His image will be available for as long as the internet exists. How should we portray him? Older, younger? With a cane observing the calamity at the finish line of the Boston Marathon?
He built the Boston that I know. Oh, not the new buildings or the fluff, but the way that Boston saw itself. A bridge between Bulger's Boston and the real city that we have now with the sidewalks and the potholes and the traffic jams and the crazy T and the pond in the Boston Common with the crazy people. Here we come and this is our city and he loved it and that love was appreciated by everyone. You can live in the suburbs, but this is Our City.
He lived as long as my father and that is long enough to do important things in the world. If he had been well, would he have tried to keep on? Better to go out on top. The Seaport District is real. The South End is real. The towers and the parks and the way he touched people is real. Walsh knows that he can't match the drama, and that is not his style. That is Menino.
And what do I know? I came from New Hampshire. I live in Quincy. When I want to do something I think what I can do in the City. And the City is always Boston. All that he saw built will be removed, replaced, improved, re-imagined. Let us salute him forever.
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