Under The Streetlights - Part 3

Okay, here's the situation. I'm sitting at the supper table by myself because everyone else finished eating an hour or so ago. My mother's last words before leaving the room were, "You're gonna sit there until you eat every last bite of that cauliflower. You mark my words."

We've got a citywide game of "Hide-and-go-seek" going on outside and everybody's hanging around my front steps waiting for me. And for the life of me, I can't muster up the strength to overcome this formidable obstacle. When it comes to playing outside at night, under the streetlights, with all of the other kids from Everett, I'd face any adversary, and defeat any foe, except for cauliflower.

My whole family has already gone outside to laze around on the front porch. I can hear them out there "shooting the ship" with neighbors. So while everybody else is carousing under the streetlights soaking up that cool easterly breeze that comes in off the coast after sunset, I'm in here all by myself staring at a mountain of ugly, nasty, cold, and yucky cauliflower.

I can hear all kids in the neighborhood coasting by on their bikes shouting, "Can Paul come out yet?"

"Just as soon as he finishes his supper," my mother's telling them. It's tearing me apart.

The important thing to remember here is not to panic. I do have a plan. After all, I'm from Everett. Growing up in Everett requires that you master the art of strategic sidewalk diplomacy. It's either that or you'll get lost in the shuffle and wind up shuffling along with the lost. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

I'll never forget the time when I was sitting at one of those great big oak tables up at the Parlin Library. I was doing some research for a report due in Miss Blake's sixth grade class at the Horace Mann.

To my left sat a kid I had never seen before, but I could tell that he went to one of the parochial schools here in Everett. I knew that because he was lugging around one of those blue cloth book bags that only the parochial school kids carry.

To my immediate right sat this really pretty girl. And I mean "really" pretty. She looked about my age. Once I got a good look at her I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was that pretty.

I wanted to strike up a conversation with her in the worst way. My only fear is that she may look back at me and say, "Drop dead." They sometimes do. Breaking the ice with a girl is not as easy as it looks. They can be touchy sometimes. Believe me I know. I've got a sister.

Even still, I felt confident that I could pull this off. For one thing, I caught her peeking up over the top of her book at me two or three times already. She must like me. It's either that or she's wondering why I keep gawking at her like a drooling vulture.

For another thing, after all those years of watching the bigger kids strut their stuff in front of the girls down on Arlington Street, I should have my act somewhat together by now. Watching the big guys make their moves are the only examples of social interaction with the opposite sex that I've ever been exposed to at this stage of the game. And they seem to do all right.

I certainly haven't picked up any social skills at the Horace Mann, I can tell you that. They marched us out onto the school ground to dance the Hokey Pokey for about eleven minutes in the first grade and then they separated the boys from the girls for the remainder of our natural born lives. They were probably afraid we'd exchange cooties or something and infect the whole school.

Rather than just sit there torturing myself needlessly, I figured I'd take the initiative and step up to the plate. I'll just make my move cool and slow like the big guys do. So I leaned over on my right forearm towards her and said, "Excuse me? I was wondering if ... "

Before I could finish my sentence she snapped, "Do you mind? I'm trying to study. Some people, jeez. What a jerk." With that she gathered her things and moved across the room to another table. She looked back at me one last time with a look that said it all.

I've seen that look before. That's the look my sister gave me when I showed her the looey I hawked on the tree in front of our house. She said she was disgusted by it, but I think she was just jealous because she's never hawked a looey like that in her life. Knowing my sister like I do, she'd never come right out and admit it, but she was jealous.

Now of course I was totally humiliated by that girl's reaction. She certainly didn't look all that pretty to me anymore after that. I wanted to pull my jacket up over my head and slither away like a worthless low life, which is exactly how she made me feel.

That is precisely when my Everett sidewalk diplomacy skills kicked in. That's when I realized that there was no way I was going to let that girl get away with making a big jerk out of me like that. Hey, I'm from Everett - right? I've got the skills to turn the tables in a situation like this, and I have every intention of putting them to good use, believe you me.

I knew exactly what to do. I'll put her on a guilt trip she'll never forget. And I'll do that by making her look like the big schmuck. So I turned to the kid on my left and said, "Excuse me? I was wondering if you have a pen I could borrow?"

