Speaker 1: It's night with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: I'm going easy. Boston's the next two hours, we'll take
Speaker 2: you on a tour of Boston. And that voice you
Speaker 2: hear in the background, that's my buddy Jack Hart. And
Speaker 2: Jack Hi. You are the tour guide. I'm the tour guide,
Speaker 2: and you make sure that everybody behaves. Yes, don't stick
Speaker 2: your arms out the window on the bus, that's right.
Speaker 2: And tipping is allowed, that's.
Speaker 1: Right, sometimes the left, sometimes for the right.
Speaker 2: You hear Jackhart doing traffic as you did just a
Speaker 2: couple of minutes ago, but he has an additional occupation.
Speaker 1: That's right. Not only do I talk about traffic, I sit.
Speaker 2: In it and at times even cause.
Speaker 1: Traffic from time to time.
Speaker 2: From time to time, that's exactly right. Tell people for
Speaker 2: the company for what company do you work?
Speaker 1: I work for a trolley tours. It's the Silver Trolley
Speaker 1: of the several trolleys out and around them, the Silver
Speaker 1: where the Silver Trolley Company will pick us up on
Speaker 1: Atlantic Avenue, right by the Long Long Morph and right
Speaker 1: near the New England Aquarium, and we're right out there.
Speaker 1: Come up and buy a ticket, and if you tell
Speaker 1: them that I sent you, they'll add two dollars out
Speaker 1: of the price.
Speaker 2: And how long is your tour?
Speaker 1: About about thirty five? Oh, no, the time wise.
Speaker 2: In time if you get on at ten, what time
Speaker 2: is the tour over?
Speaker 1: Well, it's a city, of course, so you know, we'll
Speaker 1: tell you that it's an hour tour. We might be
Speaker 1: back there in fifty five minutes. We might be back
Speaker 1: there in an hour and ten minutes. And as has
Speaker 1: happened a time or two towards the end of the
Speaker 1: day before a holiday weekend, three hours.
Speaker 2: Well, we have approximately an hour and fifty minutes to
Speaker 2: take this tour with you.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: So everybody that goes to atlantav right there by the aquarium,
Speaker 2: you've gotten your ticket. Now, this is a double decker bus,
Speaker 2: is it not?
Speaker 1: No, it is not. Oh okay, I'm sorry it's not though. No,
Speaker 1: there are there are there are there are. There are
Speaker 1: genuine double decker buses down there.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: There used to be two companies. Now there's only one.
Speaker 1: Uh there and uh and they do their thing. They're
Speaker 1: one of the newest companies in Then there's the Then
Speaker 1: there's the the stadium buses. Those are the ones with
Speaker 1: the very high seating, but they're not actually double decker.
Speaker 1: They are only one deck, right, And those were actually
Speaker 1: designed by a company that I by a group of
Speaker 1: myself and several others in a company that I used
Speaker 1: to manage that's went out of business two years after
Speaker 1: I left, which nice but any rate, But so so
Speaker 1: those exist. We have the the the the typical uh.
Speaker 1: They're trolley's made by a company called Mally up and
Speaker 1: up and oh Gunkwood, Maine and Wells, Maine actually and
Speaker 1: and so they're it's essentially it's a it's a Ford
Speaker 1: uh mobile home chassis what it is. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're they're the typical. They're like eleven feet high.
Speaker 1: So you see them there. They're what you typically expect
Speaker 1: to see when you when you look for a for
Speaker 1: trolley tour.
Speaker 2: Now the duck boats do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Well they do that, No, they do something different. We
Speaker 1: have an on and off formula, so you buy a
Speaker 1: ticket with the with city view or with the uh.
Speaker 1: The other companies and the people who are mean to
Speaker 1: their passengers, and they're they're all kind of nice, I guess,
Speaker 1: but they you know, the several of us do there.
Speaker 1: There are several of us who do the on and
Speaker 1: off formula hop on and off, although nobody nobody hops,
Speaker 1: everybody's always stepping. But they're the the on and off tours,
Speaker 1: so you know, they are a number of stops throughout
Speaker 1: the city. City View has nine stops throughout the essentially
Speaker 1: around the Freedom Trail route, and you get off. You
Speaker 1: spend as much time as you want. You want to
Speaker 1: go to the Constitution, spend two hours there if you want,
Speaker 1: spend fifteen minutes there. About every fifteen to twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: another one of our trolleys comes past, and you just
Speaker 1: show your ticket and get back on the ducks. They
Speaker 1: do something different. They do about an eighty minute tour.
Speaker 1: You don't get off it. You have the same conductor.
Speaker 2: No, because there's water and powder of the tour.
