The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [109]
Living in the Boston area had posed special perils for complying with the National Park ban, which encompassed historic as well as natural sites. Walk down any given street and you’ll inevitably blunder into a building that, 250 years ago, housed some fervid future hero with a blunderbuss and a dream. Did the Freedom Trail count as a national historical property? It’s literally a line painted through downtown Boston, snaking through the brick and cobblestone streets for more than two miles. Each time I came upon it, which was often, I found it necessary to vault over the line rather than touch it, just in case.
But Queen Liberty had at long last planted her embrace upon our froggy mouths, restoring our sovereignty as whole citizens, who could tread whatever soil they pleased without fear of swift and bloody legal retribution. The Freedom Trail, Faneuil Hall, the Old State House, and various other historic and possibly nationally historic sites around Boston opened their arms out wide to me once more, but Benjamin and I desired to set foot in a true National Park, a natural setting rather than the constructions of ancient foremen. We decided on the Harbor Islands, thirty-odd patches of earth between here and Hull that had been collectively designated as National Park territory. Jane, an incorrigible outdoorswoman, happily joined our expedition. At noon on a fine September day, Jane and I bought our tickets at Long Wharf to travel to Spectacle and Georges, two islands in the collection that offered more to see than seagulls pooping on each other. Benjamin went to the window to claim his own, but as Jane and I walked toward the ferry, we heard a ticket agent proclaim that the ferry was now sold out. Had Benjamin made it? He sauntered over with a wry smile and an eyebrow waggle, holding up the last ticket. “You didn’t think they’d leave a gent like me behind, did you?” We boarded a packed ferry and squashed ourselves up against the railing.
After a short ride, the dual mounds of Spectacle Island hove into view. We disembarked at the small, grassy island and found there to be little cover from the suddenly hot sun. Crickets sang their welcome. I regretted wearing jeans. Benjamin did not because he hadn’t actually packed any shorts. We stopped in at the visitors’ center near the pier to use the bathroom. Once we were back outside, Jane blinked in the strong light and turned to us. “Where would you guys like to go?”
“How about the trail winding up the North Drumlin,” I suggested, pointing at the hill ahead of us, slightly larger and higher than the one at our backs. We headed up the path, alone now that the other visitors had scattered elsewhere on the island. Along the way to the North Drumlin, we stopped periodically to read signs that explained the history of Spectacle. It had indeed originally resembled a pair of spectacles, the northern and southern hills as two mismatched lenses with a narrower spit of land between them serving as the bridge. Now, with the spit thickened and expanded by additional landmass, the island looked mostly like a porkchop. I imagined that a corresponding name change would have been undesirable, though. Jane’s nose wrinkled as she read about what served as the foundation for that extra land.
“Hate to say it,” she said, “but the first park you decided to visit is where the city used to dump all its trash. We’re hiking over a landfill.”
That gave me pause until I looked back across the trails and grass, bright in the afternoon sun. The Park Service had done an excellent job landscaping over the sins of the past. “Nicest landfill I’ve seen