So Much for that Whole “Freedom of Speech” Thingie
What an interesting Independence Day story I have to share!
But first off, the good stuff. The night before the 4th, Randy and I decided to go to Costco to get a pizza for dinner (we had to go to Target to return something and Costco was next door). We walked in there with the sole purpose of buying a $9.95 pizza. Randy left with a $1,000.00 rug. Ahhhhhh – nothing like a thousand dollar impulse buy! Iit does look quite fetching in his dining room, though…it was a good choice.
On the morning of the 4th, Randy got me kayaking. I can’t believe it. We went out on the Mystic River and ended up in Mystic Lake. It wasn’t as hellish as I had anticipated despite having no upper body strength. And the views were quite lovely and rural despite being only minutes from the city. It actually reminded me of childhood trips to Long Lake in Maine – 2.5 hours north of Boston.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Randy and I were invited to our friend’s place in South Boston for an Independence Day barbecue. It was taking place in typical triple-decker and our friends were “hosting” it along with their upstairs neighbors. Consequently, people were floating between the two floors the entire evening (our friends were on the first floor, their neighbors on the 2nd floor). The bulk of the activities, however, took place on the second floor.
It seemed like a great mix of people. Randy had friends up from Florida, there was a minister and his family from Pennsvylania, there was an Australian (a friend of the 2nd floor tenants who we met at a previous party in the building), and there was a family from Ireland (relatives of the tenants on the second floor). In fact, it’s an interesting story how those tenants met and fell in love. They were both trapped at an airport on 9-11. He was from Ireland, she was from Boston. They ended up stuck together for a while, enjoyed conversation ,and eventually got married. He immigrated to the United States and they bought this condo in South Boston.
Anyway, everybody seemed to be having a fine time until about 10PM. As I said before, people were floating about from floor to floor and nobody was paying attention to who was where. A small group of us (5, including the Australian) were in the kitchen. Another group (mostly the Irish folks, about 6 people) were in thie adjoining room having their own conversation (there is no wall separating these rooms).
The Australian was asking questions about the origins of the Boston Pops and the the background on Independence Day and the Constitution. This led us to talking about the differences between the United States and Australia: everything from typical benefits packages at employers to politics, abortion, and religion. Nobody said anything directly against religion, though it was alluded to that religion plays a major factor in US politics. We weren’t yelling, we weren’t drunk, we were just chatting.
The next thing you know, the (male, Irish) owner of the condo turned around and snapped at us, saying “Would you keep it down? This is MY house.”
Um, OK.
We all just looked at each other…a bit shocked…then decided to retreat downstairs. As we approached the open door way that led downstairs, the owner followed us to the door and immediately shut it behind us.
When we got downstairs, we discovered our friends down there. We told them what happened so they went upstairs to see if everything was OK. The upstairs neighbors had locked their doors.
I guess the party was over.
The best we can guess was that they overheard the conversation (politics, religion) and didn’t like the topics. The interesting thing was that we NEVER said anything bad about specific religions (such as Catholicism). Hell, two (possibly three) of the people at our table were Catholic themselves. We also never said we were pro-choice or pro-life…we were just talking about the politics of it. One of Randy’s friends (after we had left) made a humorous, though appropriate, comment that “Gee, with attitudes like that, no wonder Ireland and Northern Ireland can’t get along.”
I must admit, I would have much more enjoyed it if he’d joined in the debate (I love a good debate) instead of snapping at us. Or, if he was tired of entertaining, he could have politely said that he was tired and we would quickly have taken the hint.
Instead, ironically, on the 4th of July of all days, an immigrant squelched our right to free speech. Happy Independence Day, everybody!
1 Comment(s)
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
hey Karl,
Wowzer. How weird. People are strange. Great post though.