We Are Still People

Here's a hypothetical situation for ya. Let's say it's one of those days when you just feel like spending a little time alone. Not that you're depressed, or deep in thought, or anything like that. You just get that urge to have a moment to yourself. You know what I mean - right?

Picture yourself sitting at a booth in Vargi's on a quiet afternoon with a fresh cup of coffee and a hot chocolate chip muffin. After cutting that muffin in half you get lost in a daydream watching that pat of butter melt right down into the core of that muffin. You can almost smell the steaming aroma of that coffee and muffin coming together into a delightful ecstasy. Can't you?

Gazing out the window through a gentle rain, you get that special feeling of somehow being apart from it all while watching the bumper to bumper traffic crawl along Broadway. In the background you can hear the relaxing sound of murmuring voices that seem to keep time with the mellow music playing ever so softly off in the distance. And in the back of your mind drifts a succession of fragmented images that have caught your fancy over time.

Perhaps you're seeing that precious smile that brightened your mother's face that day when you recited the entire alphabet for the very first time. And isn't it always times like these that you suddenly remember the time when your best friend sneezed so hard that she farted? This may be a good time to take another sip of coffee to keep from embarrassing yourself by laughing out loud.

All in all, you're at peace with yourself and the whole world around you. You're bound to experience minor interruptions. You've got to expect that. Sometimes these interruptions are so pleasant that they actually enhance the spirit of the moment. Like when somebody you really like and haven't seen in a very long time comes over to squeeze your hand with a smile and says, "It's really good to see you. How are you?" And you know they really mean it.

At other times, the interruption becomes somewhat of a hindrance. Like when that loud obnoxious person you so often try to avoid pops up out of nowhere to tell you the same dirty joke you've already heard at least a dozen times. It shatters that peaceful easy feeling you were so warmly wrapped up in. And the shame of it all is that even after they've gone, you've lost the serenity of the moment forever and can't get it back.

What's even worse is that your time has run out and it's either time to get back to work or time to go home so your quiet little escape from the maddening crowd must come to its end. So now it's time to snap out of it and get back to reality. Don't you hate that?

Okay, come back to the future for a minute.

Nobody seems to take the time anymore to stop and squeeze your hand with a smile to say, "It's really nice to see you." Oh, they could. They could easily email you a one-liner saying, "Hi, I was just thinking of you so I figured I'd drop you a line," but they don't. Instead, they send duplicates of forwarded links to streaming media, annoying chain letters, and attachments that require priority-viewing software that you don't have.

In a funny sort of way, sending you second-hand media pulled from the web is their way of sharing something with you. It has become the new way to reach out and touch someone. What diminishes the warmness of it is when you realize they've effortlessly sent the same sentiment off to a dozen other people with a simple point and click. It's not their fault. The fault lies within the way all this new technology has conditioned us.

Think back on all the changes you've lived through since the last time you rode the trolley down to Everett Square on a Saturday morning, or stopped in at Vargi's Diner for a cup of coffee. It will help you better understand why people feel more compelled to send you second-hand material pulled from the web in lieu of a heartwarming personal message.

Something was lost the moment my father no longer had to say, "Paul, get up and switch the channel." We no longer sat around the TV as a family to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom together. Instead, my father sat there clicking through the channels so fast that we were afraid that we'd miss something if we blinked. We had so many choices at the push of a button that broadcasters had less than ten seconds to capture our interest. And more often than not, they failed to achieve their objective.

We're living at such a hectic pace nower days that we sometimes have a problem with separating actual reality from virtual reality. People tend to forget that regardless of all this new fangled technology, we are still people. You don't have to put on a wild fanfare to reach out and touch someone. And because we are people, a heartwarming personal greeting still goes a long way.

In this high-speed digital age of information, ideas and breaking news stories circulate the planet in seconds. As soon as something big happens anywhere around the globe, we know about it. We no longer pass by our neighbors on the sidewalk and say, "Did you hear what happened?" Of course they've heard what happened. If they didn't hear it through one of the news blogs they subscribe to over their iPod then they probably heard it on one of those twenty-four hour cable news channels. The world has changed.

Forwarded emails and chain letters remind me of back in the days when we all worked the 9 to 5 shift fighting rush hour traffic every morning to get to work. I can remember sitting alone in my car stuck in traffic on the Mystic River Bridge laughing at a joke I heard on a morning radio talk show. Sometimes I'd look over at the driver in the other car beside me only to see him sitting there all by himself busting a gut over the very same thing.

Let's say they told a joke about a cat on a hot tin roof. Before I even got out of my car in the parking lot, one of my coworkers would say, "Hey, have you heard the one about the cat on the hot tin roof?" And then another coworker would tell me that same joke again while I was punching in at the time clock. Even when I stepped outside to the canteen truck at coffee break, the vendor would say, "Wait until you hear the one about the cat on the hot tin roof." By the time I got home at the end of the day I'd have heard that same joke at least a half a dozen times.

We're experiencing that same phenomenon today in the form of forwarded emails and chain letters. You'll sometimes get as many as a dozen links or download attachments to the very same content from twelve different people. And the funny thing about it is that everyone thinks they're sending you an original.

Why is that? And what on earth does all this have to do with growing up in Everett?

I'm glad you asked.

Somebody sent me a link to the "Everett Average Citizen Forum" because the "We're From Everett" blog was mentioned in one of its threads. Amongst the several comments I found there (and one was quite flattering I might add), somebody said, "This person is really living in the past." That made me laugh because, for the most part, I write about our childhood growing up in Everett. I don't know about you, but my childhood happened a very long time ago. It "is" in the past.

On the other hand, that comment got me thinking. Perhaps not everyone understands the many facets involved with this "We're From Everett" project. It's not all about the past. Much of it has to do with the present, and the future, as well.

To fully articulate my point, I'd like to take you for another spin on the Everett Time Machine. Let's start way back when I was a little kid down on Arlington Street. If memory serves me well, and it usually does, I'm gonna say this happened during the summer following my stint in the second grade. So, we're talking sometime around 1961.

If you've ever wondered why little boys sometimes do the crazy things that they do, give a listen to Chris Cagle's Country & Western hit called, "The Chicks Dig it." It's all about a father asking his little boy why he just did something outrageous. He chuckles to himself when his little boy looks back at him and says, "Because the chicks dig it." Now that's boyhood in a nutshell right there if I do say so myself.

On this one particular day, a few friends and I were playing stickball in my backyard. I do remember that both Frankie (Hilda's brother) and Stanley (Karen's brother) were there that day. All of a sudden, a bunch of the girls from up the street came running into my backyard frantically calling my name. They were excitedly shouting about something all at the same time and I couldn't make out what any one of them was saying. So, I finally had to say, "Okay, okay, one at a time. Now what's going on?"

As it turned out, some boy up the street had threatened to beat them all up. This kid didn't live on Arlington Street. He was a visiting another kid, named Johnny, who did. Johnny was a soft-spoken kid who never bothered anybody. His father owned a Barbershop. One of the ironic things about this story is that some twenty odd years later my sister bought Johnny's house. So this incident actually happened in the driveway of the house that my sister eventually bought.

After they told me that this kid threatened to beat them all up, I somewhat surprisingly asked, "This boy said that he was going to beat up a girl?"

"Yeah, do you believe that?" Patty said. "He said that he's moving into the neighborhood and he wants everybody to know that he's the toughest kid on the block. To prove it he's gonna beat up everyone on our street including all the girls. So we told him there's no way you're ever going to beat up Paul Huffman."

"So what did he say?"

"He said go get him. I'll start with him. So I told him this was going to be the sorriest day of his life. And then he said when I'm through beating him up I'm coming after you so that's why we came down to get you."

"Well let's just go see about that," I said.

They all triumphantly shouted "All right!" And the look on their faces is what really got to me. They came looking for help and they found it. You could tell they felt protected. There was no way on earth that I could let these girls down.

Now why in God's name they thought I was such a tough cookie is beyond me. Maybe I was the toughest 9-year-old boy on our street, but that was mainly because I was the only 9-year-old boy on the block. I did have a bit of a reputation as the result of two incidences involving my older brother, Carl. And it wasn't so much that I was all that tough as it was that I had a few screws loose upstairs.

Carl suffered with Grand Mal Epilepsy throughout his entire life. His disability caused him to live on a strict regiment of medication. Those medications rendered him somewhat incapable of taking care of himself. So there was somewhat of a reversal in traditional roles in my family. It was up to me to look out for my older brother.

Let's face it. Kids can be cruel sometimes. After several brain operations, Carl had many scars all over his head. Some kids teased him unmercifully by calling him "Scar Head." Having to step up to the plate to protect my older brother meant that I had to go up against kids who were at least two years older than me. I've certainly had my fair share of black eyes and fat lips as a result, let me tell ya.

There were those who took advantage of the situation. When somebody went looking for an easy mark to push around, Carl certainly fit the bill to a tee. He wasn't tough and his only backup was his little brother. What a joke - right? It was precisely that frame of reference that spawned the two incidences that earned me the reputation as having a few screws loose upstairs.

The first one happened when I was only in the first grade. I took off running into my driveway when I heard Carl screaming at the top of his lungs. A fifth grader from up the street was on top of Carl savagely punching him in the face. This was the very kid who Christine had mistakenly thought was guilty of blackening her eye with a snowball.