Did you catch that? I used the same opening words and just added a new ending. She never heard the initial ending so she never knew the difference.

And wouldn't ya know? She caught the whole thing. She was watching. I could tell by that look on her face that she felt foolishly embarrassed about the whole thing now. Whoever invented vengeance was a genius. It was probably a kid from Everett.

I played a couple of games of tic-tac-toe with that kid's pen to make it look official. Then I made damn sure that I thanked him ever so politely to twist the knife. After that, I gathered my things and nonchalantly strolled towards the door as if nothing had ever happened.

It worked like a charm. You should have seen the look on her face now. She even reached out towards me as I passed her by. I played it so smooth I should have won an Emmy. Damn, I was good. I never once looked back. She already had her moment. This moment was mine, and mine alone.

And that, my good people, was the extent of my social skills back then when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. I've got the Everett public school system to thank for my awkwardness. And I've got the kids I played with out on the sidewalks of Everett to thank for teaching me the art of strategic sidewalk diplomacy.

It's like Martha always told me. "You don't fool with the cool cuz the cool don't fool." That's another good thing about growing up in Everett. There were so many kids playing out on the sidewalk that you learned all of the necessary social skills you were ever going to need in life. Because of our friends, we learned how to get our act together.

Now is a good time to put that skill set into action again. I need to get back to our citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek." To do that I've got to find a way to deal with this cauliflower. Normally, I'd just go into the bathroom to fake a pee so I could flush it into oblivion. I can't do that now cuz my big sister's in there painting her toenails and yacking on the telephone. She'll probably be in there for the rest of the night if I know her.

What I'm gonna do is wait until every time I hear my mother's voice. That way I'll know she's preoccupied with something other than whether or not I'm eating my cauliflower. So as soon as I hear her voice I'll run over to the kitchen window and throw a large chunk of this crap down into the forsythia bush in Stanley's backyard next door.

I've got to do this one piece at a time because she keeps peeking in at me every so often to see how I'm doing. If it disappears all at once she'll know I'm up to no good. These things must be handled delicately.

Once I've accomplished that, the game doesn't end there. On my way out the door I've got to remember to tell my mom how it wasn't all that bad after all. She'll laugh and say something like, "See, if you had just eaten your vegetables like I told you to, you'd have been out playing with all the other kids a long time ago."

"Yeah, I know, ma. I wish I hadn't been such a big baby through it all," I'll say shamefully.

"Well at least you learned your lesson," she'll say. "Now go on out and play before you run out of time."

"Thanks, ma. You're the best."

I've often wondered if the Lassitors ever knew how much food I've thrown down into their forsythia bush over the years. It was all the kind of food that my mother said was "good for you." You know, stuff like broccoli, cauliflower, liver, and beets. Judging by how mother used that definition, I guess "it's good for you" is another way of saying, "it tastes terrible."

And now that we've got that out of the way, what do ya say we get back to our citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek?" This will give us the chance to really touch base with each other. It's been decades since I've run up and down the sidewalks through all of the different neighborhoods in Everett. This feels like the good old days all over again.

So if you're ready; I'm ready. Let's do it.

"Three - two - one - zero, ready or not, here I come!"

I'm gonna start the night off down on Francis Street to see if I can find Estelle. She's the youngest of four kids in her family just like me. She's got two older sisters, named Polly and Edith, and an older brother named, George.

One of her fondest childhood memories is when she and her friend, Frances, planted a peach pit in her side yard. That's the friend she walked to school with every day. Her mother's friend was an awesome cook who dabbled in homemade raviolis, mouthwatering dandelions, and scrumptious eggplant recipes. Sounds like I could have given her some of my cauliflower.

Oh, and by the way, did I happen to mention that Estelle was once a "candy girl" herself at the movie theatre down in Glendale Square? I'm really not sure if that was before or after she dated Junior. You'll have to ask her that yourself.

Estelle graduated from Everett High School exactly nine years before I was born. What a thrill it is for me to make friends with someone who grew up in Everett many years before my time. It really rounds out the "growing up in Everett" experience for me. And I truly thank her for that.

