Claret Blue and Green
BOSTON — Fresh off its first-class flight from Glasgow, it received a reception befitting a visiting dignitary: a bagpiper in full regalia playing inside Boston Logan International Airport. Waiting to greet it were diplomats, the governor and Boston’s mayor.The guest of honor? An orange traffic cone.Tuesday’s arrival of the “Boston Cone” marked the latest chapter in the city’s unlikely love affair with Scotland’s Tartan Army, whose habit of placing traffic cones atop statues during last month’s World Cup turned the humble orange cone into one of the tournament’s defining symbols.“I have to admit, this is probably — yes, it is — my first official welcoming ceremony for a traffic cone,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in the airport’s Terminal E, before signing her name to the cone. “But it’s a pretty special one, isn’t it? Because this cone tells the story of what happened this summer. What happened in Boston, what happened in Massachusetts.”“And special thanks to the Scots for drinking all the beer,” she added to laughter. “I do promise you, when you return ... we will never again run out of beer in Massachusetts.”
