One For Me And ...

"Whew, that was close!" Picture yourself ducking down behind the bushes with your very best friend in the whole world while peaking out at the neighborhood grouch standing on his front porch, scratching his head, and looking around in all directions. Okay, so what did you do this time?

What makes kids do things they know that they're not supposed to do? It's probably the same principle that makes grownups do the things that they're not supposed to do either. The difference is that when you're a little kid they make you stand in the corner. When you're all grownup the whole world caves in on you.

With all the different people we grew up with in Everett, we certainly had every opportunity to observe the pitfalls that went along with each temptation of the forbidden fruits. Little kids who stole things got a whack with the belt so hard that they couldn't sit down for an hour and a half. Grownups who stole things got sent off to play rock hockey at the State Pen. And we all knew one or two of those in our lifetime growing up in Everett. Am I right?

Some of things we did as kids were really dumb, to put it bluntly. But then again, some of things the grownups do are even worse. If the roles were ever reversed more than half the world's population of grownups would wind up standing in the corner for most of their lives. I can think of a few grownups who should get duck taped into the corner.

Rekindling childhood memories is more than just a pleasant past time. It's a way to get in touch with your inner self. That's why every once in a while you get that sudden urge to do something that you haven't done since you were a kid. And that's why you should stay as far away as possible from Cracker Barrel.

They've got just about every penny candy you ever bought in your lifetime there. Carol and I spent the whole afternoon rummaging through the candies saying, "Do you remember these?" I dare say, if you want to stir up a lot of those fond memories you're harboring about the old candy store that was just around the corner, then by all means, take a trip down to your local Cracker Barrel.

Don't say I didn't warn you. Remember how you used to think that when you grew up and had your own money that you'd go back down to the candy counter and buy at least one of everything? Well, I recently discovered that the only reason we don't do that is because all of the neighborhood candy stores are gone. It has nothing at all to do with maturity.

The way I see it, maturity is not only a state of mind, but is also a matter of opinion. If you're anything at all like me, then you can't count how many times somebody said to you, "act your age and not your I.Q." One infinitesimal character flaw that has dogged me for most of my life is that I was always a day late and a penny short.

By the time I accomplished anything everybody else had already done it. I was in my early twenties before I could get a Duncan yo-yo to come back up to my string finger, and I still can't do it twice in a row. I couldn't blow a bubble with bubble gum until I was in my thirties. And even to this day I still can't get more than three spins out of a Hoola Hoop.

So don't go off half cocked putting somebody else down just because they're out there on the sidewalk in their upper fifties playing with a yo-yo. More than likely it's bothered them their whole life that they couldn't do something that everybody else on the planet takes for granted.

I'm telling ya right now, if I ever get the hang of that yo-yo, or ever get that Hoola Hoop technique down pat, I'm gonna be out there on the sidewalk until the cows come home. And I don't care how old I am or how immature I look. I'm not that vain. I'm from Everett.

Don't worry. I'm not all that soft headed so as to go completely over the edge. There is a line I will not cross. I will never again leap off a kitchen chair in my underwear with a towel pinned around my neck pretending to be Superman. I am completely over my Superman fixation. It took a while but I've finally reached that plateau.

Even still, in all my adult wisdom I could never fathom as to why I stopped burning ants with a piece of glass on a hot sunny day. I don't know how many times I've sat out on the patio watching an ant for about an hour and a half trying to lug a dead cicada that was ten times his own weight. I did keep kicking a pebble into his path to see if I could wear the little tyke out, but that's about as far as I go nower days.

Notice how I said "kicked" a pebble into his path. Therein lies the key as to why I stopped burning ants with a piece of glass. To do that I'd have to get up out of my chair and crouch down. There's no question as to whether or not the ant would suffer untold horrors, but the worst of it is that there's no guarantee that I'd ever get back up. And once I did I'd more than likely need an afternoon nap on the couch to restore my vitality.

Okay, so let's get back to the candy thing. When was the last time you chewed on a mouthful of Bonomo Turkish Taffy? Delicious ain't the word for it. The flavor alone is enough to send you into mindless ecstasy. So why have I waited so long to enjoy such a nostalgic delicacy?

How often have you looked at your grandchildren and laughed to yourself thinking, "Where do they get all that energy?" We tend to forget how when we were little kids we couldn't keep our feet still for more than a minute. All that energy transforms into physical strength. That strength enables them to chew on things like Bonomo Turkish Taffy.

When you're approaching the sunny side of sixty, chewing on a piece of taffy is as tough as nails. You'd have an easier time trying to crack a walnut with your molars. Not only does your jaw start to knock, but your lower plate will refuse to go along for the ride. Polident has yet to come up with anything that can withstand the rigors of Bonomo's Turkish Taffy. Trust me on that.

If you wear dentures don't even think about chewing on a piece of taffy that is any bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. And you can forget about Cracker Jacks as well. I don't remember Cracker Jacks sticking to my teeth like a mouthful of Elmer's glue, do you? After all that I don't even dare go anywhere near the licorice.

By the time we got out of Cracker Barrel we had completely given into our childhood desires and bought just about one of everything at the candy counter. As soon as we got into the car the first thing we said was "Remember how we used to buy all of this for a quarter?" We just dropped a fifty-dollar bill on penny candy. I've waited all my life to do that.

Even with all the drawbacks my mother constantly warned me about, and even after all these years, there is still something very magical about sitting down to a lap full of penny candy. It's not gonna rot my teeth out anymore because they are all plastic. The worst it can do is give me a belly ache.

By this juncture in my career as a grownup, I've become somewhat of an expert on how my system works and what it responds to. That's why I seldom go anywhere without Tums and Pepto Bismal. Nutrition be damned. I'm pigging out on penny candy tonight!

You gotta see this to believe it. Carol and I are sitting side by side on the living room couch like a couple of little kids divvying up the candy between us. We're actually doing the "one for me and one for you" thing.