I was no match for this big kid. He didn't even flinch when I punched him in the back of the head. He did, however, roll off my brother when I came down across his back with a two-by-four with all of my might. I was so enraged over somebody beating the tar out of my disabled brother that had it not been for one of the bigger kids grabbing a hold of me, I might have never stopped pounding on that kid with that two-by-four.

That kid did not get up off the ground after I hit him. He didn't move until the ambulance came to take him away. When the police arrived at the scene and started asking questions, everyone pointed back at the angelic little first grader. Lucky for me, there were several eyewitnesses to what had actually transpired. That kid walked with somewhat of a noticeable limp for quite some time.

The second incident happened the following year during my winter in the second grade. A handful of the neighborhood kids came running up to me shouting, "Some big kid is beating the living daylights out of Carl up at the Horace Mann school ground." Needless to say, I took off running up the street.

Sure enough, I saw Carl lying on his back screaming for mercy while this big kid sat upon his chest punching away relentlessly at his face. Running across the school ground towards them, I saw a broken hockey stick standing straight up out of a crack in the tar. I grabbed a hold of it and brought it with me.

Wielding that hockey stick like a baseball bat, I shouted, "Get off of my brother." He took one look at me, laughed, and went right back to punching Carl's lights out. That is until that hockey stick landed with full force across the bridge of his nose. With tears in his eyes, blood streaming from his nose, and his fist cocked back to deliver yet another blow, he shouted, "Tell your brother to get away from me."

Carl didn't have time to respond. That hockey stick landed straight across that kid's lips only seconds later. Man, that kid's face was a mess and a half. He fell off of Carl and rolled over onto his back. That's when I let him have a third and final blow across the side of his face.

His friends were afraid to get within striking distance of me. Instead of trying to grab a hold of me, they pleaded for his mercy. "Don't hit him any more," they begged. "He's off your brother."

I'm nobody's fool. After all, I'm from Everett. Even after having achieved my objective, I did not let go of that stick. They gathered around their friend and helped him up. With their arms wrapped around him, they comforted him all the way home. He lived somewhere near the bottom of Lexington Street as I remember. I don't recall ever seeing that big bully in our neck of the woods again.

You know Everett. Stories like that circulate throughout the city like wildfire. Sometime later my oldest brother, Billy (who was about seven years older than me), was joking around with a friend of his in front of TeeGee's on Ferry Street. "Give me any back talk and I'll send my baby brother over there to straighten you out. And you know what a lunatic he is," he laughed.

Except for only one time when I was in the first grade, I never picked a fight with anyone. More often than not, they were the result of coming to my brother's defense. So now you know why those girls felt comfortable with coming down to get me when a bully from outside our neighborhood started to throw his weight around.

They gathered behind me as we marched up the street to confront this bully. What was going through the back of my mind all the way up the street was, "I just hope to God this kid isn't some kind of muscle head who's going to twist me up into a pretzel." It has happened.

As you would expect, any boy that would threaten a girl has no real backbone. When we showed up at the end of Johnny's driveway to confront that kid, his whole attitude changed. "I'm not looking for any trouble," he said. "I was only kidding around." He apologized for threatening the girls, and shook my hand to show no hard feelings.

That's the way it was on Arlington Street back then. We were a community. The Johnsons lived right across the street. Our families are very close. I cannot begin to count how many times Martha rolled up her sleeves to take on a bully or two. Believe me when I tell ya, if you went looking for a fight, you'd find your match down on Arlington Street.

And that's the way it was in every separate community all over the city of Everett. Anyone who dared to throw their weight around in any of Everett's neighborhoods was bound to meet their match. People knew each other back then. People talked to each other. And everyone looked out for one another.

There was far more to our community than just helping each other out in a scrap. I remember when neighbors didn't think twice about loaning their car to their next door neighbor so they could go get their groceries. And I can't count how many times Mrs. Forgione sent over a pot of raviolis because she knew we were a little short on hand. That's what Everett was all about back then. It was all about people helping people.

The nature of this new technology makes people feel cold and impersonal. It makes them think that all of the human qualities we once found in each other have completely gone out of our lives. That's why they feel the need to entertain you with point and click content they've pulled from the web. They've forgotten how to reach out and touch someone in a meaningful way.

It's the impersonal nature of this technology that sometimes makes people forget that underneath it all, we are still people. And nothing touches our hearts quite like a good old-fashioned smile that says, "I was just thinking about you."

Analyze those forwarded emails. Notice anything peculiar about them? Look at that "CC" section. What do you see? You see a long list of email addresses, don't you? Forwarded emails are the brainchild of unscrupulous advertisers who collect valid email addresses for spam lists. And they masquerade those attempts in the form of patriotic literature, religious inspiration, and just a good old-fashioned joke.

So how do they acquire that list? These forwarded emails and chain letters phone home. Think about that the next time you send off a chain letter, or a forwarded email, in lieu of a personal note. If you really want to reach out and touch someone in a meaningful way, say it, don't do it by adding someone you love to yet another spam list.

There's something about this new technology that may have eluded you. The opportunity exists to use this new technology to put that good old-fashioned warmth back into our lives. To get a good understanding of where we are, and where we're going, it helps to fully understand where we came from. Don't ever forget your roots. Why would you want to? You come from good stock. You come from Everett.

There's no question about it. We're reaching out to each other in monumental ways. Let me give you just a couple of examples of what I mean. Let me tell you about Gracie. She graduated from Everett High back in 1955. She's been with me now since this whole thing started.

After the Christmas holiday, I hadn't heard from her in quite some time. I'll be honest with ya. Carol and I got worried. I waited a few weeks because I didn't want to seem like a butinsky, but my concern got the best of me so I finally did email her. Our hearts danced with joy when our special friend from Nebraska emailed us back to let us know that she was all right.

You know what she did? On my birthday she sent me the cutest little "hippie" birthday card you'd ever want to see. How more thoughtful can you get? I keep it right here on my computer desk as a reminder of how special the people from Everett truly are.

And you talk about a small world? Remember my 1964 Everett Easter story that happened at the First Methodist Church on Norwood Street? Well guess what? Gracie attended that very same church on that very same day. Is that incredible or what?

Then there's Peter. He graduated from Everett High with me back in 1971. Our paths had crossed several times over the years, but we were little more than passing acquaintances. A meaningful friendship has taken root between us since we've got back in touch with each other.

You should have heard the surprise in his voice when he answered the telephone. He sent me an email asking me to call him. I guess he didn't think I actually would. Amongst so many other things, we talked about how disappointed he was when somebody he thought was a friend kind of waived him off at the recent class reunion.

It's not that the person was rude or anything like that. It's just that some people don't feel comfortable with opening themselves up to getting that close. Some people are far more introverted than others, and some people feel as though if they let down their guard it makes them vulnerable. So they spend their lives in an isolated state of mind. You really can't blame them sometimes -- now can you?

"What I was hoping for is a new warmness between all of us," Peter said. "After the way you have opened the lines of communication between all of us, I had hoped that spirit would carry on into our personal lives," he explained.

"Oh but it will Peter, trust me. Just give it time."

Once everyone realizes that we're not living in the past, but remembering the past to rekindle that childlike friendship we grew up with, they will open their hearts. They will lower their defenses. They'll come to realize that their not opening themselves up as easy targets, but instead, are coming back together again with all those kids they played "Hide-N-Seek" with in the middle of the streets of Everett.

Most importantly, they will realize that they are not alone. They've got more friends than they ever suspected. I'm not talking about passing acquaintances. I'm talking about people who genuinely know them and care about them. Let's face it. If you grew up in Everett, if you don't know who I am, chances are, you know somebody who does.

And another thing I'd like to mention is that not everybody who comes here is from Everett. I've heard from people who grew up in neighboring cities, and others who grew up on the other side of the country. They come because they enjoy the nostalgia. It reminds them of their neighborhood and of their childhood days as well. So believe it or not, we really are putting Everett on the map.

Many times I have said that I'm reaching out to every generation, from every neighborhood, who grew up in Everett. But there really is far more to it than that. Everyone, from every generation, from every city, from all over the world, is openly welcomed here. This really is about opening our hearts to one another, making new friends, rekindling old friendships, and genuinely caring about each other. It's about people, it's about living, and it's about life.

We're not living in the past. We're living in the present. We remember the past because it reminds us of the many heart warming ways we used to reach out to touch each other's lives. With that knowledge, we look towards the future to build a better world for our children's children by showing them how important it is to be good to each other.

You say you're not from Everett? Then grab a chair and sit down. Let me introduce you to the people I grew up with. They'll make you feel so at home you won't even realize that you've kicked your shoes off. They'll make you laugh so hard that you'll cry sometimes. And they'll show you a friendship so warm and true that it will bring heartfelt tears to your eyes. These are the kinds of people that make life worth living.

The message underneath it all is that you are not alone. Somebody cares. More importantly, somebody really does love you. There are thousands of us. Go ahead, reach out to us. You'll see. You ought to know us by now. "We're from Everett!"

Cast The First Stone

Deep in your heart of hearts, you do know wrong from right. If we spent as much time listening to our heart as we do trying to read between the lines we could remove almost all of the doubt and confusion from our lives. But we don't do that. Do we? No, of course not, that would be too easy.

