Cambridge, MA monuments, you may have missed

Cambridge, Massachusetts is an Important Place. Here, you encounter Important Events and People on a regular basis. Like the time I had my midday run diverted by police seconds before an impressive multi-SUV motorcade with police escort zoomed around a corner. Both British royals and the sitting American president were in town that day. I’m still not sure which, if either, I witnessed in my sweaty running gear.  A small clutch of excited students, maybe four of them, tittered amongst themselves as the dark windows rolled by.

Then there was the time I saw a military escort – like, tanks – traveling west down Concord Ave at 6:30 on a Sunday morning.

During runs at Fresh Pond, I often see my U.S. Senator walking with her husband and leonine golden retriever. She apologized to me this morning when her dog got in my way.

And the monuments! Through the years, many of these Important Events and People have been immortalized in stone, bronze or webpage.

“Cambridge is a city filled with monuments,” History Cambridge proclaims in its Self-Guided Tour: Monuments and Memorials in Cambridge commemorating “people and events from nearly four hundred years of settlement.”

“On this spot in July, 1775 General George Washington dismounted from his horse,” I misremembered to my husband the content of a stone marker one day. We were driving in maddening circles around Cambridge Common, trying to find the correct one-way lane. It gave us something to laugh about as I narrowly avoided rear-ending a bus.

A memorial for everything, almost.

And if there isn’t one, make it up.

Here are a few Cambridge, MA monuments that History Cambridge does not include in its self-guided tour even though they stand out in my mind.

Summer Shack

It’s a mushroom…no, it’s an MIT rocket experiment…no, it’s the creepy lobsterman totem outside a Summer Shack restaurant! I walk past this thing twice every single weekday and it does not make me want to stop in on the way home from daycare pick up for a fried clam dinner. Open all year!

Temple of the Dog

The white terrier emblazoned on the flag flying high from the second story porch of a classic Cambridge triple decker house holds out its paw in a benevolent gesture, blessing us as we stroll beneath its gaze on our way to buy fancy cheese on Huron Avenue. Looks like a cult to me.

Cars ‘n Trucks Playground

“What playground you want to go to?”

“Cars and trucks!”

Again? It’s a mile way, has no toilet and the water fountain is full of sand. But my child loves it because people abandon their old toys here and it’s a bonanza for vehicle lovers. We learned long ago, the hard way, that the push cars and fire engines and tractors that live at the cars and trucks playground stay at the cars and trucks playground.

The toys get more and more worn as the months go on. Some of the newer ones are adopted and disappear. Some of the older ones vanish to the great repair shop in the sky. Others, like a stuffed whale rocking toy, just get sadder and sadder with every rain storm.

Bench tent

River view, low rent. One of the most exclusive clubs in the world for next door neighbors.

For months this winter and spring, a tarp covered a bench next to Harvard’s Weld Boathouse. There were signs that someone was living there through even the coldest and wettest days. There’s a stark contrast between the haves and have-nots in Cambridge, and this placement of bench tent and boat house was poetic. I admire the audacity of the choice of bench. Like, “I’m going to wake up to this view every morning, Harvard. Try and stop me.”

Soon, they did. Ahead of some major regatta, if I’m filling in the details correctly, the tarp disappeared.

It rained heavily that weekend. I only saw the aftermath, a field of mud that seemed to say, when it rains on a riverbank, everyone has to step in it. By graduation weekend, other tarps had popped up over other benches upstream.

The love story bench

On January 17, 1985, not far from this spot, two people met and fell in love.

It’s sweet. And it raises so many questions. Who are these people? Did they meet on Jan. 17 and then later fall in love? Or did they fall in love as they met? And where? In class in Harvard Law School just steps beyond the bench? Are they still in love?

They remember this place and carved their story into it: a monument to love.

You make memorials as you move through the world.

We are moving this week to another state. Every time I pass one of my notable spots in Cambridge, I send up a mental marker. This is where I stood near Prince William of Wales (aka The Duke of Cambridge). Or was it the President? This is where we laughed at quirky house décor on our way to buy cheese. This is where I spent hours observing my child’s blossoming love of all things wheeled. This is where I walked every weekday to collect him from school.

I won’t miss the lobsterman totem, but I will always think fondly of this place.

Will the place remember us?

Probably not.

I’ll leave nothing here but hundreds of thousands of footprints around Fresh Pond, which are already history. Maybe some spider plant babies if I can find homes for them.