The Elvis Factor

Sometimes the memories come to me as a rapid succession of random images without very much information attached. At least not until I reach up into thin air and grab one. It's kind of like browsing through the albums at Freddy's music shop down on Norwood Street without any particular record in mind. You'd thumb though the records on the rack until something caught your eye and then you'd pick it up, flip it over, and read all the rhetoric on the back cover.

The sixties spawned some seriously strange band names. Some of those names were so weird that I just had to pick up their album and flip it over in hopes to discover what on earth inspired such a moniker. Names like "Mott The Hoople," "Mothers of Invention," and of course, our home brewed "Ultimate Spinach" were certainly enough to capture my curiosity.

It's funny that I should bring that up because that was not the first image I plucked out of thin air. What was, was the image of sitting at my desk at the Horace Mann in the fourth grade. For some reason, my years in the third, fourth, and sixth grade stand out amongst all my years at the Horace Mann. God only knows why.

So anyway, let me pluck that image out of the sky and freeze that frame. There's actually a lot going on here. You wouldn't think so at first glance.

The Horace Mann elementary school had no cafeteria. Each class took turns single filing down to the washrooms to scrub up before returning back to our desks to eat lunch. Back in our elementary school days, they policed every solitary move you made. They lived by the lyrics to the song, "Every breath you take."

There was either an "HM" or a schoolteacher no matter which way you looked the moment you stepped out of the classroom. An "HM" was a sixth grader (always a boy) designated to monitor the halls to make sure nobody spoke out of turn or stepped out of line. They wore a red armband with big white "HM" letters on it. From a distance it looked just like a Gestapo armband.

Believe me when I tell ya, you never stepped out of that classroom before going through the third degree. They were so militant about keeping us in line that it would come as no surprise if they demanded that you bring back a sample to prove that you did what you said you had to do before they'd let you go to the bathroom. It was almost that bad.

So anyway, we lined up to go to the washrooms at the same exact time as Miss Jarvis's fourth grade classroom from across the hall. Our separate classrooms stood along the opposite sides of the corridor facing each other. It looked somewhat like a reenactment of the battle at the Old North Bridge in Lexington. We stood there motionlessly for so long that I half expected Miss Dyer to shout, "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes."

There was something standing over there in Miss Jarvis's line that caught everyone's attention. You'll never guess what it was. It was Nelson's new hairdo. I hated it right off the bat. And do you know why? Because all of the girls went crazy over it, that's why.

Let me explain something to ya. We're talking about a year or two before the British Invasion. Nobody ever heard of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones yet. The only person on the planet at this point in time who sported a mop top like hairdo was Moe of the Three Stooges. Now honestly, fashioning your image after Moe was not going to cut it with the chicks.

If you were gonna break any hearts back then you had to comb your hair like Elvis. That's just the way it was. Needles to say, that's pretty much what Nelson did. And let me tell ya something else. It didn't hurt that Nelson was probably the best looking boy in the whole school either.

All the way down the corridor, all the girls talked about was how sharp Nelson looked. Two of the girls even got into a shouting match as to who saw him first. Keep in mind that we were only in the fourth grade. All this over a hairdo. Who would have thought?

My mother constantly harped about the importance of keeping up appearances. How often do you ever take your mother seriously though? I did comb my hair before leaving for school every morning, but by the time I got there it looked more like a bird's nest than it did a hairdo. What more could I do?

Joey had a serious problem with grooming. He doubled us over in laughter one day when we were teasing him about not taking a bath. He got so mad at us that he stood up and shouted, "Hey, I take a bath every Saturday night whether I need one or not!"

So let's get back to lunch. Shall we?

Guess what we did before we ate lunch in the fourth grade? We folded our hands on top of our desks, bowed our heads, and said grace. I kid you not. After saying grace, we opened our lunch bags and dug in.

The only place we had to store our lunches was down beside our feet at our desks. On a hot sunny day an egg salad sandwich got pretty ripe by the time you took it out of that brown paper bag. When you unwrapped the wax paper, it stuck to your sandwich and peeled a great big whole out of the middle of your bread. And the smell, "whew." Everyone looked around the room to see who cut the cheese.

After finishing lunch we single filed out onto the playground for recess. The girls played in the small playground at the back of the school along Foster Street. The boys got the big schoolyard. That's the one that now serves as the parking lot to the new playground that now stands where the Horace Mann once stood.

Nicky walked right up to Nelson and asked, "Where'd you get the new hairdo?"

"My sister did it for me," he replied. "She said all the chicks would go crazy over it."

And man, did they ever. That's all the girls talked about for days on end. I can't count how many times I heard, "Hey, guess who so and so likes?" And of course, the answer was always the same.

Nelson was a good kid. We kind of hung out together for a while. He hung around Oliver Street Park most of the time. Our gang from Arlington Street used to go down there to play those kids in tag rush and stickball. We'd blow them away in tag rush. They'd demolish us in stickball.

We were all sitting around having a game of "Crazy Eights" one afternoon when Nelson looked up at me and asked, "Who do you think is the cutest girl in the fourth grade?" I'll be honest with ya. The last thing I was ever going to do was tell the best looking kid in the whole school who I had my heart set on. Now that's what I call shooting yourself in the foot.

My line of reasoning went like this. Comparing me to Nelson was like comparing Don Rickles to Robert Redford. If you were a girl, who would you want to go out with? See what I mean?

I was afraid that if I told this kid who I thought was the cutest girl in the fourth grade that it would spark his interest. If that happened I may as well kiss my heart goodbye. Let's face it. There's no way on earth that I could ever compete with this kid when it comes to girls.

It wasn't just looks either. Nelson had a suave sophistication about him that was totally lacking from my personality traits. Try as I may to come across like a smooth operator, I usually tripped and stumbled over my own tongue whenever I talked to a girl. My act was totally not together.

Hearing all the girls go gaga over Nelson inspired me to do something about it. I saw the writing on the wall, so to speak. It was either get my act together, or wind up on the shelf. Can you imagine worrying about stuff like that in the fourth grade? Well, I did.

That night after my bath, I reached up into the medicine cabinet and grabbed a hold of my big brother's bottle of Vaseline Hair Tonic. Billy was a greaser. That was his era.

I should have read the bottle before trying to comb my hair to look like Elvis. The bottle said, "message three drops into your scalp vigorously." Three drops? Now they tell me.

Have you ever put Vaseline in your hair? Let me rephrase that. Have you ever put a cupful of Vaseline in your hair? If you think squeezing the oil out of a can of tuna fish is slimy then just wait until you get a load of this stuff. It makes no wonder why they don't carry this stuff in the stores anymore.

One drop of that stuff on a typical playground slide would propel you beyond the speed of light. You'd wind up sliding all the way down Ferry Street and you wouldn't even begin to slow down until somewhere near Ferryway Green. I kid you not.

Needless to say, I had the shiniest hair on the planet. Yeah, I could style my hair like Elvis. I could even get that little dangly curl to bob up and down on my forehead. That still didn't change anything. It didn't make me look as cool as Elvis or James Dean. I looked more like Spanky with a Rock N Roll hairdo.