We're so full of self-doubt that we've gotta find out what everyone else thinks before we make up our minds. When you really come down to it, most things are pure and simple and need no interpretation. Think about it.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Hopefully, we all know the Ten Commandments. For those of you who don't, there's a book at the library that spells them all out for you. It may be a good idea to go down to your local bookstore and grab a copy to keep on hand. If you're a little short on cash there are more than a hundred and one nonprofit organizations out there that will gladly give you one for free.

Aside from those Ten Commandments, you'll find a list of simple concepts to help guide you along this maze we call life. These theories are pure and simple. They need no interpretation. There are no gray areas. Trust me, you won't need any blockhead with a bad hairdo on late night TV to interpret them for you.

They go something like this.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And most importantly, love one another."

That is the message. Simple enough, is it not?

Okay, so what has all that got to do with growing up in Everett? Well, the truth be told, even when we were little kids we knew right from wrong. The moment we did something wrong we knew it was wrong all along, but we did it anyway. Why? Because it was fun - pure and simple.

Let me take you back to Everett during the summer of 1961 when I was only 9 years old. There was a big white house on the corner of Auburn and Ferry that nobody lived in for about a year. After a while, it began to look a bit rundown. The paint began to peel and the screen was hanging off the front door. To add insult to injury, there was one broken window with a scrap of cardboard taped over it. The place had become a real eye sore.

Three of us kids from Arlington Street had just come out of Vinnie's Variety on the corner of High and Ferry. We were sitting along the curbstone biting into our "Bit O' Honeys" when Joey suggested we take a stroll down to Sam's Spa to thumb through the funny books. Back then, Sam used to tear the covers off of the old funny books and sell them 3 for a nickel.

Just as we were walking past that abandoned house on the corner of Auburn and Ferry, a huge flying grasshopper landed right on the front of Jacky's shirt. Seizing the opportunity, I reached out and grabbed a hold of that thing and cupped it gingerly so not to squash it. It was the biggest flying grasshopper I ever caught.

Jacky tried to lay claim to it because, after all, it had landed on his shirt. But you know what they say, "Possession is nine tenths of the law." There's no way I was going to relinquish such a prize catch. A flying grasshopper of this magnitude comes with bragging rights amongst nine-year-old boys. Trust me on that one.

It was then that we noticed how the backyard to that abandoned house had overgrown with weeds. You could virtually disappear in the middle of it. We also noticed how the flying grasshoppers were skipping along the tops of those weeds in droves. The place was a virtual gold mine.

We forgot all about Sam's Spa. What we did was high tail it back to my house. My father had a huge collection of empty jars down in the cellar. He used them for storing nuts and bolts and screws and things like that. After punching a few holes in the lids of three of the biggest jars we could find, we booked it back down to that abandoned house.

Within minutes our jars were filled to capacity. The only other thing that could really transform this moment into total ecstasy was if you were lucky enough to find a preying mantis to throw into your jar with those flying grasshoppers. Have you ever done that? Man, you should see the pandemonium that explodes inside one little jar once you do that.

So there we stood admiring our jars full of flying grasshoppers when suddenly, a series of distinct observations had occurred to me simultaneously. First, as we stood amongst those tall weeds, we were invisible to the outside world. Second, there were rocks about the size of pimple balls all over the ground. And finally, within a stone's throw distance from where we stood was an abandoned house full of windows.

I may not be the greatest mathematician to grace the sidewalks of Everett, but I do know this. Having such variables in the known equation can only lead up to but one conclusion in the mind of a 9 year-old boy. Once I relayed these known variables to my cohorts it did not become a question as to whether or not it was the right thing to do. It became a question as to who should cast the first stone.

Nobody needed to tell me whether or not I was a sinner. I knew I had sinned. After all, I had stolen more funny books from Manny's Variety than you could shake a stick at when I was only in kindergarten. If there was ever a sinner, I was that. That still didn't discourage me from casting that first stone.

The way I saw it is that if my name is already on the list anyway, I may as well keep racking up the check marks. By my calculations, Judgement Day is still a long way off. According to my minister, we all get a second chance to repent. That being the case, I figured I'd take this golden opportunity to lump everything all together so I could pay for my sins in one lump sum.

Father Guido Sarducci has a very interesting theory on the concept of how we actually pay for our sins. I may be wrong, but most of the things I've heard him say make just as much sense as anything I've heard from those self-appointed disciples on late night TV.

The way he explains it is that during our lifetime on earth, we all earn about fourteen dollars per day. We also get compensated with additional cash incentives whenever we commit random acts of kindness.

When we finally arrive at the pearly gates, Saint Peter tallies up how much we've earned according to our time spent on Earth, plus the bonuses we've earned for our extracurricular good deeds. After we get paid, Saint Peter then presents us with an invoice for all the sins we've committed. So before we can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to pay for our sins.

Telling a small lie may only cost you a couple bucks, but they can add up to quite a bit of money over the years. Your average politician could wind up owing a hundred thousand dollars.

Every time you steal something it costs you a hundred bucks. That includes all those pens you knowingly take from the bank, that stapler you stole from the office, and all those times they gave you back too much change at the Stop & Shop so you deliberately pocketed the difference thinking you were getting way ahead of the game.

Something so serious as battery, extortion, or kidnapping will run you into the million dollar range. And committing murder will cost you somewhere in the vicinity of about one billion dollars.

If you don't have enough money to pay for all of your sins, they send you back. Many of the people who dedicate their entire lives to charity work may have been former Mafioso in a past life. They've come back to work off a real high tab. That all makes sense to me.

So before I go off on a tangent, let's get back to that moment in the back yard of that abandoned house at the corner of Auburn and Ferry. I have no idea if it's the same for girls as it is boys, but have you ever noticed how good a smooth round rock feels in the palm of your hand? Rocks like that beg to be thrown through a window.

You talk about poetry in motion? From the pivot point in the shoulder, right down to your fingertips, you can feel the spiritual connection between your inner consciousness and the way that rock sails through the open air. It even goes right where you tell it to with your mind. That's how I know that there really is far more below the surface to this dimension than our limited imaginations could ever perceive.

There is also an exhilarated thrill associated with watching that rock pass through that translucent plane. As soon as it does, it sends a shower of glass splinters into a kaleidoscopic array of wonder. And did I fail to mention that twinkling melody that only breaking glass can compose? It plays ever so softly for but a fraction of second. It sounds as sweet as a Beethoven minuet to a nine-year-old boy.

That's what really inspires me to do that. Aren't the wonders of the mechanical universe fascinating? It makes no wonder so many people grow up to study physics.

After breaking that very first window, we stood very still for about three minutes. We didn't dare move a muscle or make a sound. Once we realized that no one in the surrounding area realized what had just transpired, all hell broke loose.

It literally rained rocks at that house. One by one, every pane of glass, in every window, disintegrated into a cloud of shimmering dust. To a fly on the wall in that house it must have felt like Armageddon itself had unleashed its wrath upon this forsaken place. We threw so many rocks and broke so many windows that we wore ourselves out. Not a single square inch of glass in that abandoned house had survived.

Now that was a summer day to remember. Ah, but the story doesn't end there. For not more than a week or two later, we surprisingly discovered that every pane of glass, in every window, had somehow magically been restored. God only knows what happened, but even the screen on the front door had been repaired. Not only that, but there were ladders leaning up against that old house and it looked as though someone had begun to scrape away at the old paint.

The other thing that really took us by surprise is that someone had mowed the lawn. You couldn't hide in amongst the tall weeds to cast your stones any more. It was an insignificant set back at most. Not having to report home on summer nights until after the streetlights came on offered us an ample cover of darkness to unleash our wrath upon this forsaken old house once again.

Under the dark of night, we trod across that battlefield armed to the teeth with smooth round stones one more time. We stood there like fearless warriors awaiting the right moment to launch our new offensive. Then somebody yelled, "Fire!"

Just as Jacky cocked back his arm, I saw something move just inside the window of the back door. At the very instant he released his grip, that form took shape. Joey and I took one look at each other and with every once of instinct that traveled throughout our nervous systems, our minds cried out, "Run!" We ran.

By the time Jacky's rock had penetrated its intended target, he was in the grasp of the guy who came running out through that back door. Neither Joey, nor I, would have ever returned to the scene of the crime had it not been for hearing that guy yell out, "If your friends come back I won't call the cops."

There it is again, another perfect example of the obvious needing no interpretation. The message was loud and clear. If we gave ourselves up now we knew we'd have to sit through a lecture, but our parents would never find out about it. So naturally, we turned ourselves in.

This proved to be one of those times when doing the right thing paid off. Lucky for us, this guy turned out to be one if the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. This is what he said.

"Look guys, believe me, I understand where you're coming from. I was a little kid myself once. I know when you originally broke all these windows the place was abandoned for quite some time. I just want you to know that somebody lives here now. I'm your new neighbor."

"I won't call the cops. I'm gonna let you off the hook. But I want you to do me a favor in return. I want you to tell all of your friends that somebody lives here now so they won't keep breaking my windows. Give me a week or two and I'm gonna turn this place into a nice looking house again. Do we a have a deal?"

We all shook hands.

