After slimming down my cable bill, I have had limited choices to view outside of network television, I have been missing out on Little People Big World, Plant Earth, Lockup: Raw, Survivorman, any History Channel show and the occasional Boo-Ya from Stu Scott (not that much). Its also during this time that I began reading heavily, reminding me much like college, minus the papers.
After ripping through all of the books I had in the house, I heard author, Michael Connelly on the morning
Image courtest Motorbooks.com
show on WEEI talking about his new book Rebound! Basketball, Busing, Bird and the rebirth of Boston. At first it sounded like just another sports book, but then the author went into details about how the book not only chronicled the Celtics glory days and the rise of Bird’s team, but also the tumultuous time in the city of Boston during the busing fiasco.
Figuring it sounded like an appealing read I picked up the book and started away and quickly couldn’t put it down.
Not only was the jumping between stories seamless, but the racial unrest in Boston actually seemed to parallel the falling from grace of the NBA’s most storied franchise.
Originally coming from Jersey, I had heard stories of how the city was racist and how there was a scandal around busing, but never really understood it.
Chapter after chapter, I was shocked that some of the happenings of the book were something happening in one of the country’s oldest most revered cities and not in the pages of Mississippi Burning.
With the emphasis put on the history of the city, I almost think that it should be added to the curriculum of the Boston Public School System in an effort to educate less history repeat itself.
Connelly’s most powerful image in the book is the culmination celebration in Government Center of the Celts championship, almost washing away the racial unrest that consumed the city less than three years earlier.