If that wasn't bad enough, my sister came barging into the bathroom without knocking. She took one look at me standing there wrapped in my towel posing like the Fonze in the bathroom mirror and doubled over in laughter. Then she called the rest of the family over to have a good belly laugh at my expense as well.

Hey, isn't that why they put a door on the bathroom in the first place? Ain't I entitled to some privacy? Isn't the bathroom where you're supposed to go to do things that you don't want anybody else to see? I'm telling ya right now. You take the sanctity of the bathroom out of our society altogether and civilization itself will just hang in the balance.

My mother and father laughed so hard that they had to hold onto the kitchen table to catch their breath. My sister had to grab onto her stomach because it hurt from laughing so much. Carl laughed so hard that no sound was coming out. And Billy ran out onto the back porch to let the whole neighborhood in on the joke. And you're wondering why I've got a complex?

Some lessons we just gotta learn the hard way. Having your family circle around to point and laugh at you until they wear themselves out will certain teach you something. Not everybody can be a heartthrob. God knows I've tried. It's a bitter pill to swallow when you realize that you'll never rise above the status of a wannabe.

It took about an hour and half to flush that Vaseline back out of my hair. You can't imagine how good it felt to see that messy bird's nest reappear back on top of my head again. Chippendale's calendar is just gonna have to go on ahead without me. I'm just thankful for not having lost my head over such an illusion of grandeur and do something so foolish as to give up my paper route.

Schoolboy crushes are just as much a part of growing up as learning how to wrap the swings with one hand. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. When all the girls have their hearts set on just one guy, it kind of puts a damper on the romantic side of things for everybody else. You can live with that when you're only in the fourth grade because there's so many other things to do.

Having a girlfriend only gets in the way of having any real fun anyway. They're not into the same things us guys are. How many girls do you see down behind Spencer's on Ferry Street catching grasshoppers? How many girls do you know who get a big kick out of throwing a firecracker at Mrs. Day's cat? Or how many girls do you see spending an entire afternoon trying to get a quarter out of the sewer in front of the pool on Elm Street?

Who needs girls anyway? That's exactly the frame of mind I put myself in to protect myself from the cruel facts of life. Even as I passed by all those pretty girls who lived up the hill on my way to the Summer Street Market I'd give them nothing more than a fleeting glance. There's no way I'm ever gonna give them any power over me. Nobody's ever gonna break this heart of stone.

And isn't it always when you've made up your mind for once and for all that fate comes along and gives you a cuff upside the back of your head? That's exactly what happened to me.

How could I ever forget this day? It was one of those really dark and dreary days when you knew that the sky would open up at any given moment and all hell would break loose. It kind of dampens your spirits if you know what I mean.

The classroom took on an eerie feeling. All you could see when you looked out the window was the dismal reflection of that despondent classroom against the dark and hopeless world outside. The buzz and flicker of the overhead florescent lighting only added to the sadness of that dreary day. The moment I set foot in that door I longed to get that day over with so I could go home and get in out of it.

Right after the last of the morning bells rang out, Miss Dyer told us to fold our hands on top of our desks and bow our heads for our moment of silence. That was the first year we no longer said our morning prayers out loud. We then stood up and pledged our allegiance to the flag. After that, Miss Dyer told us to quietly take our geography books out of our desks.

When I bent down to rummage through my desk for my book, I found this folded up piece of yellow paper. I took out my geography book and opened it up to page 322 on top of my desk just like Miss Dyer told us to. Then, I unfolded that yellow scrap of paper.

It said, "Do you like me?" And it was signed by Ann Marie.

You can only imagine the warm glow that came over me. It was like a tidal wave. At first I though that somebody was playing a cruel joke on me. After all, Ann Marie was, without a shadow of a doubt, the cutest girl in our class.

The first thing I did was look around the room to see who was having this big laugh at my expense. Joey was staring up at the clock and picking his nose as usual so I knew he wasn't in on it. Nicky was trying to hit Eddie with a spitball so I know he wasn't in on it. And Billy was sneaking a peek at his Lafayette Electronics catalogue so I know he wasn't in on it.

So finally, I looked across the room at Ann Marie. She was looking right back at me. She smiled ever so sweetly. And then she mouthed the words "Do you like me?" Without missing a beat I mouthed back, "Yes, I do."

What I couldn't believe is that she chose me over Nelson. It doesn't make any sense. The kid was handsome, suave, sophisticated, and smooth. Me? I was a mess. My socks don't match. One of the souls to my shoes flaps when I walk. I've got big lips. And my hair looks like a bird's nest. What on earth could this girl possibly see in me? That's what I'd like to know.

So what happened? Well, I did walk her home that day. I do remember that. My feet never touched the ground all the way down Chestnut Hill. We became good friends right up until the end of the sixth grade.

Don't expect any scandalous details because hey, we were only little kids. I do remember the time she baked brownies for me. And I do remember hanging out on her back steps day after day. It all came to abrupt end near the end of the sixth grade when I said something really stupid that hurt her feelings. Leave it to me - right?

So there really is someone for everybody after all, even if you're not a major heartthrob. Hey, there's even somebody for me. In the end, I wound up with this really cute girl from Everett that I had my heart set on for quite some time. And I can't believe she chose me over Nelson either but I'm sure glad she did.

It still doesn't make any sense. My socks still don't match. My hair still looks like a bird's nest. And now I don't even have any teeth, but she's still here. She certainly didn't latch onto me for the money. Artists rarely ever see any of that. So when you come right down to it, it's probably working out so well because "We're from Everett!"

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The Everett Anagram Challenge!
Okay, rearrange the letters in "ALLEGED PRANK" to find a place in Everett where you might pull something like this off.
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The Little Things

Regardless of all of the chaos and confusion going on all around you at any given moment, there is a natural uniformity, order, and direction to our lives that simply cannot be denied. Many of the insignificant things that occur today become the stepping stones to a much larger influence tomorrow. Things change, but those changes don't just materialize out of thin air.

On the corner of Chestnut Hill and Ferry stands a simple cinderblock structure. Over the past thirty years I've bought an ice cream, a windshield, and a loaf of bread in that place. God only knows what it was before it became an ice cream parlor. Just beside it is one of the oddest, three-story, apartment houses I've ever seen.

That apartment house is a lopsided, irregular polyhedron, not that a polyhedron should be regular by definition anyway. One gander at this building certainly inspires one to ponder, "What on earth was the architect thinking when he designed that place?" More than likely, whatever structure occupied the lot that eventually housed Ski's Ice Cream Parlor must have imposed stringent limitations on the abutting lot. Why else would anyone have designed such an impractical design scheme in the first place?

Perhaps "impractical design scheme" is a poor choice of words on my part. After all, that apartment house has served its purpose for more than a hundred years. It's not the kind of "home sweet home" that dreams are made of, but hey, it's a roof over somebody's head. It certainly beats a cardboard box jammed up under an overpass on the Revere Beach Parkway.

I'll say one thing about that place. It is certainly a cash cow for somebody somewhere. I've never known the place to go vacant. Somebody's always lived there. I had a friend back in my early elementary school days at the Horace Mann who lived there, as did one of my Parlin Junior High School math teachers.

The last time I saw that place was back in the summer of 2005 when I journeyed back east to visit my family and friends. It still has those skinny, dilapidated, wooden porches on each side of the building that serve as nothing more than as emergency fire escapes. They certainly add nothing to the esthetics of the overall design.