The truth is, we were the only ones who were breaking all those windows. He didn't know that. We figured that as long as we didn't break any more windows he'd think we spread the word throughout the whole neighborhood. We could easily uphold our end of the bargain.

Throwing things is a curse closely associated with boyhood. So much so that some of us grow up to make a lot of money at it. The city of Everett has a notable history for producing people who grow up to throw footballs and baseballs on a professional level. But they had to start somewhere. And for the most part, they started with rocks and snowballs.

Which reminds me, have I got a snowball story for you. This is an interesting story because not too long ago I got an email from a girl, named Christine, who grew up on Arlington Street just a few doors up from me. Christine is a few years older than I am.

She remembered my sister and brother, but she didn't really remember me at first. That makes sense because she's closer to their age than she is mine. The other interesting thing about it is that I really didn't remember her until I found out that she was Angie's younger sister.

Even though Angie is about five years older than I am, I remember every little detail imaginable about her. Don't ask me why. But now that I think about it, it may be because Angie used to always say "hi" to me every time she passed by. Another reason may be because of how all of the bigger kids on the block made such a big fuss over Angie being such a knock out.

So anyway, Christine and I began to reminisce about who we remembered from the old neighborhood. When I mentioned this kid, named Billy, who lived up the street, it triggered an unpleasant memory for her. It reminded her of the time when this kid threw a snowball at her that blackened her eye.

The funny thing is, there is one minor detail about that memory that she's got all wrong. That's what happens over time. People sometimes think they remember something exactly as it happened only to surprisingly discover they've mistakenly altered a minor detail. When I tell you what really happened on that fateful day, it's all going to come vividly back to her. And even though it happened to her, there is a very good reason why I remember the incident better than she does.

Here's what really happened.

Since we're already here in the summer 1961, we'll flip back a few pages to a late afternoon in the dead of winter about a week or so after my ninth birthday in February. You'll find me crouching down behind a big mound of snow in front of that Storm Shield building across the street from my house. I was working diligently, all by myself, stockpiling snowballs to throw at any random target that might cross my path.

Coming from Everett, you know what the snow is like at that time of year. It's not soft and fluffy like it is around Christmas time. It's that heavy wet slush that makes perfectly smooth snowballs that are as hard as a rock.

In the freezing cold, I sat in ambush waiting and watching for something upon which to unleash my wrath. That's when I spotted Christine wearing a stylish hooded girl's overcoat. She was walking along the opposite sidewalk towards Ferry Street. Because she hadn't reached the front of my house yet, she was way out of my range.

Just as she crossed in front of Mister Bowser's driveway, I fired one at her. Because she was so far away, I didn't even take aim. In all sincerity, I expected that snowball to fall at least five yards short of my intended target. It didn't.

Believe me when I tell ya, if that had been a football, and this had been the Super Bowl, I'd be wearing that Vince Lombardi ring right now. I never threw anything so perfectly accurate with such breakneck velocity before in all my life.

I remember that moment so vividly you'd swear it only happened yesterday. Right now, in my mind's eye, I'm watching that snowball arch flawlessly through the telephone wires towards its intended target. And I do remember thinking, "Oh shhhh" the instant I realized that I had just set into motion an inescapable series of grievous events that were about to achieve a catastrophic result.

That hard as a rock snowball struck Christine in the eye with excessive force. She immediately spun around, doubled over, and cupped her hands over her face. Seconds later, she took off running back up the street towards her house.

Before that happened, I had envisioned her looking back at me and smiling when that snowball fell short of its goal somewhere near her feet. I never once thought that it could possibly reach its intended target with such uncanny accuracy. And I never felt so sorry for having done something so wrong before in all my life.

About a half an hour later, I was sitting up in my living room watching TV with my big sister when a loud knock fell upon our front door. "I wonder who that is at this hour," I remember my mother saying as she opened the door.

The next voice I heard was my mother's saying, "Paul, front and center, now!" Whenever my mother said that, the strap was sure to follow.

Standing at the threshold was Christine with her mother. You should have seen that poor girl's eye. It was swollen and blackened to epic proportions. My mother looked at me with fire in her eyes. "Look what you have done to that pretty girl's face," she shouted.

Christine's mother was so nice about the whole thing that it made me feel even more ashamed of myself. "I didn't realize he was such a little boy," she said. "Don't be too hard on him. I'm sure he didn't fully realize what he was doing. He seems like such a nice boy."

Christine's mother had to be one very special person to even remotely show any sympathy towards me after what I had done to her daughter. I wouldn't have blamed her one bit if she had told my mother to tan my hide but good. I'll be honest with ya. If ever in my life I deserved a good strapping, this was the time.

As it turned out, my mother was so distraught over what I had done that she forgot to beat me unmercifully with that strap. In a peculiar sort of way, I almost wish that she had. At least then I would have felt as though I had paid my debt for that crime.

Not receiving a harsh punishment for such a dastardly deed has burdened me with a lifelong sense of unpaid debt. And because of that, there is no way on earth that I could allow that innocent girl to wrongfully blame someone else for the guilt that I so rightfully deserve.

So now, 45 years after the fact, I shall own up to my responsibility and get down on bended knee to humbly beg Christine's forgiveness. Even though I was just a little kid at the time, I knew it was the wrong thing to do. And I am truly sorry for having been so carelessly stupid.

When my time comes to pay for my sins, I'm expecting quite a hefty bill of lading as it is. The last thing I need is to keep heaping more charges onto the debit column. At the rate I'm going, they're gonna make me come back as a monk at least three more times to pay off that debt.

I'll tell you one thing. I won't be the only one standing in line at the gate for departures. That's going to be one long line let me tell ya. After all, there's a lot of us with unpaid debts to face up to. And I know I'll feel right at home standing in that line because many of those people will be friends of mine from Everett.

Treasured Memories

Come set a spell. I'll put the kettle on. We'll talk about the days gone by and wonder about where we went wrong. Or did we? Maybe it wasn't all our fault after all. We are only pawns in this game. Seldom do "we" ever get to call the shots.

When you stop to think about your troubles, you've got to ask yourself sometimes, "How many of them are actually all my fault?" Even when you're just sitting on the sidelines minding your own business, trouble seems to have a way of sorting you out from the maddening crowd. It loves innocent victims. That's for sure.

It's funny when I think about it now, but I can picture my Dad sitting at the kitchen table on any given Sunday morning. He'd sit there sipping on his hot cup of coffee while thumbing through the Boston Globe until the phone rang. That dag blasted telephone never ceased to ruin the peaceful Sunday morning serenity he had looked so forward to all week long. Instead of saying, "I wonder who that is?" He'd say, "Now what?" There is also a gravestone down at the Woodlawn Cemetery bearing the exact same epitaph. That's all it says.

It is a rare gift to be able to laugh about your troubles. Sometimes your troubles are nothing more than the trade off for your blessings. I've always liked that sign that reads, "This home is protected by extreme poverty." Which reminds me. Today is tax day. This is the day when the rich worry and the poor laugh.

Back in my teenage years when I worked a summer job cutting grass at the Woodlawn Cemetery, there was a kid from Malden who worked along side of me. We were having a laugh at his expense one day so he turned to me and said, "My mother works for the IRS. I'll have her flag your return for an audit."

To which I laughed and replied, "Dude, That isn't a threat. It's a joke. You can only threaten somebody who's got money with that one."

"Oh yeah? You could owe thousands to the IRS and not know it."

"Dude, I haven't even earned thousands. Besides, I'm a full-time high school student. I don't owe any taxes."

"Your father might."

"I rather doubt that. He's got less money than I do."

That's a perfect example of what I mean about your problems being a trade off for your blessings. Not being blessed with money, I didn't have anything to worry about when it came to dealing with the IRS. On the other hand, there were times when I sure wished I had such problems.

It's all a matter of how you look at things, I suppose. Looking at things from different perspectives is precisely what every creative artist must do. We pass no judgements. Our only desire is to capture the visual moment in our mind's eye.

Walking along the sidewalks of Everett was much like thumbing through an opened book. It was for me anyway. My big brother used to shake his head in disbelief whenever I'd head out on a Sunday morning to go for a walk around town.

"Where you going?" He'd ask.

"I'm just gonna take a stroll along the sidewalks."

"For what?"

"To look at the people. Hear what they have to say. See what's going on in the world outside. Things like that."

"I'm really worried about you," he'd laugh.

Maybe it does sound a little strange for a kid to go wandering about the sidewalks of Everett for no other purpose than to take in the sights and sounds of the city. But those are the things that inspired me to draw, and write, and compose. Those were my inspirations. Those were the variables to my overall equation.

Deeply imbedded in my memory banks are literally thousands of random snapshots. I revert back to them whenever I illustrate, or write, or compose a piece of music about a person, a place, or a thing. It has become an invaluable source of reference.

Be honest with me. Who amongst you does not enjoy taking the time out from your hectic schedule every now and then to reminisce about the good old days while thumbing through a box of old photographs?

Tell you what. Let's grab a cup of coffee and gather round the kitchen table. I'll blow the dust off of the top of one of those boxes full photographs in the back of my mind. I'll show you some pictures of the city of Everett you haven't seen in quite some time.