Speaker 1: Well, oh yeah, just for a few minutes though, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they take you on a pretty good surface tour,
Speaker 1: pretty good surface tour of the city. And then they
Speaker 1: go into the Charles River for forty seven forty eight
Speaker 1: seconds and then they come out. No, no, they go
Speaker 1: about ten minutes into the Charles River right and tightens
Speaker 1: some stories and then they come back out. But you
Speaker 1: don't get off that trip once you you know, well,
Speaker 1: you get on, you take the entire trip, and then
Speaker 1: you get off. Yeah, if you wanted to get off
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Charles, there'd be news stories
Speaker 1: about it every day. And so that's you know. So
Speaker 1: that's the difference between the duck and the trolley. And
Speaker 1: the trolley goes into the It can go into the water,
Speaker 1: but only once.
Speaker 2: It's not the going into the water, it's the getting
Speaker 2: out of the water once you've gone in.
Speaker 1: That's the tough part. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna tell you a quick story. Then we're
Speaker 2: going to take our break and open up the phone lines. Excellent,
Speaker 2: this happened. Oh good grief, my son, who's now forty one.
Speaker 2: This happened when he was sixteen, maybe fifteen. I had
Speaker 2: a show to do in Philadelphia. I brought him with me,
Speaker 2: much to the overconcerned by my then wife now my ex,
Speaker 2: and she gave me solid rules make sure he is safe.
Speaker 2: She knew I was gonna be working at convention, so
Speaker 2: I couldn't keep eyes on him. But one of her
Speaker 2: rules was make sure he never leaves the hotel. Now
Speaker 2: I'll repeat that, never leaves the hotel. And we stayed
Speaker 2: at the Adams Mark hotel, which is on the outskirts
Speaker 2: of Philly. It's like Framingham to Boston. And I told him, Evan,
Speaker 2: I'm going to work. You cannot leave the hotel. And
Speaker 2: he became friendly with the concierge there, and he was
Speaker 2: told by the concierge that there's a tour. You get
Speaker 2: on the bus. It takes you all around Liberty Bell
Speaker 2: Ben Franklin Statue in Philly. Yay. So when I came
Speaker 2: home that day, because it's a four day convention, he said, Dad,
Speaker 2: can I go on the tour? I'll stay on the bus.
Speaker 2: Here are the two words. I promise, I'll stay on
Speaker 2: the bus. And I figure, fine, how often does a
Speaker 2: teenager get a chance to see one of America's most
Speaker 2: historic cities?
Speaker 1: Sure the other great Liberty.
Speaker 2: So here we go. I told him he could go.
Speaker 2: He goes. Now, I don't hear about this until after
Speaker 2: the fact. I come back after doing trivia at this
Speaker 2: convention all day, and he told me this is a
Speaker 2: great city. I was able to get off the bus
Speaker 2: and I said, what, Oh, well, the bus comes around
Speaker 2: and you can get on another bus if you know
Speaker 2: where to pick it up. I said, I thought we
Speaker 2: had a deal that you were going to get off
Speaker 2: the bus. Oh but dad, it was safe, and you know.
Speaker 1: How he was fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, it was safe. He's now telling me past
Speaker 2: tense about the story. But I knew if he told
Speaker 2: the story to my ex, Holy heck would be dumped
Speaker 2: upon my head. Yeap, yep, yep. And the fact that
Speaker 2: I got to hear about all the places that he
Speaker 2: was able to walk to, because a lot of the
Speaker 2: Philly historic sites are within walking distance. Yet and still
Speaker 2: the bus took you on a greater array of the
Speaker 2: historic sites. So what you're telling me is you do
Speaker 2: the same thing here in Boston.
Speaker 1: We do the same thing. We we let children get
Speaker 1: lost in the city.
Speaker 2: Yet no, I'm stopping you here. On that note, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take a break. If people want to call
Speaker 2: in six seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or eight eight, eight,
Speaker 2: nine to nineteen thirty and ask questions, Yes, trust me,
Speaker 2: Jack knows Boston history.
Speaker 1: And if I don't know something that I'll be something.
Speaker 2: You make it up. Shit, don't tell them that. But
Speaker 2: if you want to know about the Boston massacre and
Speaker 2: the five people lost their lives, but another seventeen to
Speaker 2: twenty people were wounded, and how it started with snowballs.
Speaker 2: Jack can tell you all of that. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: So let's take our break. Time and temperature here on
Speaker 2: night Side ten sixteen seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World.
Speaker 2: Night Side Studios on w b Z.
Speaker 1: The news radio.
Speaker 2: Dan, we'll be back on Monday, I promise. But until then,
Speaker 2: I am here and I'm joined by Jack Hart, and
Speaker 2: we're doing the best we can to teach a little
Speaker 2: history on a Friday night here on Nightside. We've already
Speaker 2: got a couple of calls. But Jack, before we take
Speaker 2: a phone call, Yeah, I brought up the Boston massacre,
Speaker 2: and I know that's on our tour. I know we're
Speaker 2: not going in if I sat with that now, But
Speaker 2: since I brought it up, give the history of that
Speaker 2: incident back in March of what seventeen seventy.