In itself, it holds little significance to most of us and goes largely unnoticed as we pass it by. I did stop to take a good look at it the last time I was in Everett. It has changed very little over the years other than to become even more run down. It's seems somewhat of a miracle that it's still standing at all.

I'm sure there was once a time when that building dominated the topic of conversation in its neighborhood. That was especially so on the very day a surveyor stood on the opposite side of Ferry Street surveying the topography of that vacant plot of ground planning its future.

I'm conjuring up the image of a horse drawn trolley trotting along the cobblestones on Ferry Street. An excited little boy kneels up on his seat to gaze out the window at the workers mixing cement by hand in wheelbarrows. More than likely, by the time that trolley reached Glendale Square his mother scolded him three times or more to keep still in his seat.

You can just imagine the racket they made when they first started hammering up the wooden frame to that structure. The surrounding neighbors were probably awakened early each morning by the anvil chorus going on next door. And as we all know only too well, time never does stand still. The day did finally arrive when all of that racket ceased and in its stead stood a permanent fixture in the neighborhood for decades to come.

Now I'm seeing two of the neighbors from the Everett High School graduating class of 1901 standing out on the sidewalk gesturing over at that new apartment building across the street. I can hear one of them saying, "That place is filling up over night. The neighborhood is getting crowded. It's getting too busy around here."

Some fifty odd years later those two neighbors are laid to rest in the Glenwood Cemetery and you'd hardly recognize the spot where they once stood. A horseless trolley weaves in and out of heavy traffic to pick up passengers in front of that building now. Every so often the trolley conductor gets out to hook the electric leads back up to the power lines overhead. And none of the people waiting at that trolley stop ever saw Ferry Street before they paved the hot top down on top of the cobblestones underneath.

We're talking a time when people didn't stand isolated from one another at the trolley stop. Why should they? Neighbors knew each other. Very few of them actually owned a car so they passed each other on the sidewalk every day of their lives. You get to know somebody if you pass them by often enough.

At first you only recognize each other by sight. Passing each other on the sidewalk soon becomes such a common occurrence that you eventually begin to smile at one another and say something like, "Beautiful morning, isn't it?" as you pass them by. Before long you're striking up a neighborly conversation as you stand at the trolley stop waiting to go shopping at Kresge's down the square.

If you eaves drop on those people you'll hear them talking about all sorts of things. Things like, "What do you think of that new Rock N Roll music the kids are listening to these days?" Or maybe, "What do you think of those new telephone area codes?" Or maybe even, "Have you been following those Senator McCarthy hearings? Is that guy a nut or what?"

As time goes by nobody even takes notice of that funny apartment building anymore. They know it's there. They know it's weird. There's just so much else going on in the world now that nobody even cares. It just blends into the landscape as if it was always there. And to these people, it always was.

By the time I came into the picture that place was already a bit run down. Not only was the paint peeling off the window frames, but those rickety old railings hung halfway off of the porches as well. Ski's Ice Cream parlor drew everyone's attention away from that old place anyway.

The proprietors of Ski's ice cream parlor were about as people friendly as a toothache. If you sat down at one of their dining tables after buying an ice cream cone they'd tell you to take it outside. "Those tables are for our adult customers. There's no need for you kids to hang around here to eat an ice cream cone," they'd snap at you.

They got pissed off every time they had to reach down into the bucket for another scoop of ice cream. It makes no wonder. They were so big they could hardly bend over to button their shirts. I've heard of people hating their jobs before, but these miserable souls took the cake. My word, what a way to run a business - right?

By the early 1960's they started tearing down all of those overhead trolley wires. Those new fangled gas powered busses took over. We lost an easy snowball target once that happened. Oh, don't get me wrong. We still peppered the bus with snowballs when it drove by. It was just too easy for the bus driver to completely ignore us in these new modern monstrosities. That took all the fun out of it.

When those old trolleys ruled the roost you could knock the connectors off of the overhead wires with a lucky shot. When the conductor hopped out to reattach the connector, you could pepper him with snowballs in the process. The younger guys would chase us halfway up High Street sometimes leaving his passengers just sitting there waiting for him to blow off a little steam.

I don't ever recall one of them ever catching up to us. We'd stand there and taunt the guy from ten yards away when he ran out of breath. What a laugh and a half, I'm telling ya. We couldn't have been any more than in the second or third grade at the time. Take a look at a third grader today and you won't believe how little we were when we were kicking up such havoc.

Many little things were beginning to take shape all around us. We talked about them, but we really didn't attach much significance to them at the time. We couldn't possibly imagine how such a little thing could ever have a major impact on our lives.

Everybody had two or more radios in their house by the time I started delivering newspapers. Nobody I knew had more than one television. What was the point? I'll never forget the day my father came home early from work and made a big stink about my mother watching "As the World Turns."

"Television in the middle of the day?" He asked. "What's this world coming to?"

My father liked to watch this guy named William F. Buckley Jr. who had a new show called "The National Review." Surprisingly enough, I found myself mesmerized just listening to this guy talk. I was much too young to understand any of it, though. And I rather doubt that my father understand very much of it either.

What caught my attention were the words this guy used. In any given sentence this guy used four or more twenty-letter words that I still don't understand to this day. I'd never challenge this guy to game of Scrabble.

My third grade teacher at the Horace Mann, Miss Martinelli, announced to the whole class that somebody somewhere invented a computer language called "COBAL" that used a plain English syntax. Whatever that means. As my mother often said, "Now there's another waste of somebody's valuable time." Let's face it. Average people like us will never have any use for a computer. Those things are bigger than a refrigerator. Where would we put it?

Shortly afterwards they announced the invention of something they called the "microchip." That will supposedly revolutionize the computer industry. Like that's ever gonna make any kind of impact on our daily lives.

The one news item that really stuck out in my mind that year was when somebody invented a plain paper copier. Now that is an artist's dream come true. Apparently, you can place an object on top of this sheet of glass, and the machine will capture the image of it. Then you can print it out on a piece of paper. I'll take one of those, thank you.

When I asked my father at the supper table if he had heard about that, he replied. "Of what use is something like that?"

"Think about it," I said excitingly. "If it can copy on both sides of the paper you could make your own dollar bills."

"That'll get you twenty years in Sing Sing," he laughed.

"Yeah, but only if they catch you," I thought. I know one thing. There'd be a big surge in the sale of Malted Milk Balls in the City of Everett if I ever got my hands on one of those machines.

That was also the year they came out with those little transistor radios. Now that was an impressive innovation in my book. You could stick this thing down into your front pocket and run the wire for the earplug up through your shirt. Nobody had to know you were even listening to the radio.

That impressed me because my mother used to throw a fit whenever she caught me drawing with a flashlight under my blanket at three o' clock in the morning. What I'd do is wait for everybody else to fall asleep. Then I'd sneak my big brother's transistor radio under the blanket and sit up drawing through the night. With nobody around to disturb me, I could really get into my artwork.

I'd go into a state of shock whenever that blanket unexpected flew off into the air and I'd see the silhouette of my mother standing there frantically waving her arms against the streetlight-illuminated venetian blinds. She was probably screaming at the top of her lungs, but all I could hear was "I told every little star just how great I think you are. What haven't I told you? Ta dum, ta dum, ta da da da da."

