Another Boston Globe ***article|http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/11/09/charlie_to_begin_new_ride_with_modern_fare_system/*** on the ***MBTA|http://www.mbta.com/***’s new CharlieCard notes:

qqq|

Some riders, particularly the young, had no clue about Charlie.

”I thought maybe it had something to do with the Charles River,” said Kara Kitner of Boston, emerging from a Green Line trolley. When the reference was explained, she predicted, ”People won’t know.”

Ted Holmes of Newton agreed. ”Ask anyone under 30: Charlie just isn’t going to mean anything,” he said. ”It was almost 60 years ago.”

…

MBTA General Manager Michael Mulhern said the T’s marketing experts warned that Charlie might not be recognized.

”It did come up when we were weighing the pros and cons of the different names, but we wanted a card with a strong connection to Boston, Boston’s history, and at same time weave in some MBTA history, and the song does that,” Mulhern said. ”It transcends generations. And now we have a fictional character all our own, that is uniquely Boston’s, that other transit systems don’t have.”

…

As for some younger T riders not getting the Charlie reference, [interviewee Coco] Delgado said, ”Get the Dropkick Murphys to record a version of it, and you’re golden.”

|qqq

Out of a brief survey of the two people available at the moment (my wife and me), both respondents were familiar with the song “Charlie on the MTA.” Both of us are under 30. Becky is familiar with the song because, she says, “I had probably heard it on the oldies station.” I, on the other hand, am familiar with the song because one of my computer science professors at ***Gordon|http://www.gordon.edu/*** told us about it to illustrate a point.

I guess this just means that other young folk will have to become more in touch with their cultural heritage. What a shame!