Three Cheers for the Class of 71

Look closely at that picture above. You haven't seen that in a long time, now have you? That's what the back of our old alma mater looked like when we graduated from Everett High school in 1971.

On Saturday, November 25, 2006, the graduating Class of 1971 held its 35th reunion. And it's killing me that I was more than a thousand miles away and couldn't be there. That makes two of us. Because the girl I married graduated from E.H.S. in 1971 as well. She couldn't be there either. She stayed home with me.

I only hope that when they raised their glasses in song, it filled their lives with good cheer. I hope they celebrated with a joyous noise that moved their souls. I hope they laughed until they cried. And when they reached out to take hold of each other's hand, I hope they felt the magic of friendship in their hearts.

Life is a maze with twists and turns that lead every which way. We meet so many different people as we meander along the paths that we choose. Some we hold on to, and some we let go. The choice is not always ours to make. Sometimes it's the other person who chooses the path not taken. And that's why we let go.

Even still, the memories of our encounters linger on. Because they do, they bind us together spiritually. It doesn't matter how much time or distance separates us. A special moment is always just that. It knows no boundaries or limitations.

When you share a specific memory with someone, it becomes a piece of your character. It becomes a part of who and what you are. And it becomes the catalyst that binds your hearts together in friendship.

Tell me that I'm not the only one who likes to step outside into the night air to gaze off into the stars. Whenever I do, my mind wanders off into all the nooks and crannies of my subconsciousness where countless half forgotten memories hide. They reveal themselves and tell me things I didn't at first realize.

Have you ever thumbed through the yearbook and found somebody's picture and said, "Who in the world is that?" Isn't it amazing how we could spend 3 years of our lives in the very same building with someone without any recollection of that person ever existing?

I've often wondered if anyone's ever looked at my picture and thought that. When I said that to Carol, she looked back at me, laughed, and said, "Don't worry. Nobody forgets the crazy people."

What is she talking about? We were all crazy back in 1971. Weren't we? I mean, really. Think about it. The whole class went on strike after recess and refused to go back to school. I remember Leo shouting "You people are all engaged in an illegal activity."

Did we listen? No! Instead, we all marched down to City Hall demanding a new high school because ours was falling apart. Hey, it only took them 35 years to comply. Not bad, huh?

And then there was the Everett Free Press. That was the radical newspaper that had a four letter word in it. Can you imagine that? How more shocking than that can you get? Heck, I hear worse than that on television these days. The times they sure have changed.

Ours was the first class of high school girls who didn't have to wear skirts to school. Doesn't that make you shake your head in disbelief? And they called us crazy? What would possess a school board to enforce a rule so totally unrelated to educational goals as to dictate that a girl should wear a skirt to school? See, we were right all along. It wasn't us. It was them. They were the crazy ones.

For us guys in the Mechanic Arts Department, the one person who really sticks out in my mind is our English teacher, Jim Malloy. That guy was a real credit to his profession. Not only did he posses a unique quality of character that guys like us could relate to, but he took the initiative to break free from the bonds of the outdated curriculum that hindered the learning experience for most of us.

This guy really knew how to reach a classroom full of guys who couldn't care less about the finer benefits of academia. He nurtured our dignity and self respect. He encouraged us to step beyond our comfort zone. He taught us to believe in ourselves. And he rallied us together to elect one of our own for class president. That's got to tell ya something.

People often laugh when I tell them that our English text book was the Reader's Digest. It does sound funny at first. But when I explain to them what it did for me, their laughter quickly turns into a more serious consideration for the limitless possibilities of creative teaching.

With each monthly issue came the "It Pays To Increase Your Word Power" feature. Malloy used that as our vocabulary list. We became familiar with such terminology as "brouhaha," "nomenclature," "vernacular," and the list goes on. We not only learned those words, but we learned alternative ways to expand beyond their meaning to express our thoughts in a more concise manner.

The "Condensed Book" feature exposed us to a multitude of alternative writing styles by introducing us to many of the more contemporary authors. I discovered one of my all time favorite books through that feature. It was, "The Motel of the Mysteries." I've read that book from cover to cover more than a dozen times.

By reading the "Drama In Real Life" features, we were exposed to the impact of first person narratives. What we experienced was writing that inspired emotion, and not the passive doldrums of the ancient classics that bored us out of our minds. The classics taught us nothing.

Rather than to just tell somebody something, we learned how to effectively communicate our thoughts and ideas by engaging our audience. We learned how to draw them into the experience. Because actions speak louder than words, we learned to speak and write with action.

I'll never forget the time Malloy made us write a personal essay about a memorable experience in our lives. When I got my paper back, instead of a grade, he scribble along the top, "See me after class." Don't you hate that? You always expect the worse. Don't you?

After class, he sat me down and said, "You wrote a beautiful story, but I yawned all the way through it. Your story holds so much potential, but you wrote it in a passive voice. Do you know what I mean by that?"

"No."

"Okay listen to this then." He then read a sentence right out of my story. The sentence was, "the broken bicycle was carried down into the cellar by my father and I."

He looked at me and said, "You should have said, "My father and I carried the broken bicycle down into the cellar." It sounds trivial, I know, but the way you wrote it sounds boring. Rewording it expresses the action first hand. Think about that when you rewrite this story so I can give you an honest grade. You possess far too much potential as a good writer to hand me something so poorly structured as that."

That he cared enough to see me develop my writing skills inspired me to spend my whole weekend rewriting that story. The sun came up, the sun went down, and the moonlight passed by my window, but I never once took my eyes off that paper. I really wanted to blow that guy away with my essay.

A few days later, I got my essay back. Again, across the top of my paper he wrote, "See me after class." After all that hard work, here we go again - right?

This time he said, "I wish there was something beyond an "A" that I could give you. This is publishable material. Promise me you'll never stop writing. More importantly, promise me you'll never stop writing like this."

Every so often, when I stand outside gazing off into the stars, Jim Malloy's smiling face looks back at me. It brightens my spirits to hear his voice echo in the back of my mind. Whenever somebody failed a test he'd say, "You got a goose egg. A big fat zero." I look back up into the stars and say, "I never stopped writing. Thanks to you."

Okay, so I talk the stars. That's the least of my idiosyncrasies, believe you me.

When you think about all the precious moments we've shared during our years at Everett High, you would expect it to bind us all together in a warm friendship for all time. And yet, it always amazes me when I run into an old friend from high school and they just fluff me off with scarcely an acknowledging glance.

What is it that makes some people so cold and aloof, while others are so warmly receptive? Have you ever wondered that? Has that ever happened to you?

Let me tell you a tale of two different people. Both incidences happened back some 15 years ago when my father passed away. I traveled back home to Everett to stay with my family for a few days. During that visit, I happened to bump into an old classmate of mine who was in my homeroom throughout high school.

When I warmly greeted this person, her response was, "Oh, hi."

"How are you?" I asked enthusiastically.

"I'm fine."

"So tell me about yourself. What have you been up to?"

"Nothing much."

"Are you married?"

"Yes."

"That's great. Do you have any children?"

"Yes, two."

Not once did she so much as crack the faintest smile. This is not someone I once loved and lost. This is someone who sat on top of the sea wall at Revere Beach with me one night and laughed so hard that we cried. This was once a good friend.

The image of her standing in the pouring rain one night with an armload of shopping bags flashed in my mind's eye. She was waiting for a bus in Malden Square. I pulled up along the curb, rolled down my window and yelled, "I don't suppose you need a ride?" Man, she was sure glad to see me that night, let me tell ya.

But that was then, and this is now. She never once reciprocated any of my questions with any of her own. It became painfully obvious that she couldn't care less. God only knows what was going on in her life. I wanted to ask if everything was all right, but I didn't feel comfortable enough to do that.

If she was hurting and needed a shoulder to lean on, I wanted the opportunity to offer her that. If she was lost and needed shelter, I wanted to help. If she was broke and needed a few bucks to see things through, I wanted to give her that.

Once we become adults, we tend to lose that openness we had as kids. You don't dare pry. It's not acceptable. My only hope was that if she needed anything, she'd come out with it. If she knew me, as she should have, she would have known that was okay to do with me. She certainly didn't seem happy. Maybe she just wasn't happy to see me. I suppose I'll never know.

"Well, it was really nice to see you again," I said. After all, what more could I say?

"Yeah, you too." She just turned and walked away. She never once looked back.

It was as if we hardly knew each other at all.

Not more than two or three days later, I stopped at a gas station in Malden to fill up my tank. I did just about everything in my power to get that pump to work. After sliding my credit card through the reader, I pushed every button I could find. I even jiggled the nozzle lever up and down a few times. That pump was determined to get the best of me.

The line at the cashier's station was several yards long. The last thing I wanted to do right now was hang around for twenty minutes waiting for my turn at the cashier's window just to get my pump turned on. That's why I was using my credit card in the first place.

Looking across the island at the pretty young lady at the opposite side of the pump, I asked, "Could you possibly help me with my pump? I can't seem to get this right."

She looked at me as if she had just seen a ghost and exclaimed, "I don't believe it!"

"It's true," I replied. "I can't seem to get this pump to work."

"Oh no, it's not that," she laughed. "I can't believe I'm actually talking to you."

"To me? What am I famous and nobody told me?" I laughed.

"We went to kindergarten together," she said. Now, honestly, this girl looked at least ten years younger than me. Certainly she was mistaken.

"Are you sure you've got the right person?" I had to ask.

"Yeah, I've got the right person. You're Paul Huffman, right?"

"And you are?"

"I'm Christine."

As soon as she told me her name, all the images of her that were lodged way back in the remote corners of my subconscious mind flashed before my very eyes. I remember this girl. I remember her well. And it's true. We haven't seen each other since kindergarten.

We spent no more than a few minutes together, but in those few minutes we told each other everything about ourselves. You would have sworn we spent the better part of our lives together to hear us talk. But in all actuality, we had only spent one year in kindergarten together. That was enough to bond our hearts together in friendship.