And I'm telling ya right now. I'm gonna make damn sure that her pile isn't any bigger than mine. You gotta watch these Everett kids. They could slip a mack truck into their back pocket within the blink of an eye. You give them an inch and they'll take a yard. Wait a minute now. I'm still counting my M&M's.

Another trick of the trade I learned while growing up on Arlington Street is to mark your territory before you do anything so foolish as to go off to the bathroom and leave your pile of candy unprotected around an Everett kid. That's why a kid won't go to the bathroom until his bladder is about to explode.

So when your bladder "is" about to burst, and you positively, absolutely must go, the only thing you can do to protect your stash is to "spit" on it. Now that may not always protect your stuff from an Everett boy, but you'd be hard pressed to find a girl who would even entertain the thought of venturing beyond the "spit" shield.

And you know me. Each and every piece of candy brings back a whole slew of memories. Like these orange marsh mellow peanuts. Remember those? Let me tell ya a cute little story about those.

Back in my kindergarten days I had this emotional tick about me where every few minutes or so I'd put my hand over my heart to make sure it was still beating. Don't ask me why, but I was frightened out of my wits that my heart was going to suddenly stop. Think about it. It doesn't come with replaceable batteries. So who's to say it's not just gonna run out of power - right?

No amount of reassurance from either my parents, or my older siblings could convince me otherwise. And it's not as if I could do anything about it anyway. I just figured that if it ever did stop, and I caught it in plenty of time, then I could sound the alarm and somebody somewhere could do something fast enough to save me. That was it in a nutshell.

My walking around the house with my hand over my heart all the time was really getting on everyone's nerves. The funny thing about it was that I never gave it a second thought the whole time I was in Miss cook's Kindergarten class up at the Horace Mann. More than likely that was because she was so pretty that I forgot all about it. But the moment I stepped outside of that classroom I was back to my old self again.

So on this one particular day when I got home from school I was somewhat surprised to find my great aunt Grace sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea with my mother. "Paul, my son" she said, "Come here I want to have a talk with ye."

You read that right. Newfoundlanders say "ye." They also say "yeah" while inhaling, but we'll get into that another time.

"I spoke to Doctor Corkery about your heart this morning and he gave me a special medicine for you that will strengthen your heart forever." She held up a bag of those orange marsh mellow peanuts and said, "Doctor Corkery said that you're to chew one each day after supper. When the whole bag is gone you will never have to worry about your heart ever again." That's exactly what she said.

Well, guess what? I don't know what's in those marsh mellow peanuts, but they did the trick. By the time I had finished off that bag I had completely forgotten all about my heart. Maybe the pulmonary physicians should focus their research on the healing qualities of marsh mellow peanuts. They worked for me.

Here's another childhood favorite of mine. We always called these "bulls eyes." They're those short cylinders of hard caramel surrounding a core of stiff vanilla creme. I just had to buy em for old time's sake even if my dentures couldn't stand up to the beating. We used to get two of those for a penny down at Vinnie's on the corner of Ferry and High.

My first impulse was to pop the whole thing in my mouth all at once, but then I remembered how we used to eat these things. We used to bite em in half to pop the hard creme center out to eat that first, and then we'd eat the outside caramel last. That's how you're supposed to eat those things.

Kids have a funny way of analytical thinking when it comes to eating food. Take supper for instance. Give a kid a pile of french fries, a crispy fried chicken leg, and a mound of corn and he won't know where to begin. On the other hand, if you were to give him spinach instead of corn it would just set there on his plate until hell freezes over.

An adult eats the food they like least and saves the best for last. Kids do just the opposite. They dig right into the good stuff hoping the world will end before they ever have to go anywhere near that spinach. And they are willing to sit at the kitchen table and wait for the world to end rather than to just eat that spinach to get it over with.

I've spent more time plotting and planning how to wrap my spinach up in a napkin so I could dispose of it than I have eating it. It's funny how we didn't realize how small that portion of spinach actually was and how it would have only taken about three bites to polish it off. At the time it looked steeper and higher than Garland Street.

Which also leads me to believe that kids also have a warped sense of perspective when it comes to food. Think back to your childhood mindset before answering my next question. "Which takes more effort to swallow all at once - a bucket full of a French fries or a thimble full of liver?" See what I mean?

Okay, take a look at these. They're those little wax bottles of Coke filled with colored syrup. When was the last time you had one of these? You know what I forgot about these? They taste awful. The colored syrup tastes like cough medicine and the wax bottle is as tasteless as an emergency candle. Yech! And I used to love these things.

Come to think of it, I used to hate onions and brussel sprouts too, but now I can't get enough of either one. So maybe it's me. I don't remember the powder in those pixie sticks feeling like sand in my mouth either. I used to gulp those things down without so much as a flinch when I was a little kid. Now they make me gag and sputter. Is it me? Tell me if it is.

What I need to do is go back in time to see if I can't figure this all out. Now where did I put that time machine? It's probably behind the couch with my odd sock and that battery that keeps falling out of the flashlight.

I have a whole new technique for getting things from under the couch now. What I do is lie face down on the couch and fish around under there with my left hand. The only drawback is that I keep falling asleep before I find anything.

Lying on the couch watching TV takes on a whole new meaning as compared to back when I played on the living room floor with my army men while my dad sprawled out to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. They show things on TV today that we used to get our mouths washed out with soap over.

Remember when they started showing those Playtex "cross your heart" living bra commercials? "Woo, woo" - right? My mother was livid. "I don't believe they're allowing them to show that on TV," she used to complain ever so indignantly. My dad would just there and smile.

"I don't see what's so gawd dam funny," she'd yell. "If they get away with that now there's no telling what they'll stoop to next."

It makes me laugh to think about that now, but how right she was. Some of the commercials they show on TV today will redden your face. Like that "Girls Gone Wild" commercial. That's almost a stag flick in itself. And to think that they refused to show Elvis shaking his hips on the Ed Sullivan show.

You can't get away from the commercials. TV commercials are every bit a part of our culture as anything else. Some of them are far more entertaining than the very shows they sponsor. They certainly reflect the times. And these are crazy times. You can tell that just by watching the commercials.

