Red dawn of optimism
Welcome to the New Boston.
I don't mean the multiethnic melting pot about which people have been waxing eloquent for years.
I mean Boston, the city without history.
For the second time in four seasons, what will seem like half the population of Massachusetts will line up to cheer duck boats full of Boston Red Sox. Throw in three Super Bowl wins for the Patriots, and we're talking about five celebrations in seven years, with the distinct possibility of more soon to come.
This is about more than breaking curses, or even building dynasties. It has created a new mind-set.
You could feel the change all over town this weekend, as the normal anxiety, the old expectation of failure, simply refused to take hold. The only questions about the World Series were how long it would take to finish off Colorado, whether those tickets to Games 6 and 7 were going to go to waste. It felt strange to feel so confident.
Yet, the simple fact is the city has changed. Boston is now full of people who don't remember busing or the Kevin White administration. They don't care much about Denny Galehouse or Bucky Dent or Bill Buckner, either.
In this way, as in so many others, the Red Sox are a perfect mirror of Boston. Somehow, in a city with a unique obsession with history, history doesn't seem to matter that much anymore. If that isn't a revolution, it is certainly a major change.
Not everyone is happy that the cursed but lovable losers of yore have become a completely different entity. Many commentators have lamented that this title is somehow less fun than in 2004, the year the curse was broken, the year hell froze over.
They're right that it's not as exciting, but wrong that this is a bad thing. Looking forward beats obsessing over The Bambino any day.
The difference, of course, is that 2004 came as a shock. I remember walking into Fenway Park the night of Game 4 of the American League Championship Series that year, the Sox down 3-0. I was with my friend Steve Kurkjian, who turned to me and said, "This is like going to a funeral." I felt the exact same way.
We had been conditioned to assume the worst. History had taught its lesson, which was that, given enough time, the Red Sox would always produce heartbreak.
But, no one told Dave Roberts or David Ortiz. When we walked out, at 1:30 the next morning, in a mix of joy and shock, the miracle was in progress. We almost - but not quite - dared to believe the impossible possible.
There's no recapturing that magic, but there's a different sort of fun in not caring about the past anymore.
The feeling of change isn't limited to sports. Last week, thousands of people gathered on Boston Common and watched a black presidential candidate, trying to recruit campaign volunteers for New Hampshire, be introduced by the black governor of Massachusetts.
Nothing new about a pair of liberals drawing political support in Boston, but not something I had seen 500 times before, either. It would have been considered an unlikely scene no more than three or four years ago. Now, I barely noticed.
The barely noticing part was what struck me the next day.
Today's parade actually marks the Red Sox' second World Championship in 89 years, but not many people think of it that way. Amazing how quickly so much history has receded.
But it's emblematic of a city and a region in transition.
We should embrace the changes, instead of viewing them with shock and suspicion. If, as many people believe, the Red Sox epitomize New England's soul, then the lesson they are teaching us now is a valuable one.
Because if they, the ultimate captives of their past, can escape it, there's hope for all of us.
So get on the bandwagon. Scream your lungs out. Enjoy the moment. The miseries of the past really don't matter. Not even in Boston.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