Speaker 1: March seventeen seventy, no, seventeen seventy, yes, yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: important that's that we know that particular date because here's
Speaker 1: the thing. I contend that the Boston massacre was not happenstance,
Speaker 1: that it was a setup. And I'll tell you why
Speaker 1: number one March nineteen, seventeen seventy. So the British soldiers
Speaker 1: showed up in Boston in seventeen sixty eight. They started
Speaker 1: the occupation of Boston seventeen sixty eight. Boston was the
Speaker 1: first town to get them, and Limesley because Boston, being
Speaker 1: very rural, very urban people had more time to sort
Speaker 1: of think a little bit. And after seventeen sixty five
Speaker 1: with the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act imposed unreasonable taxes
Speaker 1: on the colonists and it didn't last very long. Was
Speaker 1: replaced by the Townsend Act that essentially said that England
Speaker 1: can repeal the Stamp Act, but now we can make
Speaker 1: any rule we want against the colonists and there's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do about it. So from that came the
Speaker 1: Sons of Liberty that grew out of Boston mostly and
Speaker 1: with a little bit of activity down in Philadelphia. Boston
Speaker 1: is the first town to experience the occupation of the
Speaker 1: British occupation, and so by seventeen seventy they're here about
Speaker 1: a year and a half. By March of seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: they are about a year and a half. They were
Speaker 1: out of March of sixty eight, but the other colonies
Speaker 1: have not experienced this so much yet, and this rebellion
Speaker 1: it's just a rebellion at this point seventeen seventy, very
Speaker 1: early on, just a rebellion, so it hasn't really spread
Speaker 1: to the other colonies so much. So now Sam Adams
Speaker 1: and John Hancock, amongst their duties, is really to kind
Speaker 1: of create visibility and create support from other colonies and
Speaker 1: from other groups for this burgeoning rebeccon and so on
Speaker 1: March fifth, seventeen seventy pretty soldier to hear about a
Speaker 1: year and a half, not very well, like they're pushing
Speaker 1: people around. They're their own countrymen. Everybody's British here and
Speaker 1: they're their own countrymen. And they're in Boston. They're pushing
Speaker 1: people around, they're taking up resources. They're not getting paid
Speaker 1: a novel lot from England for their service, so they're
Speaker 1: they're taking part time jobs and things here and there.
Speaker 1: So on this partition. A couple of days before first
Speaker 1: of about a week or so before the Boston massacre,
Speaker 1: down at what's now the intersection of Essex and Washington
Speaker 1: and Boylston Streets right down there in Chinatown, and there
Speaker 1: was a what they call the Liberty Tree. There was
Speaker 1: a tree there that some of these rebels would meet
Speaker 1: and plan their strategies and pass in from British soldiers
Speaker 1: show up at one of these meetings and fire into
Speaker 1: the crowd and kill the seventeen year old whose name
Speaker 1: isn't coming to me now. So first of all, you've
Speaker 1: got that going on, so you've got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a you've got a little motivation. A few days later,
Speaker 1: So a week or so later, over at John Gray's
Speaker 1: rope Walk over in Charlestown, there's a long building along
Speaker 1: the Charlestown Navy Yard every going down to the Charlestown
Speaker 1: Navy As a building, it's about a quarter mile long.
Speaker 1: It's called the Ropewalk. Its apartments are condominiums now, but
Speaker 1: it's called the rope Walk. They made and all the
Speaker 1: rope for the United States Navy was made there until
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. But any rate they used to make
Speaker 1: rope there. They had these long, quarter mile long buildings
Speaker 1: because they didn't know you could coil it at that point,
Speaker 1: and they so British soldiers came in at some point.
Speaker 1: So now there's a lot of people are working there
Speaker 1: making rope British soldiers came in at about a week
Speaker 1: before this incident on King Street, as the British refer
Speaker 1: to the Boston massacre. So about a week before, some
Speaker 1: British soldiers show up at the rope walk and they're
Speaker 1: looking for they're looking for work, and so the foreman says, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can clean they essentially the outhouses. He didn't use
Speaker 1: quite that pleasant language. And so a big fight and started,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was like a like an anticap
Speaker 1: comic strip, big cloud of a big cloud of arms
Speaker 1: and legs stick it out of it, you know, and
Speaker 1: a big beef between the people working at the rope
Speaker 1: walk and and other people along the docks there and
Speaker 1: these British soldiers. So big fight comes along. So a
Speaker 1: week or so later, it's a Monday night, it's a
Speaker 1: cold Monday night. There's one British soldier. And actually we
Speaker 1: say that it happened in front of the old State House,
Speaker 1: because the custom House is no longer. There would be
Speaker 1: about where sixty State Street is right now, all right,
Speaker 1: a tremont or a Congress and State Street. So they
Speaker 1: there was one loan century and uh so early in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, uh the couple of a couple of uh
Speaker 1: uh uh young teenagers go by there and they start
Speaker 1: throwing snowballs at the soldier, and a couple of mothers
Speaker 1: come on. They get into a little bit of a
Speaker 1: beef and everybody's given everybody a hard time, and a
Speaker 1: couple of these soldiers, you know, they they sort of
Speaker 1: huh whacked. These are these kids with the with the
Speaker 1: butts of their rifles.
