Each Sunday the Boston Globe Ideas section has a 50 word story about Boston. After reading one recently, I remembered my own story that took place in Boston back in the 1970’s. The Boston Globe liked it, published it and here it is: link: http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/11/12/words/F8VEZWNAveRXE0cv32G5JI/story.html

There is, of course, more to the story. I really was 15 and the cop really didn’t care if I had a license or not, he wanted the car moved. I had driven before, but never in the city. As I creeped around the block I looked up and saw stained glass windows, but didn’t notice the iron bars. When I told my father that we drove by a church, he had a confused look on his face. I pointed to the building and he laughed, it was the Charles Street Jail. In those days, it did have stained glass windows. Somehow he thought we had driven by St. Joseph’s which was a block away in the other direction.

Once we moved and parked the car, we went inside to visit. My grandmother had had a bleeding lung incident, which they had cleaned up before they let my sister and I see her. The young nurse provided quite a graphic description of what had happened. I’m sure I must have turned white because even now remembering this description makes me squeamish. Then she told us that John Wayne was a patient. My sister only remembers the John Wayne part, and the fact that I thought the jail was a church.