People are different. Like Art Linkletter always said, "People are funny." You never know how someone is going to react to you when you run into them after a long absence. Some people hold little value for the friendships they had in the past. And then there are those who cherish every moment they've shared with others. Those are the ones who make life worth living.

Thirty-five years ago, we lined up in our caps and gowns at the Cabot Street entrance waiting for our cue to file into the stadium. I can see it clearly in my mind's eye as if it had happened only yesterday. You know what I'm seeing right now? I'm seeing Richmond hobbling along on his cane saying, "Come on, you guys. Get in line."

That guy always reminded me of W. C. Fields. Every time he opened his mouth, I laughed. And every time I did, he'd say, "That's enough, Huff." The guy was a poet and didn't know it.

The moment they handed us that diploma, our world changed. We didn't realize it at the time. I know I didn't. All I knew was that I didn't have to get up to go to school any more. Little did I realize that that was the easy part. From that moment on, we became lifelong students in the "School of Hard Knocks."

I've yet to attend any of my class reunions. It's not because my classmates are not important to me. On the contrary, I can't think of anyone I'd rather share my life with more. It's just that it never seems to fail that there's always something going on in my life demanding my undivided attention every time a class reunion comes up. God willing and the tide don't rise, I'll be at the next one. You can make book on it.

Those of you who are here for the first time will find a common theme that runs throughout my writing as you read many of my past essays. By telling you about my past experiences growing up in Everett, I hope to awaken within you a wealth of memories you've long forgotten. We all have photographic memories. Some people just forget to take the time out of their hectic schedules to develop the film.

Your long forgotten memories will come to life reading these essays. They are meant to tickle your funny bone and warm your heart. After all, we are not talking about the childhood experiences of complete strangers here. We're talking about the class clown in your homeroom at the Parlin. We're talking about the kids you played stick ball with in the middle of the street. We're talking about the friend who broke his or her Popsicle in two to give you the other half.

Take another look at us. We're older, and much wiser now, at least I hope so. And even if we can't run as fast as we used to, we're still those very same kids that you grew up with. We belong together. After all, "We're from Everett!"

And by the way, you can experience what my first day at Everett High School felt like by clicking here.

Happy Thanksgiving Day

Woah, wait a minute here. Are you telling me that it's Thanksgiving already? Are you sure? Let's take a look at the calendar. Low and behold, it is.

Nothing compares quite like that feeling you get on a weekday morning when you're heading off for a half a day at school. And by the way, how come we always said, "Half-a-day?" Is that a New England saying, too?

It's funny, but I never thought of that until I heard these mid-westerners say, "There's only a half-day of school on Wednesday because that's the day before Thanksgiving." We don't say "half-day" in Everett. We always said, "half-a-day."

There is a lot more to the Thanksgiving Day holiday than meets the eye. I always thought that. For one thing, I think it's kind of nice that we spend one day out of every year gathered around the table with our families to eat until it hurts. Oh yeah, we all know we'll be sorry for it later, but that never stopped us -- now did it?

Thanksgiving Day is like an opera. It starts off with a slow quiet intro and builds up with a steady crescendo. Then it peaks at the grand finale with such an exciting fanfare that it knocks you down onto a recliner with your feet up in the air holding onto your stomach. Before very long, you'll start sawing wood in front of the television. Now that's what I call a holiday.

Let's get something straight here and now. Thanksgiving didn't start on Thursday morning when we were growing up. It started on Monday. It did for me anyway. Let me tell you why.

On Monday in school, we traced the outline of our hand with a crayon on drawing paper. Then, we transformed that outline into a turkey. You know what I always got a kick out of? How we always made the turkey's feathers as colorful as the NBC peacock. Remember doing that?

We all tried to act cool by pretending we weren't tickled pink when the teacher hung our turkey up on the wall with everybody else's, but we were. There's a snapshot in my mind's eye of my third grade teacher stapling our drawings up on the wall while we all sat there with this great big grin on our faces.

Do you remember how you could always tell which one was yours the moment she put it up? That just shows how subconsciously proud of yourself you were right there. There's nothing wrong with that. You should be proud.

On Monday, the teacher explained to us that we celebrate Thanksgiving because the Pilgrims invited the Indians to a feast to give thanks to God for their friendship. It wasn't until many years later that I discovered that wasn't true. The actual truth behind the origins of our Thanksgiving Day celebration is actually shockingly shameful.

The first proclamation issued by the governor of Massachusetts was to celebrate an armed ambush that killed innocent women and children of the Wampanoag Indians so the Pilgrims could "peacefully" encroach on their land. Check it out if you don't believe me.

Also, the pilgrims did not eat turkey on the first Thanksgiving. They ate venison. And they didn't supply the food. The Wampanoag Indians did. The truth behind our Thanksgiving Day holiday is fully discussed in my upcoming book entitled, "The Triangular Stone" and you'll all get a chance to review that manuscript in the near future. But for now, let's get back to our regularly scheduled program.

It was after school on Monday that we always went out shopping for our turkey. Being the "dyed-in-the-wool" Everettites that we were, we always bought our turkey down at the Stop & Shop in Glendale Square. Go ahead and laugh, but let me tell you something. Everybody shopped at the Stop & Shop in Glendale Square. You couldn't go into that place without bumping into at least one of your neighbors.

Going shopping with my Dad was always an affair to remember. As a native Midwesterner, this guy talked to everybody and anybody about absolutely anything. It took this guy an hour and a half to buy a loaf of bread. He not only picked it up, turned it over and squeezed it a few times, but then he compared it to every other loaf of bread on the shelf before asking everybody else in the nearby vicinity what they thought. So you can only imagine what he went through to pick out a turkey for Thanksgiving.

Granted, when you're a little kid, every turkey looks alike. But this guy went to extremes beyond belief. By the time he picked out a turkey there were virtually very few choices left. Everybody else had already picked one out and gone before he narrowed it down to one of three. And that's only because there were only three left. Everybody else got the pick of the litter while he stood there hemming and hawing.

We eventually got our turkey, and when we did, that's when the week long Thanksgiving festivities began. After getting that turkey back home, my mother wrapped it in cheese cloth so she could soak it in warm water in the kitchen sink to thaw it out.

On Tuesday, we made Pilgrim hats and bonnets out of construction paper in school. That was fun. It's nice when you can actually play with the things you make in school. Remember those pilgrim hats with the big buckles on the front of them? I never know what that buckle was all about, but I liked it anyway. We even made big wide collars to go down over our shirts.

That night, we all pitched in to knock the house into shape. Now was the time to crawl in under the couch to pull out that left sock I threw back there last summer. It was not only Thanksgiving we were getting ready for. Let's face it. The Christmas season begins on the day after Thanksgiving.

The last thing you want is for Santa Clause to trip over a yo-yo you left in the middle of the living room floor when he's dishing out the goodies. Can you just imagine being the one responsible for hurting Santa Clause on Christmas Eve? Man, you talk about a guilt trip?

In the meantime, while my mother was gutting the pumpkin to make pumpkin pie, we got that candy dish out of the hutch to fill with holiday nuts. My mother would never allow us to just dump the nuts into that dish. First, she had a special doily that had to go under it. And it had to be centered just right on the coffee table, too.

We even had a special little basket to hold the nut cracker and accessories. Even that had to be strategically positioned on the coffee table. Only then could we now arrange (not dump) those nuts into that dish. Everything had to be just so so. I wouldn't mind, but we weren't even allowed to touch those nuts yet. All we could do was sit and stare at them for the next two days. Man, that was torture.

On Wednesday, all I can remember doing in school is sitting there waiting for the bell to ring. I was so anxious my fingers wouldn't stop tapping on my desktop and my leg wouldn't stop shaking. That was one long day, let me tell ya, even if it was only a "half-a-day."

And then suddenly, the bell rang. We poured through those two front doors of the Horace Mann out onto Lexington Street like an army of hungry fire ants. We were on a mission. I didn't walk like I was told. I ran like the dickens around the right side of that school, down through the schoolyard, out across Foster Street, and all the way down to the bottom of Arlington Street. That for me was when Thanksgiving began.

My mother and big sister, Julie, started baking muffins while my Dad started pulling all those ugly guts out of the turkey. Did you ever see the stuff that comes out of the turkey? I made it a habit to stay out of the kitchen when all that was going on. The aroma that wafted into the living room was enough to make your mouth water. Actually seeing what was going on out there could turn you off from turkey forever.

Oh, but there was something extra special for me to do that day. My job was to stay out of the way. That was easy enough to do because it never failed, every year on the day before Thanksgiving, the new Sears Christmas Catalogue came in the mail. Sit me down in front of that candy dish with a nut cracker and the Sears Christmas Catalogue and I'm off in my own little world.

To keep me out of harm's way, they would agree to let me start cracking open those nuts. There is an exact science behind how to go about cracking open each one of those different kinds of nuts, but I never discovered that until I was in my thirties. That's why a whole set of accessories comes with the nutcracker. You know, those sharp pointed picks and things like that?

Those nuts that look like miniature acorns were easiest. A gentle squeeze with the nut cracker and that shell cracked wide open. All you had to do then was roll that little nut out into the palm of your hand.

Those rock hard triangular looking black nuts were torture. You had to squeeze so hard on the nut cracker that your knuckles turned white. And not until your temples began to pulsate did you get a small hairline crack along the back of the shell.

After picking at that hairline crack in the shell for about ten minutes with one of those needle sharp picks, you were lucky if you could chip off enough of the shell to expose about one-eighth of an inch of the back of the nut inside. By the time you dug that nut out of there, all you had was a handful of dust.

Walnuts were touchy things also. The outside shell was hard enough to make you really bare down on the nut cracker, but one micrometer of too much force and the whole thing disintegrated into powder. Either that, or the nut shot across the room like a ricocheting bullet.