Speaker 2: So now you just said these two things.
Speaker 1: The soldiers had rifles, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: All the kids from the colonies had snowballs.
Speaker 1: They had snowballs. So because because here's the thing, the
Speaker 1: British had taken everybody's guns. They had taken everybody's guns.
Speaker 1: They had no weapons. So this is what they're doing
Speaker 1: is you know, I'm I believe that that that they're
Speaker 1: they're they're there. This is all part of a plan.
Speaker 1: And uh so a little while later, coming out, you know,
Speaker 1: at nine o'clock at night on a Monday, all right,
Speaker 1: it's snowing, it's cold, nobody's out. In seventeen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: nine o'clock on a Monday, in a cold and snowy night,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, several hundred people show
Speaker 1: up down there and they start harassing these, you know,
Speaker 1: the soldiers there, and then a few more come out,
Speaker 1: total of eight soldiers come out, and so they start
Speaker 1: pelting them with snowballs, rocks, coming at them with cudgels
Speaker 1: or clubs, and so they're surrounding these eight soldiers. That
Speaker 1: you've got eight soldiers that bags are up against a
Speaker 1: wall somewhere three four hundred people are crushing in on
Speaker 1: them and so a bell. So there's a lot of confusion.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of yelling and a lot of things
Speaker 1: going on. The soldiers are given the order not to
Speaker 1: fire unless specifically ordered. They're not to fire at will.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to wait for an order to fire. So
Speaker 1: in the meantime, now, on a Monday night, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, a church in a nearby steeple starts ringing.
Speaker 1: There's only two reasons why a church bell rings in
Speaker 1: those days. One is a call the Sunday go to
Speaker 1: meeting or other events at the church. The other is
Speaker 1: because there's a frire. No because there's a fire. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what happens people start yelling. So just as the
Speaker 1: crowd is pushing in some the crowd starts yelling fire.
Speaker 1: The soldiers are confused, they don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, amongst these soldiers are several of those
Speaker 1: people who've gotten that fight down at at the rope
Speaker 1: walk several days earlier. And so, you know, so so,
Speaker 1: you know, and and a couple of them were what
Speaker 1: we we call in today's you know, today's parlance, knuckleheads.
Speaker 1: You knows, well, well big you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: these soldiers with these sort of big, goofy guys, you know,
Speaker 1: and who always willing to knuckle somebody's head anyway. And
Speaker 1: so so at any rate, that kind of standing out
Speaker 1: in front, sticking their chest out and things against his marble,
Speaker 1: like three hundred people, and so they started crushing it.
Speaker 1: The people are screaming fire. The soldiers don't know what
Speaker 1: to do. They fire a word, they hear the word,
Speaker 1: they fire into the crowd. They fire into the crowd,
Speaker 1: and eight people had done. You said there were a
Speaker 1: bunch of people down. You know, it takes too long
Speaker 1: to load a musket. You wouldn't have had more than
Speaker 1: eight people down, right, unless somebody got hit by the
Speaker 1: same musket ball twice. So eight people are down and
Speaker 1: u and because they're thinking that, well, first they raised
Speaker 1: them muskets. They think they're going to chase away the crowd.
Speaker 1: They think they're going to scare away the crowd by
Speaker 1: raising them muskets. Crowd goes crazy, crowds goes wild. Now,
Speaker 1: question is who's in this crowd now. Sam Adams and
Speaker 1: John Hancock had a number of people who they call
Speaker 1: their bully boys. And Sam's people were, you know, would
Speaker 1: have been located more down along what we would call
Speaker 1: the South Station area now right, and John Hancock's bully
Speaker 1: boys would have been the people who were more down
Speaker 1: towards the north end in Charlestown area. Okay, And so
Speaker 1: you know, so and that covers a big area. It
Speaker 1: really does cover a fair fair pretty big area.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, you've got a lot of people down there,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these people to see, a lot
Speaker 1: of these people like you know, uh, these people who
Speaker 1: worked on John Hancock on his boats if if he
Speaker 1: didn't have work then they were making rope over it,
Speaker 1: John Gray's rope walk and so forth and so on.
