Yesterday in Boston, paradise lost

A bomb detonates near the finish line. (NBC/Reuters)

The innocence in the face of an 8-year-old Dorchester boy killed in Monday’s blast near the Boston Marathon finish line epitomizes the innocence that the city of Boston lost yesterday as well.

The orgasmic day of joy Patriot’s Day delivers each and every year to the Hub has  been despoiled forever.

As a native of the South Shore, just 25 minutes from Park Street, downtown Boston was my playground as a young man.

I worked on Boylston Street near Copley Square for several years, first as a teenager taking the subway in from Quincy to a part-time job; and later in my late 20s to an insurance job.

Both jobs were at addresses directly across from Trinity Church and the Copley Plaza hotel.

I met my now-girlfriend Martha T. Soto-Galicia during that first job as a teen. We both worked part-time telephone jobs for a sales company and after our shift would go for pizza or just walk around Copley Square and the Pru Center. Copley Square became our personal playground that summer.

Later, when I worked at the insurance company next door to Ken’s Restaurant, all of the sales agent, including myself, hung out on the building’s roof drinking beer one Patriot’s Day as we cheered the first runners to cross the Boston Marathon finish line.

If you work in Boston you know Patriot’s Day is a day to play hookie from your job, or at least to sneak out early, to go to the early Red Sox game, or grab a pint or two at one of the pubs in Kenmore Square.

It’s a time of unbridled joy: spring, the Red Sox, the marathon, Boston at its best.

Until yesterday.

Until today, when the reality won’t go away.   -HT