But Boston has something called “the Leverett Connector.” This is where I-93, Rt. 1, Rt. 3, Rt. 28, Storrow Drive, the Charles River, Boston Harbor, the Zakim Bridge, the Callahan Tunnel to Logan Airport, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway all meet. If you’re coming into Boston from the north... or south... or east... or west... you will end up in the Leverett Connector. You may not mean to, but you will. And if you want to go to Faneuil Hall, Old North Church, the bar that inspired Cheers , Fenway Park, or a Celtics or Bruins game, you’ll end up in the Leverett Connector. Even if you’re headed someplace that’s nowhere near the Leverett Connector, such as Gillette Stadium, you’ll end up in the Leverett Connector. It’s the Murphy’s Law of driving in a city where a lot of people have the last name Murphy. However, if you’re not in Boston – the way I’m not in Boston – it doesn’t matter into what depths of despair you may have fallen. You can turn on WBZ any time, night or day, even 3:03 AM on a Monday morning, and hear those wonderful inspiring words that will snap you out of your gloom and put joy back into your heart: “It’s a sea of brake lights in the Leverett Connector.” Actually, I like traffic jams even when I am in one. (Though not in the Leverett Connector. People have gone through puberty, grown to adulthood, and gotten old between the exit from the Zakim Bridge and the entrance to the Callahan Tunnel.) I like traffic jams because they give me a
THE TRAFFIC JAM AS SEROTONIN REUPTAKE INHIBITOR Nothing cheers me up more than a Boston traffic jam – when I’m not in it. I live to heck and gone in the New England back country where there isn’t any traffic. However, I get lonely out here and feel isolated and down in the dumps sometimes, especially when New England weather is crap the way it was this spring... and last winter... and so far this summer... and probably this fall. Good weather is so rare here that we don’t even have a word for it and just stand around with our mouths gapping open, rendered speechless by sunshine. Anyway, when I get depressed, I tune into the WBZ traffic report, and I’m instantly full of optimism, good feelings, and love for life... Compared with the people in Boston who are stuck in traffic... which would be all of them. WBZ has a slogan for its traffic report: “Boston – it’s an hour’s drive from Boston.” Why Boston traffic is so bad, I don’t know. Boston isn’t a huge city. In fact, it’s less populous than Columbus, Ohio, or Charlotte, North Carolina. And Boston drivers are notoriously aggressive – curb- jumping, left-turning-on-red, one-way- wrong-waying, lead-foot lane-hopping lions in the zebra crossing. They should, by all rights, be able to hot rod their way out of any traffic tie-up. (Why don’t Boston drivers use turn signals? That would be giving classified information to the enemy .)
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July 2019
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