The Charles has certainly cleaned up, I may be dating myself but I grew up in Brighton and spent many a summer day on the banks of the Charles, exploring and seeing all kinds of offal from the Brighton abbatoir in the river... Lots of herring, the ubiquitous 'Goldies" (big goldfish released from homes) and giant dining room table sized snapping turtles. In the evening you could catch dozens of big horn pout and In the upper reaches, saw a fellow catch an 18 inch white perch one day. Sometime in the 60s they held the National Hydroplane races from Magazine Beach on the Cambridge side of the BU Bridge and we saw a fellow from out-of-state brushing his teeth using the river water, I never forgot that gruesome sight...
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