Sitting here chowing down on all this penny candy reminds me of all the different candy commercials we used to see when we were little kids. If I hold up a piece of candy, chances are that most of you will know the commercial jingle associated with it by heart.

Let's see how many you do remember, shall we? I'll give you some jingles from back in our childhood days and see if you can fill in the missing blanks, okay?

#1. Charley says, "I love my __________." Charley says, "It really rings the bell," Charley says, "I love my __________. I don't know any other candy that I love so well."

#2. All the kids in the neighborhood say _______ are triple good. Triple good, you'll love _______."

#3. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Some times you don't. _________ has nuts. _______ don't. Because, sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don't.

#4. "Candy coated popcorn, peanuts, and a prize, that's what you get with __________."

Okay, so how did you do? Chances are you scored a perfect hundred. Besides the fact that those jingles advertised some of your favorite candies, these were expertly crafted advertising gimmicks that stood the test of time. I can't so much as look at some of these candies without breaking into a song.

Candy brings out the child in all of us. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. Every time I eat a malted milk ball I relive those precious moments when Stanley and I sat out on the curb down on Arlington Street divvying up our penny candy. And to think, we were lucky if we could muster up a whole six cents between the two of us, but still had enough to buy so much candy that we'd often lose count and have to start all over again.

Ah, those were the days. Memories are magic. And all I had to do to conjure up these memorable treasures was to drop a fifty-dollar bill to buy what used to be about forty-eight cents worth of penny candy. Well, for us anyway, because ... "We're from Everett!"

Think For Yourself

This is an election year. And just like every other election before it, you've got about as much chance as a snowball in hell in ever seeing any significant change for the better. That is especially true now that the two leading democratic candidates, and the winning republican nominee has vowed to support all of the initiatives set in motion by the current administration.

To add insult to injury, all of the three major presidential candidates just voted to extend and increase Social Security and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens. That sounds almost too implausible to be true, but it is. It's got to make you stop and wonder as to "what, in God's name, is really going on around here?"

There are two border guards sitting in prison for trying to stop a drug smuggler from crossing the border. So what happened to the drug smuggler? They set him free and gave him a bundle of money. That sounds like something you'd read in "Ripley's Believe it or Not." Doesn't it?

Our veterans come home from active duty only to be denied all of the benefits they're entitled to. And in some instances, they are required to pay back the signing bonuses they were granted for stepping up to the plate and laying their lives on the line to honor their country. What's even more inconceivable is that they don't qualify for any assistance.

These are crazy times. Sometimes the senselessness of it all gets so frustrating it makes you want to pack your bags and run off to some remote deserted island somewhere. Because hey, let's face it. There are times when you just can't help but think what a beautiful world it would be without people - right?

We gather here to reminisce about a simpler time when wrong wasn't right and people just instinctively did the right thing - or so we thought. The truth is that once you take off those rose colored glasses and take a good hard gaze into the looking glass you're going to find that the times we lived through were not all peaches and cream.

It was in our youth that we formulated lifelong friendships that endured the test of time. Oh, but we did so suffer through rejection, struggle with peer pressure, and went toe to toe with our elders thinking we knew all the answers long before we ever ventured out into that cold cruel world outside. And to think, we couldn't wait to get out on our own so we could call our own shots.

These seem like despondent times with little hope in sight. If America has ever faced her darkest hour, it is now. After all, if you can't trust your elected officials to represent you, who can you trust? If you're looking for justice it only exist in the dictionary. There is a fine line between right and wrong and life hangs on the balance of straddling that line.

Let me take you back through the space-time continuum to another election year that happened 40 years ago. Sounds like an eternity, doesn't it? To me it seems like only yesterday.

As the curtain unfolds you're seeing a darkened bedroom up on the second floor of an apartment at the far end of Foster Street. The current occupants only recently moved here from the bottom of Arlington Street. You know that law of inertia which states that "things in motion tend to stay in motion?" Well, that's what living in Everett was like 40 years ago.

People from Everett tend to stay in Everett. We'd move around a bit, but rarely did we ever move beyond the city limits. Some did. Most didn't. That's why a lot of Everett's families go back for many generations.

Another interesting facet about growing up in Everett is that the friends you make there become your friends for life. Ancestry may play a hand in that sometimes, but I rather doubt that it administers a dominant role in the matter. There is just something so special about growing up in Everett that it instills a natural sense of fraternity between us.

Only the test of time can verify that theory. So you tell me. How many of you are still close to one of your childhood friends from Everett? From what you've been telling me it sounds like quite a few.

Let's get back to our 40-year walk through the space-time continuum before I go off on another tangent, shall we? Here we are standing in the middle of a darkened bedroom up on Foster Street. Pay no attention to that motionless mass sprawled sideways across the bed. And don't worry about creeping around on your tippy toes either because you couldn't wake that lazy bum up even if you brought a brass band in here. Ask any one of his friends. They'll tell ya.

Take a moment to have a look around. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she keeps their room. There's a really nice oak desk right in front of the window. The patriarch of the family brought that home from Tufts University where he works as a truck mechanic.

You're probably wondering how a truck mechanic could wind up with such a beautiful oak desk from the university, but that's another amazing thing I left out about the people from Everett. They are masters in the art of the five finger discount. Trust me on that.

The story as I heard it went something like this. The college had ordered four brand new desks. They delivered five. His superior called out to him saying, "Hey Bill, get rid of this extra desk for me, will ya?" He didn't specify where to get rid of it so he conveniently deposited it in the back of his car. That's how it wound up over there in front of that window.

Scattered on top of that desk are hundreds of sheets of notebook paper with the same paragraph written down both sides of each page until each and every word worked to perfection. You'll also find about a dozen canvas boards. Each is a work in progress.

Pull open the top drawer and you'll find a whole bunch of tubes of acrylic paint. And more than likely, the titanium white and mars black are squeezed flat. There's no such thing as enough white or black when it comes to acrylics. You could spend a fortune at Noyes on just black and white paint alone.

