It wasn’t a bad afternoon in southeastern New England,

a little warmer than it’s been, a little less dim & grim. It was, in fact, a good day to take an afternoon off, drive to the Alewife T station (northwestern end of the Red Line, the subway line that goes through Harvard Square and Kendall – where Charley handed in his dime – and into Park Street – the heart of Boston’s public transportation, and connects with other lines), get off at South Station, and take the “Silver line” which is a nifty bus system that runs underground in subway-like lanes, and get out at Courthouse station, and amble to the Seaport Trade Center (World Trade Center – Boston), where the Gold Expo was in full swing (yuk, yuk).

So that’s what we did, my bud & I. The golf show was ok, but how many putters & tees & golfballs can ya look at, after all, so a little over an hour later, we were pretty much done with that. So that made it lunch time, and neither of us in the mood for pub grub, nor packaged junk from a chain outlet. Nearby options were Chinatown, Quincy Market, and The North End.

Chinatown was tempting but I’m not a huge fan of Asian food. Quincy Market tends toward near-fast food aimed at shopping-tourists. But the North end…. Ah, the North End, where you can’t swing a piece of pasta without running into an intriguing – and possibly delightful, possibly not – trattoria or ristorante or bistro. Problem with all those places is that you can more or less tell by the name that they’re aimed at tourists too. So you have to leave Hanover St. and wend your way up a couple of back streets that look a LOT like alleys to a lane called Thacher St (sic, only on ‘t’ in Thacher) to a sorta nondescript corner place with a fairly simple sign announcing Regina Pizzeria, “world famous since 1926”

Lots of us who grew up in the greater Boston area remember fondly our first Regina’s pizza. The place looks a lot like it was designed by a movie set designer – if your script called for “a classic old neighborhood pizzeria” you’d hustle to Regina, though they probably wouldn’t let you shoot there. (I’m guessing of course, for all I know dozens of movies have been shot there).

My first pizza there was something like 50 years ago, my big brother, who was a man of the world and knew his way around Boston (sorta) took me there in a fit of charity toward the little bro.

My most recent (‘til today) pizza there was probably 40 years ago, shortly after college. Not a bloody thing had changed except that they didn’t used to have Sam Adams, and they DID used to have PBR on draft. But the pizza was exactly as I remembered it – thin, slightly soggy crust (a little too heavy on the oil), generous cheese, heavenly pepperoni, overall a perfect, perfect pizza.

The walk back to Park Street station was enough to work off the second beer. There was a talented busker (classical guitar) in Park Street Under (where the Red Line runs. Park Street has two levels, one for true subway (Under) and one for the trolley LRVs that go over & under. As the train for Alewife rolled in I put a buck in the busker’s guitar case, we hopped aboard, made the trek through Charles St/MGH, Kendall Square, Central Square, Harvard, Porter, & Davis Squares, and hey-nonny-nonny back out on the highway.

Once upon a time Huz & I spent a fair amount of time in Boston & Cambridge, what with school, as well as just general hanging out. It was nice to revisit.