The Accidental Tourist

Note:  Read "Legends of My Falls," "One Flew Over the Basement Stairs," "Snow White Falling on Cedar" and "Down, Down and Away" first.

The year was 1994, and my daughter and I had the opportunity to join my husband on the East Coast for his three-week business trip. With Philadelphia as our home base, we also spent time in Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, the Amish Country, Atlantic City, Connecticut, and as far north as Kennebunkport, Maine. Our daughter was going in to her senior year of high school and wanted to check out some East Coast colleges, especially Berklee College of Music in Boston. We were glad to spend a few days there because Boston is loaded with historical sites.

The top thing on our list of things we wanted to do in Boston was to walk the famed Freedom Trail as my husband had done on a previous business trip. It was July, and it was hot and humid. The three of us dressed in shorts for the seven-mile walk. Undaunted by the uncomfortable heat, we set off walking with great anticipation for the experiences ahead, experiences to be shared with the oodles of other eager tourists. The trail is an urban one, winding through downtown Boston where old cemeteries, old churches and old government buildings are interspersed with tall, modern skyscrapers and posh hotels.

In my excitement to be where I was, I just didn't see the torn up sidewalk we came upon. I tripped, and I fell forward, hard, to the ground. My glasses flew off as my body was sprawled, in all its glory, across a Boston sidewalk. Almost immediately I was surrounded by concerned citizens and tourists. The doorman from the hotel across the street came running, asking what he could do to help. Nice young men voiced their concern and offered their help. Talk about being embarrassed! And talk about pain!

It was no surprise that both of my bare legs were scratched up. I could not understand why both of my hands hurt so horribly, a hot, searing pain. When my husband helped me sit up, I could see my knees and shins were bleeding and were covered with gravel from my knees down my calves. I also discovered the source of the hot pain in my hands, both of which were red. I looked down on the manhole cover they had fallen on, and I read the name engraved on it: Boston Steam. Those were steam burns, and ouch, did they every hurt.

While the doorman offered to get me an ambulance, I would hear nothing of that. He did say there was a drug store at the bottom of the hill we had been starting down, so as soon as I was up and had my glasses put back on me we started to walk, only in my case it was more like inching along. There was a park across the street from the drug store, and my husband had me rest there with my daughter to keep me company while he went to buy things to clean me up and sanitize me. At this point I wished he could have gotten me a general anesthetic!

This downtown Boston park was a busy little place, and while I was surely a spectacle with my bleeding, gravel-studded legs, Not wanting to draw further attention to me, I refused to cry. That proved nearly impossible a task when my husband sprayed something on my burned hands to help them and when he painstakingly removed pieces of gravel from my legs. I've never been one to say bad words, but could I be blamed for thinking them that day?

After I was all doctored up and both legs were covered with gauze, my husband just assumed I would want to leave and go back to the car. "No way!" I said, "I flew all the way across the country to walk the Freedom Trail, and I'm going to do it." And we did, for me, one painful step at a time.

Three years later we returned to the East Coast and to Boston, this time with our two sons. This time the temperature was 96 degrees with 98% humidity. In spite of those horrid conditions we walked the Freedom Trail, stopping first for a photo op by the Boston Steam manhole. In case you are wondering, they still hadn't fixed the broken sidewalk.

I was 46 when I became the Accidental Tourist, so this is the 20th anniversary of my Boston Steam fall. This is when the real Legends began