Five minutes into the program and I had shell fragments and nut chips all over the coffee table, all over my clothes, and all over the floor. I'd have such a mess down inside that candy dish that you couldn't sort the nut chips from the shell casings. That's when my mother would say, "That's enough of that right now," and put the candy dish up out of my reach. By that time I was so frustrated with the whole affair that I couldn't care less.

It's time to crack open that Sears Christmas Catalogue anyway. By the sound of what was going on out in the kitchen, I could tell they were just about ready to pop that turkey in the oven. That being the case, I'd better get into this catalogue. There are some things I don't want the rest of the family to see me looking at.

Ask any ten year old boy what he looks at first when he cracks open the Sears catalogue and he'll tell you, "the toys." He's lying. The first thing we look at is all the girls in their underwear. It never fails. We all do that first. And the bra section is our favorite.

There was this really beautiful model in her underwear that I absolutely fell in love with one year. So, I carefully bent the book open backwards to weaken the binding so I could gingerly peal out that page without destroying the rest of the catalogue. It's amazing how resourceful a ten-year old can become sometimes. The funny part is that the only other person to ever figure out there was a page missing was my father. That's gotta tell ya something.

Thumbing through the Sears Christmas Catalogue is a holiday tradition from our youth that is grossly underestimated. It's just as much a part of the holiday season as anything else. And rightfully so.

We knew we were lucky to get so much as even one of the things we picked out in that catalogue, but wishing, and hoping, and dreaming is what keeps our spirits alive. That alone is worth its weight in gold. Is it not? After all, what were the chances of waking up on Christmas morning to find one of those models in her underwear under the Christmas tree anyway?

On Thursday morning, the whole world changed. Smelling the aroma of that turkey browning in the oven and catching a whiff of those fresh hot dinner rolls sure makes for an aromatic bouquet that has Thanksgiving written all over it, let me tell ya.

The first sight to greet me on Thanksgiving after doing that one eyed early morning wobble out into the kitchen was the sight of my poor old worn out mother who stayed up all through the night laboring over that hot stove. And in the background I could hear my old man snoring like a rhinoceros with one foot hanging off the edge of the sofa. I guess he felt as though he'd done his fair share if fell asleep on the sofa with his clothes on. That way he could say that he didn't get to bed last night either.

So, what do you think the first words to come out of my mouth that morning were? What are the first words to come out of anybody's mouth on Thanksgiving Day? "When do we eat?"

And what's the answer? The answer is, "Everything will be all ready when you get back from the football game."

"The football game? I almost forgot. What time is it now? Do I have time for breakfast? Where's Billy, Julie, and Carl? They didn't go without me, did they? I don't want to miss the football game."

"Calm down. It's only Seven o' clock. You've got plenty of time."

Yeah, that's easy for her to say. She's not the one who has to compete with three other kids for bathroom privileges. And she's not the one whose gotta find a way to sneak into the ball game either. She's got none of the worries that we kids gotta face on Thanksgiving. All she has to do is cook the meal, clean up after us, and wash the dishes. She's got it made in the shade.

Thanksgiving Day is hectic. It has to be. It just wouldn't seem like Thanksgiving without all that confusion. Everything's cooking all at once. My mother's dashing back and forth across the kitchen trying to catch pots before they boil over and my Dad's always looking for another bowl to put something else in. Ever notice how there's never enough bowls to put things in no matter how many you buy?

While all that commotion is going on in the kitchen, it's time for us kids to take to the streets. Back in our day, it seemed like every kid from every house on every street in Everett was on their way to the big game. Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same without starting off with the traditional Everett - Chelsea rivalry.

Billy took Carl with him to hop over the fence behind the home bleachers down on Cabot Court. Since I was still too little to scale that high fence, Julie and Martha took me with them to sneak into the home team gate on Cabot Street. You know where I'm talking about, don't ya? Right there beside the locker room building where the peanut guy sat with those little brown lunch bags full of peanuts chanting, "Peanuts ten cents. Peanuts a dime."

Sneaking past the ticket takers was so easy I often wondered why anyone even bothered to hop the fence. All you really had to do was work your way into the middle of the crowd and crouch down. It was just that easy.

What made the Everett football games so great for me was the atmosphere. You knew everybody and everybody was there for nothing other than a good time. We all came together like one big family and sang all those famous Everett fight songs. We laughed, and cheered, and screamed until our voices were hoarse.

We sang,

"Give me an E. Give me a V. Give me an E. Give me an R. Give me an E. Give me a T. Give me a T. What's that spell? Everett! Louder! Everett!"

Then we chanted, "Hey, hey, what do you say? Take the ball the other way."

After that we sang, ""Swing to the left, and swing to the right. Come on Everett, fight, fight, fight!"

And remember singing, "Leo, Leo, he's our man. If he can't do it, Tank can." And of course, if either one of them couldn't do it, we had a whole list of contenders who could.

And don't forget, ""Boola boola, boola boola, that's the war cry of Everett High. We can down them, we can crown them, till they holler -- Boola Boo!"

And then there's, "When you're up you're up. And when you're down, you're down. But when you're up against Everett, you're upside down!"

And last, but by no means least, there's our triumphant pledge that goes like this.

"We're from Everett. And no one could be prouder. And if you cannot hear us. We'll yell a little louder!"

Believe me, they heard us.

I can only imagine what those poor Chelsea kids must have suffered through because every year their team got clobbered by the Everett Crimson Tide. Remember running down onto the field like a wild pack of screaming banshees at the end of the game? And all the way home you could hear the excitement in everyone's voice as they relived the exciting highlights of the game.

"Did you see that one armed interception in the end zone?"

"That was awesome."

"I couldn't believe it when Bobby Leo put his helmet down and drove straight through that defensive line for the touch down."

"Man, their quarterback is gonna be sore tomorrow. They sacked him five times."

The sights and sounds of those precious moments now echo in the corridors of my memory as I sit here staring off into space with this great big smile on my face. We never realized at the time that these were the memories that would warm our hearts and brighten our smiles in our later years - now did we?

It's Thanksgiving Day in Everett. We have much to give thanks for.

When we got home from that football game, there was a special place set for each one of us at the table. We were presented with a feast fit for royalty with all the trimmings. All of my mother and father's hard work really paid off. It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Picture in your mind's eye the image of your Thanksgiving Day table when you were a little kid growing up in Everett. Seated all around you is your own flesh and blood. They love you with a sincerity unlike anything else you will ever find in your life time. These are the people who will stand by your side from the cradle to the grave.

Take a look out the window. That's your hometown. That's Everett. It's filled with people and memories that collectively help build and shape your character. It is like no other city in America. Its people are like none other on the face of this planet.

Every one of us is an important part of each other's lives. We don't always agree, and we don't always get along, but there is a thread that runs so true through our veins that ties us all together into one big family. Think about that when you bow your heads in reverence on Thanksgiving Day.

My favorite holiday story is "The Little Drummer Boy." I relate to that story with a treasured passion that moves my soul. Like the little drummer boy, I am a man of modest means. But in my heart there is a wealth of compassion put there by all the people who have come into my life. It inspires me beyond my wildest dreams. It is a richness that money cannot buy.

I feel the need to thank each and every one of you. My only means of doing so is by putting my best foot forward and sharing with you whatever talents that your friendship has inspired within me. I write to you because you have touched my heart in such a special way that I find comfort in communicating with you. I play music for you because there are heart warming emotions you have inspired within me that I cannot find the words to express. And I draw for you because the gratitude I feel inside is so overwhelming that it takes more than just words and music to express.

If only every one else on the face of this Earth could see you through my eyes. If only they could know you the way I do. They would see the magic in you that I see. And they would love you the way I do. From the bottom of my heart do I thank you for coming into my life. May God bless each and every one of you.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

We deserve it. After all, "We're from Everett!"

SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN

On Saturday, November 18, 2006, just shortly after noon time, Paul was struck by a car while out riding his bike. He sustained no life threatening injuries, but he is pretty broken up. He is recuperating at home and is unable to sit at the computer to write just yet. His Thanksgiving Day essay may be postponed for a few more days. Stay tuned for further developments.

We do wish you all a fun-filled and heartwarming Thanksgiving and want to remind all of you to take extra care in your travels. The most important thing is that you arrive safely. Look both ways before you step on your gas pedal, somebody may be passing by on their bike.

We'd like to extend a Special Greeting to the "Class of 71" and wish them a Grande Old Time at their class reunion. We cannot be there with you in person, but we certainly are in spirit!

May your love keep you warm, and may God Bless all of your days.

Happy Thanksgiving to all from the Huffman Clan!

We're From Everett!

If At First . . .

"If at first you don't succeed -- try, try again." How many times have you heard that one? And how many times have you said it yourself? I love that age old proverb. It gives me something to fall back on every time I fail.

Virtually everything I've done in life, I failed at the first time around. What am I saying? I usually fail three or four times until I get it right. That's the story of my life.

I didn't even succeed at going to the Saturday Matinee at the Park Theatre first time around. In 1957, when I was about five and a half years-old, my big brother and sister took me to see "The Invasion of the Saucer Men." That was the first time in my life that I ever went to the show without my parents.

Up until then, I'd only been up to the Meadow Glen and Wellington Circle Drive-ins with the whole family, but never inside a movie theatre. There was a really good reason for that. Just wait until I tell you this one.

I remember the night we all went up to the Meadow Glen Drive-in to see "Around The World in 80 Days." We're talking back in the days when windshields had a strip of metal running right down through the middle of them. Well, ours did anyway. We were probably one of the last families in Everett to get a wrap around windshield.

Those two-piece windshields were a real burden to whoever had to sit in the middle. If you were the lucky one in the middle, you had to lean at least 15 degrees to either side to see the whole picture up on the movie screen.

