BOSTON—Tempers reached a boiling point last December as a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party led to a violent clash between Bostonians and English tourists. “In my thirty years leading the reenactment, I’ve never seen people so hot about American history,” said Boylin Beveridge, a descendant of Samuel Adams of tea-chucking fame. “I’m glad the public realizes that liberty is a way of life, not a two-hundred-year-old byword.” The tourists were less impressed by the Bostonians’ cries for independence and authentic 1700s-era tomahawks. “There was no need to bean us with all 342 chests of tea,” said Tabitha Torey, the matriarch of the visiting family. “What have we ever done to you?” More recently, concerns about the environmental impact on Boston Harbor were raised by a local fisherman. “Damn fish taste like oolong,” he harrumphed. After passions cooled, the city council decided that the reenactment would not be canceled in the foreseeable future. However, they apologized to the Toreys for the incident and encouraged the family to come back in March for the city’s world-famous reenactment of the Boston Massacre.
