On the online feedback page for the column I wrote two weeks ago, I found the following from a certain "bob" who was apparently unhappy with my work:
"Keith do you just like to hear yourself talk. This article is poor written and is just mumbo-jumbo. Shut up, stop talking and do some real reporting for once."
The only thing this has to do with the rest of my column is that in the next few paragraphs you'll read about another guy and a restaurant, both also named Bob. I just wanted to humiliate lowercase "bob" for his improper punctuation, complete disregard for the existence of adverbs, and lack of understanding of the difference between a news article and an opinion column. Also, "bob" wasn't paying attention - my "poor written" column was three weeks ago. I actually put some effort into the last two.
The summer after my freshman year, I was visiting my Tufts friend Jonathan. His parents also had visitors, a husband and wife named Lonnie and Bob whose children attended Tufts. (By virtue of the capitalization present in his name, it should be obvious that he belongs to an entirely different class of Bobs.) In conversation it came up that whenever they were in Medford, they ate at a restaurant called Bob's (apparently also owned by a fellow uppercase-B Bob). Jonathan and I were incredulous - we'd been to Tufts for a year and never heard of this place! How could this be?
Once back at school, we made it our mission to find this restaurant. Considering it's on Main Street in Medford, it wasn't too difficult to locate. Bob's turned out to be a fantastic Italian grocery store and deli, with some of the best sandwiches and pasta this side of Hanover Street. They even have refrigerated desserts flown in from Italy. Even better, it was a slice of life in Medford that had been there since the 1930s. The cashiers knew everyone's name. Sure, it was just a deli, but it was just the sort of community I longed to be a part of while temporarily transplanted from the rituals of my own hometown.
Why is it that two Tufts students hadn't heard of a neighborhood institution just a few blocks away? Perhaps it's because a lot of Tufts students don't really explore the few blocks around them aside from Davis Square and - when their cellphones break - the Galleria.
While it's expected that students don't totally integrate themselves into the community, I think it's at the least polite and the most enriching way for us to show some concern and interest in our host towns.
Even though we extensively studied Robert Feke's paintings of the Royall family in my American art history class, I never took a trip to his homestead, just a few blocks away. Think of how much more I could have learned. My Tufts neighbors decided to put up a pirate flag for Halloween, and instantly got a call from Director of Community Relations Barbara Rubel who, by the way, may have the hardest job at Tufts. It seems our adult neighbors were concerned with what the flag stood for. Instead of being comfortable enough with Tufts students to knock on the door and ask, however, our fellow Somervillians took it straight to the University. We had never talked to them, and they'd never talked to us. There was no mutual trust, and that's no sign of a community.
There's a lot that we all can do individually to remedy that. Talk to your off-campus neighbors. Just a "hello" can break down so many walls, and a conversation can make friends. One of my neighbors last year was former State Representative Vinnie Ciampa who blamed his loss to Carl Sciortino partially on "Tufts kids." He gave us too much credit. The same Tufts students who were active in political movements on campus and who studied international relations couldn't give a hoot about local politics. How many of us even knew about the aldermanic elections last week? It was the fallout of the end of rent control in Cambridge that brought more liberal voters to Somerville, not a bunch of otherwise politically active college students. Oh yeah, and those hate-filled pamphlets Vinnie's anti-gay buddies sent out didn't help too much either.
This week, I leave you all with a challenge. If the prospect of a true Medford-Somerville-Tufts community isn't enough to entice us to be better neighbors, we at least owe it to the overworked Barbara Rubel to help her out. Knock on a door, or say hello to a neighbor over the age of 22. And if his name is "bob?" Tell him you've never heard of me.
Keith Barry is a senior majoring in Community Health and Psychology. He can be reached via e-mail at keith.barry@tufts.edu.