In that top, side drawer you'll find soft lead and charcoal drawing pencils wrapped up in a bundle of toilet paper. I suppose you'll want me to explain that. Have you ever worked with soft lead and charcoal drawing pencils? Those pencils give off an unimaginable amount of dust. If you don't wrap them up in some kind of tissue paper the dust gets all over everything. It gets on your hands, and then it gets on your pillow.

You so much as look at one of those drawing pencils on a school morning and you'll wind up walking through the corridors of EHS with this big black streak across the side of your face. Don't expect your friends to help you out in a situation like that. It'll tickle them pink to watch you make a complete fool out of yourself trying to impress a girl with that big black streak smeared across your kisser, believe you me. Hey, what are friends for - right?

Okay, lying in its opened hard shell case on the other side of the bed is "Tea Cup." Who's Tea Cup? "Tea Cup" is the name christened unto a twelve-string, acoustic, Epiphone guitar. Her harmonics are so rich they're like ringing a bell. You've really got to feel the action on her neck to fully appreciate her. Just the glimmer alone of those bronze wound strings makes your fingers want to dance. I get the feeling like somebody's a bit too obsessed with their instrument, don't you?

Hold on a second. That lifeless mass under the covers is about to stir. You'll likely hear some form of garbled gibberish as he throws back the covers. Well, what do ya know? That's me we were talking about all along. That's me back in 1968 when I was only sixteen years old.

Hey, check this out. I know this routine like the back of my hand. I ought to. I lived it enough times. As I sit here now looking back through the space-time continuum I cannot believe that he and I are the very same human being.

Just watch how I navigate my way out of bed. You'd think I was trying to get up out of a rocking boat or something. I'd drop one foot down beside the bed before opening my second eye to make sure the floor is still there. Nothing's worse than hoping up out of bed so fast that you miss the floor.

And oh dear gawd was my head pounding. "Where's the coffee?"

Let me tell ya something. You need a cup of coffee to recover from a night up in the back hills of Glendale Park. It comes with the territory. Never mind that "another hair of the dog" theory. All that ever did was knock me back down onto my knees before the porcelain god.

So we're talkin forty years ago when I was only sixteen years old. Is that scandalous or what? Hey, it's not all my fault. It's that crowd of bums I hung around with. Blame Geno, and his brother, Bobby. And Timmy from Morris Street, and Ronnie from Lexington Street, and yeah, that kid, Billy from up on Broadway, and Stevie from Malden Street. it's all their fault.

As soon as I staggered out into the kitchen my dad starts. "Do you know what time it is?"

So I'd close one eye and try to bring the kitchen clock into focus. "Yeah, it's one o' clock."

"Yeah, in the afternoon," he says peering up over the Sunday Globe with an utter look of disgust across his face.

"So what? It's Sunday."

"What difference does that make?" he snarls.

"How should I know? You started it."

So off he goes..."I'm gonna put my foot down around here one of these days, buddy boy. If you think you're gonna just come and go as you please, then you've got another think coming. For as long as you live under my roof you'll go by my rules. And when do you intend to go get a haircut?"

"When it gets down to my knees."

"You look like a girl for cry's sakes."

"And blah, blah, blah, blah," the repetition continues until I stagger over to the refrigerator, yank open the door, fold back the flaps on the Hoods milk and start gulping.

"What do you think you're doing?" Now my mother starts.

"I'm just downing some milk to replenish my nourishment." Hippies need to replenish their body's nourishment after a night on the town. Ask any one of them, they'll tell ya.

"You were out partying again last night, weren't you?"

"Nah, we were just hanging out comparing our homework papers," I laughed. You've got to remember that I'm still a little under the weather. They don't just party up in the back hills of Glendale Park. They go completely over the edge. You don't recover by one o' clock in the afternoon when you don't get home until first light.

It just so happens that I went out partying with Eddie the night before. You remember Eddie. He's the one who broke off the top of my Hershey bar in Miss Blake's sixth grade classroom up at the Horace Mann so I whacked him in the mouth. That's what I mean about Everett kids. You can whack each other in the mouth today and still be the best of friends tomorrow. It happens all the time.

That is especially true if you hang around with hippies. If two hippies got into a major brawl they'd forget it ever happened about a half an hour later. Hippies tend to have grossly under developed short-term memory banks. I forget why that is.

So anyway, I was on my way down the park when Eddie came cruising up Ferry Street in one of the coolest Barracudas I've ever seen in my life. "Hot damn, Dude, where'd you get them wheels?"

"Hop in, Bro," he shouts. "It's party time."

Now I'll be honest with ya. I knew Eddie wasn't always on the level. I wanted to make sure that everything was on the up and up in regards to his driving around in this beautiful car before making any wrong decisions. And if you fall for that one I've got some land on Jupiter for sale at half price.

Where Eddie got that car never entered into my mind. When you see somebody driving a car you just naturally assume he's on the up and up. I was too taken aback by the wonder of it all to even care. All I knew was that we were gonna party big time tonight. And man, did we ever.

After hitting a couple parties, Eddie and I somehow got separated and lost track of each other. That happened all the time. You'd start partying with one group of people and somehow wound up partying with a whole nuther crowd without ever realizing the change taking place. That's just the way it was back in 1968.

I ran into Eddie again sometime around three o' clock in the morning at another party somewhere. "So how's them wheels doing ya, man?"

"Oh Dude, what a bummer," he said holding his brew up over his head while trying to squeeze through the crowd with this real serious look on his face. "I totaled that ride down on the Revere Beach Boulevard."

"You totaled it? What happened, dude?"

"Man, I don't even know. I lost control and slammed into a whole string of parked cars. I had to crawl out the window to get away, man. It was terrible."

"Dude, you left the scene of an accident?"

"Yeah, I had to, dude. That wasn't my car."

"Dude, you stole that car?"

"No man, I didn't steal it. I just took it. I was gonna give it back."

"Dude, that's stealing."