We'll pass them along from my memory to yours. I'll not only tell you a few things that happened in my lifetime associated with these images, but also share with you some of the memories that others have shared with me along the way. So, what do you say? Are you up to this or what? Okay then, let's get a move on.

Picture this. We're walking north on Chelsea Street towards Everett Square on the Park Theatre side of the street. Just after passing by the Parish Hall, we see two elderly gentlemen conversing out on the sidewalk right in front of one of those quaint little shops that seems to change hands every year or so.

Those stores changed hands so often that it's hard to remember what any one of them was at any given time. Even still, you can picture that row of shops I'm talking about. Can't you? Just in case, let me refresh your memory.

The building I'm referring to is the one that's attached to Square Drugs. It houses four separate shops. Because I'm picturing a warm sunny day, one of the middle shops has its awning stretched out to shade the sidewalk.

To help complete the setting, let's say we're talking the summer of 1963. I say that because I've got this notion stuck in my craw that anything before November of 1963 falls within an era I so commonly refer to as, "The age of Innocence." To go any deeper than that would get me all hot and bothered and I'd go off onto a tangent so we won't even go there right now. Okay?

Look at these two elderly gentlemen. One of them is a jolly round fellow wearing suspenders over a tee shirt. As he stands there conversing with his friend, he hooks his thumbs under his suspenders and grabs onto those straps as if they're what's holding him up. He's bald and seems to chuckle a little courtesy laugh after completing each one of his sentences.

The other one looks as though he's probably labored hard all his life. He's a bit more trim than his buddy and he's wearing a Stetson to shade his eyes from the sun. The sleeves to his long sleeve shirt are rolled up past his elbows. And he's wearing a pair of those white summer shoes with all those little perforated holes along the top of the toe of the shoe. You know the kind of shoes I'm talking about. I'm sure.

Listen to these two guys as we walk by. You'll hear them saying things that just about every generation of old timers seem to say. Their conversation goes something like this.

"I can't believe that gawd awful racket these kids call music nower days," says the first.

"Ah, you'll never hear anything as good as what we grew up with. Now that was music," says the second.

"And the way they comb their hair. That's what gets me."

"Not only that, but the way they race up and down the streets with their hot rods you'd think they were going to fire. They'll all be dead before they're old enough to learn what life's really all about anyway."

"Yes, and if that don't beat all, now the girls are calling the boys up on the telephone. Do you believe that? They've got no morals. Society's in decay. We wouldn't even think of dating a girl who acted like that back in our day."

"No, and that's for sure."

Six years from now the boys will have longer hair than the girls. These kids will rarely date the same person twice and look upon the word "commitment" as if it were a four letter word. And to add insult to injury, this generation will prefer to listen to the National Anthem as played by someone's teeth on a Fender electric.

These kids will raise their collective fist and shout "Down with the establishment!" They won't trust anyone over thirty. And hundreds of them will gather up in the back hills of Glendale Park to party all through the night. Just wait until these old timers get a load of that crowd.

A little further on, we'll stand at the busy intersection of Broadway and Chelsea Street, right here in front of Square Drugs. So much life has passed through this spot over the years that it staggers the imagination. Let me show you just a few of the images imbedded in my mind's eye from this spot alone. Some of these images are mine, and others were put there from people I've met along the way.

My upstairs neighbor, Mr. Mcglaughlin, has told me so many stories about Everett over the years that I feel like I've lived more than one lifetime in this city alone. He was hawking newspapers right here in the middle of the street back in 1901 when somebody shot President Mckinley. The images he's shown me over the years are fascinating.

He told me about the horse drawn wagon that dropped the newspaper bundles off to the paper boys at different locations throughout the city. He told me about the fistfights that sometimes broke out amongst the paper boys trying to get their fair share of newspapers to hawk. And I'll never forget the way he described the sights and sounds of those horse drawn trolleys that trotted along the cobble stones of Broadway in the pouring rain to shuffle its passengers hither and yon.

The gentlemen sported derbies and handlebar moustaches. The ladies wore veiled hats with protruding bustles on their dresses. It was somewhat of a thrill to watch the ladies out of the corner of your eye as they lifted their skirts up to just below the knee to step up onto the trolley. You'd go into a state of frenzied ecstasy should the lady bare her knee altogether. Can you imagine?

Here we are sixty years later (some forty odd years ago), and I'm looking across Chelsea Street at two young ladies sharing a laugh over a cup of coffee through those big plate glass windows at the Waldorf. At the opposite corner of Norwood and Broadway, I can see a young couple holding hands while gazing at the engagement rings through Jeffrey Jeweler's window. Directly across the street and just behind that policeman's outpost, is Kresge's.

Every time I look at that corner I think about the time I was walking my girlfriend home in the tenth grade. At the very instant we were about to kiss for the very first time, a pigeon dropped an ungawdly mess upon my head that ran down along the side of my face. Needless to say, what should have been a beautiful moment completely fell apart. Damn those pigeons.

To the right of Kresge's is that little restaurant we all knew and loved simply as "The Doughnut Shop." I have no idea how long that place has been there, but I can tell you this. It was there in 1940. How do I know that? Well, here's an interesting story.

Down on the corner of Marlboro and Revere Street Lived Catherine Taylor with her four daughters. Their names were Catherine (whose nickname was Bubs), Margerette (whose nickname was Squidge), Lavenia (whose nickname was Sis), and the youngest of the four was Patricia. They called her "Patsy."

In 1939, Sis gave birth to a darling daughter she named Lavenia, after herself. They affectionately nick named that baby, Venie. The story I'm about to tell you took place the following year when Catherine's youngest daughter, Patsy, was only thirteen years old.

Apparently, Patsy was on her way out the door on a warm summer's day to join her girlfriends for a friendly chat up at the doughnut shop. Her mother said, "Why don't you take the baby along in her carriage so she can get some fresh air?" So that's what she did.

Times being what they were, Patsy left Venie in her carriage out on the sidewalk in front of the doughnut shop while she and her girlfriends chatted for an hour or so inside. No need to worry. No one would dare harm a little child in Everett back in those days.

After enjoying a pleasant afternoon with her friends, Patsy had all sorts of pleasant thoughts going through her mind as she walked along the sidewalks of Everett exchanging pleasantries with acquaintances she met on her way home. When she stepped into her front door, her mother asked, "Where's Venie?"

"Oh my gawd," she exclaimed. "I left her up in front of the doughnut shop!" Patsy then ran all the way back up to Everett Square to get Venie. Lucky for her, Venie was still right there where she left her.

Catherine Taylor, and all four of her daughters, have since passed away. I had the pleasure of knowing Catherine. By the time I met her, she was in her nineties. She paid me a flattering compliment the very first time I met her.

This strong willed individual faced countless adversities in her lifetime. If you only knew some of the difficulties she faced over the years you'd wonder how she ever made it into her nineties. And she survived through all those hardships without ever losing her sense of pride or her dedicated commitment to her family.

Keep in mind that the incident up in front of the doughnut shop happened twelve years before I was born. So, how do I know about it? Because Venie told it to me just last week. No, she didn't tell it to me in an email. She was sitting right here in my living room when she told it to me.

It just so happens that I am married to one of Patsy's daughters. That makes Venie her cousin. Venie was born in the West End of Boston, but did much of her growing up right here in Everett. She has just as many fond memories of Everett as I do. So as far as I'm concerned, she's from Everett.

Believe me when I tell ya, Venie has all the good qualities you would find in someone from Everett, and absolutely none of the bad. She really is one of those "one in a million" types of special people. To know her is to love her. And this is how that photograph above fits into the overall theme of this post. That's a picture of Venie when she was just a little girl.

Now that we're here, I have a story to tell you that happens to be one of my own. Within this story is a tale of friendship that will always remain dear to my heart. From where we're standing, if you look down Chelsea Street, you can see the front of the Parish Hall right next door to the Park Theatre. We used to go to the dances there on Friday nights when we were teenagers. If you turn your head slightly to the left, you'll see the "Piece O Pizza" on the other side of "Square Drugs" on Broadway. Those two buildings play a special part in this story.

This story actually begins on the front steps of Everett high. We were all standing around having a gab amongst ourselves after school one day when this group of girls came out of the building. One of those girls was a tall kid with an adorable overbite. I've always had a weakness for girls with an overbite ever since the day I first laid eyes on Carol King. This girl looked right at me and smiled. "What a cute kid," I thought.

Being the conceited extrovert that I am, I said, "Hey, do I know you?"

"No," she smiled.

"You look like Bugs Bunny," I laughed. "Do you mind if I call you rabbit?"

"Yes, I do. Don't call me that. That's not my name."

Well, needless to say, every time our paths crossed I'd wave and yell out, "Hey Rabbit, how's it going?"

And she'd wave back, smile, and yell, "Don't call me that. That's not my name."

A few weeks later I got barred from the dances at the Parish Hall for fighting. The very next week, I tried every which way I could conjure up to get into that dance. That's when I discovered an opened back window that I could climb up into. And you know me, I was just that bold enough to do it too.

It just so happened that it was "Rabbit" who caught me trying to crawl in through that window.

"What on earth are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm sneaking in because I got barred from the dances."

"Well hurry up, I'll keep watch." She kept watch while I crawled in through the window. Nice kid, huh?

