A Chore That Isn't a Chore

Once a week I take the ABC scholars of my town over the landmark Zakim Bridge to tutor kids in the historic Boston neighborhood of Roxbury. (This is that bridge with Boston Harbor and Paul Revere's famous Old North Church in the background.) And here you see ABC scholar Enderson Naar, Winchester High class of '15, helping a child with his math - and that's his WHS classmate Tobi Omola in the background.)

The place we tutor at, 826 Boston, has done some amazing work helping kids unlock their potential as writers and readers and wide-wake individuals in general who never miss a trick. The children come after school to do their homework and learn, even as our ABC scholars come to assist, and admire their writing and help them feel about reading the way everyone else in the place does.I’m only the chauffeur on these  jaunts. Four years ago when we started doing this, I decided it would be best to stand aside and let them shine; also to let them really own the experience. They have to commit to a day and a time-slot ahead of time and register online. Then at 2:15 when they're just out of class themselves, I appear, my car loaded with snacks, and we head into the city, talking the whole way.It is wonderful to arrive there on the Roxbury-Dorchester line, the place I was born and spent the first ten years of life. I love the area, and these eight guys seem to love it too, as they are from some great old neighborhoods themselves: Harlem and Philly, Queens and Brooklyn, and two from the proud old Connecticut cities of Bridgeport and Meriden.We perk right up when we move through the tunnel, get off at Mass. Ave, and go right down Melnea Cass Boulevard. Sometimes take a new way, trying to shave time and see all new things. When we passed a Popeye’s last time, LaVon said "I feel like I’m home! Stop the car!"When we arrive at last  here, they walk into the whimsically named Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute and get down to work. I, meanwhile, sit in my car dreaming back to the time my big sister and I attended the old Notre Dame Academy the site of which is not 1000 yards away. A fantastical place that old school was, with long-gowned nuns floating down the marble hallways, their feet as invisible as duck’s feet. The Dimock Health Center, once the New England Hospital for Women and Children, was built at the same time and has the same beauty. See?When I went to school here, this Egleston Square section of Boston was unlovely, with the elevated train darkening all its streets. Today I find it nothing but lovely. I recently walked to the very site of my school and took this picture.Here is the old stone wall made of Roxbury Puddingstone, at the edge of what was once the school's grounds and is now a graceful apartment building:And these are the homes we pass along Washington Street.When the boys get done with their 90 minutes of tutoring they bound out to my car with their spirits even higher than they were. They laugh, and listen to Bob Marley, or Frank Ocean, Justin Timberlake or Bruno Mars as I carry us homeward. Often they sing. And sometimes when I think they’re not aware of it, I prop my phone on the dashboard and record them doing it. I couldn’t love this weekly task more if the ABC program paid me to do it but everyone' efforts for the program are donated. Tell you what doing it makes me feel so alive I often think I should be paying ABC.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4rudLMhng&feature=em-upload_owner#action=share]

Kid Writers

Tomorrow I have to drive over to Roxbury and get my box of bones back. They’re not my family’s bones or anything, though we are from there. They’re more my “I’m-in-love-with-human-anatomy” bones that I bought to puzzle over when I was working as a massage therapist. I loaned them to 826 Boston,  the awesome after-school writing center to which I brought seven of my favorite people every week this spring in order to tutor.  826 did a kind of Fantasy Forensics camp this summer and asked who had clean bones and. well, I raised my hand.The kids who come here write some amazing stuff, which gets published in real books. How’s this by Ellie Nguyen as she looks back at First Grade?  “I ran my mouth as if I had shoes for teeth. People just always seemed to be interested by what I had to say. But when the teacher told me to stand in front and introduce myself, I froze. Was I afraid to show them who I was? Did I look stupid just standing there? ‘Elizabeth,’ I finally said. ‘I was named after the queen!” Mrs. Bae chuckled a bit and bowed. ‘Well, it’s an honor to meet you, your highness.’ I knew I was going to like here.’Or this, by Cole Cartwright? “The robot’s name is Rex. He smashes cities and people. He eats cars. Police are scared of him so they go home. Rex is so giant and handsome. He even has a girlfriend. Her name is Mary. She is a robot too. The robots play together and they are happy.” Cole is a bit years younger than Ellie.All I know is when I bring my seven favorite people here the children look at them with shiny eyes as they tackle homework sheets or read stories or do a bit of writing together. Sometimes they touch their hands, or their long muscular arms. “You are my future!” I believe each one is thinking. As for me, I just watch, And smile. And take the occasional picture. :-)

though I can't claim credit for this one!

This one I snapped: Josh Winchester High 2011, with the kids:

Recipe for a Smile

Josh tutoring at 826 Boston

Josh with two young scholars

Yesterday I drove our seven ABC scholars to Roxbury again. Fresh from school, they piled into my car and got right to work on the two fat bags of dollar-apiece regular-size burgers, 'regular' these days meaning a little smaller than the size of your head. There were the 15 burgers and four large sacks of the Dead Man’s Fingers known as fries, which, along with a cooler of milk, juice and fruit, soon made the atmosphere joyful. Joyful in spite of the cold rain and the oily slither of traffic on the Expressway. Joyful in spite of its eventual crawl and stop.

Because what did we care about traffic? We had music and full tummies and high purpose, the purpose being the chance to sit once again with the high-spirited school-children who come to  826 Boston every day to start on their homework and read and write and consider the world as only people new to the planet can do.Once we'd settled in, I sat for a bit by Cameron,  who was matched yesterday with a 2nd-grader working on Whale Facts. He filled out his homework and Cam 'heard him' on his definitions while the child, with a smile bigger than Christmas, recited and only every six or seven minutes stood and make bunny ears behind Cam’s head.At other tables,  Cameron's six fellow student-tutors were equally engaged, one helping with math, one reading a pleasure book with his young charge, one watching as a highly competent first grader spooled out an essay in Spanish on the important of rules in sports.Then suddenly somehow it was quarter of 6 and the day was over.We piled back into my humid and still-burger-ish car, by now as familiar to these seven  as their own living rooms. The radio came on and the rest of the juice  disappeared and within 15 minutes every singleone of these smart-as-a-whip teens was fast asleep. Then it was my turn for that that smile bigger than- Christmas, which I wore for the whole rest of that 50-minute ride.

cameron on the common

Cam, on a spring day sunnier than yesterday