"No dude, it ain't stealing if you're gonna give it back."

"Yeah, but you're not giving it back so it is stealing."

"No dude, it ain't stealing because I was gonna give it back. It ain't my fault."

"Whose fault is it?"

"Jeez, I don't know, man. Don't get heavy on me, okay? I'm busy partying right now. Forget about the car. It's over and done with. Get on with your life. Don't get hung up on the small stuff, dude. Learn to hang loose and live for today. You know what I'm saying?"

Now let me tell ya something. Eddie truly believes that he did not steal that car. You and I may disagree until we're blue in the face, but you're never going to convince Eddie otherwise.

Okay, let me suck you back here into the present for moment. I look back on Eddie with a heavy heart. He no longer walks amongst us. Now there's a kid who lived his life like a candle in the wind if there ever was one.

He was wild, and he was crazy, but he never once hurt anyone. If he had it, he'd share it with ya. He loved life with such a passion that he always went overboard with whatever he did. And yeah, his passion to live life to its fullest did eventually land him in the pokey.

The reason that is such a pity is because had he stepped back a moment to see the light he would have found his way. I know he would have. Underneath that fast exterior lived a sensitive soul always reaching out to the people around him in a personal way. If he liked you he loved you.

He had a problem separating fact from fallacy sometimes, so he lived most of his life in the gray area between right and wrong. There must have been a reason as to why God called him home so early. I just wish he got to see more of this realm before he went on to the next.

Another memory that brings those sentiments to mind involves my childhood friend, Nicky. He grew up on Elm Street and served on the Common Council in the City of Everett for many years. He is the original inventor of the "Field Mouse." I know I've told you about that before, but let me refresh your memory.

When we attended the Horace Mann together, Nicky made up this thing he called the "Field Mouse." We'd squint our faces up and gnaw like a mouse as a sort of secret handshake amongst us. He had us all doing it by the sixth grade.

He even made up a whole new language to go along with it. It went something like this. Instead of saying, "Hello to you, and how are you today?" We'd say, "Hellosis to yousis, and howsis are yousis todaysis?" It drove our teachers up a wall so that made it all the more fun.

I happened to run into Nicky about six years ago out in front of that variety store on the corner of Chestnut and Ferry that used to be Ski's Ice Cream Parlor. Nicky lit up the moment he saw me. He took hold of my hand with a hearty handshake and said. "Hey Huff, it's really good to see ya after all these years. Isn't it great to be fifty?"

It may not sound like much, but that very moment said so much in so many ways. Nicky and I have known each other since kindergarten. We became the best of friends without even saying so much as a single word. It was just in our chemistry to become comrades in arms.

There's no doubt that we will remain the best of friends until the day we pass beyond the far horizon. And you never know, maybe we'll get to continue this friendship on the other side. I certainly hope so.

Those are the kinds of friendships you stumble upon growing up in Everett. How sad it is that Eddie never got to experience how more deeply your childhood friendships grow with age. It is so true that "old age is a privilege that is denied to many."

Let's jump back through that space-time continuum to 1968. My older brother, Billy, and my big sister, Julie, had now married and gone off to start families of their own. My parents now had grandchildren. That alone breathed a whole new meaning into their lives.

Since I was the last of the kids, they were just plumb tuckered out by it all. There is no question about it, I enjoyed far more freedom than any of my other siblings. By this stage of the game they kept off my case so long as I wasn't getting into any trouble with the cops. When Billy was my age he was in trouble with the cops more times than you could shake a stick at. So the secret to my success was to get away before the cops showed up.

By 1968 America itself had completely turned upside down. The world had gone nuts. Martin Luther King was senselessly killed at a motel in Memphis so our black brothers and sisters set every major city in America on fire. Just after winning the California primary, the illuminati stepped in once again and ruthlessly gunned down Senator Robert Kennedy. And at the Democratic National convention in Chicago the people went wild in the streets.

I can remember stepping into the living room one night while my father sat there in his recliner watching the riots unfold on TV. "They should shoot every one of those lousy bastards," he said shaking his fist into the air. "This country is going to the dogs," he shouted.

"You can't do that, dad. They're exercising their right to protest. You can't gun people down for exercising their constitutional rights. That's tyranny."

"They're all a bunch of commie traitors. That's why I'm voting for Nixon. He'll straighten them all out."

"Well, you do what you have to do. I just don't see where Nixon is gonna do anything for you personally. Hey, I could be wrong. What do I know anyway?"

Sure enough, my dad voted for Nixon. You talk about a bad administration? Both our Vice President and President had to bow out of office in disgrace.

And I'll never forget that intense anger that fell across my father's face when he saw Timothy Leary on TV raise his fist and shout "Think for yourself and question authority!" Man, if looks could kill. Even to this day I can't figure out why my father got so mad over somebody shouting "think for yourself." If you've got a logical explanation, I'm all ears.

Down here on the local level, my dad had just suffered through somewhat of a crisis that was none of his own doing whatsoever. Back in 1968 when you cashed your paycheck they handed you back the cash. People with checking accounts were few and far between. Most people lived on their cash. So when it came time to pay the rent he just went downstairs and handed the landlord a fistful of cash and the guy always wrote him out a receipt.

On this one occasion, however, the landlord wasn't home so he handed the rent to his wife. "I don't know where his receipts are so I'll have him run one up to you when he gets home," is what she said. My dad took her on her word because he was such a trusting soul. And for the most part, you could trust people back then.

Sure enough, three days later the landlord comes pounding on the back door looking for his rent. And he's bullshit now because he thinks my dad is late with paying his tab. Innocently enough my dad explains the situation and the guy just about calls him a liar. My dad was an honest and sensitive guy. He was devastated by the experience.

This thing went back and fourth for a couple days until the landlord's wife discovered that she had misplaced the money. Even worse, she had spent it. Do you think that guy had the decency to apologize to my dad for what he put him through? Not on your life. He even had the audacity to say, "Let's make sure this never happens again" when he handed him his receipt. From that day forward my father paid his rent with a money order.

