On Tuesday my hubby and I went to Boston to see Rush at the Garden. Our trip started well. After leaving the kids at their Vovos’ house, we hopped a commuter train into the city. We had dinner in Chinatown and bubble tea for dessert. We were informed by a helpful soul that the city was under a tornado warning until midnight, but the weather stayed nice for us as we headed to the nearest T station. We enjoyed looking through the presidential dollar coins that we got as change from the subway ticket machine, because we never see those coins outside of the city. A train arrived promptly and whisked us away to the Garden with time to spare.
But then the concert tickets that I knew weren’t great turned out to be truly awful. We were at the very back of the balcony, against the wall. I didn’t mind the distance or the height. It was cool, actually, to be so high up and looking down at such a huge crowd. But the sound quality was atrocious. It wasn’t just that it was too loud (which it was). It was that the sound was distorted. We were pretty much in a nook, so the sound was just bouncing around like crazy. It was so bad that we decided to leave early and try to catch the earlier train home. Before we left, Rush obligingly played “Tom Sawyer,” which I admit is my favorite Rush song, and a few other songs from that era. I would have been sad to leave if they hadn’t played those songs yet. As we were leaving, we paused at the balcony exit and marveled over how much better the sound was there. We would have enjoyed the concert more if we had stood there all evening!
We had forty minutes to get to Back Bay Station and catch our train. You’d think that that would be enough time given that the Garden is just a few stops away on the same line. But we had forgotten what it is like to take public transportation. Subway trains don’t always come when you need them. We waited and waited for an Orange Line train. Meanwhile, Green Line trains came by regularly. We initially dismissed the idea of taking a green train, because it would have required switching lines and going to a different train station (from which our commuter train was leaving at an earlier time). It seemed too risky, and shortly, it wasn’t even an option.
Meanwhile, there was not an orange train in sight. It wasn’t until we got totally desperate that my old and slightly fuzzy knowledge of Boston’s layout surfaced and it occurred to me that there was a Green Line stop near Back Bay Station. At least I thought so, and my hubby, who had also gone to school in Boston, agreed. So we hopped the next green train and got off at Copley and hustled down a few blocks and hurried into Back Bay Station, which was just where I had thought it would be. Hooray!
Only we were seven minutes too late. Ugh! We had to wait another hour and a quarter for the next train. While we waited, we wandered around Copley Square and Newbury Street. It was still a lovely night, not a tornado in sight, only a hazy crescent moon hanging in the sky. It was wonderful to see the public library building in all its glory (most of the exterior of the building had been blocked off for restoration during the years I went to school in Boston). So, though we were kicking ourselves for having missed our train, we enjoyed our stroll and the sweet combination of nostalgia and novelty. We left ourselves plenty of time to get back to the station, so we didn’t miss the train this time, which is fortunate, because it was the last train for the night.
We got home just after 1:00 a.m. The ground was wet, so we knew that it had rained while we were gone. The next day we found out that a tornado had struck just a few miles down the road. And my old hometown was hit with microbursts, which brought down trees and tree limbs all over town, including on top of my parents’ house (but don’t worry, they’re fine). I’m thankful to have had such a nice evening in Boston, away from all the crazy weather!