You Don't Know Beans!

I have chosen Boston as a part of "The American Identity". As a fellow blogger in Cartography class pointed out to me, "most Americans don't know their own identity". I thought about this statement for a bit and realized that it is quite possibly true for many Americans. So I decided to hit some of my eastern roots up for some good old identity! Now I realize many who read this blog may never have set foot in Boston, so I'm using this blog to broaden some horizons of you westerners and give you a taste of some Beantown love.

I tried to figure out a way to make this interesting and not just a factual snooze about the Boston Tea Party and Ben Franklin (but if you want some of that check it out at epodunk). And part of me would love to rehash some memories from 2004, when Curt Schilling, that dumb ass Johnny Damon and my man Big Pappy (David Ortiz) led my Red Sox to defeat the ultimate axis of evil, the New York Yankees. But that's a whole other Oprah. So instead, I'm going to tell you about a good portion of American Identity Boston style, which is drinking beer!

For 2 years now, I have been a part of something truly beautiful and great, a Annual Boston Pub Crawl! This idea of my Father in laws, happens every year a few days after Christmas, and takes place all over Boston and parts of Cambridge. Below is a map from Google with the 10 different bars we went to this year:

We have a pint at each bar and some good conversations which end up in muttering gibberish towards the end of the crawl. But good times are had by all. An interesting tidbit of information you might not find on to many websites or guidebooks is that the Harvard Bridge (located almost in the middle of the picture above) was measured in "Smoots" which is the name of a student at MIT. The entire bridge is measured in "Smoots" and they are painted all along the bridge (this full story can be found here: Smoots). For the real interesting part, go to Google Earth and use the measuring tool, and click on the increments of measurement button where it says, miles, kilometers, etc...and notice the last increment is "Smoots". How many Smoots do you get when you measure the bridge? Check it out.


After to many Smoots and a few to many bars. Cheers!