Yeah, I’m about to get a bit schmaltzy here, but bear with me.  I’ve never revealed this up here before, but I am a teacher by profession.  I don’t actually wander the streets of Boston sticking a camera in people’s faces.  Well, I do, but I actually do some teaching in between as well.

There are moments few and far between when I tell the students about the past.  Sometimes, when it is a particularly good moment, I kind of feel like the Robin Williams character in Dead Poet’s Society.  I think of that scene when Robin Williams walks the boys around the halls of the old school and tells them that most of people in the photos are dead and they themselves must seize the day.  Carpe Diem, he tells them.

I feel this way sometimes when I take the students around to see old things.  Carpe Diem, my dear students, for soon we shall be pushing up daisies.  And with that, the photos.

First, the interior of the Parker House.  Or Omni Parker House if you insist.  It is one of the oldest hotels in Boston and was home to typically Bostonian called Honey Fitz, aka Mayor of Boston, aka John Fitzgerald, aka father of Rose Kennedy, aka grandfather of John F. Kennedy himself.  Surrounded by all of it opulence, Honey Fitz would hold his political meetings and generally sit in the lobby all day.  Dropping many an R I can imagine:

And here’s the man himself:

(he’s number 244.  Carpe Diem.)