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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Barbara Collozzo-Noonan
NOR'EASTER Online - February 2002
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The region calendar is shaping up to keep us all busy with quality activities. There are a few event dates still up in the air, but not for lack of trying on our part. The managements at some venues have no respect for our intention of having everything planned in January. On the other hand, Steve Boris has our monthly meetings planned further ahead than I’ve ever known them to be. Speaking of which, the January meeting at Paul Russell’s was a BIG success with attendance of 150 members, many of them new members attending their first meeting ever.
   
One attendee confessed to being an old member finally attending his first meeting. Which always makes me wonder, “What took you so long?” Is it possible we haven’t offered anything interesting enough to get you to come out until now? Of course I don’t see that as a realistic possibility. You own a Porsche, you like to drive it, you should at least be coming to tours or the Ramble. Even if your not a hardcore ‘car guy’ or you don’t like to get your hands dirty, there are plenty of social events and informative meetings. Every meeting is a chance to network with other Porsche drivers; you never know what you might learn.
   
After saying all that I should say to that brave soul, I’m glad you finally made it and I hope you enjoyed it enough to come to another event.
   
Let’s face it January is a slow month. After I signed up for some track events and registered for the Ramble and Nik and the Nice Guys there isn’t a whole of interest happening right now. This is the off-season for my other interest too. My gardening activities in the winter consist of keeping a couple of tropicals alive until the warm weather returns and planning for next season. I am starting a garden notebook after 12 years at my current address. (I wonder what took me so long?)
Actually I never needed one before because I only had one garden and the range of what was planted was limited and easy to care for. Strictly perennials that all needed the same minimal care, lilies, irises, peonies and hardy geraniums. Now that I’m expanding the variety of plants around the yard I can’t rely on my memory to apply the care needed to all of them.
   
As a gardener I am very concerned about the drought here in
Massachusetts. The situation is particularly critical in the Merrimac
Valley. I knew we had a dry month in November (less than two inches of rain) but I didn’t realize how bad things are until I saw a report on the news that local wells are going dry. Last summer we had water restrictions after we had a wet spring. We better pray for rain or snow or we’re going to be in big trouble this summer.
   
So given the lack of uplifting, interesting happenings to report, I’m going to share some entertaining discoveries I’ve made recently. I really enjoyed these two websites: Mapsovertime.com and FututreBoston.org. The first is an interactive site where you can view maps of Boston starting back in 1630 and tracing its development to the present. The neat feature here is the overlay effects. You can stack the maps on top of each other and make them semi transparent or dissolve away or show just the outlines. Everyone knows the Back Bay was filled-in, but it’s amazing to see how much of the rest of Boston was filled-in. The original Shawmut Peninsula was one-third the size of present day Boston. There are historical highlights and lots of pictures. I admit not everyone will be as interested in this subject as
I am. The history of Boston is one of my idle pastimes, and I love maps.
   
I have maps from everywhere I’ve been. I even keep those local merchants maps that towns give away for free. My husband understands how much I love maps; while I was disabled in December he gave me two maps to entertain me. One was of the Caribbean Sea, a frequent vacation destination, and the other was a detailed truckers map book of the USA.
Maybe that was his way of motivating me to get back on my feet.
 
FututreBoston.org is about the Central Artery Project and shows what all the parks and the greenbelt above the artery are going to look like. It has some history of Boston in the Archeology section where the history of rediscovered objects is told. Did you know there were three glass making operations in South Boston at one time? All the latest technologies were employed as well as 3.5 percent of the population.
   
Did you know that Tremont Street was originally named Tremont Street in reference to the three mountains (hills) that stood where only Beacon Hill remains today? Do you know the names of the two other hills?
 Here’s another tidbit of misconstrued history: Contrary to Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” which reads “One if by land, Two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore will be”, Paul Revere was the one who hung the lantern in the old North Church. He was signaling the Charlestown militia. The actual lantern he used resides in the Concord Museum along with the oldest and largest collection of historical American artifacts.
   
Someplace worthwhile to go while the car is in hibernation. One last topic to change your perspective and perception of the universe literally. There is an astronomer in Peoria, Illinois, Sheldon Schaefer, who has set up a model of the universe using the entire town. The size of the planet earth in his model is 4 inches, and everything else is in scale with it. The planetarium dome represents the sun at 32’ in diameter. Mercury is a quarter mile from the dome. Venus is another quarter mile away and earth is 3/4 of a mile further than that (on display in a convenience store). The rest of the planets are spaced apart by a couple of miles, except for Pluto, which is 50 miles away! I saw this story on the Discovery Channel; I’d like to see again. Finally, the names of the other two hills that stood with Beacon Hill:
Mount Vernon and Pemberton.
 
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