The following year turned out to be a little more exciting. They elected a native Massachusetts boy as our new president. My sister got a doll named Chatty Kathy for Christmas that actually talked. And NASA sent a balloon up into outer space that reflected radio signals back to earth.

So now they've got me wondering why they would want to reflect radio signals back to Earth from outer space. Is there something they're not telling us? The next thing you know we'll be listening to the top ten hits by Martian rock n' rollers - right? Hey, maybe that's what this new FM band on the radio is all about. You never know.

Information now moved at the speed of light. If you couldn't wait for the afternoon edition of the Record American or the Boston Globe to catch up on all the current events you could always turn on the radio or the TV. Newspapers were becoming a little slow at keeping you up to the minute. And if you positively had to know the weather at this very instant you could easily dial it up on the telephone. We were quickly becoming a people "in the know."

Not everything was making progress. I can remember my mother standing out on the sidewalk talking to Mary and Cecil from across the street about how the Post Office was going to stop all afternoon deliveries. From now on they were only going to deliver the mail once a day. "What are we paying all these taxes for?" My mother wanted to know.

It seems ironic at how you could now type even faster with these new "Selectric" typewriters, but now the mail was going to move slower than ever. Oh yeah, and you could now buy a camera with a built in flash that also featured a drop-in cartridge of film. You no longer had to thread and wind your film in a hurry to catch that once in a lifetime shot of your grandfather's dentures fizzling in a glass on the bathroom sink.

There was something else going on in the world that I was never aware of before. It came to light when I was sitting on the living room floor eating my Angelina's Italian sub watching the news on TV with my Dad. All of a sudden they showed hundreds of people marching on Washington D.C. wearing signs that read, "I Am A Man."

"What in the world is that all about?" I asked my dad.

That was the first time in my life that I ever heard about people hating each other because of the color of their skin. And I'll be honest with ya. That still sounds as stupid today as it did when I first heard of it back in 1963 when I was only eleven years old.

Not long after that, somebody shot and killed our President. It seems as though once somebody opened my innocent eyes to all the hate going on in the world around me, the world went nuts altogether. One deranged character started strangling women all over the streets of Boston. Another guy crawled up to the top of a tower at the University of Texas and sniped down at the unsuspecting innocent people below with a high powered rifle. And then another crazed lunatic murdered a group of student nurses in Chicago.

Looking back on all that now has got to make you wonder, "What's this all about anyway?" I mean honestly. We're just passing through. Why anybody would want to make this brief journey miserable for anybody else just doesn't make any sense.

You tell me. What makes life better? Loving or hating? Laughing or crying? Kissing or punching? I'll take loving, laughing, and kissing any day of the week. Maybe that's just me. The alternatives just don't make any sense. Prove me wrong.

And you talk about little things going on in the news that take a back seat because they seemed so insignificant compared to everything else? Well, at the New York World's Fair in 1964, they demonstrated a "picturephone" by placing a call from New York to Disneyland in California. You could actually see the person you were talking to on the telephone. Can you imagine?

Hey, you know what else was going on? As far back as 1966 the "Amateur Computer Society" organized a personal computing network, but none of us took any real notice. Neither did we pay any attention to the fact that the Xerox Corporation started selling a "Telecopier" that very same year. The "Telecopier" later became known as a fax machine. If that don't beat all, just three years after that we all watched a live television broadcast from the lunar surface.

So you see, all of this technology didn't just materialize out of thin air. If we had paid more attention to what had seemed so insignificant more than forty years ago, we could have predicted the future. It's the little things that become the stepping stones towards the future.

And be honest with me. Did you ever once think that you'd sit down at a flat computer screen with your morning cup of coffee to point and click your way through more information in less than three minutes than you could possibly ever retain in your whole lifetime? Even more amazing than that is when you look at the top of the screen it says, "We're From Everett!"

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Okay, here's another anagram. Rearrange these "NEW SKATER PARTS" to discover a landmark in Everett where you might use them.

DON'T PANIC

Remember this? Remember that? Where did the time go? I never once thought that I would ever get to be this old. Many a friend has come and gone, and yet God chose me to linger on. That's gotta tell ya something, I suppose.

A funny thing happened on my way to the local department store a little more than a week ago. I headed out on my own to go buy a new mouse. Now, if I had said that back in 1967 you would have surely thought I was talking about one of those little laboratory animals you keep in a small cage that nibbles on lettuce greens. Wouldn't you?

Being the typical male shopper that I am, I did not dilly-dally in the shoe department, nor did I stop to dawdle in the clothing section. I went straight to the electronics department, picked up the exact item I came to buy and headed straight to the checkout. That is precisely when it occurred to me that I may be getting a bit on in years.

On my way towards the checkout, my vision suddenly became blurry. Then, I got this atrocious nauseous feeling deep down in the bottom of my gut. It became difficult to breathe. My jaw hurt. My chest tightened. The room started to spin and I almost fell down.

My life began to flash before my very eyes. I saw people enjoying a cup of coffee through Vargis' window. I saw Di slap that "kick me" sign on my back in Mr. Sarno's homeroom in the 8th grade at the Parlin. Then I saw Carol King squint her nose up at me as I turned to look back at her in Mr. Cecere's civics class in the 9th grade. And I swear I even heard the angelic voice of Donna Byrne belting out a tearjerker to the beat of the Al Vega Trio.

That's when my fighting Everett spirit kicked in. I simply said to myself, "I refuse to die here amongst strangers." And I'll be honest with ya. I actually thought God was calling me home.

It's funny how the mind works sometimes. You can actually scare yourself to death if you want to. By the same token, you can muster up the strength to stand and fight. Say what you will about Everett kids, but I'll tell you this. They are headstrong. They are stubborn. And they are fighters in every true sense of the word.

So what did I do? I sucked it up. I straightened myself up and marched off to that checkout counter as if I was carrying Old Glory into battle. Regardless of how blurry that checkout girl's facial features appeared, I looked her straight in the eye just as if I could see her as plain as day (which I couldn't) and plunked my money down.

"Did you find everything you were looking for?" She so politely asked.

By this time I couldn't even muster the strength to speak so I just nodded and smiled. I felt so dizzy that all I could think about was getting out of that store before I fell down. I remember thinking, "My God, my sand has run out."

Thankfully, I had found a parking spot close to the entrance. After stumbling into the car, I reached for my Cel phone to call home. Then I talked myself out of it. The last thing I wanted to do was frighten Carol, especially if God was calling me home anyway. So I got bullshit, sat up straight, buckled myself in, and fired her up.

I figured "Hey, if I'm cashing in, I'm going home to do it in the arms of the girl who used to squint her nose up at me in the 9th grade at the Parlin. I'll be damned if I'm going to cash in my chips in the parking lot of some impersonal shopping center in the middle of nowhere."

You mark my words. I refuse to journey beyond the far horizon just yet. It wouldn't be prudent. Heck, I'm only weeks away from launching my EHS Class of 1971 web site. Father Time will just have to wait. I've got too many things going on right now. That's all there is to it.