Speaker 1: So these are all people who are actually affected by
Speaker 1: Britain's policies. They're actually affected because they're losing work and
Speaker 1: uh and you know, these these are laborers. These are
Speaker 1: people who need the money, you know, and because there's
Speaker 1: no other, there's no other, you know, sort of high
Speaker 1: side hustles. We have side hustles today. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't have the side hustles some probably, but you know,
Speaker 1: uh they if they well there were one was side
Speaker 1: hustle was if you're worry were they're working on a boat,
Speaker 1: You're working making rope and uh so you know. So
Speaker 1: so my question is people don't even talk about this.
Speaker 1: Are these people Sam and John's bully boys and so
Speaker 1: five people two people die on the spot, Christmas Addicts
Speaker 1: and Sam Gray they die on the spot, and three
Speaker 1: others of Patrick Carr, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell they
Speaker 1: died over the next several days, and then several others recovered.
Speaker 1: And they're all considered to be the first bloodshed for
Speaker 1: the cause of the American Revolution.
Speaker 2: Now I gotta stop. I gotta stop here for break, Okay,
Speaker 2: but we can pick that up and for Patrick from Colorado,
Speaker 2: you will be first. As soon as Jack Cart finishes
Speaker 2: the story about the Boston massacre here on night side
Speaker 2: time and temperature ten thirty one seventy nine degrees. It's
Speaker 2: night Side with Dany Boston's News Dance Off. I'm here
Speaker 2: on Morgan, don't forget. I have my showy Saturday night
Speaker 2: at ten and Tomorrow night I'm going to be playing trivia,
Speaker 2: having done it in a couple of months. But next Saturday,
Speaker 2: the seventeenth scheduled and Jack, you know, you always have
Speaker 2: to say that when you've got a special guest. That's right,
Speaker 2: I've got Jerry Mathers as the beaver.
Speaker 1: Really yes, wow, he.
Speaker 2: Is scheduled and hopefully I'll be able to open up
Speaker 2: the phone line. So anybody who's always wanted to speak
Speaker 2: to Jerry Mathers, you can. I had Tony dow on
Speaker 2: at least three occasions. He passed away within the past
Speaker 2: year or so. But the beaver is still here. The
Speaker 2: beaver is still here. You know, when we talk about
Speaker 2: Cops Hill Burying Ground, we talk about the about some
Speaker 2: of the people who are buried up there, including you know,
Speaker 2: Cotton Mathers, Richard Mathers, Increased Mathers, Jerry Mathers, you know,
Speaker 2: And I thought you were going to go in a
Speaker 2: different direction because when you think of the Boston tea party,
Speaker 2: the three ships were the eleanor the Dartmouth and the
Speaker 2: Beaver and the beaver, the tread and the beaver. So
Speaker 2: real quick, I'm going to have you interrupt your story
Speaker 2: because Patrick and Colorado has been holding for like seventeen
Speaker 2: to eighteen minutes, so let's bring him into our conversation. Patrick,
Speaker 2: thank you for calling in. So where do you Hi there?
Speaker 1: Hello? Patrick?
Speaker 3: Hi Jack Jack. I want to talk about your role
Speaker 3: in Boston history a little bit. Uh So, Tony Mesbitt,
Speaker 3: who I'm sure you know, is Nathan's producer for many years,
Speaker 3: and he has taken old Nor Nathan Show and made
Speaker 3: a podcast out of him.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wonderful, fabulous listening to it. You're a huge part
Speaker 3: of the show because you will always be on the
Speaker 3: first the game playing.
Speaker 2: The dumb birthday birthday game.
Speaker 3: That's dumb birthday game, exactly. And it seems like you
Speaker 3: won probably half the time I was won. If you
Speaker 3: have any stories about norm you know at that time,
Speaker 3: that must have been the first your first job out
Speaker 3: of school, I guess right, because you must have been
Speaker 3: you know, late twenties, right, Yes, I.
Speaker 1: Was, and I'm just in my my early four hundreds.
Speaker 1: Now I knew Ben Franklin. Now the I was I
Speaker 1: was probably I was in my late twenties, exactly right.
Speaker 1: I had done some other things. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in radio, but you know, you know the world I
Speaker 1: grew up in, you know, it was always you're always
Speaker 1: encouraged to get a good job, you know, And so
Speaker 1: as much as I wanted to be in radio, I
Speaker 1: didn't get into it until I was in my late twenties.
Speaker 1: And and and it kind of fell out of the
Speaker 1: sky a little bit of the truth. But I saw
Speaker 1: I was in my late twenties, and I had my
Speaker 1: first thing that I was doing, was working for in
Speaker 1: those days was Metro Traffic Control, and which no longer
Speaker 1: is are has been consumed, has been absorbed by other
Speaker 1: traffic traffic companies over the years. But yeah, I was
Speaker 1: assigned to w b Z and and the first time
Speaker 1: that Norm and I the first time that I was
Speaker 1: doing uh traffic on Norm show was it was just
Speaker 1: an odd thing.