Back in our day, there was this universally accepted, unwritten law about vehicular seating arrangements. Because cars had no seat belts, the older kids got to sit next to the windows, and the younger ones had to sit in the middle. Don't ask me why. That's just the way it was. I guess they figured it was less traumatic if an older kid fell out the door.

There were four kids in my family. Since Carl was older than me, he sat between Julie and Billy in the back seat. Being the baby of the family, I sat up front in between my mother and father.

The down side to sitting in the middle in the back seat is that no matter which way you looked, all you could see was the back or the side of somebody else's head. That's all the scenery you ever got.

The down side to being so small that you had to sit up front is that you couldn't really see up over the dash board. So for the first few years of my life I only got to see Everett from the second story up. I knew all the roof tops to all the more notable Everett landmarks by heart. Show me the front door or the first floor windows and I was lost.

My Dad was really looking forward to seeing that movie. The rest of us were bored out of our minds. The next time they show "Around The World in 80 Days" on Turner Classic Movies, check it out. You'll see what I mean.

Besides the fact that it rained like cats and dogs that night, all of us kids were fidgety because, like I said, we were bored out of our minds. Does anyone remember what it was like to watch a movie at the drive-in in the pouring rain? It was like trying to read the fine print on an aspirin bottle through a balloon.

Try to picture this. That awkward metal speaker phone hung in the driver's side window crackling and sputtering out the audio portion of the movie with the hi-fidelity equivalence of a tin whistle. The rain was beating down so unmercifully that it sounded like someone pouring a bag of marbles down across a tin roof. Add to that four little kids moaning and groaning the whole time because they had no elbow room. If that isn't enough to drive you nuts, we were all fighting over one old army blanket to roll ourselves up in to stay warm. Sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it?

Being the resourceful soul that he was, my Dad came up with a solution. He stuffed our mouths with food. Man, he bought everything his arms could carry back from that concession stand, let me tell ya. He had hot dogs, pop corn, candy bars, and french fries. If they had it, he bought it. He was determined to see that movie come hell or high water.

So, there I sat for hours on end eating half of just about everything he bought. That's the way it's done when you're a little kid. No little kid ever eats a whole anything. It's an integral part of the "Proportional Food Theory of Relativity."

That theory specifically states that, "No kid will ever eat a whole anything, unless of course, it's a candy bar or an ice cream." That's why little kids sit at the supper table until long after dark with their mother looking over their shoulder shouting, "You're not getting up from that table until you eat every last bit of your supper!"

By the end of that movie, which wasn't until some time after midnight, I had eaten about half my weight in junk food. I felt like a beach ball. I was too stuffed to breath, let alone fidget about. It was like being tied down with an invisible straight jacket.

After sticking his arm out in the pouring rain to hang that monstrosity of a speaker phone back on the hook, my Dad turned to all of us and said, "Now, does anyone have to go to the bathroom before we hit the road?"

"Not me," we all said simultaneously.

"Are you sure? You'll have to hold it until we get back home once we pull out of here."

"We're sure."

Thus began our memorable exodus towards the exit. Everybody's headlights came on all at once and everyone scrambled frantically in an effort to get out of that sand lot first. Our car bumped up and down over the mounds until we worked our way into that long line that inched its way toward the outside world. It was so dark that no one could see which way they were going, and the rain didn't help matters much either.

All that bumping up and down in the car rattled up all that food in my stomach. By the time we made it out of that exit, all that stuff that was balled up in my stomach dropped down into the lower lever. I had to go. I had to go bad.

I held my peace for as long as I could, but the pressure got so strong that I just blurted out with "I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Well, you're going to have to wait until we get home now. You should have said something earlier," my Dad replied.

"But I didn't have to go earlier," I cried.

"Well, it's too late now. We'll be home before long."

Before long? Yeah, right. I've heard that before. How long does it take to drive from Wellington Circle to Arlington Street? Anybody? The answer is, "Too long when you can't hold it any more." I let it go somewhere around Noyes Stationary on Broadway.

All of a sudden, my mother asked, "My gawd, what is that awful smell?"

"Maybe it's coming from the oil tanks," my Dad replied.

"That doesn't smell like oil," she said emphatically.

Then, as an afterthought, she asked, "Paul, did you go potty in your pants?"

"Nope, not me."

When you're four and a half years old, it doesn't dawn on you that you're going to get caught in your lie any time soon. After all, we had just passed the Waldorf up on Broadway. Arlington Street is so far away that everyone's bound to forget all about it by the time we get there. I never once considered the fact that the smell would only get worse.

By the time we reached the top of High Street, everyone was hanging out the windows gasping for air. They didn't even mind getting soaking wet in the pouring rain. As a matter of fact, they preferred it. I told you I came from a funny crowd.

"Now tell me the truth," my mother demanded. "Did you go potty in your pants?"

"It wasn't me," I said. There's no way I was going to testify against myself. I was prepared to plead the fifth if I had too.

"Let me check," she said as she reached down into the back of my pants. Man, was she ever sorry she did that.

From that night on, whenever they took me out anywhere, they marched me up to the boys room every hour on the hour whether I had to go or not. There's no way on earth they were ever going to relive that scenario, let me tell ya.

And that's why it wasn't for another whole year before they'd trust me to go off to the Saturday matinee without any adult supervision. They just wanted to be sure. That's all.

Up until now, I've yet to set foot inside a movie theatre. My curiosity had reached fever pitch. When my mother and father went off to see "Payton Place" with Mary and Jack Thomas, I stayed home with my big sister, Julie. And when my bothers and sister went off to see "Godzilla, the King of the Monsters," I had to stay home with my mom.

Just seeing the excitement on their faces filled my heart with wonder. And when they came back home with smiles as big as the crescent moon itself, I knew I was missing out on something. You can just imagine the thrill I experienced on that wonderful Saturday morning when my brother, Billy, said to my mom, "I think Paul's big enough to come to the show with us now. What do you think?"

"What are they showing?" she asked.

"The Invasion of the Saucer Men."

"He might get scared."

"He'll be okay. There's nothing scary about it at all. It's more corny than anything else."

"Well, you've got to promise me you won't let him out of your sight for a split second."

"He'll be right beside me the whole time. I promise."

"Okay then. He can go."

Did you hear that? I'm going to the Park Theatre. For years, I've ridden past that spot wondering what all the fervor was about. Everybody talked about that place. Finally, I was going to experience it all first hand. It doesn't get any better than that.

Man, I felt like I was growing leaps and bounds with every step I took towards the Park Theatre. Just being out with all the bigger kids without my mother and father around made me feel like I had finally arrived. This was a whole new ball game.

Here are just a few of the many things I experienced for the first time on my way to the show. Kids were talking all at once without anyone telling them to keep quiet. Every once in a while, somebody said a naughty word and there was nobody there to wash their mouth out with soap. And when it came time to go up to the candy counter, there was nobody there to say, "You can't have that because it will rot your teeth." This was a freedom I never imagined in my lifetime. I could get used to this.

The pandemonium that ensued inside the Park Theatre was something beyond my widest dreams. Everyone was totally out of control. Kids were talking, and laughing, and shouting out to each other and nobody said, "Quiet down." That is, of course, until the lights went out.

Billy wanted to sit down in front so I could experience the full impact of all the excitement and action going on up on the screen. And man, you should have seen the size of that screen. It was larger than life. I had to bend over backwards to look up at it.

Each letter that scrolled across the screen was about the size of my apartment building down on Arlington Street. And when someone came onto the screen, they were so big that one nostril alone looked as big and wide as the Hayden Planetarium. I expected the floor to start shaking when they blinked.

To be honest with ya, I felt a little uncomfortable the whole time, but I was afraid to say anything. There's no way I was going to spoil my first day at the Park Theatre. That all backfired when this giant alien from outer space came leaping out at me from behind the bushes.

I screamed so hard and loud that I hurt me neck. Leaping up out of my seat, I ran towards the back of the theatre in tears. My brother caught up to me out in the lobby.

I pulled and yanked to break free from his grasp. He tried to reason with me, but I wouldn't listen. All I could focus on were those front doors leading out into daylight. I was going to go straight through those doors come hell or high water, let me tell ya.

"That poor little thing is frightened out of his mind," Leo said. "Go ahead and take him home. I'll give you your money back." Leo even gave me a Hershey bar to calm me down. What a really nice guy.

I'll never forget that kindly look on Leo's face. What reminded me of that was about a few months ago, Leo's grandson shared with me a heartwarming photo of Leo kneeling down, playing with his grandchildren, out on the sidewalk. That loving look on his face in that photograph totally refreshed my memory of the sympathetic look that was in his eyes that day I screamed in fear at the "Invasion of the Saucer Men."

Once I was out of that theatre, I was fine. All the way home I had this big smile on my face while I buried my sorrows in that delicious chocolate Hershey bar. "That is the last time I'll ever take you to the show," my brother swore.

So there you go. My first attempt to see a movie at the Park Theatre was an utter failure. I did finally get it right. From my second attempt on, I became an avid Saturday Matinee buff.

And speaking of buff, I'll never forget going to see the "Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman." I had really mastered the art by that time. Man, nothing beats seeing a well stacked babe that's the size of the Parlin Library in a bikini. There was enough woman there to quench my thirst for a life time. You can bet your bottom dollar that I sat right up front for that one.

Another funny story about personal failures I often tell is my first attempt to design a professional logo. I was in the eighth grade at the Parlin Junior high school when the Cincinnati Bengals debuted as an expansion team for the NFL. I saw a promotional spot for this new expansion team on the "NFL Week in Review" one Saturday afternoon. All I could think of was, "Man, what an ugly uniform for an up and upcoming contender in professional football."

For the next two weeks, I buckled down at the drawing board and created a whole new logo for that team. When I was finished, I had designed this ferocious looking tiger that had horns instead of ears, with one eye torn out as if it had lost it in fight. It even had a stream of blood running down from that torn open eye socket.

