There is a street in Charlestown that carries my last name. A small bypass that converges Broadway and Mystic Ave into that infamous Sullivan Square rotary, Maffa Way stretches a quarter mile at most. Despite its unassuming length, I would guess that this is one of the most frequently traveled roads in all of Massachusetts. On the edge of the Mystic River, the rotary ports suburbanites straight into the hustle of downtown Boston. Maffa Way, the tiny ramp that shares a calling card with myself, is a fundamental step in any commuter’s journey from coffee-fueled morning gridlock all the way to their twinkling return home.

Take the second exit on the rotary and you’re delivered into the historical heart of the city. The North End is the oldest residential area in the city, the site of Paul Revere’s home, which is just a short walk from the Old North Church. All Massachusetts students know his story well; it is a recurring part of our curriculum from kindergarten through high school, from coloring books and story time to Longfellow’s poem and the realization of William Dawes in it all. Sitting cross-legged on the shaggy carpet of my kindergarten classroom, I consumed the tale for the first time, full of that specific variant of wonder and awe that only five-year-olds can conjure, as my teacher taught us about his midnight ride.

Just a drive away lies the birthplace of our nation, a land of heroes who persevered despite all of the odds stacked against them. High in the bell tower of the Old North Church, Paul Revere looked for a sign—one if by land, two if by sea. On an evening patrol of the neighborhood, he saw two clear signals; thus began the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Racing from Boston all the way to our very own Acton, he alerted the brave minutemen to wake up and get ready to fight. Together, they put their lives on the line and fought for the America that we know today.

A legacy codified in a poem, distilled to students throughout the country. Not all students could say that that ride passed through their backyard, that minutemen roamed their neighborhood, that musket balls could be found when they explored the woods behind their home. As a child, I would pretend I was a soldier during recess. My friends and I would fashion tricornes out of computer paper and use branches as weapons until the teachers took them away. We fantasized about being heroes, that one day we’d be synonymous with a new revolution, that our mark on the world would be admired and reproduced in playgrounds across the country.

In a way, I already had a piece of my history documented for the world with Maffa Way. I like to imagine that, years before his home was known as The Paul Revere House, years before that strip of land would be paved and given my name, Paul Revere took it from the city to the disjoint towns where he announced that the British were coming. It was a source of pride to think that my narrative overlapped with American history, despite the fact that Maffas did not exist in America at that point—my grandfather’s ancestors grew up in Sicily; they immigrated at the turn of the twentieth century. Still, it warms me to think that a house that bears the name of a hero is just down the way from a street that bears mine.

When we drove my grandparents into the city for our weekly dinner, my dad would often do a second loop around the rotary so I could see the street sign. Back then, not yet old enough to write my name, but old enough to recognize it, I leaned over the middle row of our van and asked my grandfather the story of how that sign came to be.

My uncles shared an F-86. In these jets, the pilot sits in the front—he calls the shots, weaving through dogfights, maneuvering their five-ton behemoth like a surfer on waves. Behind him, the other pilot is manning the weapons, monitoring the aircraft and the winds, calling out enemies in the periphery, UP! LEFT! DIVE! My uncles were good enough that they could do both. They left Somerville for Korea, but they never made it back. All they left me was a pin for my lapel and this street named in their honor. They taught me to fight the good fight, and that legacy lives within us all.

I was told variations of this story countless times during these car rides. I remember drawing pictures of these unnamed Maffas, sitting back-to-back in the cockpit, donning aviator glasses, a bomber jacket, and a bushy mustache. They exude confidence, grace, fear, and satisfaction, with smiles that say regardless of how this particular ride goes, they already changed this country for the better. This piece of history, encased in the locket of my name, was a legend to live up to. 

The prospect of that, the expectation of it all, excited me as a child. It’s sickening that the same feeling that once inspired me today weighs on me, crushes me under the pressure of what it means to leave a legacy—to leave and have people know that you were once there, that your name means something, that you are carrying on all that it meant before.

All these years later, I find myself amongst a new history, one ever evolving, in a school of innovators and disruptors and leaders. Here, at the top of the ramp leading to the engineering building, sits Newton’s Apple Tree. Tree might not be the most fitting title for this adolescent sapling—limbs not fully formed, skinny and awkward with an uncertain spine communicating an unawareness of all that it might one day be. Its name comes with its own story.

One day, Isaac Newton sits down for a nap under the vast, majestic canopy of a common apple tree when, by a stroke of universal luck, a meaty, ripe, let’s-call-it-Honeycrisp falls upon his skull. Instead of a concussion befalling him, he’s struck with inspiration for arguably the most important scientific theory to ever have been developed since fire, or the wheel, or sliced bread, depending on your preferred proverb. That consequential fruit with a mind of its own tightens all the loose screws in his head, gives him purpose, lays out his life and the fame and the success and the anthologies and research papers to be written about all that he would go on to accomplish.

I look at this tree, the descendant of the one that changed the course of scientific inquiry, and I wonder if it feels that pressure too. How long has it stood like this, crooked, branching at an angle, bashful instead of brandishing its title with pride? Has it tried to grow, to blossom, to bear fruit, and failed? Are the splotches of torn bark scars from its mistakes? Is it in a peak of rejuvenation or a valley of recession? How many students have crossed its path and hoped that it would inspire them, set them straight, and open their minds to that life-changing, world-altering discovery? There’s at least one in front of it right now.

I’m old enough now to write my name, to write essays about the power of a name, to think about legacy and purpose, to craft stories and pass them on like my grandfather did. And here I am, a carrier of a name that graces a street, looking at a carrier of a name that graces scientific history. The two of us are shells of the full stories. How can an apple fall on my head if this tree doesn’t even have any apples yet? When will I live up to the name?

Newton was only 23 when it happened to him, and Paul Revere was a Son of Liberty in his thirties; my grandfather’s uncles must’ve been somewhere between the two. I spend my time searching for inspiration, to be all my name wants me to be. These days, I feel further than ever from the future that I used to imagine as a child. I’m an imposter, a sparsely furnished sapling trying to live up to the title of Newton’s Apple Tree. The story that supersedes the name; when will mine be fully written? Who’s going to tell it to the next generation?