Boston And New England

Boston is the main city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, and in the northeastern region of the U.S., known as New England. The settlement that developed into what is now Boston began with the Puritans. After the Reformation, conflict in England between Anglicans and Puritans drove many Puritans to just leave and cross the Ocean. We saw this conflict in the posting on this blog, "Why The U.S. And Canada Are Different".

The logical place to begin a visit to Boston is inside the iconic Fanueil Hall. This has long been considered as the focal point of Boston, and is next to the Quincy Market in the oldest part of Boston. I have always thought of Boston as being built of red brick.

Fanueil Hall, like so many of the other older buildings, are made of red brick. The Rose Kennedy Greenway has replaced a highway through Boston that was known as the Central Artery. The highway was rerouted into a tunnel in a massive project called the "Big Dig".

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.360395,-71.054775,3a,75y,103.91h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO04z6RpSlVW9Crf6R4PXVn-Sfm9C3WorBMbYrT!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO04z6RpSlVW9Crf6R4PXVn-Sfm9C3WorBMbYrT%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.5028808-ya288.36145-ro-7.4954247-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

Here is more of central Boston. The oldest city park in the U.S. is the Boston Common, and the following scenes begin there.

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These images of downtown begin in the historic neighborhood known as Beacon Hill. As we might expect, Beacon Hill is made of Boston red brick.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3592563,-71.0696218,3a,75y,266.28h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1soM94_kBkflSTfkFXylhTLw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DoM94_kBkflSTfkFXylhTLw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D264.97473%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Another historic Boston neighborhood is Back Bay, known for it's Victorian brownstone homes.

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The best-known university in the U.S. is Harvard. Most of it is built in the tradition of Boston red brick.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3772878,-71.1180311,3a,75y,97.28h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sPFgxj_-bMJUXi6fBahQANQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DPFgxj_-bMJUXi6fBahQANQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D99.81592%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

If Harvard has an equal in the U.S., it is Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3186311,-72.9237139,3a,75y,110.08h,93.9t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAfX5GSO5lwO8CP1M9hNa3Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DAfX5GSO5lwO8CP1M9hNa3Q%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D108.96991%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Another neighboring city of Boston is Providence, Rhode Island. The state of Rhode Island was formed because of religious disagreements in early Massachusetts. Just as the Puritans had left England, and formed what is now Boston, because of religious disagreements, others left Massachusetts and formed Rhode Island due to religious disagreements.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8250398,-71.4110701,3a,75y,149.6h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sfopBpbu9w8UDJByuYUWPGQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DfopBpbu9w8UDJByuYUWPGQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D156.38399%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This part of the country was part of the early industrial heartland of America. One of the most important of early industrial cities is Lowell, Massachusetts. The following scenes are of the former industrial district.

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The best-known family from the Boston area is the Kennedys. John F. Kennedy was U.S. president until he was assassinated in 1963. His younger brother Robert "Bobby" Kennedy was campaigning for the 1968 election when he was also assassinated. There was another Kennedy brother who might have been president, Edward. He was the Democratic senator representing Massachusetts for many years.

When an incumbent president has served one term, he usually represents the party in the following election. But that is not a strict rule. I can remember the primaries for the 1980 election. Edward Kennedy was campaigning against incumbent president Jimmy Carter, and Kennedy was ahead.

But one name kept coming up. It was a name that Americans in 1980 would become very familiar with. The name was Chappaquiddick.

There is a major island off the coast of Massachusetts called Martha's Vineyard. The eastern portion is separated from the rest of the island and is connected by a bridge. It might be a tidal island that is not always separated. The eastern portion is called Chappaquiddick.

In the summer of 1969, a party was held on Chappaquiddick. After dark, Edward Kennedy drove from the party with a passenger in his car named Mary Jo Kopechne. For some reason, the car plunged off the bridge into the water. Edward Kennedy was able to escape the car and swim to shore, but Mary Jo Kopechne was not and she drowned.

Many people believe that this is why there was not a second Kennedy presidency. Jimmy Carter pulled ahead of Kennedy in the 1980 primaries, before ultimately losing the election to Ronald Reagan. Edward Kennedy never ran for president again, but continued his long career in the Senate.

Anyway, this is the infamous Dike Bridge at Chappaquiddick as well as it's peaceful setting.

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In the summer of 2002, I did a Walmart Card promotion in Rutland, Vermont. I would like to say "hello" to everyone that I met there. Hopefully, the lady from England is doing well. This blog that I am writing now is just the right color for Vermont readers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Vermont#/media/File:Vermont_2000_license_plate_CGX_308.jpg

Here is Rutland, starting at the Walmart.

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THE TWO KENNEDY ASSASSINATIONS

John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election and served as U.S. President until he was assassinated in 1963. There are some amazing parallels between that and the assassination of John's brother, Bobby, while he was campaigning for president in 1968.

John F. Kennedy had confronted the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in nearby Cuba. He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Communist sympathizer who had earlier defected to the Soviet Union.

Robert (Bobby) Kennedy had visited Israel just before it became independent, and was known as a supporter of it. He was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a native of Palestine who wanted to stop the giving of weapons to Israel. The assassination took place on the first anniversary of the beginning of the Six Day War.

By the way, Sirhan Sirhan was not a Moslem. He was from a Christian Arab family and had attended a Christian school. In the U.S. he had recently become a member of the Rosicrucians, an old secret society.

There is something about the assassination of John F. Kennedy that I notice but have not seen referred to anywhere. The assassination took place in Dallas. Not far away lived an eight-year-old named John Hinckley, who would one day attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan. That assassination attempt would very much resemble not the assassination of Kennedy, but of Lee Harvey Oswald. Jack Ruby waited in the garage of the police station, pretending to be a reporter, and then fired as Oswald was escorted past.

NO KENNEDY AS VICE-PRESIDENT

As for the usual rule that an incumbent president represents the party in seeking reelection after his first term, it seems that there was some behind-the-scenes dealing in the withdrawal of incumbent president Lyndon Johnson from the 1968 campaign so that a Kennedy, Bobby, could run. Of course, that ended with his assassination.

Lyndon Johnson had been John F. Kennedy's vice-president, becoming president upon John F. Kennedy's assassination and then winning reelection in 1964. He was eligible to run again in 1968 because he had not served two full terms. After the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the Democrats were ultimately represented in 1968 by Hubert Humphrey, who had been Lyndon Johnson's vice president, but he lost to Richard Nixon, who John F. Kennedy had defeated in the 1960 election.

There actually had been no vice-president from the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 to the inauguration of Lyndon Johnson, with running mate and then vice-president Hubert Humphrey, in January 1965. Why couldn't Bobby Kennedy have continued the family's legacy by being vice-president?

Bobby Kennedy just couldn't be Lyndon Johnson's vice president. A Kennedy brother had to either be president or in the Senate. They had too much pride to be anyone's vice-president. In 1968, the incumbent Lyndon Johnson had to break usual precedence and step aside so that Bobby Kennedy could run for president.