Hartford traffic, Red Sox management, and the annual cancellation of summer.
There comes a point when a person simply needs to complain. Not about anything particularly important, mind you. The world has plenty of serious problems, and I’m certainly not qualified to solve most of them. I’m talking about those everyday absurdities that make you wonder whether anyone is actually paying attention. The kind of things that aren’t worth losing sleep over but are absolutely worth several hundred words of unnecessary sarcasm. This week, my grievances involve Connecticut’s apparent inability to build a functioning highway, the Boston Red Sox and their fascinating commitment to ignoring the obvious, and the annual realization that living in New England means voluntarily surrendering half the year to darkness and respiratory illness.
Hartford: A Small City with Big-City Traffic and a Highway Where the Waterfront Should Be
Hartford, Connecticut, is a relatively small city that has somehow achieved the traffic congestion of metropolitan Los Angeles without the inconvenience of having millions of people living there. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment. Even accounting for commuters, commercial trucking, and the occasional person who genuinely wants to visit Hartford, the math doesn’t seem to work. There simply aren’t enough people to explain why traveling through the city requires the patience of a Buddhist monk and the bladder control of an astronaut.
Interstate 84 is seemingly under permanent construction, with projects lasting years before crews return to tear up the same stretch of pavement they just finished. At this point, I’m convinced Connecticut doesn’t actually complete highway projects. It simply rotates construction crews between locations until everyone involved qualifies for retirement. Naturally, much of the work seems to happen during rush hour, because apparently the most efficient time to close two lanes is precisely when everyone needs them. Somewhere in Hartford, there must be a warehouse filled with completed road projects, carefully preserved so nobody accidentally installs one.
And then there’s Interstate 91, another magnificent exercise in urban planning that somehow manages to combine gridlock with the destruction of a perfectly good waterfront. Consider the Connecticut River. Hartford sits alongside New England’s great waterway, an opportunity that practically begs for parks, restaurants, shops, museums, hotels, and pedestrian promenades. Think Savannah’s River Street, with its historic charm, waterfront dining, and people voluntarily spending money because they actually want to be there. Hartford could have something similar.
Instead, we have Interstate 91, an impressive collection of concrete, Jersey barriers, graffiti, and assorted roadside debris running alongside the river. Somewhere, someone apparently looked at that waterfront and thought, “You know what would really improve this? Four lanes of people trying to get to Massachusetts.” Rather than finding a way to route through traffic around the city, or even across the river and back again farther north, we chose to dedicate prime waterfront real estate to the automotive equivalent of a clogged artery.
To be fair, Hartford does have Riverfront Recapture and some riverfront spaces, but accessing and enjoying them shouldn’t feel like visiting a nature preserve located behind an industrial loading dock. Imagine the economic and cultural possibilities of a connected, walkable waterfront that gives people a reason to visit the capital rather than simply endure it. Instead, we get another construction project, another traffic jam, and the comforting knowledge that somewhere in Connecticut, an orange traffic barrel has better job security than most of us. At this point, I don’t need GPS to navigate Hartford. I need a construction schedule, a packed lunch, and a letter explaining my absence to my family.
The Boston Red Sox: A Yearlong Commitment to Doing Absolutely Nothing About the Obvious
The Boston Red Sox entered last offseason with three problems so obvious that even a casual observer could identify them between trips to the refrigerator. Too many outfielders, a questionable middle infield, and the absence of a genuinely terrifying hitter. Not a promising prospect. Not a versatile athlete. Not another guy who can play six positions but apparently can’t hit consistently at any of them. A bona fide, Hall of Fame-potential hitter who makes opposing pitchers reconsider their career choices.
The front office knew this. The fans knew this. Somewhere in the greater Boston area, a golden retriever watching NESN probably knew this. And yet, the organization approached the offseason with all the urgency of a man deciding whether to replace the batteries in his television remote.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some solid additions in Gray, Suarez, and Contreras. And the role players catching lightning in a bottle for six weeks was amazing. But by the All-Star break, these same weaknesses remained glaringly obvious, offering management a second opportunity to address them. Instead, the organization apparently decided to conduct a fascinating scientific experiment: What happens if we acknowledge our problems repeatedly but refuse to solve them? Or better yet, send legitimate left-handed pitching youth for a maybe.