Okay Estelle, you're caught. I got your gools.

Next I gotta find Debbie from Russell Street and for a very good reason. She graduated with me. We've never spoken to one another. We never knew each other really. I knew her by sight from seeing her in the corridors of Everett High, but I never knew her name until we got our yearbooks.

If memory serves me well, and it usually does, our paths once crossed at a party one night somewhere in Everett. I don't recall us speaking to one another that night, I just remember that we caught each other's eye. That was it.

So anyway, she left me a message commenting on how I've never signed her yearbook and I never got back to her on that. I've been riding this guilt trip ever since. I'm gonna keep an eye out for her in my travels because my conscious is gnawing away at me like mad.

There are a lot of kids out there that I do know, but have no idea what street they lived on. Like Donna for instance. What I do know about Donna is that her aunt owned Anna's Variety on the corner of Cherry and Ferry. That's the store my dad always called "Little Anne's."

She's also one of the beautiful people from our flower power days. She often reminisces about all those first kisses that took place behind the bleachers at Glendale Park. As she so aptly put it. "I had the pleasure, eight years ago, of doing a concert in that very park. I will confess that between songs, I glanced over at the bleachers and privately grinned to myself for the aforementioned reason."

Donna's singing voice is one the most angelic sounds I've ever heard. Just the sound of her voice could align the planets in the heavens. I kid you not. And that is the quality of talent inherent in the kids from Everett.

Dorothy is another one for which I have no idea as to what street she lived on. I do know that she is a good friend of Paula's. You remember Paula. She's Leo's daughter. Dorothy still has some of the dishes her mother got as give-away so many years ago at the Park Theatre. Pretty cool - huh?

Then there's Frank who graduated from Everett High in 1972. That's the year after I graduated so that means he had to sit in class and listen to my senior class circle the school honking our horns on that victorious day of celebration. He also attended the old Centre School, and the Parlin, in his day.

He fondly looks back on all those milkshakes he had at Parker's Drug on Broadway, and buying cigarettes for his parents at Whalen's drug without a note because Mr. Cohen never asked for one. Other fond memories of his childhood growing up in Everett include the rich aroma of the coffee when you went into Kennedy's on Norwood Street. And of Gloria's Market where his mother bought cold cuts. And the fire back in 1968 that decimated the city block that housed the bowling alleys.

So to find Frank I'm gonna take a run down to the Silver Fox because I happen to know that he always had a soft spot for their delicious take-out fries.

I have another friend, also named Frank, who grew up down the Village. He and his brother, Ronnie, attended the First Methodist Church down on Norwood Street along with Gracie and I. What a small world, I'm telling ya. Hey, and Joe grew up down the Village, too, on Montrose Street. So we may as well get his gools while we're here anyway - right?

Which reminds me, Trisha grew up down the Village as well. As a matter of fact, she grew up in the very house that her mother was born in. She still has family living in that house to this very day. Now that's a dedicated Everett family for ya right there.

Next I'd like to coast down Walnut Street for all the memories I harbor from the days of my paper route about forty years or so ago. Hey, maybe I'll run into Bob along the way. That's the street he grew up on. He's about four or five years older than me.

Two things I do know about Bob is that he attended the Immaculate Conception, and he loved the twenty-five cent pizzas he got at John's sub shop on the corner of Hancock and Broadway. He never limited himself to any one sub shop, tho. He played the field.

He once told me about an incident that happened when he was buying a sub at Angelina's original sub shop, diagonally across the street on Broadway from where it is now. This happened around ten o' clock on a winter night. Because it was so cold outside, some guy came running into the store and got in line to wait his turn. In the meantime, he left his car parked along the curb with the engine running.

Minutes later, somebody hopped into his car and took off. And even though somebody had just ripped off his car, the guy never left the store. That's how important it was for him to get an Angelina's sub. Man, you talk about having priorities? That's gotta tell ya something about Angelina's subs.

Hey, so now that we're hot on the trail of the Immaculate Conception kids, let's see if we can't spot Dennis. He went there, too. As a matter of fact, he graduated from of the Immaculate Conception in 1969, and then later went on to graduate from Pope John in 1973.

