Snowbirds with a twist

Peter and Ellen Gray did the damnedest thing. They moved from San Diego to Boston.

Retirees aren't supposed to do that. They're supposed to go the other way. They're supposed to stagger out of Boston, broken by its winters, to spots like San Diego in the land of the lotus eaters.

What we've got here are reverse snowbirds, a breed so rare as to be considered a statistical anomaly by ornithologists. So what gives?

"I got bored," says Peter, an anesthesiologist in an earlier life. It gets better. The couple moved first to Maui, the Hawaiian version of Shangri-La. To their credit, they went nuts there.

"I went crazy," confirms Ellen, 59, who ran her own travel agency for 20 years and now teaches yoga. "I got a Volvo with less than 100 miles on it when we moved there. By the time we left, it had 16,000 miles. I drove round and round the island looking for a bridge to get off it."

Adds Peter, 64, "Three weeks in Maui is fine. Three years? Never. Believe it or not, you get tired of perfect weather every day." (Try me.)

And so, three years ago, they bought a brownstone in the South End, where they live with their three dogs and a Mini Cooper garaged nearby.

(Imagine this menagerie on a trip in that clown car: two adults, luggage, and the canine trio, each of which weighs about 55 pounds.)

Anyway, why Boston?

Peter ran half a dozen marathons here and fell in love with the city, that's why. (The guy was good. Ran a 2:41 when he was 45. His lifetime total is 36 marathons.)

"I'd come for a week and only see the best of the city," he says. "Locke-Ober's, plays, Faneuil Hall, the Union Oyster House. My wife didn't like Hawaii, so we looked at each other one day and said, 'Why not buy a place here?' "

"I adore Boston," echoes Ellen. "I live in a city, in a neighborhood. I know everybody. In San Diego, you have friends, but you're always in a car. In San Diego, like L.A., the downtown area is empty. You drive 20 miles to get anywhere."

Peter loves history. Walks regularly to the Granary Burying Ground and is still trying to find Paul Revere's house. Can't get enough of the Esplanade. They're three blocks from the Boston Center for the Arts, where they catch a lot of theater.

"It's everything I expected as far as culture goes," he says.

Grand, now let's get real. What about winters here? Don't insult my intelligence, such as it is, by telling me after a quarter of a century in San Diego, you actually like winters in Boston.

I checked my notes and Ellen actually said, "They're pretty." Then she said, "The cold doesn't bother me in the least. You just put on another sweater. Your summers here bother me more than anything else because they're so humid. San Diego is not humid."

I want to talk to this women in five years, if she's still here. (Both swear they will be.) Peter grew up in Joliet, Ill., and remembers days of 25 below zero, so he's not packing any Jimmy Buffett DNA.

The Grays take on Boston is enlightening because, as always, the best perspectives come from outsiders looking in, unburdened by conventional wisdom. To wit: Peter and Ellen agree that Bostonians are very friendly. I inform them we have been compared to Klingons when it comes to charm, but they say no. We're nice. Who knew?

And the downside to Boston?

"It's filthy," says Peter. "I've called the mayor's office twice and they don't take my name or address. I e-mailed a liaison about adopting a trash can and never got a reply. If you got $2 for every block with a garbage can and I got $1 for every one that didn't, I'd come out way ahead.

I don't know how Menino can say he's got the money to move City Hall but doesn't have enough money for garbage cans," he continues. "You come to Boston and go, 'Wow' this is so dirty.' "

Peter also weighs in nicely on the gruesome TD Banknorth Garden. "It's such an ugly thing," he says. "I think they should put ivy all over the walls and trees on the roof." The Observer concurs.

It is ironic, he concedes, that while living in America's medical mecca, he flies back to San Diego for medical treatment. He just can't take Boston's "ultra-large" hospitals. (I'm with him.)

"I go back to a little 90-bed hospital. I know all the surgeons," he says. "I can see three or four doctors in a day and a half."

His negative impression was not improved by an experience at the emergency room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he took Ellen for a severe migraine. They were there 12 hours and he was appalled at the care she received.

"It was a nightmare," adds Ellen. Peter wrote a letter to the hospital detailing the poor treatment and refused to pay. MGH eventually settled for half the cost.

All in all, though, they're the happiest of campers. Boston boosters will swoon over the Gray trajectory.

Others will note, correctly, that their lifestyle here only works with money. Transcontinental medical visits are beyond most of us.

That said, isn't it refreshing to find retirees popping up in town from the Sun Belt instead of Chestnut Hill?

Sam Allis's e-mail address is allis@globe.com.