Speaker 2: He he.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know so much about Norm Nay, and
Speaker 1: I was aware of him, but I really hadn't listened
Speaker 1: too much and he uh, he was doing the thing
Speaker 1: he was talking on there about about the Fabulous Baker
Speaker 1: Boys is at the name of the movie with Michelle Pfiffer,
Speaker 1: and and he was talking about Michelle Pfeiffer singing the
Speaker 1: song where she's on the piano. And so I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but he threw traffic to me. I was
Speaker 1: new to. I was new to at the time. I
Speaker 1: had no there was no real reason for me to
Speaker 1: be so brash and and brazen. But he said so
Speaker 1: I said, a wow, what's going on over there? And
Speaker 1: and I said, norm, I'm up on top of my
Speaker 1: radio console here just writhing and singing. And uh so
Speaker 1: from that effect, so from there on in he and
Speaker 1: I just had this this wonderful on air chemistry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and I kicked myself oftentimes but for but I
Speaker 1: also feel regret. One of the things that I never
Speaker 1: did was I didn't I never called up Norman and said,
Speaker 1: let me take you to lunch, you know, let's let's
Speaker 1: hang out for a while. So while we did well,
Speaker 1: we were at several social occasions together, a couple of
Speaker 1: birthday parties and one of two weddings, I did not
Speaker 1: socialize with him you know, Tony Tony Nesbitt had a
Speaker 1: great relationship with Norm, and he spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with him. But I did not, I did not
Speaker 1: take advantage of the of the opportunity to spend any
Speaker 1: personal time, spend any significant personal time with Norm, and
Speaker 1: I regret that he was a wonderful person. We had
Speaker 1: an awful lot of fun on his show with things
Speaker 1: just happened to click. He would come up with a
Speaker 1: with a bit and he might clue me in a
Speaker 1: little bit about what, you know, what might be kind
Speaker 1: of fun to do. Sometimes things just just happened on
Speaker 1: the air. But people thought that we had scripted things
Speaker 1: out and so forth, and it was just one of
Speaker 1: those things that you know, it's one in a million
Speaker 1: kind of situations whereby, you know, just just two people
Speaker 1: ended up working out, working very well together and having
Speaker 1: you know, probably more fun than I've ever had.
Speaker 2: And Patrick, let me tell you my quote unquote radio
Speaker 2: career began with and through Norm Nathan.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Summer of nineteen eighty Norm was working at WHDH. I
Speaker 2: can mention they call letters because they don't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: But he had a Saturday evening show where he played trivia,
Speaker 2: and he had a core of people who were everyday people,
Speaker 2: not radio people, just Joe and Jane radio listeners that
Speaker 2: could come on and interact on this show. I had
Speaker 2: just written a book called The TV Cartoon Trivia Book,
Speaker 2: which was my introduction into being used by Norm, and
Speaker 2: I was one of the core of regulars Marty man Asian,
Speaker 2: Bernie Corbett. I'm trying to think of the other people,
Speaker 2: but the point of it is being on that show
Speaker 2: led for me getting a taste of radio and loving it.
Speaker 2: And Norm in the fall left HDH and went to
Speaker 2: RKO and did mornings over there, and I asked him,
Speaker 2: can I try to keep the trivia thing going? He said, Morgan,
Speaker 2: do whatever you want. It's available to you. If you
Speaker 2: think you can make it work, make it work. And
Speaker 2: I wound up going to wun R sixteen hundred on
Speaker 2: the AM dial, the worst time slot in radio, Monday
Speaker 2: mornings two am to four am. Oh boy, that was
Speaker 2: my time slot, my show talking trivia. Fortunately, there was
Speaker 2: a baseball strike and that baseball strike led wits having
Speaker 2: a lot of time to fill because they couldn't have
Speaker 2: baseball no red Sox. I then shifted from un r
Speaker 2: to its and the rest is history. And it was
Speaker 2: because because of Norm primarily and David Brudnoy, that I
Speaker 2: get the boost to get into the radio world of Boston.
Speaker 2: That's the story. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3: That's great. That was before I was in Boston. So
Speaker 3: how long did Norm do that morning show then on
Speaker 3: our KO Just.
Speaker 2: A couple of years and then he came over to BZ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and did he remind me, did he do just
Speaker 3: weekend nights or weekday nights as well, because it's hard
Speaker 3: to tell from the podcast, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he sometimes would fill in for Bob Rawley, Okay.
