Bostonroots1850's blog

My old house.

Sea glass and china washes up on the shore...broken pieces of pale green milk glass cups, or beige-colored thick cups that the old Waldorf used to serve coffee in. A piece that said "HMS Q Mary" on it's back...I wonder who used them, and how they got into the water... from shipwrecks or just trash hauled on barges? Beautiful red glass from a Victorian lamp perhaps, one that graced a South Boston parlor, or an East Boston dining room. Royal blue glass from a vintage medicine bottle, and a kelly green frosted glass salt shaker. If only they could tell us their stories about Boston history.

I took a trip out to one of the Boston Harbor Islands one day last summer. It was a bit overcast, and few were there that day. Walking down along the beach, there was no one around, and there were no boats in the water in view. I heard a tinkling sound, like glass chimes. It continued, and I could see no building with chimes or boat or person that could be making the sound.....That day, I was also feeling a strong connection to my dad, who was born in East Boston back in 1905. I imagined him as a boy down at the East Boston waterfront throwing bottles into the water..... Then all of a sudden I realized where the sounds were coming from. It was all the many broken pieces of "seaglass" chiming against each other in the lapping waves hitting the shore. I wondered, then, if the bottles my dad threw into the water about 100 years ago were now chiming to me as their broken pieces washed up on the shore.

I'm thankful to live in a neighborhood in Boston (Mission Hill) where the neighbors sit on their porches together, shovel snow together, mourn with each other, feed each other, laugh with each other. Yes, this is still happening in 2010 !