Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Maybe Squanto had made a mistake

This is my favorite line from any Robert B Parker novel.

I read my first Spenser novel in college. More specificially, my freshman level English course in modern Lit that I took as a Junior because by the time I got all the bugs in my schedule worked out, it was the only class left that I could take.

I loved that Spenser book. I loved it in the first couple of chapters because I went to college in Iowa, and Boston is pretty close to Maine. When I read the part describing in detail the stores and restaurants that line Rte 1 in Saugus, MA, I got so excited because I HAD BEEN THERE AND SEEN THAT. Which is probably how I missed the last line of the paragraph.

"Maybe Squanto had made a mistake."

When the professor read that line out loud in class, I laughed out loud. Couldn't help it.

Nobody else laughed. Nobody else got it. I'm not sure if they didn't know who Squanto was, or they had no idea what Rte 1 in Saugus looks like. Probably both. I had to explain to my freshman classmates who Squanto was.

Probably I was also the only person in the class who had even been to Plimoth Plantation. We went as add on's on my brother's first grade field trip to Plimoth Plantation. The bus broke down, the bus drove over a curb trying to get around some teeny little street, a seagull pooped on my brother's head, and my cooler sandwich was next to the ice pack and froze before I got to eat it.

Jupiter wants to go to Plimoth Plantation this summer. We just read the Magic Tree House book
Thanksgiving on Thursday; where Jack and Annie go back in time to the first Thanksgiving. I told Jupiter that you could actually go see the place where that happened, and she got all excited about it.

Today I looked up the plimoth Plantation website. It's $28 per adult and $18 for children 6-12. Maybe we should have gone there last year. Actually those are the 2009 prices, come to think of it. Ah well, hopefully we will still go.

I will miss Robert B Parker.

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