Well, the season is over, and congratulations, gentlemen, we have our results. The outfield remains overcrowded, the middle infield remains an adventure, and opposing pitchers continue to sleep comfortably the night before facing Boston. It’s difficult to understand the strategy, although I’m increasingly convinced the front office operates like a homeowner who knows the roof is leaking but decides to purchase another lawn mower because it was available at a reasonable price.
Of course, there’s always an explanation. We’re building for the future. We’re maintaining flexibility. We believe in our (ever dwindling) youth. We’re evaluating opportunities. We’re being disciplined with our resources. Wonderful. I’m sure those phrases look magnificent in a PowerPoint presentation, but at some point, someone has to actually build a baseball team. The goal, as I understand it, is to win baseball games, preferably enough of them to participate meaningfully in October. Not to win an imaginary trophy for having the most financially responsible collection of interchangeable outfielders.
Meanwhile, Fenway remains a magnificent place to spend a small fortune watching professional athletes demonstrate the importance of leaving runners in scoring position. Naturally, I’ll be back next season, watching every game and complaining about the exact same things. This is what makes Red Sox fandom special. It’s an abusive relationship with a beautiful ballpark and exceptionally expensive beer. Treatment is available, but unfortunately it involves becoming a Yankees fan, and I’d rather take my chances.
Closing the Pool: The Annual Announcement That Happiness Has Been Canceled
Closing the swimming pool is New England’s annual reminder that the best part of the year has ended and we’re about to spend the next six months being cold, damp, and vaguely irritated. It’s not simply the loss of swimming, warm evenings, or sitting outside with absolutely nothing productive to accomplish. It’s the knowledge of what’s coming. The sun will begin disappearing at approximately 3:47 in the afternoon, the temperature will alternate between freezing and just warm enough to produce freezing rain, and every public gathering will become an informal exchange program for respiratory infections.
Soon we’ll all be coughing, sneezing, and asking one another whether it’s allergies, a cold, the flu, or whatever exciting new virus has decided to spend the winter in New England. Nothing says seasonal joy quite like standing in a pharmacy line behind twelve people who sound as though they’re auditioning for a tuberculosis documentary.
Meanwhile, people will enthusiastically announce how much they love fall because of the colorful leaves, which is a bit like celebrating a house fire because the flames are pretty. Yes, the foliage is lovely. So is the pool when it’s open, the grass when it’s green, and the sun when it remains visible long enough to finish dinner. Autumn is essentially nature’s going-out-of-business sale, and winter is the unpleasant liquidation that follows.
The leaves provide approximately two weeks of spectacular scenery followed by six weeks of manual labor, during which every tree in New England apparently conspires to deposit its entire inventory directly into my yard. And just when you’ve finished cleaning everything up, the weather rewards your efforts with forty degrees, sideways rain, and a wind that somehow finds the one opening in your jacket.
The pool cover goes on, the patio furniture gets put away, and I begin the annual tradition of looking at Florida real estate listings while pretending I’m merely curious about property values. By December, we’ll be setting our clocks by whichever brief appearance the sun makes between breakfast and lunch.
By February, I’ll be negotiating with myself over whether 42 degrees qualifies as a nice day. It doesn’t. It never did. But after three months of New England winter, apparently my standards become as questionable as the Red Sox front office’s roster decisions. And every spring, I’ll reopen the pool with the enthusiasm of a man who has somehow forgotten everything that happened the previous October. Apparently, seasonal amnesia is the only thing keeping the population of New England from relocating en masse to the Carolinas.
Until Next Time
There you have it. Three entirely unrelated grievances that have accomplished absolutely nothing except occupy several minutes of your time and provide me with a socially acceptable outlet for mild irritation. Hartford will continue constructing the same highways, the Red Sox will undoubtedly discover another promising outfielder, and winter will arrive regardless of my objections. I’ll continue driving, watching baseball, and paying to heat a house in a climate that occasionally seems personally offended by my existence. If nothing else, complaining is one of the few remaining recreational activities that doesn’t require a subscription, a service fee, or a reservation made six months in advance. Although I’m sure someone is working on that.