By Delilah Webb

Mark Twain once quipped that truth was stranger than fiction, and in the world of tour guides it can be important to remind ourselves that the truth can be just as interesting.  Not only that, but many of us pride ourselves not only on the entertainment value of our tours, complete with humor and character development, but also on the integrity of the content which we share. Many of us have a few consciously selected exceptions to textbook history; I call this the “historical fiction” caveat.  This approach can be the difference between a dry, lecture hall delivery, and an engaging and memorable
experience for our customers.

For instance, when passing the Christopher Columbus Park, after I say that the Rose Garden was dedicated to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy on her 100th birthday (fact), I
say that on that occasion she was asked what the best part was of being 100, and she responded (with a Boston Kennedy accent for color) “There’s no peer pressure.”

I can’t confirm Mrs. Kennedy’s clever remark, although I suspect it to be based on truth.  Regardless, I use it simply because it works.  Deliberate anecdotal retellings are different from chronically  repeating incorrect information unawares.  It may not bother some
guides, but I, for one, was embarrassed when my longstanding stories were proven to be longstanding falsehoods.  I had always said the Federal Reserve Bank was made of recycled aluminum, and that the Commonwealth Pier was “Boston’s Ellis Island.”  At the end of the day, it’s our responsibility to know fact from fiction.  I am spending the
current “off-season” (aka Winter), independently researching some of the stories we tell, and sharing the knowledge with my tour guide brethren.

-Delilah Webb is a Boston tour guide, a professional voiceover artist, and the bostontourguide.org webmaster.