One of his fondest memories about growing up in Everett is winning the Christmas raffle at the Park Theatre. He still recalls how excited he got when he heard his number called to go down from the balcony to pick up his prize. Way to go, Dennis. I got your gools.

It's getting late so time is really running out on this round of "hide-and-go-seek." On my way back home I'm gonna swing by Malden Street to catch Gary. Gary holds the unique distinction of being one of the proud members of the very last 9th grade graduating class at Parlin Jr. High School in 1977. After that it became a "middle" school.

Who amongst us does not remember our graduation day from the Parlin Jr. High? I really must tell you my recollection of that very day sometime. Not right now, of course, that's a whole nuther story in itself. That was one crazy day for me that I shall never forget for as long as I live. And neither will Lois, I'm sure.

Maybe on my way back home I'll run into Carol over on Vine Street. She was in Mr. Barbati's ninth grade homeroom at the Parlin with me, along with Stephanie, and Roseanne, and Mikey, and Janette, and Lois, and Bill, and Carol, and the list goes on and on. Carol sat in the first seat of the second row away from the windows. How's that for a memory?

If we don't catch her on Vine Street, she may be visiting her cousins, Peter and Diane, over on Irving Street. Diane graduated with us, also. Peter was a few years behind us. I know him well. Peter and I go back a long ways hanging out at Stevie's house on Malden Street with David, Mario and Mikey. Don't we, Peter?

I was hoping to find Jack tonight. He lived on Tileston Street, and then Winthrop Street, for a total of 31 years before permanently leaving Everett in 1974. And then there's John, but I have no idea what street he grew up on. I do know that he had Jim Micarelli for biology one year, and Andy Mastrangello for both homeroom and mechanical drawing another year.

Every one of us from that era absolutely loved those two teachers. They were great educators in every true sense of the word. Jack graduated in 1978. That was six years after I did, but he tells me most of our memories are the same. Here's another memory for ya, Jack. I got your gools.

Okay, that's enough, I've gotta go. I know we're having a good time with this, but if I get home too late my mother's gonna kill me. So come on, let go of my handlebars and let me go. Let's not spoil a good thing.

Think of it this way. If I hadn't thrown that cauliflower out the window we wouldn't have had such a good game tonight. And don't worry. We've still got a long way to go. There's still a whole bunch of people we haven't found yet.

If nothing else, we should learn a valuable lesson from all of this. For you see, we go through life wondering what all this is suppose to be about anyway. Little did we know how much of an impact each and every one of us have made on each other's lives.

So that's what this is all about, isn't it? It's all about sharing a little piece of ourselves with those who are making this journey along side of us. In your own way, you have made a difference in my world. And I in yours. Together we have made this journey what it is.

We've all been through the School of Hard Knocks by this stage of the game. We know it ain't all peaches and cream. Nobody ever said it was. Even still, looking back on it all now makes you realize that the good times we've shared are so precious that they honestly do outweigh the bad.

Sometimes I sit here writing these posts with a great big smile on my face. That is especially so when I start thinking about things like when my friend, Billy, the electronic whiz from High Street, used to say, "Say it, don't spray it" to his sister just to get her goat. Or when Martha used to say, "You best not be talkin about my Momma cuz I'll slap you upside your head."

Okay, so maybe I am a little crazy. Beaver and Scratch think so. After all, you gotta be a little bit crazy if you grew up in Everett, don't ya? And what fun is there if you don't let go of your inhibitions and act up once in a while?

Well, that's us in a nutshell, now isn't it? Sure, we're a little bit crazy. Yes, we march to the beat of a different drummer. We have to because - "We're from Everett!"

Under The Streetlights - Part 2

So where's all the people? You've just stepped into the middle of a citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek" under the streetlights. Everybody scattered to the far corners of the city limits so not to get caught. They're hiding from me because - I'm it.

So I'm just sitting here waiting for somebody to come out with, "You really think you're "it." Don't ya?" Because this time, I am it. I am so "it" that I'm probably the guy everyone was referring to when they said, "Shhhh - it's around the corner."