Speaker 2: Like I'm filling in now for Dan Ray.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I always look forward to you filling in
Speaker 3: to Dan. I'm mad. I don't like I don't like
Speaker 3: talking politics on the radio, and I just love your
Speaker 3: show and love when you fill in and love when
Speaker 3: Jack is there.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Kinny. We try to be friends in the
Speaker 1: night here, all right.
Speaker 2: Patrick, thank you for your call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you guys.
Speaker 2: All right, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and believe
Speaker 2: it or not, Jack, I have another break to take
Speaker 2: so we can pick up on the end of your
Speaker 2: Boston massacre story and then do the tour as if
Speaker 2: you're driving the bus. Sure, if anyone else they wants
Speaker 2: to do what Patrick just did six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty
Speaker 2: will get you through two. Here to Night's Side. I'm
Speaker 2: filling in for Dan Ray. I'm Morgan. That's Jack Hart
Speaker 2: and time and temperature ten forty five still seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Jack Hart is here and not telling us about the
Speaker 2: highways and byways of Greater Boston. He's here to talk
Speaker 2: about history. But you know what, Jack, of all the
Speaker 2: people listening right now, Norm Nathan's daughter is listening. She
Speaker 2: called in during the break, and I think we've put
Speaker 2: a smile on her face hearing us say pleasant things
Speaker 2: about her dad. It was a broadcasting legend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fifty years in the business are actually little more
Speaker 1: than fifty years in the business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and nobody did radio. I mean we all put
Speaker 2: our own unique spin on it, but nobody did radio
Speaker 2: the way Norm did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. People don't you know there's sport. There are an
Speaker 1: awful lot of people who who've been in radio over
Speaker 1: the years, but very few get as many mentions as
Speaker 1: Norm has. You know, people asking about memories of Norm.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he was a very pleasant man both to
Speaker 2: know and to listen to and watch. Don't forget back
Speaker 2: in the days of HDH having both a TV and
Speaker 2: radio presence, he was on on Channel five periodically in
Speaker 2: different ways, and you get to see Norm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did like a real estate show. At some point,
Speaker 1: I look at people's houses are there? And oh, you.
Speaker 2: Do a very good Norm imitation.
Speaker 1: Well, I listened to Norm for an awful long time,
Speaker 1: and you know, we've got similar similar vocal qualities. Hello,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit more imagine late I add,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And way to go, old sporting way to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had fun.
Speaker 2: All right, let's we left it hanging. So let's finish
Speaker 2: the busted massacre story and go on to other things.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'll quickly tell you a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the people who were who were killed at
Speaker 1: the thing. So you got about three hundred people down there,
Speaker 1: A lot of these people. It's my contention that these
Speaker 1: were all people who worked for Sam and John and
Speaker 1: so a Christmas attics. He was the first one killed.
Speaker 1: So who was Christmas Atic. Christmas Atics was nearly fifty
Speaker 1: years old at the time as late forties, was born,
Speaker 1: about as old as Sam Adams at the same time.
Speaker 1: They were both born in seventeen twenty. He was born
Speaker 1: in Framingham and his mother was a Natick Indian and
Speaker 1: she lived in a praying Indian town and the and
Speaker 1: his father was a It's unclear. I've looked a number
Speaker 1: of different sources. It's unclear whether his father was an
Speaker 1: enslaved person or a freeman in the area. It's unclear
Speaker 1: what the relationship was between the mother and the father
Speaker 1: and Christmas. As Attics had done mister Addicks, who worked
Speaker 1: in he had been enslaved in different places, but by
Speaker 1: the time he by the time of the Boston massacre,
Speaker 1: he was a free man living in There was a
Speaker 1: black community in right around Cops Hill in the North End,
Speaker 1: about a thousand people living in there a time, mostly
Speaker 1: laborers and so and and he would work for Sam
Speaker 1: Adams and other and other people who who owned ships
Speaker 1: as a merchant sailor when when that work was available,
Speaker 1: but with various sanctions and things going on, he didn't
Speaker 1: have an awful lot of that. So we'd go across
Speaker 1: the bridge to Charlestown over and work over at John
Speaker 1: Gray's wrote rock over there, roAP factory over there, and
Speaker 1: he was, like I said, it was nearly fifty years
Speaker 1: old at the time. And now Sam Gray, who was there,
Speaker 1: was probably related to John Gray, it's not clear. He
Speaker 1: was the second person killed. He was killed right on
Speaker 1: the spot and he had been in a different kind
Speaker 1: of trouble before, probably because he was involved in some
Speaker 1: of these little riots and things that were going on.
Speaker 1: And so now the other three Patrick Carr was an
Speaker 1: indentured servant from Ireland, and the other two Samuel Samuel
Speaker 1: Maverick and James Caldwell, they were teenagers. They were seventeen
Speaker 1: eighteen years old though, So those are the people who
Speaker 1: were killed, and then the others who were injured. It
Speaker 1: no real clear indication as to who they were. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, so now everybody's British down there. Everybody's British.