This looked like one war hardened animal ready to do battle, believe you me. My logo looked more like something you'd see on the back of a motorcycle gang's jacket. I even designed it on the side of a football helmet for that added touch of realism.

Now the funny part was my marketing approach. I sent the original drawing off with a cover letter to the head office for the Cincinnati Bengals. Knowing that an NFL team would pay thousands for a logo, I wanted to land this sale in the worse way.

In my cover letter, I praised my new logo as a symbol of honor and pride that would instill a sense of respect in their fans and competitors alike. In closing, I said, "Go ahead an use the logo. We can talk money later."

Is that a riot or what? I figured if they went ahead and used my logo, they'd be legally obliged to pay me. Hey, I was a kid. You can't blame me for trying - right?

A few weeks later, I received a really classy rejection letter from the Cincinnati Bengals thanking me for all my hard work and expressing gratitude for taking the time to show interest and concern for their franchise. They also sent me a wealth of brochures, stickers, and even a wall poster of their new team.

Yes, of course, they knew this submission had come from a kid. You could tell by the personal touch to their well thought out rejection letter. They worded it so well that they made me feel proud for all my efforts. Even still, I had this illusion of grandeur dancing in my head about what I was going to do with all that money. Good thing I didn't give up my day job (paper route), huh?

It was many years later, but I did eventually design logos for many professional businesses throughout my career as a freelance graphic designer. Persistence is all it takes. Like Elliot once told me, "If you love something enough, it will surrender all of its secrets."

We do crazy things sometimes. We've got to. How else are we going to get anywhere if we don't step outside our comfort zone every once in a while and take the risk?

Sure we look awkward at times. And yes, people will point and laugh at your clumsiness along the way. But regardless of what all the nay sayers say, if you keep taking shots at the goal, and learning from your mistakes, you will eventually hit your mark. It happens every time. You'll get there.

Looking back on it now, even if my logo never did leave its mark on the Cincinnati Bengals, at least Danny Ross' stellar performance in Super Bowl XXIII certainly did. So, somewhere along the way, Everett made its contribution to the Cincinnati Bengals anyway.

And that's the way it is. We continue to leave our distinct mark on the world wherever we go because - "We're from Everett!"

Lessons in Life

Just because we grew up in Everett doesn't mean we know it all. We never said that. But one thing they always said about us is, "If you fight one kid from Everett, you've got to fight them all." I actually saw that happen once.

During an open concert up in Marblehead back in my high school days, there was this one really bad attitude looking kid standing in the middle of the walk path. To his left, standing just off the walk path, stood another two cohorts, and again to his right stood another two conspirators.

Everyone had to step around that kid in the middle to get by. So, in essence, you had to walk through the middle of all five of them. The tough guy in the middle was holding onto a balloon. As people walked by he'd say, "I'm giving ten dollars to the first person who's got the guts to break my balloon."

There must have been no less than about a hundred kids from Everett there that day. We were all sitting up on a hill enjoying the concert. From where we were sitting, we overlooked the entire area. We could see just about everything. So when there was a lull between performances, we sat there surveying the crowd just taking it all in.

That's when this wise guy really caught our attention. He was only making that intimidating offer to kids he knew he could push around. Now let's face it, growing up in Everett means that you're not only street smart, but you can certainly hold your own in a fight. We're not all bad asses, that's true, but when push comes to shove, we'll go toe to toe with ya.

Well anyway, we saw that "tough guy" in the middle shoulder this mild mannered looking kid who was innocently passing by with his girlfriend. "You looking for trouble?" The tough guy asked.

"No, I'm not looking for trouble," his intended victim answered.

"Hey, I think this kid's looking for trouble," he said to his other cronies as they started closing in around their victim. There's no way this kid was going to take on all five of these kids by himself.

That's when one of the guys in our crowd said, "Hey, you guys been watching that loser down there intimidating people?"

"Yeah, we ought to go intimidate them for a change and see how they like it," somebody else said.

"That kid he's picking on is from Everett. Get ready to back me up," he said as he got up off the grass. He walked right up to the bad kid in the middle and said, "Where's that balloon you want broken for ten bucks?"

"Oh, do you think you're bad enough to break my balloon?"

"As a matter of fact," he replied, "I might ask one of your sissy friends to break it for me. I haven't decided yet."

"Oh, is that so? And which one of my friends looks like a sissy to you?" The bad kid asked.

"Well honestly, you all look like a bunch of sissies to me."

At this point, the bad kid put his arm around our friend's shoulders and said, "My friends and I are gonna take you for a little walk. We'll straighten out that sissy problem for you right now."

Throwing that kids arm off his shoulder, he said, "You've got it all wrong this time, Dude. I'm from Everett. And my friends are gonna take you and your friends for a little walk instead. Ain't we guys?"

That's when about thirty kids got up off the hill and headed over towards them. You should have seen the look on that's kid's face. Man, how the worm does turn sometimes.

"You've got a choice, Dude. You were looking for trouble. Now you've got it. So why don't you and your friends beat it out of here so everybody else can have a good time? Cuz I'm telling ya, man, if these guys take you for a walk, they'll knock the daylight out of your eyes."

"We don't want any trouble, man. We're out of here."

We stood and watched them hurry across the street, jump into their car, and take off like a bat out of hell. And that's why we say, "When you're up, you're up. And when you're down, you're down. But when you're up against Everett, you're upside down."

What does that tell you? If nothing else, it says that we were all on the same wave length. We stuck together. We were like a family.

And just like a family, we fussed and fought amongst ourselves as well. Sometimes we bullied each other. And sometimes we cheated each other. But just let an outsider step in between us and we rolled up our sleeves, balled up our knuckle bones, and we took care of our own. That's what it meant to grow up in Everett.

Now that we've all grown up and flown the coup, it feels like we've lost that heartfelt sense of comradery. Many did so whole-heartedly. Not everyone had a happy childhood growing up in Everett. They've told me so.

Believe me, there was once a time when even I couldn't wait to get out of Everett. Once I graduated high school, I was gone. For me, it was not because of the people that I wanted to get out. It was because of a yearning in my heart to see the outside world.

As we take flight from the nest and go off into our separate lives, the many different people and experiences we encounter along the way influences what we become. Just as the caterpillar changes into a beautiful butterfly, we transcend towards a higher level of existence sometimes barely recognizable from our former childhood selves.

We grow in wisdom in so many different ways that we see the world, and how we fit into it, in a whole new light. That is so true for those who never venture very far from the nest, as it is for those who travel the world over. Many argue that seeing more of the world broadens your horizons. And it does. But I rather doubt it is the end all path to knowledge and fulfillment.

In Plato's book seven of the "Republic" is the "Allegory of the Cave." Hence the term, "Plato's Cave." In essence, what Plato portrayed in that fable was the difference in worldly perspectives between those who do not venture far from the nest, and those who do.

Those who do, long to share their new found sense of broader awareness with those they left behind. Frustration sets in when those they left behind shrug off any attempts to broaden their horizons. They feel secure clinging to the nest. It is their comfort zone.

It's funny when you tell somebody about a famous landmark you've visited only to hear them say, "Oh yeah, I've seen that on TV." As far as they're concerned, they've been there. That's what mass communications does. It enables people to see the outside world without ever setting foot outside the nest.

Those of us who have actually been there know the difference. Mingling with the people and experiencing their culture first hand, gives us a true to life experience that you simply cannot achieve from inside the nest. That became so readily apparent to me in a recent telephone conversation I had with an old friend whose never set foot outside of Everett.

When I told him where I lived, he said, "Isn't that red neck country?" Well, yes and no. What we once percieved as a "red neck" really doesn't exist any more.

Not far from my house is ISU where Larry Bird graduated from, and the Rose-Hulman Institute which rivals MIT in Engineering Technology. On the far side of town is "Mary of the Woods College" from which a nun was recently canonized into sainthood by the Vatican in Rome. Not to mention that the world famous Wabash Cannonball roars right past my house.

Country & Western music is what you hear blaring from the pickem-ups in traffic and you'll feel right at home wearing a cowboy hat downtown. If you listen to Country & Western music today it's nothing at all like its former self. It sounds more like the Rolling Stones than it does that yodeling fiddle music it used to be.

The people here are really good to each other. There is no racial bigotry. Interracial marriages are common, and issues dealing with foreigners are relatively unheard of because there are virtually no foreigners here. Other than that, it feels like living in Everett 45 years ago.

What was once a red neck with missing teeth and a shot gun hanging up in the back window is now a clean shaven, well dressed cowboy talking on a cell phone to his investment broker while he's stuck in traffic waiting for the Wabash Cannonball to roll through town. The world has changed.

What you won't find here is a comradery amongst the kids like we had growing up in Everett. I've never found that anywhere outside of Everett. Many of the friends we made growing up in Everett became our friends for life. Not too many people from the big city can actually say that.

Getting back in touch with each other rekindles that friendship. It makes you realize that you really are not as "all alone in the world" as you thought you were. You belong to a multi-generational fraternity with a thread that runs so true through its veins. You belong. You're one of us. You're from Everett.

We are all different. We all have different likes and dislikes. Some of us are a little crazy, and some of us are more placid and docile, but we accept that. It takes all kinds to make a family. Opposites attract. Wouldn't it be boring if we were all exactly the same?

When you think back on some of the off-the-wall things we did growing up in Everett, you've got to laugh. It really makes you shake your head in disbelief sometimes when looking back at it from a far more mature perspective. Damn, we were crazy.

Just the other day I was watching these kids ride the handrails on a set of steps with their skateboards. I heard a passerby comment to her companion, "They're going to break their fool necks. You just wait and see."

It reminded me of that garage on the left hand side to the rear of the Parlin Junior High school. We got up on top of that roof with our bikes, raced full speed ahead, leaped off the edge of the roof into mid air, and slammed down onto the tar of the school yard. We could have been killed. We did it anyway. That's kids for ya.