So, how did it all turn out? Well, I made the 5-mile drive home without incident, but as soon as I turned into the driveway, every symptom I suffered in that store came back twofold. See what happens when you let your guard down?

Carol wanted to call the ambulance as soon as I staggered into the front door. All I wanted to do was lie down and catch my breath. My chest was caving in. My back hurt. My stomach was churning. And my jaw felt like somebody had just socked me a good one.

Now that I made it all the way back home in one piece I knew I'd be all right. I just needed to rest up a bit. That's all. Heck, that's my answer to everything anyway. You don't need a doctor. What you need is a good comfy couch, and a clicker, and you can cure anything. So that's what I did. I kicked back on the old couch and passed out.

I had a dentist's appointment scheduled for the very next day anyway. If I still wasn't feeling all that chipper I figured I'd take it up with my dentists. Hey, if he can fix a bad tooth he should be able fix something as simple as a blood pump -- right? Might as well kill two birds with one stone. That's what I always say.

Now wait until you hear this one. It just so happens that my teeth caused all of my problems. You heard that right. All of my teeth are abscessed -- all of them. And supposedly, all the poison in my system from my infected teeth caused that attack. Kind of makes you want to pucker up and give me a great big smooch -- doesn't it?

The first thing they did was pump me full of penicillin. Then they informed me that over the next two weeks, they are going to pull "ALL" of my teeth out. After allowing 2 whole months for my gums to heal, they're going to fit me with a full set of ersatz fangs (false teeth). So much for brushing every night before bed and gargling in the morning. Even after doing all of the things my mother always told me to do, I still lost the battle. You just can't win.

By the time you read this all of my lower teeth will be gone and I shall be reduced to little more than a diet of baby food. It's happening. I'm getting old. Oh, believe me, all this didn't just transpire over night. This snuck up on me so gradually that I really didn't see it coming.

It started a few years back when I could no longer read the fine print on any of the labels. Soon afterward, I could no longer read the newspaper. Print matter just kept getting smaller and smaller. The TV Guide was completey out of the question. Every time I walked into a store I found myself going over to those turnstyle displays to grab a pair of spectacles off the rack to read all the labels.

Living in denial, I refused to buy a pair of those eyeglasses. I'd just walk around the store with that price tab flipped up over my forehead. That's when I should have first realized what was happening to me.

Think about it. When you were in high school would you ever be so bold as to walk around the store wearing a pair of glasses with the price tag dangling down across your nose? No way, dude. We were way too self-conscious back then. God forbid any of the girls in my class should ever catch me walking around the store like that -- right?

Before you know it, I was buying up those eyeglasses like they were going out of style. It started with a pair of 100's. It wasn't long before I headed back to Walgreens for a pair of 150's. That's when I realized the establishment was playing mind games with me. They kept making the fine print smaller than I could squint into focus.

Two weeks later I was back at Walgreens buying the 175's. A few months later I was buying up the 200's. If that don't beat all, I had to finally resort to buying a magnifying glass so I could read the Motrin label with my 200's on.

Back in November of last year, Joanne emailed me some snapshots of our thirty-fifth class reunion. Thirty-fifth? You gotta be kidding me. "Now wait a minute," I said to myself. "Who the heck are all these grownups she sent me snapshots of? What happened to all the kids I graduated with? Didn't any of them show up? What did they do, send their parents to represent them at the reunion?"

That's when it hit me. I'm not looking at a snapshot of a bunch of strangers here. I'm looking at the kids I graduated with. "Carol, take a look at this," I shouted in somewhat of a frantic voice. "Look, there's Roseanne, and Stephanie, and Hilda, and Carol, and Janet, and Charlie, and Dale, and Peter, and John. Look at them."

"What about them?"

"Look how old they are!"

"Look who's talking," she laughed. "When was the last time you took a good hard look in the mirror?"

What in the world is she talking about? I'm not that old. Am I?

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I snapped on my brand new pair of 250's and ran to take a gander at myself in the bathroom mirror. I couldn't believe my eyes. You can't trust these no-name eyeglasses you buy off the rack anyway. Can you?

I took another good look in the mirror and said, "Dad? Is that you?"

Let me tell you something. Nothing sucks more than taking a good hard look at yourself in the bathroom mirror through a brand new pair of 250's. Try to avoid that like the plague. You may just find out that you look at least ten years older than everyone else you graduated with. That's exactly what happened to me.

You talk about crow's feet and forehead lines? Man, if I penciled these things in you'd be able to use my face for an Everett road map. Not only can I make an outline of the North Broadway intersection, but I even have funny little skin marks right where Pope John and Dunkin Donuts are on the map. Oh, don't laugh. It gets much worse than that. When I smile you can see K K Terrace off of Main Street.

My gray hair never really bothered me because I was one of those people who went gray in my thirties. The problem is, I'm not gray anymore. My hair his white. My hair is so white that it's starting to turn blue. Not only that, but now there's a big space at the back of my head and my forehead's growing larger by the day.

Here's something our elders never told us. "You don't realize how good looking you were when you were young until you get old." Damn, I was cute. Look at me now. I'm a mess and a half. I'm gonna take these gawd damned eyeglasses back to the store tomorrow. These things are as useless as tits on a boar hog.

There was once a time when I turned as red as a beet whenever my father struck up a conversation with a complete stranger about Preparation H in the middle of the Stop & Shop. The last thing I needed was for one of the girls in my classroom to come walking down the isle while my father was talking out loud about medicine for his bum. You know what I mean?

There was also once a time when I'd walk around the store holding my cheeks together so not to pass wind in public. God forbid anyone should ever hear the likes of that coming from me. Mother Nature doesn't even extend me that courtesy any more. I don't even know when it's coming. All I've got to do now is bend over to look at a price tag and we've got a serious "scatter or suffocate" situation on our hands.

On top of all that, for the next two months I'm going to be walking around without a single tooth in my head. That ought to be a sight to behold. I'm gonna look like I'm perpetually sucking on a pickle and I'm gonna talk like I've got rubber lips. Not to mention all that delicious baby food I've got to look forward to. Thanksgiving ought to be a lot of fun this year. Man, I can taste that strained turkey flavored mush already. Mmmm boy!

What's happening to me? My elementary school has vanished from the face of the planet. Where in the heck is Whitehill Pharmacy? Where's Ski's Ice Cream Parlor? Where's the Park Theatre? Where's Gorins, and Noyes Stationers, and what happened to the record store on Norwood Street? Dude, where's my old hippie hang out? Where did everybody go? I feel like one of those lost souls on the Twilight Zone. "Aaaaaargh!"

For Heaven's sake, Paul, get a grip on yourself. "DON'T PANIC!"

Don't panic? That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who has to listen to the top ten hits from your high school days when you go grocery shopping. If that ain't a tell tale sign that you're getting old then I don't know what is.

It seemed like only yesterday that I was sitting up in that basket seat of one of those Stop & Shop shopping carts listening to my mother hum along to the tune of "Let the World Go By" while picking out a box of "Fab" detergent. You want to see something amazing? Just watch the girl at the checkout counter. She has to pick up every single item, look at the price tag, and then punch it into the cash register on those big round keys. You'll know the total when it pops up on those metal slots inside that glass window at the top of the cash register.

