There are a couple of places I know of where the trees are always labeled. The Arnold Arboretum in Boston and Mount Auburn Cemetery on the Watertown/Cambridge line. It is kind of cool to be able to walk up to a neat looking tree and read the label, to find out exactly what species it is. Like a name tag.
Earlier today I was at Marine Park in South Boston, attending the largest outdoor 12-step meeting that I am aware of, trying to avoid standing down-wind from the cigar smoke. There's so much random cigar smoking at this meeting that my asthma kicks into over-drive. Even as I write this, I have had a hell of day. Way worse asthma symptoms than usual. Had symptoms of bronchitis the last couple of days--not Covid though--and this asthma just compounds it.
The 12-steps are amazing. the spiritual program--the path towards a more enlightened sense of others, of taking personal responsibility and truly cultivating a more conscientious way of living, mindful of not doing harm to self or others. I have a hard time reconciling this with perhaps a kind of common man/woman or blue-collar embrace of this spiritual program while at the same time really not giving a wild fuck about the fact that perhaps the people standing and sitting nearby don't want to breathe in your flaming, burning logs of dog shit.
I can't get my lungs to work right today--thank you fellas. And it is a guy-thing, because while women make up close to half of those attending the meeting there are absolutely none of them smoking brown logs of burning cow manure during the meeting, blowing their smoke in everyone else's faces, and really just not giving a rats ass.
So I am struggling as I write this, to get a breath of air. To get my wind and it is nearly 12 hours after the meeting. But I digress... I thought a walk around Pleasure Bay would help put some air into my lungs between 12:15 to 1:30 or so...
(No, this is not the Loc Ness monster. It is a Loon in the bay. One of an asylum of 10-11 Red-Throated Loons, perhaps passing through along their migration route?)
I was standing trying to get away from the wafts of burning horse feces know as cigars, and found myself under a tall tree that almost had locust like leaves but was clearly not a locust-bean tree. And I instinctively looked to the name-tag, but there was none. But as noted above, the spiritual highlight of my day was (mostly) the Boat Meeting while the naturalistic highlight of my day wasn't horticulture, but ornithology. So I took that aforementioned slow-paced walk around the sugar-bowl at Pleasure Bay and along the end of William J. Day approaching Fort Independence where a flock of 10-11 Red-Throated Loons, swimming and diving in a kind of formation as the traveled southwest just a few yards from the beach.
They were meandering to find fish, I suppose--not unlike my stream of thoughts as the timer on my cell phone just sounded signaling me that my Covid-19, rapid home test kit results are ready. Well, that's good at least. Negative.
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