Like I said, the whole reason for starting this "We're from Everett" project was because there was once a time when you searched for anything nostalgic about growing up in Everett on the internet, you found nothing. That's all changed now. And we did it ourselves.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "We didn't do it ,Paul. You did." But verily I say unto you, I couldn't have done it without you. This project is on the threshold of growing leaps and bounds beyond your wildest dreams. And that was made possible by the wealth of material I've received from you.

Collectively, we are building a legacy for our children's children that will give them a first hand perspective on the life and times of their ancestors. I cannot think of a more treasured gift to leave behind for our descendants. My friend, Bobby (another hippie from Glendale Park) recently said that he always told his kids that growing up in Everett was a lot like watching the Little Rascals. How true that is.

Every time you leave a comment on one of my articles, you are contributing to the cause. It's okay to remain anonymous. Nobody's asking you to step out into the limelight. Your level of participation is entirely up to you.

Some people prefer to sit on the sidelines to enjoy the show. Others prefer to come down onto the field and get into the game. Either way, you belong here. You're one of us.

All of this is made possible through the wonders of digital multimedia technology. Multimedia technology and mass communications fascinates me to the point that I went back to college to enhance my relationship with it. Understanding this technology gives you the power to harness it effectively.

Amongst us are many talented songwriters, musicians, artists, and writers. What I hope to do is to encourage you to share your talents with the rest of us. By doing so, you will expand the legacy we're building for our children's children. It's not at all important if what you do directly relates to the growing up in Everett experience. Just the fact that you grew up in Everett means that it does. It's as simple as that.

For those of you who have talents you wish to share, but are unfamiliar with how to use today's technology, there's a link to email me in the right hand column. Don't ever hesitate to get in touch. Multimedia is my specialty. That's what I do.

By the same token, I realize that we are not all on the same level of familiarity with today's technology. If there's something you don't understand and need someone to explain it to you, then by all means, click on that email link. If I don't have the answer first hand, I'll find it for you. Helping each other out is what we do because, we're all from Everett.

Getting in touch with people from the many different generations who grew up in Everett has expanded my perspective on things a thousand times over. Many times, I come to understand some of my own experiences with a broader sense of awareness because of what transpired before my time.

What comes to mind is finding out that the kids from the "class of 62" staged a protest that gave us all the freedom to leave the school property during recess. I can't thank you guys enough for stepping up to the plate for the rest of us.

That right there is living proof that from one generation to the next, we are all more alike than we are different. We are not all generation specific. In many ways we do reflect the signs of our times, but that's as far as it goes. Public Relations and Marketing experts are noturious for constantly trying to characterize us all into predefined age groups. I, for one, do not believe that it's really as simple as that.

Look it up. Wait until you see all the rhetoric out there about how to target your market using generational based specifics. The more you research, the more you'll come to discover that they really don't know what they're talking about at all.

First, they'll tell you that to succeed in today's market you must treat every potential customer as an individual using a "one-to-one" personal relationship approach. And then, in the very same breath, they'll group us all into predefined age groups to analyze and target us using blanketed generalizations. Am I missing something here?

For one thing, I can come up with just as many similarities between every generation as they can differences. And for another, you're probably wondering "What is this all about anyway, and what in the world does it have to do with growing up in Everett?

This all came about while comparing the statistics on my hit counter with some of the many emails and comments I've received from people who grew up in Everett. I do that periodically to find out what interests you most so that I can enhance your nostalgic Everett experience to the utmost of my abilities.

The vast majority of visitors to this blog have one specific thing in common. And it has nothing, whatsoever, to do with what generation they grew up in.

Since beginning this "We're from Everett" journal, I've come in contact with people from all over the world. They represent every generation now living on the planet. I've heard from people who celebrated V.E. Day signaling the end to World War II in Europe, as well as people who have yet to graduate from high school.

It is true that by some of the things they say, I get a sense of where they're coming from judging by what generation they belonged to. Even so, the common thread that runs so true through their veins is that "They grew up in Everett."

I was in my forties when I earned my bachelors. The academic community defined me as an adult learner. Attending college full time during the day meant that I was attending classes with students who were twenty years my junior. That alone was a monumental learning experience in itself.

It was not "Generation X" that I was attending college with, but instead, the "Millenial Generation." As a matter of fact, most of my professors were "Generation X." It makes me laugh when my Everett colleague from Nebraska calls me her "young" friend, because in college they all called me the "old hippie."

One incident that happened to me in college that I will never forget took place in my Political Science class. Following an opened discussion about President Kennedy, the professor turned to me and asked, "So, Paul, would you say that President Kennedy had truly captured the admiration of America's youth?"

To which I responded by asking, "Well, didn't you think so?"

To which he surprisingly responded with, "I have no idea. He was assassinated before I was born."

The fun part about coming in contact with Everettites from different generational groups is discovering their perspective on growing up in Everett. One of the young kids who attended Mass Communications College with me also grew up in Everett.

Here are some of the things I discovered about that kid. He never knew that Dunkin Donuts coffee ever came in anything other than a Styrofoam cup. And you should have seen the look on his face when I told him that we used to light up a cigarette when we were riding on the bus.

When I stopped at Back Bay station to buy a newspaper, he asked, "What are you going to do with that?" Hard copy media like newspapers & journals have virtually no influence whatsoever on this age group. They never knew a time when you couldn't "Google" something to find out all about it. They've never had to deal with DOS, and using the "Lprint" command sounds like banging on a clay tablet with a rock to them.

Don't even mention a "Dot Matrix" printer to these kids. They've never seen one. And they doubled over in laughter when I told them that my first CPU didn't have a hard drive. It booted from a DOS Floppy. Not only that, but it only had a 320 x 240 screen resolution and 360k of RAM. To them, I sounded like a Neanderthal talking about a stone hammer.

I remember explaining to my fellow classmates that there was once a time when you couldn't cut & past between different applications using the Windows clipboard, and the Internet was text only. We're talking about kids who never bought an album on anything other than a Compact Disc. Just wait until they have to explain CD's to their kids. That should be interesting. With MP3 players that plug right into your USB port, CD players and CD's are quickly becoming obsolete.

These kids never saw Vargis Diner. They don't even know where it was. And if that doesn't make you feel old, wait until you hear this. They have no recollection of a time when the traffic lights didn't show a picture of a hand to tell you not to walk. Can you imagine that?

Let me tell you something else I noticed about this generation. Remember how we all giggled when the teacher singled somebody out for a scolding? They don't do that. If anything, they come to the aid of their classmate. I saw that several times, and I admire and respect them deeply for that.

Like every other generation that preceded them, they have their preferences in music, in clothes, and in social order. Like every other generation before them, they are growing up in Everett. And guess what? They're proud of that, too.

The "hippies" criticized the "greasers" and "collegians" of the fifties for being shallow, narrow-minded, politically unaware puppets to the establishment. But none of that was true. We were wrong.

What I've come to realize is that it was the "hippies" who were the most narrow minded generation ever to grace the landscape. We had an arrogance about us that closed our eyes to the truth. We were so rebellious that we refused to listen to reason.

Don't ever forget that we were the ones who said, "Don't trust anyone over 30." I don't hear any of us saying that any more, do you?

In my lifetime, two people really stand out for opening my eyes about the other generations. The first was Elliot. If you are unfamiliar with my story about Elliot, then jump on over the "7/11/2006" link in the "archives" list. The other one was that young kid from Everett who attended college with me.

Learning about the many similarities between our generations was an eye opening experience. It is perhaps the most valuable lesson I've learned from this "We're from Everett" project. From the bottom of my heart do I thank you all for teaching it to me.

So, that's what this is all about. It's all about reaching out to each other and bringing us all back together again on common ground. And that common ground is, "We're from Everett!"

It's Veterans Day

To every veteran out there, I must ask, "How do I thank you in such a way that it reflects the sincerity in my heart from which that "thank you" comes?"

I exist because you stood your ground. You faced the unimaginable. You risked the unthinkable. And you never once questioned your commitment to duty.

You belong to a fraternity of courage and honor that is both revered and feared all over the world. From the very moment you first planted your boot firmly on the historic timeline of humankind, the whole world changed. And civilization caught its first glimpse of what would become evil's most formidable foe when you stepped up to the plate on that fateful morning of April 19, in 1775, and fired the shot heard round the world.

Not being a veteran myself, I've always felt something missing from my life. It is a sense of wholeness that only veterans seem to possess. I saw it time after time whenever in the company of veterans. The first time I spotted it happened when I was just a little kid playing on the kitchen floor of our apartment down on Arlington Street.

My father and his best friend, Jack Thomas, were sitting at the kitchen table blowing the suds off a brew and chomping down on a couple of cigars. They were having a good old gab for themselves about their army days during the war.

I had these little toy cars that you pressed down on and pulled back to rev up before letting go. They'd zoom across the kitchen floor, bumping into chair legs and turning around in circles before crashing into the mop board and flipping over with their wheels still spinning.

Just as Jack Thomas raised his glass and said, "I'm glad I did it, but I wouldn't want to have to live through that again," my car zoomed right across the top off his foot. He jumped up out of his chair thinking a mouse just ran across his shoe. They looked over at me and broke into a hearty belly laugh.

My Dad got really serious like and said to his friend, "And that's why we did it. So that one day we'd have a screwball for a kid just like that who would grow up in a world free from fear."

As little as I was, those words made a profound impact on me. I had been half listening to their conversation. Jack Thomas had mentioned a kid from Oklahoma that was in his platoon. I heard him say that kid caught a round in the back while carrying a wounded medic to safety.

He talked about how that kid scrawled a note to the girl awaiting his return every night before turning in. It kind of threw me for a loop when he said, "His last words were please tell her I love her so much that I want her to go on with her life and never look back."