Now watch this. My mother just loaded that cart up to the max. She's gonna open her purse and peel off nineteen one dollar bills to pay for all this stuff. As soon as we get back home my Dad's gonna ask, "How much did you spend down at the Stop & Shop?"

And after my mother answers him, he's gonna blow a fuse. "Nineteen bucks for a week's worth of groceries for six people? Are you nuts? We ain't made of money. What did you do -- buy out the whole store?"

"Hey, don't you talk to me in that tone of voice," she shouts back. "That whole roasted chicken you wanted so badly cost me over a buck and a half. And a half a gallon of milk is now up to forty-two cents. Not to mention how your Lucky Strikes have gone up to twenty-eight cents a pack, but I don't hear you belly aching about that. These things add up."

Well, there's no sense in us hanging around here listening to these two love birds go at each other's throat over money. What is the big deal anyway? That's the trouble with grownups today. They focus too much of their attention on these pictures of dead presidents. Weird, huh?

We may as well pop into my room and play with some of my stuff. Let me show you how I can stick my hand up under my "Give-A-Show" projector to cast a giant image of me flipping the bird up on my ceiling. That's always good for a few laughs.

Let's just make sure my mother doesn't catch us. If she sticks that bar of soap in my mouth one more time I swear she's gonna poison me. You just wait. Fifty years from now all my teeth are gonna rot from getting my mouth washed out with soap so many times.

Hey, you know what else we can do? We can break out the record player and spin some hot wax in the background while we make a couple of match stick shooters? We'll take turns hopping up to load a stack of forty-fives onto the spindle. You talk about modern conveniences? My record player will hold up to five records at a time. Man, what will they think of next?

And don't even think that we've gotta sit here listening to all that old fogy's music, neither. My sister's a music freak. She's got all the latest hits. We've got everything from "Bill Haley and the Comets" to "The Beatles." Come on, it'll be wicked pissah. We'll have a blast and half.

Keep that in mind the next time the world starts to get you down. "We're From Everett" is more than just a nostalgic on-line journal. It's our heritage. It's our legacy. It's our way of life. The things we experienced while growing up in Everett will live on in our hearts forever. And don't you worry none. We've still got a lot of ground to cover.

So whenever you start feeling a little homesick and get that urge to find your way back to your humble beginnings, you just mosey on back here, kick off your shoes, and set a spell. Right here is where you belong. This is where we hang out.