Many years later my parents pooled their resources with my big sister to buy a place of their own. The only stipulation in their agreement was that house had to be in Everett. Wild horses couldn't drag my parents out of Everett. What's so crazy about that is that neither one of my parents are natives of Everett. My dad was born and raised on a farm in southern Indiana, and my mom came from a very "well-to-do" life of luxury up in Newfoundland. Go figure.

So here it is 40 years later and I'm the one laid back in the recliner shaking my fist at the TV shouting, "This country is going to the dogs!" See? History repeats itself.

What all of this proves is that absolutely nothing whatsoever has changed politically in America over the past forty years. We're still bogged down in the same go nowhere quagmire we were bogged down in forty years ago. It's not gonna matter whether you vote republican or democrat come the next election because nothing is ever gonna change. We're still just pawns in the game and we're still gonna wind up holding onto the dirty end of the stick. It's as simple as that.

One thing I can tell you, though, is that there is no education that equals the one you get when you do finally head out into that cold cruel world on your own. And the most valuable lesson you'll learn is that the very people (your parents) that you vehemently rebelled against in your youth were right all along.

Now that we've got that all cleared up, let me talk a little bit about what has changed over the past 40 years and how those changes were strongly influenced by a native of Everett.

Back on July 2nd, of 2006, in my post entitled "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy," I introduced you to Vannevar Bush. Born in Everett back in 1890, this celebrated scientist co-invented a gaseous rectifier tube and later co-founded the Raytheon Corporation. His well-referenced article entitled, "As We May Think" for the July issue of the Atlantic Monthly in 1945 covered such topics as using a hypertext language to organize and retrieve information.

Well, while all of that turmoil was going on back in 1968, an Electrical Engineer from Oregon, named Douglas Engelbart, inspired by that article by Vannevar Bush developed the very first integrated computer mouse, keyboard, and monitor. His research team showcased their invention at the Convention Center in San Francisco on December 9, 1968.

Commonly referred to as the "Mother of all Demos," his team demonstrated how 1000 computers hooked up into a network system (called the "NLS" for "oN Line System") could interact with one another. They successfully demonstrated the practical use for a computer mouse, interactive text, video and teleconferencing, email, and the hypertext principle. That demonstration became the forerunner for ARPANET, which is in fact, the predecessor of today's internet.

That demonstration happened forty years ago. An article written 63 years ago by a native of Everett inspired that demonstration. And the rest, my good people, is history.

So behind all the political rhetoric the media is going to saturate you with this year is a world full of real people, doing real things, that will make a real impact on tomorrow. Don't ever forget that. People make the world go round.

That means you and me. We make the world go round. And believe me, they'll be able to pick us out of the crowd. We're that special. "We're from Everett!"

You Gotta See This

"Hey everybody, come here. You gotta see this." How many times have you heard or said that yourself in your lifetime? Probably too many to count - right?

My point is that through observation we learn far more about life than through any other source of information. So I thought it would be fun to take a virtual trip back to our childhood days growing up in Everett and talk about some of the more outrageous things that crossed our paths. That'll give us the chance to reflect on what we've learned (if anything at all) from those quirky experiences.

Let me take you back to sometime around the later part of winter in 1969 when I was in the tenth grade at Everett High. We were standing at the bus stop on Broadway in front of the chain link fence to that apartment building on the corner of Hancock Street. That's where we stood to smoke cigarettes at lunchtime.

This kid named, Kenny, turned to me, pointed across the street and said, "Hey Huff, what's wrong with this picture?" My jaw dropped. What I saw doubled me over in laughter. On the other side of Broadway at the edge of the curb stood, the one and only, crazy Rosie.

Now honestly, nothing could be more cruel and insensitive than to point and laugh at those less fortunate than ourselves. But there are times when reality just crosses over that imaginary line into the realm of "over the edge." This was certainly one of those times.

Every community has its fair share of eccentrics. Hey, I even had em in my family. Everyone else thinks it was me. I beg to differ, though. One thing for sure is that eccentrics certainly give you a broader understanding of the many diversities inherent in the human race.

It wasn't what Rosie was doing that was so outrageous as it was how she was dressed. She had so much lipstick smeared around her mouth that it looked like clown makeup. On top of her head was one of those furry Fez hats like they wear in Russia. Her hoop earrings were large enough to use as handcuffs. And she had no less than about a half a dozen pearl necklaces draped across her shoulders.

Rosie also sported a pair of imitation, pattern leather boots to compliment that unbuttoned mink coat that swung wide to reveal her latest fashion statement. Her right hand hung limp to her side tightly clenching onto a canvas shopping bag, which was filled to the brim with some of the oddest articles anyone would ever think to venture up and down the sidewalks of Everett with. You know, things like the empty cardboard tube from a large roll of gift wrap, a plunger, and a long loaf of French bread.

It was her latest fashion statement that was plainly visible beneath her wide opened mink coat that caused all the uproar. For you see, on this particularly chilly winter day Rosie had decided to simplify her style by sporting nothing more than a bra and panties. What a riot.

Rosie glared over at us and shouted, "What's so "effin" funny?" That only made us laugh even harder. I mean really. We do try to maintain composure and politely ignore most abnormalities, but let's be honest here. We all have our limits.

Growing up in Everett with someone like Rosie wandering around the neighborhood definitely prepares you for all those outrageous peculiarities life tends to throw at you from time to time. You're not going to find too many people who outrank Rosie in the "bizarre" category. That's for sure. After Rosie, I'd say you're just about ready to handle anything that happens across your path.

Okay, that's enough about Rosie. Let's take a stroll down Broadway towards Everett Square and I'll show you a few more things we've all seen once or twice in our time.

Because Broadway was a major thoroughfare into Boston, it had a whole personality all to its own. If anything stood out about Broadway it was the bumper to bumper, inch by inch traffic that seemed to dominate the landscape even as far back as when my mother used to push me along the sidewalk in a stroller.

