An Apology to Mrs. Gelhar

This is the square in the center of our neighborhood, convenient to
the T (our subway), Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, a Chinese place
and little else of interest.

I could never understand the classic essay template. Start your essay with a thesis statement. The second sentence should be a supporting statement for your thesis. The third sentence should be a second supporting statement for your thesis. Then, if you're still following along, the start of your second paragraph should be exactly the same as the second sentence of your essay.

I didn't know anything about writing at the time, but I knew it was ludicrous (and just bad writing) to repeat the exact same sentence. But our tenth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Gelhar, was old-school. Or just plain old. Her teeth stains had teeth stains. She was a modern-day equivalent of a nun teaching in a Catholic school. Form is all that matters, not the thought.

And I just couldn't get with the program, which is why you see before you a meandering two-paragraph lead about tenth-grade English.

But thesis statements are important. Not that this blog has ever had one ("My name's Jim and I'm a male blogger"), but consider this a preview of what's to come.

We kind of live in the ghetto of Boston, and I am OK with that. That is our working thesis statement here.

As far as the federal government is concerned, TW and I live in Boston. Our zip code is a Boston zip code. We will put Boston on our tax forms. But to anyone from Boston, or from Massachusetts, we are Easties.

East Boston, which is where we live, is not Boston. Not really. It's not what you think of when you think of Boston. Virtually everybody reading this blog is not from Boston and many readers have visited Fenway, The Old North End or Boston Common.

Not only do we not live nextdoor to those places, we literally live across the water from all of it. The Mystic River is about three-quarters of a mile wide, maybe a mile wide off the tip of Piers Park.

It is a world of difference, and it's not.

We moved to East Boston because it was easy. The Boston apartment market is unusual. In late April, when we started looking for a place, it was considered too late to move in July 1. That's because the vast majority of rentals are run by management firms and management firms like to have a steady stream of income. There are real estate agents dedicated to rental housing only and they often get paid the equivalent of your first month's rent.

This is, of course, absurd if you have ever lived pretty much anywhere else in the United States, but certainly if you've ever lived in the Midwest, where there's plenty of land and not that many people.

We looked at a lot of apartment on the Internet in April. Most people couldn't be bothered to clean their apartments before the company took photos for their website. And you didn't get much for your money. $1,800 will not buy you much in the Fenway, Kenmore, Beacon Hill neighborhoods of Boston.

On a whim, I looked at Boston real estate on Craigslist one day. I'd been daunted by the prospect of figuring out where we were going to live. It's fair to say the listing for a place in East Boston jumped out at me.

It had: A dog park a half block away; two off-street parking spots; a subway line a half mile away; heat included; granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.

And it was smack in the middle of our price range.

There had to be a catch. That catch is that East Boston is considered to be one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. Maybe it is, but it's not like we're talking about the worst neighborhood in Detroit here. The worst neighborhood in Boston is still not that bad, as I've discovered. And it's affordable. Relatively speaking.

Chances are, you've been in my neighborhood if you've flown to Boston. Anybody who flies into Boston is actually flying into East Boston. My daily (OK, four-times-a-week) run takes me through the E terminal and over the sky bridge to the A terminal. I'll stop at a water fountain and enjoy the air conditioning *during* my workout. The car rental lots for Alamo, Hertz, Enterprise, National and Avis are literally a two-minute walk from our front door. I walked to the airport for a flight last week.

The parks are amazingly nice. They are manicured. There's a workout area that I'm using in the park nearest our house. There are running trails sunken into old trolley lines gouged into canyons beneath the streets. There's a killer Chinese restaurant just down the street and there are about 1,500 little convenience stores that specialize in Brazilian, Colombian, Mexican, Puerto Rican or Peruvian eccentricities, depending on the eccentricities of the owner.

The funny thing is, we're closer to the touristy part of Boston than anybody in any of those neighborhoods I listed above (unless they have a helicopter pad, which, let's face it, is entirely possible). TW and I are a seven-minute walk from the T, Boston's subway. From our stop on the Blue Line, it is a two-minute ride to the New England Acquarium, which is right next to The Old North End, Fanieul Hall and Quincy market. We're right there, only we don't have to pay to live right there.

Eventually, we might choose to live right there. TW and I are always talking about our next move. But East Boston isn't so bad. It's not, after all, Rawlins, Wyo. We all know how I feel about that.

Mrs. Gelhar, of course, probably doesn't approve of all this writing. She was big on rules. The last of which was that your final sentence in your essay should be the same as your thesis statement. I could never understand the classic essay template.