How unselfish can you get? That's what veterans possess. They have an unselfishness beyond anything you acquire from just going through the habit and routine of everyday life. They have a wisdom and a maturity above what you achieve from just age and experience alone. They see further and clearer than the rest of us see.

When my big brother came home from Vietnam, he was nothing like the kid we dropped off at the airport a year ago. You could see it in his eyes, and you could hear it in his voice. This was a different person altogether.

Before he joined the army, he was a "greaser" with a pack of Lucky's rolled up into the sleeve of his tee shirt. His only commitment was to his "wheels" and his "chick." And believe you me, he didn't have any qualms about how he earned his daily bread. If he had to do it under the table, or in the shadows of night, it made no difference to him.

That all changed when he came home from Vietnam. As soon as he stepped in the door he began to seriously ponder what to do with the rest of his life. He no longer had any interest in hanging around down on the corner. Next thing you know, he was training to drive the big rigs. He discovered his true calling. He became a highway cowboy for Roadway.

Before he joined the army, my Dad and him were going at it toe to toe almost every night of the week. When he came home from Vietnam, they kindled a new friendship that lasted the rest of their lives. There was a whole new understanding between them now. They were both veterans.

Just beyond those wrought iron gates at the Glenwood Cemetery, there's a little white military gravestone commemorating the distinction of their rank for those two comrades in arms. They are together forever now. And they wouldn't have it any other way.

I saw it again on a Greyhound Bus through Pennsylvania. It feels like it takes forever to get through Pennsylvania on a Greyhound, let me tell ya. What I do like about traveling on the Greyhound is that people tend to open up to each other. People talk. I like that.

It was in the wee hours of the morning on a long run from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. This guy seated across the isle struck up a conversation with the guy behind him. You could tell the guy behind him had been traveling for quite some time by how ruffled up he looked.

"So how long you been riding the bus for anyway?" He asked.

"Man, it's been about four days now."

"Where'd you get on?"

"I started out in Frisco. I'm on my way to New York."

"What's in New York? You got family?"

"Yeah, and besides that I need to jump start my life all over again. I kind of screwed up the life I had. I'm looking to turn that all around. I got a job offer through the VA and I'm going to check it out."

"You're kind of down on your luck, huh?"

"You could say that," he chuckled.

"What branch of the service were you in?"

"I'm a Navy man."

"Yeah, me too."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding."

From that point on they had a grand old time exchanging ship to shore experiences back and forth with each other. Hours later, as the bus pulled into the depot in Philadelphia, the one in front said, "This is where I get off."

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a wad of bills with a scrap of paper. Handing it to his new found friend, he said, "Look here. I want you to take this. I know you need it. On that paper is my phone number. If things don't work out, you give me call. At least this way you'll know you have a place to stay until you get back on your feet."

"You don't have to do that. I'll be all right," his friend replied.

"Yeah, I do. I know you don't have any money. Take it. You don't owe me nothing. We're veterans. We all belong to a brotherhood. If we don't help each other out, who will?"

Now that's a heartwarming story right there, but it goes way deeper than that. On the ride from Philadelphia to New York, that down on his luck veteran made several calls on his cell phone trying to contact relatives and friends in the New York area. In every instance, not one of the people he contacted could care less that he was on his way into New York. The disappointment was written all over his face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched this poor guy sit and stare out the window. His eyes were edged with tears. Then suddenly, he dialed one last number. His conversation went like this.

"Hi, it's me, the veteran you met on the bus. I just want to make sure it wouldn't put you out if I had to come down to your place with my tail between my legs."

He listened quietly for a few minutes.

"Do you really mean that? Man, I can't thank you enough. You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

He listened quietly for a few minutes again.

Then he said, "Yeah, I'll call you later this afternoon either way. Thank you, man. You just threw me a life line."

He then looked over at me with this great big grin on his face and said, "Thank God I'm a veteran."

I ask you now. "Is it right that someone who so selfishly laid his life on the line to preserve our way of life should ever have to suffer such indignity as that?"

It's a shame how we lose the perspective of a child as we grew up. A child sees a soldier for what he or she truly is. They see them as heroes that a larger than life.

Remember the chill that made the hairs on the back of your arm stand on end during the Everett parade when the Yankee Division came marching by? They looked so sharp and formidable - did they not? The pounding of their foot steps reverberated to the depths of our souls. We didn't all scatter off into our backyards to play accountant, or lawyer, or politician, now did we? No, we played soldier.

The heroics of our veterans are not something that children imagine. They are real. Children idolize our soldiers because they are true to life heroes. It's something that the children themselves can hope to achieve. It's a dream that can come true.

I'm sitting here now thinking about my nephew, Scotty, with this big smile on my face. When he was a little kid growing up in Everett, he idolized his father as if he were some sort of god. What am I saying? So did I.

Billy and I would double over in laughter listening to Scotty play with his little army men out in the backyard. You could hear him saying things like, "Everything's going to be okay now because Billy Huffman's here to save the day." What a riot.

This kid even kept a picture of his father in his Army uniform next to his bed. I can think of no higher honor than that. It certainly instilled a sense of pride in my big brother. I knew that the moment he said, "There was once a time I didn't think I was going to make it back home from Vietnam alive. Scotty makes it all worth the risk."

The moment he said it, I remembered that time when I was a little kid playing on the kitchen floor down on Arlington Street while my Dad and Jack Thomas reminisced about their Army days in World War II.

We have yet to honor our Veterans in the manner in which they deserve to be recognized. Veterans deserve totally free health care for life, and a home of their own. I'm not talking about a place in the projects or a low-cost mortgage. They deserve a free home of their own. They also deserve free transportation for life. Whether it's a short trip in a taxi, or a flight overseas, it shouldn't cost our veterans one red cent.

When my brother came home from active duty in Vietnam, they dropped him off in San Francisco, and it was up to him to pay his way back home. Do you believe that? It is disgraceful the way we treat our veterans. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

It makes you wonder how any of our lawmakers can look at themselves in the mirror on Veterans Day knowing that there is so much as one solitary homeless veteran out there wandering the streets. Oh, but they'll all jump on the bandwagon come Veterans Day with empty phrases and shallow rhetoric about the heroics of our honored veterans - won't they?

Talk is cheap. It's time we paid our veterans back for courageously preserving our way of life. Freedom isn't free, but only the Veterans pay the full price.

We are socially irresponsible by nature. We sometimes scoff at those who are down on their luck and need to fall back on social services to survive. We do so with an arrogant ignorance that belittles these poor underprivileged souls. We accuse them of cashing in on a free ride. Not once do we stop to realize that we are no different than they.

We are all cashing in on one big free ride by not properly supporting our veterans in a manner that they rightfully deserve. We didn't pay the price for freedom. Our veterans did. It's time to pay them back. We haven't said "thank you" until that day comes.

I shook my head in disbelief watching the President speak on television the other night expressing concern over what sort of mixed message we were sending to our troops overseas by all the political upheaval going on in our homeland. I wanted to shout, "Send them a message they'll never forget. Sign into law a cost-free set of privileges for our veterans unprecedented in American history. Anything less than that is nothing more than meaningless political double talk."

Any politician that steps up on the soap box on Veterans Day with anything other than a plan for totally free heath care, free housing, free education, free legal representation, and free transportation for our veterans, isn't saying anything at all. They should stop using the honor of our veterans to make themselves look good. It's time they did something that mattered for a change.

Let's concentrate on taking care of our veterans first. If our lawmakers are seriously concerned about what message they're sending to our troops overseas then why don't they do something about it? Why don't they shut their mouths and open their wallets?

Forgive me if I sound bitter. I am not bitter. I am ashamed. From the bottom of my heart do I honor, praise, and thank every Veteran on this day. But they deserve so much more than that. It's time we paid them back!

Treasures

Here's a little ditty that my big brother, Billy, taught me at the supper table on a cold November night. It goes like this. "Order in the court. The judge is eating beans. And his wife is in the bathtub shooting submarines."

I recall so vividly how he guffawed in laughter over saying that at the supper table. He was probably no more than about eleven or twelve years old himself when he taught me that. That would make me about four or five, I guess.

Even to this day, I have no idea what that poem is all about. When he taught it to me at the supper table that night, my mother scornfully shouted, "Billy! Don't go teaching a little kid things like that!"

So, tell me. Does that poem imply something dirty that my little mind still doesn't comprehend even to this day or what?

I've often felt as though everyone else knows something that I don't. What troubles me is that everyone knows exactly what it is that they know that I don't. And everybody knows that I don't know it.

It's almost as if everyone else on the planet has conspired behind my back not to tell me what it is. And you are all in on it - every last one of you. And that's really throwing me for a loop because I can't possibly imagine what it is that is so important that only I cannot know. And why me?

Ever since I was a little kid I've been trying to crack this code. And since not another living soul out there is ever gonna help me unravel this mystery, I guess I'm just gonna have to do it by myself.

The only way I can possibly think of to help me decipher this riddle is by gathering clues. After all, isn't that how archeologists unlock the mysteries behind ancient cultures?

I've often read that there really is no way of ever knowing if what an archeologist theorizes is accurate or not. They must sometimes go back and recant some of their original assumptions based on the way newer clues associate with their previous discoveries. What it all seems to add up to is the simple fact that "the more clues you find, the clearer the picture becomes."

So come on inside, and grab yourself a chair. It won't do you any good to just stand around out here. These November winds are known for gusting up a cloud of pollen and dust. It never seems to bother the younger ones, but it's unmerciful on older folks like us.

You may as well set a spell. I'll put the kettle on. We'll have a gab about our yesterdays and share a laugh or two. I'll show you things you won't believe and I'll tell you all about them, too.

Tell me, do you have one of these? It doesn't look like much, I know. It's just a box full of random things of relatively no value. Most of them are insignificant things I picked up along the road. And some of them were given to me by people I once knew.

