In a state of curiousity I boarded a train from Saco, Maine to Boston, Massachusetts yesterday.  I had made up my mind to purchase a one way ticket as I walked by the train station.  I was out yesterday looking for a Mother’s Day present, of course the constant downpour and cold weather coming in hindered my efforts.

Outfitted with a camera, umbrella, kindle, school ID and check card I boarded the train and trekked towards Boston.  I plan on talking about the Kindle in a later post, but that miracle reading device makes any traveling enjoyable.  After two hours on board, I arrive at my final destination, North Station\TD Banknorth Garden in the North End of Boston.   Armed now with a free Trolley tour map I descend upon the city on streets that appear to circle back on themselves.  

With no plans or events to see I continue down roads and alleyways not with the psyche of an out of order wayfarer but that of a natural denizen.  Boston is unlike the dozens of other cities I’ve been to.  Soon enough I will have to make the decision where I’ll want to start my career and future.  Therefore I always  go by the roads not taken.

The Road not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(1920)

Flag at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library measures at 45′ x 26′

Yesterday I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts. This marks the second Presidential library I’ve had the opportunity to visit, the first being the Lincon Library in Springfield, IL. While at the JFK Library I learned that  John F. Kennedy actually wanted to write and become an English Teacher.  However, after World War II Kennedy refocused his attention and ran for Congress.  (He later wound up writing a book, Profiles in Courage, 1955)

One of the most dramatic events in Kennedy’s early life was while he was serving in the Navy as a commander of a PT Boat in the Soloman Islands during World War II.    His ship was severely damaged and after 15 hours in the open sea without a life jacket he and his 11 men became stranded on an island.  He was later rescued after giving an inscribed coconut to a Native with instructions to the Navy base.  

Kennedy remarked that one of his favorite poems was “I have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger (1888-1916).  Seeger’s poems were released a year after his death, coincidentally the same year Kennedy was born (1917).

I have a Rendezvous with Death
by Alan Seeger

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air-
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath-
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

—

The biographical information from the JFK Library for Seeger is: 

Alan Seeger (1888-1916) was a young, early 20th century U.S. poet, a contemporary of T.S. Eliot, although very different in poetic style.  Seeger died at Belloy-en-Santerre on July 4, 1916 while serving in the French Foreign Legion.  “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” was one of John F. Kennedy’s favorite poems and he often asked his wife to recite it.