Remember that one? That was popular around the same time when the Everett kids made up a whole new definition for Lucky Strike's "L.S.M.F.T." Are you old enough to remember that one, too?

Everett kids are the funniest people on the planet. Who else would figure out a way to fold the image of the Land O' Lakes Indian girl to make her look topless? Or find a way to fold a dollar bill so that the words "The United States of America" spell out something naughty?

Getting back to our citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek," we came up with this idea the other night when we were talking about how our parents used to let us stay out late after the streetlights came on sometimes. That usually happened when they were sitting out on the front porch cooling off and gabbing with the neighbors on those hot summer nights.

This is only our second time out so I've still got hundreds of people to catch. This is gonna take awhile. You may as well join in since you're here anyway. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones who doesn't get caught. I'm warning ya tho. If our paths have ever crossed in any way, shape, or form, there's a pretty good chance I'm gonna nab ya. I'm that good.

Along the way you'll make some new friends. You'll meet people who grew up in the many different neighborhoods around Everett. You'll even get the chance to meet some Everett kids who grew up before and after your generation. You may even bump into an old friend you haven't heard from in ages.

So instead of just sitting there like a bump on a log complaining about the heat, why not get back to your roots and have a good time with all the kids who grew up in Everett? It sure beats wasting away in front of the TV by yourself watching Lassie save Timmy again for the umpteenth time.

So come on, this'll be fun. It'll give us a chance to cool off from this mid-summer scorcher here in "dirty old Everett." I made that derogatory remark about Everett in honor of my dad. He often said that when we got back home from our Sunday afternoon drives into the country. Back then the country to us were places like Wakefield, North Reading, and Middleton. Can you imagine?

As we rounded the corner onto Arlington Street he'd sing out, "Here we are back in dirty old Everett again." Please don't take that the wrong way. He never meant anything by it. After all, we're talking about a guy who deliberately moved halfway across the country to live here. Once he landed in Everett you couldn't get this guy to venture beyond her city limits when it came time to pack up and move.

We did finally move off of Arlington Street during my year in Anthony Sarno's 8th grade homeroom at the Parlin. But all we did was move up around the corner onto Foster Street. A decade or so later my parents finally bought a little place of their own. Believe it or not, it was back on Arlington Street.

My dad was just trying to be funny when he referred to it as "dirty old Everett." He meant that lovingly. It's just that after seeing all of those gorgeous homes up in Hamilton and Topsfield with acres of elbow room, it was a bit of a psychological let down to come back to our crowded little apartment on Arlington Street. Like I always said, it wasn't the landscape, or the landmarks, that made Everett so special. It was the people.

Sometimes when talking to my mother on the phone we'll start laughing over some of the things my dad used to say. Like whenever you came out with something he didn't agree with, he'd say, "You get out of that now." Or if you said something he found offensive he'd say, "You shut that up."

When we were little kids running helter skelter all over the house he'd shout, "Don't make me get up out of this chair." He seldom ever did. Another one of his favorite expressions was "I'm gonna put my foot down around here one of these days." That to him was a threat. You could tell he wasn't born in Everett - right?

I was truly blessed for the kind of dad that I grew up with. He really was slow to anger and quick to forgive. This is one guy who is sincerely missed by his children, his grandchildren, and even his great grandchildren. And I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard my mother say, "I wish your father were still here."

They've been through hell and back over the years together. They have one son who has suffered most of his life from daily seizures due to Grand Mal Epilepsy. Then they lost their oldest son to a terminal illness. And I remember times during my childhood when Christmas was just around the corner and they didn't have two nickels to rub together. They always managed some how, and we always had a good Christmas.

The most important factor in their lives that helped them get through it all is that they held steadfastly onto each other and stuck it out through thick and thin. There really was something extra special between them. You can still see it in my mother's eyes whenever she mentions his name. It must be hard on her sometimes to have to walk alone after all these years.

Time becomes an irony in itself when you lose somebody you love. On the one hand, you can never get over how much time has gone by since they've passed away. On the other, it always seems like just yesterday since they've gone. That is so weird.