After the dance, a bunch of us stopped in at the Piece O Pizza. "Rabbit" waved me over to her table. She wanted to know how it was that I came to get barred from the dance. So I sat down to tell her the whole story.

She bought me a slice of pizza, but before she'd let me eat it she made me go wash my hands. They were dirty from crawling in through that window. What a funny kid. She was like a little mother figure in so many ways.

We sat and gabbed for the better part of an hour. She made me promise to never call her "Rabbit" any more. "I hate that," she explained. I did promise. And I kept my word.

We never really hung out together. We bumped into each other from time to time at parties and dances. I can't recall how many times we sat and had a good gab between us. There were many, I can tell you that.

There was never anything of a romance between us. We had become good friends. She turned out to be one of those people who seems to unexpectedly drift into your life and makes your world a better place to live in. Ask anyone who knew her. They'd say the exact same thing. Everybody liked her. Because I had graduated from Everett High the year before her, we lost touch with each other.

Ten years later, I was planting flowerbeds in one of the nicest sections of the cemetery when I came upon this large white gravestone. The family name on the stone sounded so familiar, but I just couldn't seem to place it. That's when I noticed the name of the one who was buried there. That name was, "Bernice." Judging by the date, if this was my friend, she didn't live very long after high school.

I turned to one of my coworkers who was also a lifelong resident from Everett and asked, "Hey Mikey, did you happen to know this kid?"

"Yeah, I knew her," he said.

Needless to say, this was indeed my good friend. My heart broke right then and there.

She was no more than a child when God called her home. In her short lifespan, she showered a lifetime of happiness upon anyone and everyone who crossed her path. Everyone who says they knew her also say they loved her. It comforts me sometimes to think that I once watered her flowers with my tears. My life would have felt so empty had she never been my friend.

The media boldly touts the accomplishments of the movers and shakers of every generation. They set them up on graven pedestals as if we'll blindly bow in awe before these shallow images that represent nothing more than meaningless marketing ploys. Cities rename schools after people of political influence. Wealthy people donate fortunes, supposedly out of charity, only to have edifices erected in their own name. They think it renders immortality unto them. How shallow and vain can you get?

Verily I say unto you, none of them equal so much as a ripple in the waters as compared to those common everyday people who touch our hearts on a personal level. They ask nothing for themselves and yet they leave behind a legacy of loving, and caring, and sharing. They are the true salt of the earth. They are the ones who matter most when you come right down to it.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. We conjured up the image of Everett Square in our mind's eye and barely scratched the surface of the countless stories that have passed through that one picture over the years. In the course of our lives, in this one little spot alone, we've lived, we've laughed, we've loved, and we've cried.

We are so lucky to have known such beautiful people in our lifetime. They rank at the very top of the many blessings we have known. And we have known many because - "We're From Everett!"

My Everett Easter Story

I suppose it's only natural that the passing of a religious holiday should prompt me into thinking about church. Looking back on my childhood days down there on Arlington Street, I can remember waking up around six o' clock on a Sunday morning to the sound of my big brother's clock radio bellowing out this really obnoxious church jingle. It went something like, "It's Sunday in Boston and it's time to go to church."

After that, they'd broadcast a Sunday morning sermon over the airwaves. My brother snored through the whole thing so I'd have to get up out of bed to shut it off. Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against religion. It's just that when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings through a tiny three-inch tweeter they sound more like a gang of drunken Willie Whistles than they do a church choir.

The only reason that used to tick me off is because I could have slept in another hour or so myself before my parents woke me up to get dressed for Sunday school. Most little kids couldn't care less about church except when they get into an argument with one of their friends over whose church is the best. They really don't understand the fundamental principles behind it all, but that never stopped them from stepping up to the plate to defend their church.

I'll never forget the time we were all hanging out together at the Horace Mann school ground when two of the kids got into an argument over who went to the best church. One kid said that his was best because they always served coffee and doughnuts downstairs in the lobby after Sunday services. And that's about as deep into the school of theological thought as a twelve year-old kid ever goes.

Diagonally across from the Everett Music Shop on Norwood Street stood the First Methodist Church. That was my family's house of worship many moons ago. That church was once filled to capacity on any given Sunday. There was so much going on at that church at one time that you needed a separate calendar just to keep up with it all.

Our churches are the source of many a funny episode in the ongoing chronicle of our childhood growing up in Everett. Let me demonstrate that by telling you about a very funny incident that happened to me at Sunday school down there on Norwood Street on Easter Sunday in 1964.

At my church, we attended Sunday school up until the sixth grade. After that, you graduated from Sunday school and became an adult in the eyes of the church. 1964 was the year I graduated from Sunday school. So at the age of twelve, I became an adult in the eyes of the church.

When I asked my father why it was so important that I become an adult at such a young age in the eyes of the church, he said, "Now you can put a dollar in the big plate upstairs every Sunday instead of just a dime in the envelope downstairs." The more I thought about it, the more I think he was closer to hitting the nail on the head than any other theory I've ever heard.

That Easter Sunday, the entire Sunday school had prepared a recital to put on for our parents upstairs in the big room. You know where I'm talking about - right? No matter what church you go to, you've got one of these.

This is the room with those giant stained glass windows that colorfully refracts the outdoor light like a kaleidoscope all over the room. If you stand in the middle of this room and holler it echoes back and forth like at the bottom of the Grande Canyon. They've got one of those gigantic pipe organs along the back wall that looks like a prop from an old Vincent Price movie. And that is always the room where when you step into the front door you wind up standing at the back of the church. That's the room I'm talking about.

Anyway, while the grownups gathered upstairs to go through all the routine rituals they do on Sunday morning, our Sunday school teachers marched us all into this hallway to wait for our cue to go up onto the stage. This hallway was little more than a large enclosed circular staircase.

Because they were so anxious to get this show on the road, they crowded us all into this hallway about twenty minutes or so before show time. Not only did we have to stand still all this time, but it was so hot in there that we all began sweating bullets. Thankfully, my friend, Joey, and I were at the end of the line.

Joey turned to me and said, "If I don't get some fresh air soon I'm gonna pass out."

"Let's go grab a breath of fresh air then," I told him.

As we turned around to walk away, the girl in front of us said, "The teacher told us not to go anywhere. I'm telling."

"Aw, blow it out your fanny," Joey waived her off. He actually used the more derogatory form of the word "fanny" which prompted her to threaten him with, "I'm telling the teacher you swore on Easter Sunday."

Seconds later, we stood in the middle of the empty function hall downstairs wondering what to do and where to go next. That's when I suggested that we get a drink of cold water in the kitchen.

Because everyone had gone upstairs to partake in the Easter ceremonies, all of the kitchen lights were turned off. The place was empty. What took us by surprise was all the goodies stockpiled in there for God only knows what.

They had bags of potato chips, pretzels, cheese curls, and cup cakes all neatly laid out on the table. In the fridge, we found three large home baked pies. One of them was a chocolate creme pie. And there were also at least two dozen ice-cold bottles of Coka Cola as well.

"Did you hear anything about a big feast after the Easter ceremony today?" Joey asked.

"No, did you?"

"Me neither. Don't you get the feeling like somebody's having a party and we ain't invited?"

"Sure looks that way."

"How much time do we have?" He asked.

Looking up at the clock, we estimated that we still had a good six or seven minutes before show time. Joey looked at me with the devil in his eyes and said, "What do ya say we steal a piece of that chocolate crème pie?"

"You're asking me to steal on Easter Sunday in church?"

"Yeah, do you want to or not?"

"Yeah, you grab some paper plates and I'll cut the pie."

"Never mind the plates," he said. "Let's just eat it out of the pan."

"We can't eat the whole thing. They'll kill us."

"What's the difference? Whether we take just one piece or eat the whole thing they're gonna throw a fit anyway. We may as well make it worth our while."

You know what? He's right.

After grabbing a couple of plastic forks, we planked that pie down onto the middle of the table, and began digging in at opposite ends of the pie. We couldn't gobble that thing down fast enough. Try as you may, you can't gobble down a whole chocolate crème pie without having something to wash it down with. So we found a church key and popped open a couple of cokes.

I had to laugh when I looked up and saw how the chocolate had smeared all over Joey's face. He burst out laughing because I had so much chocolate smeared all over me that I even had some on my left ear. That's how barbarously we attacked that pie. And that's precisely the moment we heard our Sunday school teacher walking towards the kitchen calling our names.

"Quick, hide the pie," Joey jumped out of his skin. The doorknob began to turn. Wiping my face clean with the sleeve of my sport coat, I quickly shoved the pie onto the floor under the table and flopped down onto my chair.

"What are you doing in here?" He asked.

"Joey was gonna pass out from the heat so we came downstairs to get a drink. I hope it's okay that we grabbed a couple of cokes," I said somewhat nervously.

"Yeah, that's okay," he said. "Just don't touch any of the food they've got prepared for the Demolay Easter dinner tonight. You better join the others now because they're going to call us upstairs in just a minute." We looked at each other and bit our lips so not to burst out laughing.

We followed him back to the rest of the kids. I was walking just a few steps behind my Sunday school teacher, and Joey was just a few steps behind me. When we joined the other kids, I turned around to Joey and asked, "What so funny?" He was laughing hysterically.

He pointed out into the corridor behind us. All across the floor were muddy footprints leading right up to us. It wasn't actually mud. It was chocolate crème pie. And it was all over my right shoe.

