There has been a recent trend in certain circles – the ones that are very tiresome at your dinner party – to rename Thanksgiving, to call the holiday Native People’s Day. This is ridiculous. If you want to be politically correct about the name, fine, but don’t take away my day to celebrate this country’s flawed but important colonial genesis. Why not rename the holiday instead to Bold but Ravenous European Expansion Day?
With one rail ticket, one cup of Au Bon Pain coffee, two first-degree burns on my thumb and my notebook, I was off to defy Thanksgiving revisionists by spending a day in Plymouth before crowds descended upon the city at the end of November.
Between South Weymouth and Abington, I felt a brief frisson. Maybe it was just from the burns blistering and no longer throbbing, but I was very excited to have the overcast day to myself in Plymouth.
I headed immediately to Plymouth Rock as if it were a lodestone. I milled about by the rock along with a busload of children. I thought they were surprisingly well-behaved, considering how anti-climactic the rock was.
The portico that houses the rock is magnificent: not too large, but elegant in an unassuming way. The rock itself … well, picture if you will a jagged large, ovate chunk of Dedham granite. Now imagine the number “1620” is written on it. Now imagine it is sitting quietly in a grand rock pen, and you are leaning on a cold metal railing and looking 10 feet down at it. Now imagine one of the school children, cherubic and blond, is standing next to you, spitting into the bay off to the right.
Did you absorb all that? I did, and then I headed over to and bought a ticket for the Mayflower II, a replica of the ship that brought the pilgrims to America. Before boarding the ship, I read some signs. One read, “In 1620, Mayflower made landfall on the shores of the Wampanoag People’s homeland. And peaceful, mutually profitable relations ensued uninterrupted for the next 350 years.” (Just kidding about that last part.) As I queued up to board the boat, I accidentally joined a Russian tour group. I didn’t know what they were saying to me, but they seemed to enjoy my company. Once aboard, I watched a separate Asian tour group try to extract useful information from a historical re-enactor who refused to break character. Neither side’s English was very comprehensible.
I spent a long time on the lower deck in an attempt to wring every penny out of the eight bucks admission. When I went up to the half deck, I saw another re-enactor. This one was conversing with my Russian tour group, and the resulting exchange cemented eavesdropping on foreign tourists interacting with re-enactors as my new favorite hobby.
The Mayflower II actually crossed from England to Plymouth on April 20, 1957. Being a stickler for historical accuracy, I was dismayed that, due to modern regulations, the crew had to use a wheel rather than a whipstaff for steering. Still, my dismay was offset by the amusing thought that we actually have a rule against whipstaffs on the books.
That’s a bit like BU’s Office of Residence Life stipulating, “No incense or gas lamps.”
The nice thing about touring Plymouth alone is that, at least for the major sights, you end up traveling with the same group of people. After debarking back to the 21st century, I spent the rest of the morning following my Russian friends on a scenic walk along Plymouth Harbor.
On a whim, I stopped in the John Alden Gift Shop. I was surprised by the range of items sold. There are quaint curios, like corn husk pilgrims. There are also inane gewgaws, like rubber seagulls. Then there is the bizarrely inappropriate Peter Meter. This is a “comical” wooden slat with markings that range from “1 inch, just a waterspout,” to “9 inches, for barroom betting only.” What parent wouldn’t be happy when a child blows his chowder money on the whimsical Peter Meter!
I ate lunch at Carmen’s Café Nicole at 114 Water St., which was cheekily recommended to me by my friend Nicole. Everything about the place made me happy to be visiting Plymouth. The friendly service and bright and cozy diner-like table layout made eating alone with a good book feel perfectly natural. The lobster roll was heavy on meat, light on mayo, piled with comforting fried side items and just a damn fine meal.
I reluctantly left Café Nicole and waddled over to the Pilgrim Hall Museum. For all the interesting relics from the pilgrims, the museum fails to give any sense of actually understanding the experience. The museum has plenty of placards with pages of information, but overall it is boring and not cohesive.
Oh, I did learn that every good planter ought to provide one firkin of butter for the year. I’m not sure what a firkin weighs, but I’m guessing it’s more than a tub of Land O’Lakes.
I had planned on also visiting the Plymouth National Wax Museum, but I changed my mind after leaving Pilgrim Hall. Anyway, if I really want to see famous waxen Bay Staters, I can always go to Washington and visit Sens. Kerry and Kennedy.
I left the museum and walked up and down the antique shops and small restaurants on Court Street. Before leaving for the train back to Boston, I bought some leaf tea from a British Food and Imports store. I noticed that there was no tax on it. So it took them 300 years, but the Brits finally learned.
If only those first intrepid European separatists could see how far we’ve come in so short a time. We’re a long way off from Utopia, but at least I can enjoy a hot cup of Scottish Breakfast without having to fight for parliamentary representation. That’s something, isn’t it?
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