Maybe if we sift through these clues together, we might unlock a mystery or two. Some of the things I've found along the way might look like useless pieces of junk. But you never know. One of them just might turn out to be the answer I'm looking for. It does happen like that sometimes.

Take a look at this for instance. It's a small piece of scotch tape stuck to the corner of a piece of notebook paper. I've held onto to that scrap of paper now for almost forty years. This was given to me by a girl we call "Dee." She sat behind me in Anthony Sarno's homeroom at the Parlin Junior High school.

I honestly don't remember the two of us ever talking to each other much. She had a natural beauty about her that would make any shy schoolboy blush. This was one of those quiet school days when there wasn't very much going on. I was just sitting there at my desk peacefully working on a poem.

She kind of startled me when she leaned forward to whisper in my ear. With her hand resting gently on my back, she spoke ever so softly saying, "I didn't know you wrote poetry. Is that one about me?" When I turned to look, she gave me one of the most innocent smiles I've ever seen. It could have been a special moment had I not discovered what she'd done.

What she did was stick a note gently on my back. That note read, "Kick me!" Can you imagine that? It's funny when you think about it. At least I thought so. That's when I realized you really can't judge a book by its cover. She may have had an angelic smile, but she had the devil in her heart.

Over the years, that note has withered away to nothing more than what you see. The words are all long gone now, but that memory remains.

And this thing here is nothing more than a broken piece of glass. I found it on the sidewalk at the bus stop in front of Ski's ice cream parlor down on Ferry Street. I was on my way to Everett Station on a snowy winter's day. It caught my eye because of the way its deep cobalt blue color shimmered in the snow.

I remember the day I found it like it was only yesterday. It happened on a Saturday when I was in the sixth grade. I saved up just enough money from my paper route to buy my mother something extra special for Christmas.

She had one of the most elaborate collections of knick knacks you'd ever want to see. For a woman who never had very much, that collection held a very special place in her heart. When I spotted this one at a jeweler's in Boston, I knew it was meant for her. It was the replica of a watch maker sitting at his workbench, repairing a broken watch.

The intricate detail, and the elaborate workmanship, were all cut and shaped by hand. It was so typical of the elegant artistry that comes out of Germany. At first, the jeweler didn't really take me too seriously. You should have seen the look of surprise on his face when I forked over nine week's pay. My mom still displays that knick knack even to this day. It's my way of showing my heart felt appreciation for all she's done for me.

And look at this. This is the remnants of an autumn leaf. It came from a tree that once separated my back yard from my best friend Stanley's down there on Arlington Street. That tree got blown to smithereens during a violent thunderstorm on a wild summer night. And now this here little pile of crunched up dust is all that's left to that tree.

What's missing from this collection is something I held onto for many years. When my Dad bought himself a new wallet, he gave his old one to me. I cannot begin to express in words how much that old wallet meant to me. Even still, I gave it away to someone I thought would cherish it more than I.

My Dad was born and raised right here where I'm living now. I never got to see this place until years after he passed away. Down in the local cemetery here is where his mother sleeps. Under the base of her gravestone is where I placed that precious gift. It was my way of giving back to her the son who moved so far away.

Things like that always bring a tear to my eyes. They make me realize how as we travel along this path we call life, we pass by so many things that we lose track of far more than we'll ever remember. Even still, we never do forget the ones who touch our hearts with precious things.

Take a gander at this little cedar box for example. It comes from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It's got the picture of a moose standing proud up on a hill carved right into the lid. My big brother, Billy, bought this for me when he was vacationing with his family.

He got it for me because I could never find my wallet or my keys. "Put them in here when you get home at night so you'll always know where they are." That's exactly what he said when he handed it to me.

It almost breaks my heart every time I look at this thing. You may never realize the extent of how good he was to me. When he was young, he had a terrible problem with stuttering. I can't count how many times he beat me over the head with my pillow for making fun of him.

I'll never forget that day he came home from boot camp. He held his head up proud and spoke fluently without so much as a single stutter. "Now, how do you like them apples?" He laughed. They broke him of that stuttering in the Army. He was a new man now, and boy, did it ever show.

What box of treasures would be complete without a peculiar length of string? Take a closer look at this and you'll realize it's not really that at all. It is, instead, the old looped handle to a lollipop. This was given to me a by a clown I met up on Foster Street on the Fourth of July.

My big sister, Julie, was wheeling me in my stroller on our way up to Broadway to see the Fourth of July parade. I remember that clown bending down with a smile in his eyes. With a gentle scratchy voice he said, "Have I got a surprise for you."

It happened right outside a friend's house on the corner of Foster and High. They had one of those toy birds that bobbed up and down into a glass of water up in their kitchen window at the time.

That's all I remember about that day. It was a sunny and warm Fourth of July. I do remember that. And I do remember that Martha was with us, too. It's just another random memory, but it's one I can't let go.

And here's an old bottle cap from an old glass bottle of Coke. This was from back before screw off caps when the bigger kids popped them open with their teeth. They only did that to impress the girls as they walked by.

I got this one from Artie out on my front steps when I was just a little kid. He was showing me how to snap it with my fingers to shoot it across the street. They tell me Artie was killed in prison many years ago. I only knew him when we were kids, because he never lived long enough to grow old.

That reminds me of something that my Mom once said to me. She said, "Don't ever be afraid of growing old, because when you stop growing old, you're dead." And also something someone else once said, "Old age is a privilege that is denied to many."

Another thing that means a lot to me is this here broken guitar pick. One of my brother Billy's biker friends gave this one to me. Man, this dude could play guitar like no one else I've ever seen. He was the one who taught me how to bottle neck. That's how you get that sliding country and western twang so characteristic of that genre. He passed away when he was only twenty-three.

Oh yeah, and I've still got this cardboard stopper cap from the West Lynn Creamery. I got this off of a bottle of milk I had for lunch at the Horace Mann. I saved this one because of something funny that once happened to me. It's not something you usually brag about, but it still makes me laugh whenever it comes to mind.

This happened in the sixth grade back in 1963. I turned around in my seat to talk to Nicky about a girl in our class. Miss Blake shouted at the top of her lungs, "Paul Huffman! Turn around in your seat before you have an accident!" She startled me so much that I fumbled that bottle of milk and spilled it all over me. You should have seen that "I told you so" look that fell across her face.

The only thing that survived from that catastrophe is this here bottle cap. So, what the heck? I paid the price. It's now mine for all eternity.

And here's a dirty nickel I found on Broadway down in Everett Square. Someone hammered it so flat that it's as wide as an onion ring. It doesn't really mean anything. I just keep it because it's weird.

And this button came off the shirt of a bigger kid who once lived just up the street. This happened in my driveway when I was only six. I saw this kid kneeling on my brother, Carl's shoulders pounding away at his face. Yanking a loose picket off a nearby fence, I let him have it straight across his back. You should have seen the way he keeled over backwards in pain with tears streaming down his cheeks.

I didn't realize the amount of damage I'd done until the ambulance came. When the policeman started asking questions, everyone pointed back at me. My natural instincts took over and I ran upstairs to hide under my bed. Nothing ever did come of it and not much was ever said. One thing I can tell you for sure is that kid never bothered us ever again.

Oh, and look at this. I cannot believe that I still have this thing. It's a nail from the floorboards of our back porch down on Arlington Street. They tore those porches off that house several decades ago. The only thing left in existence to them now is this nail. And it belongs to me.

Further down inside this box is a small chip of cement. I knocked it off the second step of the old Horace Mann playground. That set of stairs used to lead out onto Foster Street. That's where we all gathered on summer mornings when we were little kids. And this here chip of old concrete is all that's left to them.

Not all the things in this box are really all that old. I got this postcard of the old Horace Mann school in the mail a few months ago. The person who sent it to me is one of my best friends in the whole wide world. We've been friends ever since the day I first set foot in kindergarten. He's the one who once had two guinea pigs named "Binky and Vareet."

Oh, and look at this. It's a strip of film from the original Park Theatre. This priceless gift was only recently given to me by Leo's grandson. Can you imagine that? It takes a very special person to give away a treasured memento such as that. What it tells me is that I've found a new friendship for life.

And of course, you know me, I always save the best for last. What you're looking at here is a lock of hair I stole from a very pretty Everett girl. We used to stop and gab sometimes in the halls of E.H.S. One of those times, as she walked away, I gently pulled this loose hair from her head.

We're talking about at a time when we both belonged to someone else. That adorable little overbite and those almond shaped iridescent eyes of hers plucked away at my heart strings every time she smiled. I suppose she finally found that out that night up in Rockport.

She grabbed a hold of my hand as we walked out upon those rocks that jutted out towards that small lighthouse. We sat and watched the waves roll by beneath a romantic moonlit sky. I held her pretty face ever so gently and pressed her lips up against mine. I never knew love like this before as I did on that special night.

That night alone inspired me to write many a love song. It's the memory I look back on most when I feel like everything's going wrong. It's memories like that - that can help a weak spirit grow stronger.

So there it is. Those are the clues I've gathered along the way. Whether or not they solve any riddles, I really couldn't say. These are the relics of precious memories I've experienced in my life. And I suppose they've taught me something in their own funny little way.

What it all adds up to is that there is an order, a uniformity, and a direction to life that simply cannot be denied. It also tells me that no inanimate object has any more value than what we place upon it ourselves. When you reach your final destination, you can't take any of it with you. That proves that our most valued possessions are the memories we share with each other.

We don't have anything at all if we don't have each other. We haven't lived at all if we don't share our lives. And we haven't learned a blessed thing if we don't love each other.

From the bottom of my heart do I thank you for sharing this time with me. I'm going to take this moment now and add it to all my other precious things. That's how much sharing a good time with valued friends means to me.

Say what you will, but there really is something extra special about all of us. We are the only people who are bold enough to stand together, throw back our shoulders, and proudly shout, "We're from Everett!"