That's us in a nutshell. We're a little wild and crazy sometimes. You'll just have to forgive us for that. We can't help it. After all, "We're From Everett!"

~~~~~~~~~
Hey, I almost forgot to add the anagram. Okay, here it is. If you unscamble the letters in "EARLY HUTCH TRIBE" you'll discover a place in Everett where you might find more information on such a thing!
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In Honor of our Heritage

Just as it is for those of us who lived through the horror of President Kennedy's assassination, so shall it always be for all who witnessed the tragedy as it unfolded on September 11th, in the year 2001. As the smoke cleared, and those twin towers came tumbling down, our elders reminded us of the unspeakable shock they experienced when they first heard about the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor back in 1941.

What takes us by storm is the senselessness inherent in the violence of it all. It makes you wonder sometimes. Do the perpetrators ever stop to think about how every action begets an equal an opposite reaction? Don't they realize that an act of war will bring about just that, a war?

We've read the scriptures a hundred thousand times. They've been preached to us, and taught to us, and recited to us more times than we can shake a stick at. We know them by heart. Even still, this is not a world inhabited by beings who turn the other cheek. This truly is an eye for an eye world.

If they accomplished anything on 911, they gave to us yet another "date which will live in infamy." They gave us reason to roll up our sleeves and ball up our knucklebones. And they inspired us to strengthen our allegiance to the very principles on which our heritage, our principles, and our nation stands. All they did was awaken a sleeping giant.

Misinformation is a dangerous thing. As with every other catastrophe, rumors ignite and the sparks fly. With so many people harboring hidden agendas it becomes virtually impossible to know who to trust or what to believe. Some of the conspiracy theories seem so far off the mark that we tend to overlook the ones that are blatantly obvious. One thing is certain. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Regardless at where you stand either politically, or ethically, on what transpired on September 11th, I'm sure we all agree on one thing. The taking of an innocent life is an act of cowardice. It is further proof that we are not all civilized people. And not until we rise above greed, jealousy, and superstition, will we ever grow out of the Dark Ages.

We lost someone from Everett in that tragedy on September 11, in 2001. My heart cries out to James and Mary Trentini's family. This is the perfect day to offer our prayers to comfort their sorrow. And it is the appropriate time to lift up our hearts for guidance.

For if we don't finally learn to honestly love one another, there won't be anything worthwhile to live for. And if we don't stand together against those who have no value for human life, we will all surely die. Make no mistake about that.

I ask you today to join me in prayer and spiritual support for those who lost their lives on 911, and for those who so selflessly gave of themselves to pull the innocent victims from the wreckage that ensued. And to the courageous men and women of our armed forces who so bravely answered the call to duty. And to everyone who flies Old Glory in honor of our heritage on this day.

God Bless America!
And may God Bless You!

Back To School

Going back to school in Everett after the summer vacation was a lot more than just hectic. It was an absolute mind freak. Well, not for everybody, no, but for those of us who were somewhat academically challenged it was a bit of a hassle that we'd much rather do without. Thank you.

Look at it this way. What was the hardest question anybody asked you over the summer vacation? Think about it. The most difficult challenge I had to face all summer long was deciding whether to play stickball or tag rush today.

Even still, it was a multiple-choice question and you didn't have to go it alone. You got to consult with every other kid on the block and nobody had to stand up to ridicule for giving the wrong answer. There was no wrong answer here. If we couldn't reach a decision we bucked up. Life on the street was a very democratic process.

Compared to that, going back to school was like facing the firing squad. One wrong answer and they made you stand up in the middle of the isle while they went up one side of you and down the other. Not that you really cared, but it kind of sucked when the girl of your dreams sat next to you in class. Some of those teachers had really mastered the art of stripping away every last shred of self-confidence you've built up over the summer vacation.

That's one reason why it is so important that kids have a summer vacation. Self-esteem is not one of the things you acquire in school. Not back in our day anyway. Let me explain how that works.

For sake of argument, let's just say this is the last day of our summer vacation. So there we stand in the middle of Arlington Street bucking up to see which team kicks off and which one receives. The reason we buck up instead of flipping a coin is because none of us have so much as two nickels to rub together.

We don't actually kick off anyway. We throw the ball. Kicking the ball only gets it tangled up in the telephone wires and it slings back at you. Either that or it bounces off the windshield of your neighbor's car and knocks his wiper blades off. If that car belongs to one of the neighborhood teenagers you're in for fifty-two noogies.

Okay, so here's where the democratic process really comes into play. It's our ball first and ten. We crowd around in a huddle and everybody talks at once. First, Jon says, "I'll go out long and you throw to me."

"No way. That won't work."

"Why not?"

"Because they'll see it coming. Go short and do a button hook near Mister MacNamara's car."

"You'll never hit me because they're gonna blitz."

"How do you know that?"

"Cuz they always do."

"Let's do the "Under My Thumb" trick, then."

Yeah, the old "Under My thumb" routine. It works every time. Do you remember that one, Jon? You should. You made it up. Here's how it works.

Jon centers the ball to me. Then instead of blocking, he spins around and runs directly into the backfield while I run straight up the middle. The guys rushing in reach out to tag me because I'm wide open. The only problem is, I don't have the ball. Jon does. I snuck a handoff while charging straight up the middle.

It sets up the perfect screen to catch the blitz off guard. By the time they figure out who has the ball (which takes about two seconds), Jon either rifles it up the middle to me, or Hail Mary's it to whoever goes long.

It's usually David who goes long. Jon winds up throwing it to me anyway because David always drops it. We send him out long because they've still got to put a man on him. That opens up a hole in the defensive backfield. They can't risk not covering David because he's bound to catch one sooner or later. It hasn't happened yet but the odds are stacking up in his favor. We're all rootin' for ya, David. Don't ever give up, dude.

That's as complicated as it gets on Arlington Street over the summer vacation. There's actually a lot of analytical thinking involved and we do continually improve over time using the "trial and error" method. We are allowed to make mistakes. That's how we learn.

That's not at all how it works in school. In school when the teacher calls on you, you're on your own. There's no teamwork here. You don't get to call "odds or evens" and you don't get to buck up for anything. They do a lot of talking about the democratic process in the classroom, but don't expect to experience any of it first hand.

Make just one mistake and the only thing you'll learn is to regret it. Nobody will high-five you when give the right answer. Instead, you'll hear something to effect of "See, you can do the work if you put your mind to it. Use your brain once in a while."

Take it from me. You learn far more after school than you ever do in a classroom. There may only be a thin line between genius and crazy, but between teacher and student there's a wall thicker and higher than anything they ever built in Jericho. Any time a teacher tried to become my friend an alarm went off in my head that echoed, "Warning! This ain't normal! Watch your back!"

I'll be honest with ya, though. You don't have to get up all that early in the morning to pull one over on me. I was the guy you saw walking down the corridor at the Parlin with the "Kick Me" sign taped to his back. If you think I'm kidding, ask Di. She'll tell ya. Not that I'm bragging or anything, but I was once referred to as the official "Pimple on the Ass of Progress." You can just imagine the toll that takes on your over all self-esteem.

Elementary school is not all that bad. At least you don't have to get up and change classrooms every forty-five minutes or so. What's so good about that is you don't have to tax your brain as to what classroom to go back to after playing trashcan basketball with the hand towels for a half an hour in the boys room. That becomes somewhat of a problem when you get up into junior high and you've just dunked the winning score in a really close game in the playoffs.

The down side to elementary school is sitting there in the same seat at the same desk for six and half solid hours. You talk about brain dead? That's like watching paint dry. It makes no wonder you lose all track of reality. I'm telling ya right now, if it weren't for those windows I'd have gone off the deep end.

Okay, I know I sound a bit cynical at times, but let me ask you something. What was God thinking when he made those kids who absolutely shine in school? You know the type. They not only know the answer, but they rise up out of their seats flagging their hands frantically in the air moaning "ooh, ooh, ooh," because they so badly want the teacher to call on them. There should be a law against that. Ya think?

How is it possible to know every answer the teacher throws at you? What do these kids do? Do they just sit home at night memorizing their textbooks? You know what I think? Those are the kids who need to get out more. They are certainly not the same ones who are out there playing stickball in the middle of Arlington Street with me. I can tell you that.

Hey, every dog has their day - right? Look at it this way. Those kids will never make the playoffs in the National Trashcan Basketball League. They will never get a plaque on the wall in the "Chewing Gum under the Desk Hall of Fame." And they will certainly never win an Emmy for the best leading actor or actress in the most dramatic daydream of the year.

Honestly though, I give those kids a lot of credit. It absolutely blows me away at some of the things those kids actually do know. Do you remember staring up at eleven lines of cryptic code on the blackboard that equaled a one digit answer? Some of those algebraic equations had more variables than the Java, Delphi, and Python scripting languages combined. And these kids understood how do to that. That's what gets me.

I had a whole bunch of kids like that in my classroom in the seventh grade at the Fairfield Whitney. I can remember times when our math teacher, Mr. Iozza, couldn't figure out some of the equation procedures in our textbook, but these kids could. They thrived on that kind of stuff.

Those kids could process more information in a five-minute episode than I ever will in my lifetime. Maybe there is some truth to what my sixth grade teacher, Miss Blake, used to say about me after all. She'd say, "The potential is actually there, Paul. The problem lies within the power supply." That's probably it. My brain needs a new battery.

Do you wanna hear what the most useful piece of information was that I ever learned in a math class? It's this. "Never bring your exploding pen to school." Have I told you that story yet?

