 tourists, for a second he thought he saw a demon.

It turned out to be two people who snuck in earlier, “in the act of intercourse in the middle of a graveyard!” Jennings said, “I thought holy crap like I’m actually seeing something but no, its two naked people.”   

Soon, Jennings wants to retire the gravedigger hat for another passion.

He said, “I've always loved helping people and I finally decided to take the jump and go for it: become an EMT. That being said, I absolutely do plan on doing some type of theatre on the side when I achieve that goal.”

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The Day I 'Attended' Harvard Dispatch 1

By Samantha Mellman

On a cool, crisp Friday morning I decide to wake up early, and by early I mean 9 a.m. This morning would be my first ride on the Boston transit’s Red Line. I board the Green Line at Kenmore and after a typical screeching, topsy turvy trip I get off at Park Street. I follow the signs and proceed to walk down a set of stairs that go into the under belly of further train lines. I am alerted immediately by a nauseating smell that is similar to rubbing alcohol or a doctor’s office. The tracks of the train were sunken into the ground like a fault line. As I am waiting for the Red Line going outbound to Alewife, I hear that familiar rush of a train approaching. It flys down the tracks like a roller coaster much faster than the Green Line and I'm not sure if it's going to stop. The smell of rubbing alcohol follows me into the train but maybe that means it's just cleaner than the Green Line. About two minutes or so into the ride we go out from the underground tunnel and I see a beautiful site. The Boston city skyline is to my left and right as we cross the bridge over the Charles River. After a few quick stops I get to my station and I proceed to step out onto the surface. Going up the stairs from the station all I can see at first is a clear blue sky. When I emerge, my eyes re-adjust to all the light but then, I know I am at the right place, Harvard Square.

I am uncertain exactly where Harvard University is, so I walk up to the first person I see, a woman dressed in a colonial era outfit. I ask her “Where is Harvard?” and she points to my right, it is just across the street. I walk over and I see the gates with a plaque on top. It says, "VE RI TAS" and I imagine once I step through I will be in Narnia instead of Cambridge. I step forward, and transport back in time. I am now at the inception of the first university of America. Surrounding me are buildings stacked with red bricks and others are made out of stones. As I walk around campus in between sprawling green yards and trees, I start to observe the students and tourists walking around. One bronze statue stands out with tourists taking pictures. The statue is placed on top of a stone that's inscribed with a name, John Harvard. The life like statue of a founder of Harvard sits in a chair, and one by one people walk up to the statue and touch the left foot of the ever gazing man. This must be some kind of good luck tradition because that single shoe on his foot is tarnished from the years of people touching it.

I continue to walk and I arrive at the Harvard library. It has rows of steps leading up to the entrance and I run up them like Rocky Balboa doing a victory lap. Across the way I see a chapel with three big Harvard banners hanging on the front and my eyes slowly gaze upward at the pointy white spire. I walk over and see a young girl with strawberry blonde hair sitting at a table. Elaine Spencer is a 19 year old sophomore from California. She is still deciding like normal college students whether she wants to study history or economics. I ask her if she's seen the movie Legally Blonde. She loves that movie she exclaims, and I ask if everyone here is as stuck up as the actors in that movie, but she says,

“Everyone is kinda weird kinda quirky, fun you know, there aren't any stodgy oh posh people…maybe its like that at the law school."

As we continue to talk, I am beside myself because I thought anyone who attends Harvard would be an ego-maniac and happy to rub it in my face. I'm still not convinced that someone who goes to Harvard doesn’t have a superior mind complex.

I ask Spencer her thoughts about people who may be envious of Harvard grads?

She says, “I just think there are different kinds of intelligence like the kids here have some kind of BAHHHH intelligence and other people have normal intelligence and not as like weird" and she continues to say, "I'm actually pretty ditzy like I fell down the stairs this morning" as if assuring me that even she is not perfect.

Spencer is the definition of quirky. The most memorable thing she did was speak in a robot voice saying, “I am a genius, I will rule the world, take me to your leader.” She disproves my former belief that all Harvard students are rigid, self-absorbed know-it-alls.

I made a goal today, I'm going to be more than just a tourist. I want to know what its like to be in a Harvard classroom. I notice groups of students leaving and entering a brick building named Sever Hall, this is my chance to possibly sit in on a class for free. I get inside and I look around quickly trying to see who was going to class and then I picked one. I find myself in Professor Armin Falk's course called ‘Experimental Economics’, just the name is pain to my ears. I pick my spot in the back of the classroom and I listen in or at least try to, he has a very thick European accent. I only showed up in between their break, the students had been in class for two hours before I was there. I feel bad the Ph.D. students who had to decipher this man let alone this subject all semester, and after 15 minutes I'm up and out the door.

I trace my steps back across the green yard and approach a boy just minding his own business. He's sitting on the steps of a stone building watching Youtube videos from his laptop. His name is Bryan Kauder, a 21 year old soon to be Harvard graduate from Virginia. I ask him should someone like myself feel bad for not achieving as much as you?

He kindly replies, “I don't think everybody's goal should be to get into Harvard…there are thousands of different universities for a reason they all offer something different and you'll get something different out of each one."

He speaks the truth saying even Harvard students have to work hard.

Kauder says, "I know some people here who are just total wiz kids, it seems like things come really easily to them but even those kids, they work really really hard…no one here is a genius and just sits around just riding off their genetic brain power."

I find him to be very insightful and I think about my own academic choices and experiences, but I remember the old saying, ‘It’s not where you go but what you make of it’. This idea was firmly etched in my mind. I remember even revolutionists such as Harvard dropout Bill Gates changed the world and not because he had a degree to show for it.

I leave Harvard around noon and what followed me is even though I may never attend Harvard or any Ivy League, this does not mean I will not achieve greatness in my life.

I also like the saying don't compare apples to oranges. Spencer says, “It’s not like the sheep and the goats.”