"You must have put your foot down on top of the pie," he laughed.

That's when I realized that I had forgotten to dispose of the evidence. On the floor beneath that table in the kitchen were the remnants of that chocolate crème pie, not to mention all the footprints leading right up to the bottom of my shoe.

"What am I gonna do?"

"Just scrape your shoe off onto the steps," Joey laughed. So that's what I did.

"Is everybody ready?" My Sunday schoolteacher asked.

And just as we all cried out, "Ready," I sneezed. It was one of those involuntary sneezes that unexpectedly comes over you and doesn't give you enough time to reach into your back pocket to grab your handkerchief. So I sneezed into the palm of my right hand.

We were now marching up the stairs to put on our show. The ghost of that chocolate crème pie wouldn't leave me alone. With every step I took I left behind a chocolate footprint. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, I now had a handful of goo that I couldn't get rid of because I didn't have a handkerchief after all.

A twelve year-old kid can come up with a solution for an unimaginable problem in the blink of an eye. What I did was lay my hand on the kid's shoulder in front of me, leaned forward, and asked, "Do you know what time it is?"

"I'm sorry," he answered. "I don't have a watch."

"Thanks anyway," I said patting him on the shoulder as if I was his best friend. Two seconds later we stepped in through the door to the applause of the whole congregation as the minister introduced us. We lined up along the front of the pulpit according to grade level with the little first graders down in front and the bigger sixth graders way in back.

Standing directly in front of us was that innocent victim with the great big snot smeared across the right shoulder of his brand new Easter sport coat. Joey took one look at me and we lost it altogether. We laughed so hard we couldn't function. Man, you should have seen the glare that our Sunday school teacher was giving us. If looks could kill, I'm telling ya right now, we'd both be dead on the spot.

As the minister stood there before us conducting our recital of the 23rd Psalm, I had to keep biting down onto my lip to keep from bursting out laughing. I couldn't even pretend to mouth the words and neither could Joey. There is just something mysterious about getting struck with a laughing fit in church. It's such a major no-no that it becomes that much harder to control.

After the recital, they marched us back down to our Sunday school classes through that very same corridor we came in through. That's when everybody noticed the footprints. Thinking quickly, I excused myself to the boy's room. Once I got in there, I cleaned off the bottom of my shoes with paper towels and hand soap.

When I stepped back into my Sunday school class my teacher said, "Paul, let me see the bottom of your shoe." So I confidently lifted my left foot to show him the bottom of my shoe.

"Now show me your other foot."

I lifted my right foot up into the air and asked, "What's going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," he said. "Apparently, somebody stamped on one of the pies in the kitchen. Did you do it?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Don't lie to me, Paul. Don't ever forget that you're in a house of worship and God sees everything that you do."

I quickly glanced over at Joey. He was still biting his lip so not to laugh. You couldn't get this kid to spill the beans no matter how hard you tortured him. Joey was a true-blue Everett kid. And you know those Everett kids. They're as hard as nails.

"So what would make you think that I did it?"

"I didn't say that you did," he said. "But you and Joey were the only ones I saw in the kitchen this morning. Those footprints start in the kitchen and lead all the way up to the back stairs. Who else besides us walked along that path this morning?"

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe who ever did that came along after we left? We didn't see any footprints until after the recital. That should tell you something." Hey, it was a shot in the dark, but I had to try to worm my way out of this one somehow.

"You're probably right," he said. "I never though about that. Come to think of it, I would have caught you in the act if you were the guilty party anyway. So I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable. At least I can confidently say that none of my students were involved in such a despicable act as that."

Joey and I casually glanced at each other with a look that had a "high five" written all over it.

After complimenting us on what a fine job we did in church that day, they gave us each a lilly to bring home to our mothers for Easter. We were standing out on the sidewalk laughing our fool heads off over all we had done in church today when my innocent victim passed by.

"Hey Tommy," Joey called out to him. "You've got a great big snot on your jacket."

"I do not."

"You do, too. It's right up on the back of your shoulder."

He reached across with his other hand and put it right down on top of it. It stuck like glue to his fingers. "Did you do that?" He shouted.

"How could I do that? I'm way over here. I just saw it. I only told ya about it because I'm your friend and I care about you," Joey told him.

"My mother's gonna kill me," he said. "She paid over fifty dollars for this jacket at Robert Halls."

"Too bad she didn't spend an extra buck to get you a handkerchief to go with it," we laughed.

There are two reasons why our Easter dinner sticks out in my mind that year. The first one is because Joey's family had Easter dinner with us that day. And the second one was the topic of conversation going on during our Easter dinner.

Joey's mother turned to my mother and asked, "Grace, did you hear what happened at church today?"

"No, what happened?"

"Somebody snuck down into the kitchen and stamped on one of the pies that someone baked for the DeMolay dinner."

"You're kidding me."

"Can you imagine that?"

"No, I can't. Why on earth would anybody do something so foolish as that?" My mother asked. "God only knows what this world's coming to. And on Easter Sunday of all days."

Joey piped up and asked, "Hey, you know what else happened?"

"What else happened?" His mother asked.

"Somebody blew a big snot all over Tommy's new sport coat," he said.

"Where did you hear that?"

"We saw it. Didn't we, Paul?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I laughed. "I never saw it."

"You did, too," he laughed. "You were the first person to see it."

"Well never mind about that right now. We're eating," his mother scolded.

I can see it now. My pal, Joey, and me are gonna march up to those pearly gates side by side some day. Saint Peter will look up from his ledger, adjust his glasses and say, "I don't believe it. Those two little rascals from the Norwood Street church have finally arrived. Now, can you two boys give me just one good reason as to why I should allow you to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven?"

"Yeah, we can think of one," we'll say.

"Well boys, what is it?"

"Because - We're from Everett!"

"What is a Leo?"

You talk about how time flies? It seems like only yesterday that we sat around on our living room floor at the bottom of Arlington Street in our stocking feet eating popcorn out of an old Stop & Shop bag. Grocery bags were thick, brown, paper bags back then. Remember those?

We didn't have a microwave. It wasn't invented yet. And we didn't have a popcorn popper either. They were invented, we just didn't have one. My Dad popped our popcorn on the kitchen stove in the same deep pot we used for cooking spaghetti.

He'd put his and my mother's share in a bag just for them. They'd sit together on the couch taking turns digging into the bag. Us kids circled around our bag on the living room floor banging foreheads and elbows fighting for our fair share of the booty.

We never watched TV when we ate popcorn. It's not that we couldn't. We just didn't. That's all. We talked instead.

So what did we talk about? Oh man, we talked about all kinds of stuff. The topics of conversation that I cherished the most are when my mother and father told us about the things they did when they were kids. Listening to them talk about their separate childhoods gave me the opportunity to really know them better.

As children, my mother and father lived totally different life styles from one another. My mother grew up in a Newfoundland mansion. My father grew up a barefoot, dirt-poor farm boy in southern Indiana. The contrast in the types of yarns they wove made for some seriously interesting listening.

My mother told stories about maidservants and extravagant house parties complete with a butler who announced each guest as they entered the foyer of their home. My father once told us about the time that he and his friend snuck down to the moon shiner's still behind the old barn in the middle of the night to swipe a few swigs out of the bootlegger's jug used to catch the overflow.

"We drank so much that night that we knew sure as hell that we'd get caught," he laughed. "So we came up with a foolproof plan to replace the whiskey we drank so he wouldn't know. We couldn't water it down because he'd know by the color. So we did the only logical thing we could do."

"What was that?" I couldn't wait to find out.

"We peed in his overflow jug." He laughed so hard when he told us that he had to stop a minute to catch his breath. And you know my mother. She got really mad at him for telling us that story. We bust a gut laughing the moment we heard that.

"Now that's a terrible thing to tell your children," she scolded.

"Did he ever find out what you did?" I couldn't wait to find that out either.

"He never said a word. I guess it didn't taste so bad after all," he laughed.

The bootlegger in question was my father's uncle. Supposedly, it was that little still behind the barn that really put the food on the table. They didn't make much from farming. There was far more money in corn whiskey than there was in corn, especially during the prohibition.

By the way, do you happen to know what one of Indiana's major exports happens to be? Yep, you guessed it. It's popcorn. And believe me when I tell ya. If you ever take a drive through Indiana you'll see why.

The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. Maybe that's why I'm sitting here some forty-five years later thinking about that story and all those good times we shared as a family down on Arlington Street like it was only yesterday. It kind of reminds me of how long ago that was and how not so long ago it seems.

It also reminds me of this one particular evening when I sat down on my living room floor in front of the TV with my ten-year old son for a game of Space Invaders. Come to think of it, even that was twenty years ago now.

So anyway, there we sat having the time of our lives trying to run the score up so high that it would reset to all zeroes when my son turned to me and asked, "What did you guys do for fun before Atari?"

So I said, "We popped popcorn and sat around on the living room floor and laughed."

"Is that all you did?" He wasn't impressed. I did try to elaborate, but he really wasn't interested.

So then I said, "We used to tear popcorn boxes into goggles when we watched movies at the Park Theatre on Chelsea Street."

"Why did you do that?"