I'd be hard pressed to ever pinpoint any exact date when I saw an Everett kid dash across Broadway through heavy traffic. To be honest, I think it happened every day. And just before it did you'd hear somebody yell something like "Hey, wait up." Then you'd hear brakes squeal, a horn honk, and see some guy hanging out his window yelling, "What are you crazy?"

Don't ask me why, but even with all that traffic going on, we never once walked cross the street at the crosswalk, nor did we ever wait for the lights to change. Everett kids learn to synchronize their body movements to the rhythm of the traffic. Nay, more than that. We actually mastered the art.

For those of you who didn't grow up in Everett, here's how it's done. Never run straight across the street. That's suicide. What you do is run at a 45-degree angle. Leap off the curb just as the last car on your side of the street goes by. Instinct alone will dictate the speed of your gait.

Your speed must exceed that of the car that just passed by. There's a 99.9 percent chance that there's another one coming right behind it. The best you could ever hope for is a "window of opportunity" of no more than about a half a car length. That "window of opportunity" closes up in exponential increments. The only exception to the rule is when a pretty girl in a mini skirt is crossing the street at the same time you are. If not, stick to the "exponential increment" theory.

If you make it to the meridian strip in one piece you're halfway home. Don't get over confidant just because you've reached the meridian strip and try to dash straight across to the other sidewalk. It goes against all of the physical laws of velocity and motion. You need that 45-degree angle. It's your lead-time to outrun the oncoming vehicle. And trust me, if you're crossing Broadway, one is coming.

Just remember that your 45 degree-angle goes in the opposite direction once you've reached the meridian strip. You've gotta move in the direction of the traffic in the lane that you're trying to cross. So from up above the path of your motion to cross the entire street will look somewhat like an arrow head. You know what I mean?

We do this every day of our lives. It's the only way to get across Broadway, Main, Ferry, Chelsea, Norwood, and Hancock, just to name a few. It eventually becomes second nature. Once you've mastered the art, there's only one thing you've got to worry about, and that is "over confidence."

Nobody's perfect. The Patriots just proved that. And it never fails that just when everything seems to be going your way is when Mother Destiny creeps up along your blind side and hauls off and dishes you out a good one.

So how many times has this happened? You're walking home from school with a small group of friends. Everyone's laughing and talking over each other about something funny that happened at recess. All of a sudden brakes squeal and you hear a loud "THUD!" And then a body flies upside down through mid-air landing ass over teakettle in the middle of the street.

Everybody crowds around because hey, you wouldn't want to miss this for the world - right? There's nothing so intriguing as a body on the brink of death. And the first thing out of anybody's mouth is not "Are you all right?" It's an emphatic..."I saw the whole thing!" Then they follow it up with a detailed description of that kid's facial expression at the moment of impact. That's what's really important.

The conversation goes something like this. "Did you see that? I saw the whole thing! He just booked it passed the first car when that second car broad-sided him and knocked him ten feet into the air. And you should have seen the look on his face. Man, he looked like he'd just seen a ghost."

Those are the things you need to know to make the story that much more exciting. Who really cares about the boring details? If the kid gets up and walks away, which happens more often then not, then you can add that to the end of the story as an uplifting conclusion.

Ah, but if they carry him off on a stretcher all covered in blood, you've got yourself a real humdinger of a story there. What's even more exciting is that you were there. You saw the whole thing. You've got all the ingredients you'll need to hold your family spellbound at the supper table tonight. Let's face it. After a story like that, even the "Six O' Clock News" seems so elementary.

If you think the traffic is a pain in the ass when trying to cross the street, just wait until you get your license. That's when it really gets under your skin. Let me put it this way. If you grew up in Everett and don't participate in a little "road rage" every now and then, there must be something seriously wrong with you.

There's no way on earth that you could ever get behind the wheel in Everett without ever losing your cool. Just wait until you sit at the very same spot on Broadway for fifteen minutes without moving so much as a single inch. You'll get damn sick and tired of watching the people going in and out of McKinnon's, let me tell ya. You'll lose it, trust me, you will.

You wait and see. You'll be hanging out the window shouting at the guy in front of you just like the rest of us. And it won't matter if it's his fault or not. If he's innocent, make something up. We do it all the time.

So here's another one of those crazy things you get to see on your way home from school sometimes. The traffic is at a standstill when all of a sudden, this guy jumps out of his car, runs to the car behind him and starts banging on the guy's window with his fist shouting, "Get out of the car!"

Don't you just love it when the other guy throws open his car door and jumps out only to turn out to be the size of a refrigerator? That's when the first guy makes a mad dash back to his car, rolls the window up tight and locks all the doors. You've gotta be careful who you mouth off to in Everett. Nothing sucks more than a knuckle sandwich for lunch.

If the traffic ain't enough to quench your thirst for blood, we've got a whole carnival going on right here on the sidewalk to hold your interest. Like that time in front of the Immaculate Conception church on Broadway when this one kid had just cleared the traffic to get to our side of the street. He leaped up onto the sidewalk shouting "You son of a ...." and then hauled off and whacked the kid in front of us across the face. We're talking classic Everett action now.

Gather round everybody. It's show time!

Every so often you'll see one of those genuine knock down, kick the living daylights out of each other fistfights. I'm not talking about one of those boring "pushing matches" that go back and forth for so long that everybody gets bored and walks away. I'm talking about one of those flash in the pan, good old fashioned, Western TV brawls that spills out into the middle of the street.

You talk about a spectator sport? This is the ultimate. Man, where's the buttered popcorn when really need it? You could make a fortune at one of these events. Just look at this crowd. It may be true that "fighting doesn't solve anything," but it sure does provide a heck of an afternoon's worth of entertainment.

The ancient Roman Coliseum's got nothing over on us. You want a bloodthirsty crowd? We've got it. Every school kid in Everett, every shop owner, even all the people in their cars will come out of the woodwork for the main event.

Just listen to the comments shouted out from the peanut gallery. "Punch him in the Face!" "Kick him in the you-know-whats!" "Pull his hair!" "Bite him!" "Scratch him!" "Get him in a head lock!"