We were smack dab in the middle of taking down some serious notes in Mr. Wallatta's math class in the eighth grade at the Parlin. This kid named, Billy was sitting right next to me when his pen suddenly ran out of ink. In a frantic effort to keep pace with the rest of the class, he looked over at me and caught a glimpse of that fountain pen sticking up out of my shirt pocket. Without asking, he reached over, grabbed it, and said, "Thanks."

As soon as he pulled the cap off of that pen, it exploded. "What was that?" he asked somewhat surprised. Well, to make a long story short, that little episode landed me in detention for a week and I never did get my exploding pen back. That still irks me to this day.

And here's another thing that gets me. Why is it that your eyelids weigh about a hundred pounds each when you first wake up on a school day? There seems to be an additional element to the natural force of gravity on a school day that makes it ten times harder to get up out of bed. I'll just bet ya that one of these days some scientist from MIT will discover that our school buildings give off a toxic gas as soon as somebody unlocks one of the doors.

No matter how dispirited the drudgery of going back to school gets, I've always got my own little piece of Heaven down there on Arlington Street to go home to when the school day is done. It may not sound like much to you, but it's worth its weight in gold to me.

Contrary to popular belief, everybody down there likes me. God only knows why. I certainly don't deserve it. Even after blackening Christine's eye with a snowball, sticking bubble gum in Ann's hair, and shooting Jon in the rear end with a BB gun, they still like me. Go figure - right?

That's how precious those people are. I mean really. They are so forgiving that they even put up with the likes of me. Who could possibly surround themselves with better people than that? I am one lucky kid to have been born and raised down on Arlington Street. That's all I gotta say.

As soon as I got back home to my neighborhood, school seemed like a million miles away. It's almost as if it never happened. The people down on Arlington Street were my kind of people. They took life as it came. Made their own rules as they went along. And nobody took life all that seriously.

These easy going, liberally minded people were exactly what a budding artist needed to fit into a world filled with a lot of rigid rules and regulations that didn't make much sense. Let's face it. Growing up ain't always easy.

We're filled with a lot of self-doubt during our formative years. We feel like we don't fit in sometimes because we seem so out of step with the rules of the game. It makes us think that we're the only ones who can't seem to get a handle on it. It helps to have an elder around who can give you an honest perspective through the wisdom of their experiences.

Mr. McGlaughlin, who lived upstairs, was just such a mentor for me. I know I've told you about him many times before. That alone should give you somewhat of an indication of how much of an impact this guy made on my life. His perspective on life helped me get a handle on things in so many different ways.

He only had one eye. The other eye socket was all sunken in because he didn't have a glass eye to fill in the blank. You'd expect the sight of this guy to frighten the daylights out of a little kid, but he had such a friendly disposition that you just sort of overlooked it somehow. He never married and never had any kids of his own. What a terrible shame that is. This guy would have made an excellent father.

By the time I was ten years old, Mr. McGlaughlin was already in his seventies. To say that he was a man of modest means is a serious understatement. You can just imagine how few opportunities existed for a man with only one eye back in the early sixties. He got by on nothing more than the bare necessities. Even still, this guy had such a cheerful disposition that he illuminated the world around him.

He held me spellbound telling me about the things he'd seen in his day growing up in Everett. He hawked newspapers on the corner of Ferry and Chelsea when President McKinley got shot. He worked the corner of Chelsea and Broadway when World War One broke out. And he told me about all the fistfights that broke out amongst the paperboys when that horse drawn wagon pulled up along side of the curb to throw the newspaper bundles out to the street vendors.

Listening to him talk about ancient Everett history made me realize how true it is that "the more things change; the more they stay the same." People will always be people no matter how much technology changes the world around us. Attitudes change, but personality traits seem somewhat carved in stone.

The very reason Mr. McGlaughlin popped into my head while talking about going back to school after the summer vacation is because of how he took the sting out of it for me the year I entered into the sixth grade at the Horace Mann. It's not that the experience was all that miserable. On the contrary, I loved how my new classroom was situated.

Miss Blake sat me at the third desk in the last row. To my immediate left was a row of large windows that looked out over Foster Street. I could clearly see all the way over to hospital hill. Man, what a view. She seemed pleasant enough even if she did feel compelled to lay the law down to me on the very first day before I got a chance to do anything. That just goes to show you how your reputation precedes you as you advance from one grade to the next.

So it was really nothing more than the "going back to school" blahs that got me down that year back in 1963. The blues even spilled out into my first Saturday morning after having returned to school. Not even the prospects of getting together a good game of "off the wall" later that day could brighten my spirits.

Something did happen that day that made me forget all about my troubles. Just after finishing my paper route, I was coasting down Arlington Street on my bike towards home. That's when I spotted Mr. McGlaughlin walking up from Ferry carrying an armload of groceries.

"I was just looking for you," he said.

"Hi, Mr. McGlaughlin. What's up?"

"Have you seen the Boston Patriots yet?"

"No, not yet."

"They're going to be on television today."

"No fooling? The Boston Patriots? That's unbelievable!"

Ask anybody. What were the chances of getting to see the Boston Patriots on TV back in 1963? Next to nill. All we ever got to watch on TV back then was the New York Giants. The American Football League was virtually unheard of on TV. Most times you'd have to listen to the Patriot's games on the radio.

"A lot of good that'll do me," I scoffed. "My mother will never let me watch football on a Saturday afternoon. More than likely she'll have the whole thing to herself watching "Queen for a Day, or "Art Linkletter," or "As The World Turns" or something foolish like that."

"Well, why don't you come upstairs and watch the game with me."

"Wow, that would be great."

"I just got a new TV," he said. "Wait till you see it."

Truth is, he was dying to show off his new TV to somebody. And what a marvel in technology it was. I've never seen anything like it. This was the year that Sony first came out with those miniature tabletop portable televisions. You had the option of either plugging it into the wall or running it on batteries.

The other thing that amazed me about it is that it also sported an earphone jack. Do you know what that means to a recording buff like me? Man, you can run a patch cord from that phone jack directly into your tape recorder. What that eliminates is picking up your mother's voice in the background shouting, "Who left the toilet seat up?"

So anyway, watching sports with Mr. McGlaughlin was a blast and a half. This guy couldn't just watch a game and leave it at that. He had to turn the radio on as well so he could listen to the Boston College Eagles while watching the pros on TV. You'd probably think that gets confusing at times, but trust me, you do get the hang of it after a while. It's actually quite addictive.

That was the first time I ever saw the Boston Patriots play football. And I'll be honest with ya. I was impressed. They pounded the New York Jets into the turf and wound up winning the game 38 to 14. Quarterback Babe Parilli looked better than Y.A. Tittle. I kid you not. And then there was Gino Cappelletti. This guy was a wide receiver, a kicker, and a defensive linebacker all rolled into one. Even the old NFL didn't have anybody like that.

It was kind of funny to watch it all unfold on such a tiny TV screen. We sat there chugging down root beer and corn chips like they were going out of style. It just so happened that when the Patriots scored their first touchdown of the game on TV, so did the Boston College Eagles on the radio.

Mr. McGlaughlin got so excited that he leaped up out of his chair in a fit of frenzied ecstasy, and accidentally threw his whole mug of root beer in his own face. I laughed so hard that root beer came out of my nose. "Take it easy, Paul," he laughed. The more he pleaded, the more I laughed, and the more I laughed, the harder he laughed. He laughed so hard that he leaned back in his chair and started to cry, "If you don't stop I'm gonna have to send you home."

I'll tell ya one thing. He completely erased those "going back to school" blahs right out of my heart that day. There's nothing you can't face when you've got a friend like that. The good thing about the kind of neighborhood I grew up in is that nobody ever had to go it alone. We always had each other.

Thinking back on that now makes me realize how spending those good times together did just as much good for him as they did for me. I brought the little kid out in him. And he gave me the opportunity to relate to my elders on more leveled playing field. A kid really needs that.

It saddens me now when I think about how as I grew older, poor old Mr. McGlaughlin's faculties grew dim. By the time I graduated from Everett high school, he didn't even remember my name. By the time I got married in 1973, my valued friend had passed away beyond the far horizon. And even though it edges my eyes with tears to think about that now, I do so with a heartfelt gratitude for the warmth and wisdom he rendered unto my life.

Those are the kinds of neighbors I grew up with. You talk about character? Those people are character personified. Hardly a day goes by when something about one of my neighbors doesn't suddenly pop into my head and make me smile.

You can laugh if you want to, but I'm telling ya right now. One good friend is worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox. You can't buy that kind of friendship. It has to come from the heart. And I possess the unique privilege to be able to say that I have known such friendships in my lifetime.

That is exactly the lesson I learned on that summer day back in 2005 when I ventured halfway across the country to visit with family and friends back home in good old Everett. If you could have only seen the way Martha lit up the moment she saw me.

"Hey, Paul Huffman," she shouted.

"Yo, Martha. What it is?"

The smile was not only on our lips, but also in our eyes. It radiated from our hearts. You could hear it in our voices. Neither time, nor distance can ever wither the luster of a true friendship. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. And it so often reminds us that "true friendship" is the only worthwhile treasure worth possessing in this lifetime.

And that is precisely what this journal is all about. It's more than just taking a nostalgic trip back to a simpler time in our lives. It's about examining that point in time when all the good in our hearts took root. Those are things that guide us towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Those are the things that make us strong whenever fate comes along and gives us a whack upside the head on our blind side.

See how lucky we are? We've got each other. Let us never lose sight of that. It is the most valuable possession we will ever achieve in this life. And that is so very true for us because - "We're from Everett!"

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If you rearrange the letters in "RATHER BRAINY PILL" you'll find a place in Everett that conjures up such an image. Give it a shot!