"Mostly because it was just another part of all the fun we had at the Saturday Matinee at the Park Theatre. We didn't just go to watch the movie. Going to the Park Theatre was like going to an amusement park. It had an air of excitement about it like nothing else on the planet."

He sat there spellbound listening to me tell him what it was like for us kids to spend a Saturday afternoon at the Park Theatre. You should have seen that look in his eyes. I know that look.

It's the look a kid gets when their senses fill their imagination with wonder. It's that look that comes over their faces the very first time they step into Disney Land. It's that look that used to fall across our faces when they opened those front doors to the Park Theatre after waiting in line on the sidewalk of Chelsea Street for an hour. That's the look I'm talking about.

After telling him every little detail I could remember about the Saturday Matinees at the Park Theatre, he asked, "Why don't they do that at the theatres any more?"

"Because they don't have a Leo," I told him.

"What is a Leo?" He asked innocently enough.

If I only knew then what I know now, I could have explained to him what an impact it makes on everybody else's life when a seemingly average person rises above his limitations by putting his heart and soul into his passion and giving that commitment back to his community.

So what makes me think I know so much more now than I did back then? Well, it all started back during the Christmas holiday of 2005. My wife, Carol, and I were reminiscing about our school days growing up in Everett. Living in a warmer climate now, we were getting homesick for a white Christmas. We hadn't seen one of those in years.

We talked about all the things we used to do over the Christmas holiday when we were kids. I told her about this one Christmas shopping spree I so fondly remember that I went on with my mother down the Square when I was only eight years old. That was the day she rewarded me with a grilled cheese and fries at Kresge's snack counter for waiting so patiently while she hemmed and hawed over a pair of shoes for my sister at Wiener's shoe store on Norwood Street.

After that treat at Kresge's, she brought me over to Gorin's to see Santa Claus. What a thrill and a half that was, let me tell ya. That was the year I told Santa that the only thing I wanted for Christmas was a Mister Machine. And he got it for me, too. I knew he would. He's awesome.

In the course of that conversation, I turned to Carol and said, "Let's Google "Christmas in Everett" and see what we come up with." Guess what we found? Nothing! So then we tried every search term we could conjure up to try to find anything nostalgic about growing up in Everett. We found absolutely nothing.

We tried other search engines like MSN and Ask.com, but still nothing. That's when I realized two things. The first is that you needn't ever bother search for anything on Ask.com. That is the most inaccurate and incomplete search engine on the planet. You may as well talk to a brick wall. Say what you will, but if you can't find it on Google, then it ain't there.

The second thing I discovered is that there was nothing nostalgic on the internet about growing up in Everett. That's what got me thinking. Isn't that a pity? We grew up in the only city in all of America that has a bicameral (two-house) government. Our city was born and raised in the shadows of the birthplace of our nation. Besides all that, in the course of my life, I've bumped into Everett people in some of the most unimaginable places.

So I took it upon myself to put Everett on the worldwide map. The reason I did it was because we all shared so many precious memories of growing up in Everett that it would be a shame if we didn't tell the world what we had as a community. Not only that, but it would leave behind a written legacy for our children's children so they would have the unique opportunity to know their ancestors on a very personal level.

If you grew up in Everett any time from the 1940's to the early 1960's then the Park Theatre held a special place near to your heart. That's why "The Park Theatre" was the very first piece I wrote following my introduction. That should give you some kind of indication as to how much of an impact that place made on my childhood.

Back in the early days of this "Growing Up in Everett" project, new readers were trickling in at a rate of about one or two per day. Somewhere along the line the dam broke and my hit counters started going through the roof. Shortly afterwards, that little voice on America On Line started getting hoarse from saying "You've Got Mail" over and over again. As time passed, this fun little project began to consume my life. And even to this day, it is a labor or love.

My "Park Theatre" post started getting a flood of comments. Then the emails started. Amongst them I found correspondence from Leo's family. They more than caught my attention. What they did was open my eyes to the man behind the legend. And because they did that for me, I can do that for you.

Let me tell you here and now that the things I am about to tell you will touch your heart in monumental ways. Even still, they will never have the impact on your childhood memories the way this man did. You do know this man. You saw him every Saturday afternoon with mic in hand shouting "Hi kids." And with a gladness in our hearts that only he could put there, we all shouted back, "Hi Leo." Other than that, we hardly knew him at all.

It all began back in the early 1930's when after graduating from high school (which in itself was a notable accomplishment for the times), Leo worked as the projectionist under Park Theatre manager, Frank Leavitt. He must have demonstrated a notable competency towards this institution for they trusted him to personally work on the initial installation of the original sound system. That's when the Park Theatre earned the unique distinction of becoming the first theatre in Everett to offer motion pictures with sound.

When Frank joined the Navy in 1939, Park Theatre owner, Irving Green, promoted Leo to the manager's position. From that moment on, a new era in entertainment for Everett's denizens blossomed. Leo put his heart and soul into the Park Theatre. His influence was felt in every aspect of its being.

The Park Theatre became a family and community venture. His wife, Edith, supervised the "Dish Night" program. You could build an entire 72 piece matching set of dishes for less than eight dollars by attending the Park Theatre on Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights. We're not talking about some no-name cheap set of dishes here. We're talking heirloom quality "Green Briar" and "Currier & Ives" dinnerware.

His daughter, Paula, worked the candy counter. And there was even a time when his own father, Morris, served as the stately gentleman who greeted every patron with a welcoming smile as the doorman. Entire families from the surrounding neighborhoods worked at the Park Theatre at one time or another.

One such young kid from Everett named, Sam, started out working at the candy counter. Leo being one to recognized talent when he saw it, allowed Sam to work his way up through the ranks until he achieved the distinction of Assistant Manager under the legend himself. Sam reached the zenith of his career when he had earned the highest of all distinctions by becoming Leo's son-in-law. He married Paula.

Under Leo's direction, the Park Theatre enjoyed many firsts. He made the Park Theatre a giant in its industry. But it's not the notable history of the Park Theatre that I want to convey to you now. I want to tell you about the man behind the legend.

Leo used the Park Theatre as an instrument to give something to the community he knew and loved. His patrons came first in his heart above all else. During the war, Leo put the Park Theatre at the forefront of selling war bonds in our community. When Leo redesigned the Marquee out front, he installed a spotlight over the letter "P" in "Park" for no other reason than to light up the bus stop for his patrons who waited for the bus after attending the theatre during the evening hours.

Leo was actively involved with, and a regular sponsor for, such charities as the Jimmy Fund, and the Children's Cancer Research Center among many others. The local newspapers paid numerous homage to his relentless efforts to enrich the lives of the less fortunate of our community. His children meant the world to him, and as far as he was concerned, we were all his children.

Never once did a child ever have to sit outside and pout because they didn't have enough money to get into the Park Theatre. When Leo opened those doors, they swung wide to welcome everybody.

Every Saturday afternoon Leo welcomed almost a thousand kids into that theatre. As each and every one of them stepped in through those doors, they stepped right into the middle of his heart. Many of the more popular films of that era demanded that they be shown during the Saturday Matinee if a theatre were to show them at all. Leo refused to show many such films even if it meant a loss in profits because they were inappropriate for children. His children came first.

Talk to anyone who grew up in Everett. They'll tell ya. Saturday Matinees at the Park Theatre is the most talked about childhood memory that they hold dear to their hearts. That balloon-breaking contest will live on in our minds forever. Who amongst you didn't flip that ticket over in excited anticipation to look for a star on the back so you could go up on stage and take part in the festivities. Even if you didn't get to go up on stage, it was just as much fun to sit there yelling and screaming to cheer on the kids who did.

When Leo announced that the next number picked off the ticket board would award the winner any one item from the candy counter, we'd all yell out, "Even the buttered popcorn?" He'd smile that famous loving smile of his and laugh, "Yes, even the buttered popcorn." And as his grandson Earl reminded me, as we sat there watching the coming attractions when the word "also" appeared on the screen, we all yelled it out loud in unison.

On October 17th in 1965, Leo suddenly passed away at the very young age of 57. That's only two years older than I am now. Only now can I appreciate how young he actually was when he passed away. Nothing was ever the same again.

For those of you who did not grow up in Everett, I dare say, ask any kid who did. We knew this man. He touched each and every one of our lives like no one else in the history of the city of Everett. You won't find any statue of him anywhere. And you won't find him mentioned on the city web site amongst the list of notable Everett citizens.

But believe you me, he holds a special place in the heart of every child from Everett. Deeply imbedded in our photographic memory is the image of the man behind the legend. He is Everett's most unsung hero. And without a shadow of a doubt, he is Everett's biggest hero.

For it is written, "We are not judged by how much we love, but by how much we are loved." Each and every one of us kids from Everett love him and miss him dearly.

I ask you now, is there any higher achievable distinction in one's lifetime than to be able to say that you were loved by every child who grew up in your community? Is there any one else who can lay claim to such a distinction?

And that, my good people, is what a "Leo" is.

Now, allow me to direct your attention to the "picture" page on the "Growing Up Everett" website. There you will find more information and pictures of Leo that his family has graciously offered for us to share. I cannot thank Sam, Paula, and Earl enough for sharing all of this with us. You shall now see how that caring and sharing spirit that came from Leo's heart still lives on in the warm generosity of his loving family.