Names

Early settlers of the northeastern states must have been either homesick or very uninventive: they moved from England to New England, and named their settlements Boston, Cambridge, Dedham, Canton, and Milton, all old England towns they left behind. It's amazing many of these names survive, given the War of Independence -- wouldn't you think the victors would have renamed things like the Charles river, given the associations? It's the Saint Petersburg-Leningrad effect, or the reversion of Anglophone names like Bombay to the original Mumbai. None of this took hold in the former English colonies.

Sherborne in Dorset, England is a sleepy, picture-perfect village. Sherborn, MA was originally Boggastow, the native American name for the Charles. Today it's a leafy, wealthy suburb of Boston. And in June, it'll be my new home. I'm moving from Natick, named for the native American tribe of the area, the so-called Praying Indians. I have a Natick dictionary at home, transliterated from the Eliot Bible that was translated to the native language. There's a wonderful 1930s mural in the town Post Office showing the terrible persecution the Natick Indians endured. American history may be short, but it's complex.

Homeless

In the midst of the worst recession in living memory, everyone told me that selling our suburban Boston house would be challenging: within four hours we had an offer over asking and within a day we had two more. We've just passed inspection and will close in June.

On the other hand, everyone also told us that it was a buyers' market and we'd have our choice of bargains. We missed our 'dream house' by hours, and after trolling the real estate market over the last week have no other prospects. Nothing. Our real estate agent says she's sold 5 homes in the last few weeks.

This is backwards.