My mom is no spring chicken herself anymore. She's well up into her Eighties. You'd never know it to look at her. My brother, Carl tells me that the nurses at the Whidden keep mistaking her for his wife instead of his mother. I can see why. She's in much better shape than he is. She even looks younger than he does.

This woman still lugs two trashcans out to the edge of the sidewalk on trash day. She still shovels the snow off her front steps and off the walkway out in front of her house. And no, she doesn't drive. She never did. She walks wherever she goes. Yes, even all the way down to the post office and back.

Just the same, you've gotta yell over the phone so she can hear you. She wears one pair of eyeglasses on top of another while looking through a magnifying glass to read. She's also becoming very forgetful. She'll forget that she told you something right after she tells it to you.

She called me up one morning a couple of weeks ago to tell me when Carl came home from the hospital. Then she called me back later that same afternoon to tell me again. She had no recollection whatsoever of having called me that morning. Two days later when I called her back she asked, "Did you know that Carl came home from the hospital?"

Every time we speak she asks me, "When are you coming home from Indiana?" Now honestly, I'd move back to New England in a heartbeat if I could find an apartment or a house to rent at a reasonable price. So if anybody's got anything anywhere in New England drop me a line. We'll talk.

Usually by the end of every one of our conversations she tells me the following story. It goes like this. "When your father and I were stuck out there in the middle of nowhere under that blaring hot sun he finally said to me, "We'll either move to Indianapolis or Boston." So I said to him, "Well buddy, I'm not moving to Indianapolis. I can tell you that right now." So that's how we wound up in Everett back in 1946."

I can't count how many times I've heard that story. She tells it to me every time I call her, which is at least once or twice a week. Regardless, it really softens my heart to hear her say, "I really wish you'd come home. I miss you so much." Is she adorable or what?

My favorite story about my mom is that she is forever telling me that I was the ugliest baby she ever saw in her life. "You were so ugly when you were born," she laughs, "That I asked doctor Cockery if there was anything seriously wrong with you. You looked like a little red monkey."

And you people wonder why I grew up with such a complex? Nah, don't worry about it. I'm too much of an air head to take anything like that to heart. I actually think it's cute. I mean, honestly. How many people can say that their mother told them they were ugly in a loving sort of way? So I guess you could say that I'm one of those people with a face that only a mother could love.

I have no idea what inspired me to tell you all of that. It's probably because when we get together like this it reminds me of how half the neighborhood used to sit around on my front steps on those hot summer nights and have a good gab under the streetlights.

Nobody followed any of the conventional rules for conversational etiquette because, hey, we're from Everett. Nobody kept quiet just because somebody else was talking. Everybody butted in and talked over each other. That's how it's done in Everett. There was always two or three different conversations going on at any one time.

You never caught the full gist of any of them. You caught a little bit of this and a little bit of that. At least I did anyway. That's probably why everyone looked at me like I had two heads whenever I threw my two cents worth in. It's hard to hit the nail on the head when you've only heard a half a dozen words or so of any one conversation.

And it never fails that you don't realize the conversation is about you until your name crops up at the very end. All you hear is, "Mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, ... Paul." So naturally you ask, "What about me?" And they just go, "Oh, it's nothing really. Forget about it."

Forget about it? How can you forget about it when it's about you? You can't - can you? As far as they're concerned, it wasn't all that important so they don't want to bother to explain it all over again. They just leave you hanging. So for the next week and half it's gonna needle at you to no end. You know what I mean?

So anyway, this being another one of those hot summer nights, what say we get back to our citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek?" I'm gonna cover my eyes and count. You guys better hit the road cuz I'm hot tonight. Are you ready for this?

"Three - two - one - zero - Ready or not, here I come!"

I'm telling ya right now, I'm hot on Ralph's trail for taunting me like that. Let's see now. He went to the Horace Mann for the second grade back in 1964. Miss Martinelli kept him after school one day for acting up in class. When it came time to go home, he discovered that all of the exits were locked. He almost lost it. Lucky for him, the janitor, more than likely it was Mr. Dolan, came along and let him out.

It sounds to me like Ralph was just as much of a class clown as I was. Even his homeroom teacher, Mister Iozza, grabbed him by the neck once for mouthing off. So one way we could find Ralph is by taking a stroll past the school to see if we can hear one of the teachers balling him out.