Speaker 2: So John Ann, we all were British. Boston was an
Speaker 2: extension of Britain, that's right.
Speaker 1: It was just England the only thing. We just didn't
Speaker 1: have any representation in parliament, and that's what everybody was doing. Here,
Speaker 1: and everybody was happy that building a new world essentially
Speaker 1: for the benefit of England, and everybody was good until
Speaker 1: until the Charles the Third came along, and George the
Speaker 1: Third came along. George the Third. Currently it's Charles the third.
Speaker 1: George the third came along, and he had the Seven
Speaker 1: Years War that had or the French and Indian Wars
Speaker 1: we called it around here, went into cost overruns, and
Speaker 1: he had other financial issues over there in England. He
Speaker 1: was very jinguistic about his British nests and kind of
Speaker 1: thought that the people in the colonies and other places
Speaker 1: were just sort of hillbillies and bumpkins, and thought that
Speaker 1: he could stick his chest out and make all these
Speaker 1: rules and laws. In Parliament was feeling the same way,
Speaker 1: and so that's that's that, this is the this is
Speaker 1: the genesis of the of the issue. Everything has caused
Speaker 1: and effect so at any rate, now, Sam John Adams's
Speaker 1: he's an attorney, he's a young attorney. And there's another
Speaker 1: attorney in town, Josiah Quincy. And there were several Josiah
Speaker 1: Quincy's over the course in time. But this Josiah Quincy
Speaker 1: was a young lawyer and he didn't have enough background,
Speaker 1: I didn't have enough experience that he felt to be
Speaker 1: involved in the case with these with these eight soldiers,
Speaker 1: because now these soldiers, they're they're considered to be charged with.
Speaker 2: Murder, and they needed representations.
Speaker 1: They need a representation, they need a representation in court.
Speaker 1: So John Adams I contend that he was a bit
Speaker 1: of an opportunist and he saw an opportunity because at
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy, this is year, this is several years before
Speaker 1: the war itself. People are still on the fence. Most
Speaker 1: people are still they're protesting against England. But only a
Speaker 1: small group of these people are interested in starting a
Speaker 1: new country. And John was not was not necessarily John
Speaker 1: Adams was not necessarily interested in starting a new country.
Speaker 1: He thought it might put him in good stead with
Speaker 1: with with the without the England if if he uh
Speaker 1: defended these uh eight soldiers. He's eight soldiers. So he
Speaker 1: did and uh all and uh six of them were
Speaker 1: acquitted of all charges and the other two were were
Speaker 1: found guilty on lesser charges manslaughter charges essentially. And for
Speaker 1: their punishment they were branded on the hand and sent
Speaker 1: back to England.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you think that Karen Reid case was busy.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And so that's so that's the that is uh, that's
Speaker 1: the Boston massacre or the incident on King Street in
Speaker 1: a nutshell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't call it that in England. It's like
Speaker 2: you go below the Mason Dixon line. They still don't
Speaker 2: like the phrase of wars or be wix the states.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Yeah. So yeah, so this was
Speaker 1: the incident on King Street and so yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the You know, there's a lot more to it. You
Speaker 1: could actually talk about the Boston massacre for days on
Speaker 1: end and debate it and dispute it.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's giving it a good thirty five minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I want to get back on the tour bus.
Speaker 2: And I do want to get at least five or
Speaker 2: six stops on the bus and brought to thirty eight
Speaker 2: states in Canada through our discussion. So we'll get into
Speaker 2: that next hour. Okay, but what is going to be
Speaker 2: our first stop? We went out of order by jumping
Speaker 2: up to the Boston mascer beginning at the Old State House.
Speaker 2: But what traditionally is your first stop.
Speaker 1: We start out at the Long Long Wharf down near
Speaker 1: the new England Aquarium. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: That's where we will begin. You've got to wear your
Speaker 2: other hat, because three minutes into the news you're going
Speaker 2: to be telling people about the highways and byways that try.
Speaker 1: You're going to be talking about some issues down and
Speaker 1: near the Cape of.
Speaker 2: Cod and compromised drivers, as you have been known to
Speaker 2: put it. That's right, Okay, well let me get out
Speaker 2: the way so we can begin little news, a little traffic,
Speaker 2: a little weather here on night side. My name is Morgan.
Speaker 2: By the way, that's Jack Hart. You should know that
Speaker 2: by now, and I might as well just throw it
Speaker 2: to Rob Brooks, who as my producer, and once I
Speaker 2: say these magic words, he will push buttons so you'll
Speaker 2: hear maybe a commercial or two here on night side.
Speaker 2: Time and temperature ten fifty eight and seventy nine degrees