It never fails. Just when the action reaches fever pitch, an Everett cop shows up out of nowhere to pull the contestants apart. So what does the crowd say now? They all go "Awww!" in three-part harmony.

When it's all over we get to argue over who we thought won. "I think the kid in the red sweater got the best of him."

"No way, dude. The kid in the blue shirt staggered him with that round house to the face. That's why he dropped to his knees in the first place."

"Yeah, but after the kid in the red sweater tackled him into the street and started strangling him he never really recovered."

"He did, too. Remember when he got up and kicked him in the you-know-whats? That said it all in my book. If that cop hadn't of broken it up after that it would have been all over anyway."

And so it goes. All the way down Broadway you can hear every spectator give his or her version of the post-game wrap up. Curt Gowdy and Howard Cosell had nothing over on these Everett spectators. Man, we really did know how to add color to the excitement. Wouldn't you say?

Now that we've made it all the way down to Everett Square, here's something you never see anymore. Take a gander into the front window of the Piece O' Pizza shop. What you've got is genuine talent on display. You really do appreciate the finer things in life once they're gone. Trust me on that.

Here's one of the more simple things in life I took for granted. What you're looking at are the cooks in the pizza shop spinning and throwing fresh hand-made pizza dough up into the air with the artistic flair of a bygone era. I never saw them drop one in my life.

What do all those nation-wide pizza franchises focus on in their commercials nower days? Price - right? They've got to. What they don't have is home made quality. Go ahead and sink your teeth into one of their pizzas. You taste one and you've tasted them all.

When you sank your teeth into one of "Piece O' Pizza's" slices your mouth watered from the bouquet of flavor and aroma that can only be achieved when love goes into the oven. It makes no wonder nobody's proud of being a "pizza guy" anymore.

Everybody claims to have the best pizza in town. They even claim to offer "Chicago" style pizza. Chicago style? Big deal. I'm looking for a good old fashion "Everett" pizza with all the charisma that only a good old fashioned Everett Italiano knows how to bake into it.

You say you've got the best pizza around? Let me ask you something. Do you kneed, and roll, and throw your own dough? If not, step aside. You don't even know what a pizza is.

Hey, here's something else you don't see anymore. Picture this. There's a cop directing traffic in the middle of Everett Square. He blows his whistle and holds his hand up to stop the traffic. So who do you see running out into the middle of the street? Yeah, the newspaper vendor.

God only knows when they stopped hawking newspapers in the middle of the street. They were all gone by the time I got into high school. Newspapers tend to blame the internet for their demise. That's not it at all. To maximize profits they cut out the very people who were their direct line of contact to their potential readers.

Think about it. Whose got the time to jump out of their car in the middle of traffic to run into the store to buy a newspaper? By the time you find a parking spot and get back into the swing of things, you're late for work. That's exactly the convenience that the sidewalk hawker provided. Not to mention that it also provided a job for somebody.

I suppose the days of caring whether or not your business contributes to the good of the people are long gone. It just seems odd how they always cut off their nose to spite their face. Everything they do to maximize profits seems so counter productive. What do they teach these clowns in business school nower days?

Gee, I'll just bet cha if they started printing the truth and putting the papers out there where you'd have easy access to them that they just might find a nice little niche for themselves. Wouldn't ya think? And maybe if they got the street hawkers back people would find it convenient to pick up a newspaper. And then their advertising budget would carry some weight because they'd have customers who read them. Makes sense, doesn't it? Ah, what do I know anyway?

You know what I miss about the newspapers? I loved those impressive sports cartoons on the back page of the Record American by Bob Coyne. Those were awesome. You know what else I loved? I loved Paul Szep's editorial cartoons in the Boston Globe. That guy was sensational. He's won several Pulitzer prizes.

It was Paul Szep who inspired me to want to become an Editorial cartoonist when I was at Everett High. Check out what it says about me on page 32 of my Everett High School Yearbook. So did it ever happen? Yeah, my editorial cartoons appeared in the Herald American back in 1980. After that I kind of drifted off into other things.

I never did give up my love for cartooning. Over the years I've done some cartoons for business brochures and such. As a matter of fact, I'm working on some cartoons about growing up in Everett right now. And I still draw editorial cartoons as a hobby. I just happen to be working on a couple of new blogs. One for my editorial cartoons and the other for my "Growing Up in Everett" cartoons. Give me another week or two and they'll be up and running, okay?

Now I'm really sorry for the long delay between posts. My system crashed out and I got that blue screen of death. It took a while to pull the whole thing apart and put it back together again. Whenever I go through that I sometimes lose track of an email or a comment. If that ever happens to you, by all means, please resubmit and I'll get right on it.

Let me take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for all the encouraging emails and comments. All my efforts would feel so lifeless without you. And from the bottom of my heart do I thank you for stopping by. What good is a front porch without friends?

Oh, and by the way, I've also heard from many people who have never so much as set one foot in Everett, but say they come here often because they really enjoy the nostalgia. Every once in a while I throw in a little dig about one of the surrounding communities and I'm just glad everyone understands that it's all in jest. After all, city limits are nothing more than imaginary lines. The important thing is that we get together as friends to enjoy each other's company.

Okay, look, I gotta run. I'm just having a hard time pulling myself away. Our getting together like this reminds me of when I was a little kid down on Arlington Street. I used to sit up on top of my mother's wringer washer machine while a whole slew of our neighbors crowded into our humble little kitchen to have a good gab for themselves well into the night.

Most of them have long gone beyond the far horizon now. Man, what I wouldn't give to relive just one of those moments one last time. Well, that's what this feels like to me. It's giving me the opportunity to share some quality time with people who mean the world to me. I wouldn't trade this for all the tea in China.

And to all of you outsiders, believe me when I tell ya that when you're here - you're family. Don't ever feel like you don't fit in. All you need to do to become one of the bunch is to grab a chair and sit down. This is the nicest crowd of people you're ever gonna meet. We're special all right. "We're from Everett!"