Wait a minute now. That won't work cuz this is the summer vacation. I know. I'll go check all the phone booths. He used to stuff paper up in the coin return slots and then go back every couple of days or so to reap the rewards. Now if that doesn't sound like a dyed in the wool Everett kid, I don't know what does.

Seeing that Ralph's having a hard time finding a good old-fashioned pizza nower days, I'll take a look down in the old "Piece O Pizza" in Everett Square. Either that or we'll catch him zig-zagging through the traffic on Broadway to score an Angelina's sub. They certainly don't have any of those in Winston-Salem, now do they?

Either way, you're caught now Ralph. I got ya!

Okay, on my next stop I'm gonna bag a whole slew of kids in one fell swoop. My secret is to track down a really popular Everett kid who is always surrounded by her friends. And I do know such a person. Her name is Joanne. She's one of the original Swan Street Park kids.

All I gotta do is mosey on up to Joanne's front steps and sit down. Hardly a night ever goes by when the kids don't gather at Joanne's. She's got more charisma and charm in her baby finger than most people have in their whole body. The kids she grew up with have remained friends for life, as is so common when you grow up in Everett.

This ought to be easy. Come on over and set a spell on Joanne's front steps and just watch all the kids we'll nab in the next three minutes. You're not gonna believe this.

What I tell ya? Here they come now. First in line is Carl from Bradford Street. They call him "Barko." I forget why. Right behind him is "Dee" from Vernal Street. She stuck a "kick me" note on my back when we were in Anthony Sarno's eighth grade homeroom together at the Parlin. What a hot ticket, I'm telling ya.

Further back in the crowd is Mark from way down on Union Street. What's he doing here? He's a little touchy about the way you spell his name so go easy on him - okay? Hey, there's Mal from Harrison Ave. She's an original EHS cheerleader from our graduating class. And there's Christine from Kinsman Street walking along the other sidewalk. She was in Anthony Sarno's homeroom that year also.

Also in our eighth grade homeroom that year was this red headed kid named, David. He had a little brother named, Zero. Now there's a name that's hard to forget. Either he, or his little brother, got their name in the newspaper once because they found a dead body in the trunk of a car up in the New Hampshire woods somewhere. And that's all I remember about that.

Hey, here comes Roseanne from Forest Ave. I knew she'd show up. She sat behind me in Barbati's ninth grade homeroom at the Parlin. She's once told me joke about a matzoh ball and for some funny reason it just stuck in the back of my mind all these years. Don't ask me why.

Hey check this out. There's Johnny from Autumn Street. He's another one from Anthony Sarno's 8th grade homeroom at the Parlin. He and I used to joke about smoking ink. We started that after reading a newspaper article about how thrill seekers were trying all kinds of odd things to get high, including smoking banana peels. So we figured the next outrageous thing some knot head was gonna try was to smoke ink. So that's how that little joke got started between us.

How Johnny and I wound up in Anthony Sarno's homeroom is an interesting story in itself. We began that year in another teacher's homeroom. For the life of me I cannot recall that teacher's name. All I remember about her is that she hated me with a passion from the very moment I stepped over the threshold. She didn't even give me the chance to bat an eyelash before she let it be known where I stood.

Also in that wretched homeroom was Janet from Thurmon Park. If I really wanted to find Janet she's more than likely over at Charlie's house on Woodlawn Street. Those two have been an item since the Stone Age, I swear.

So to make a long story short, I had a couple of serious run-ins with that hideous excuse for a schoolteacher on my first two days in her classroom alone. This was one situation that was destined to go from bad to worse. I could see it coming.

What saved my hide was that only minutes into my third day in that homeroom some kid came in with a note for the teacher. After reading it she announced to the class that one of the other 8th grade homerooms was short on students. She needed three volunteers to switch homerooms. She then looked right at me and said, "That will be you and two other volunteers."

More than half that class enthusiastically volunteered. She chose Johnny from Autumn Street, and Paul from Montrose Street. On our way over to our new classroom I asked those other two kids if they thought that teacher was out of her mind. The other Paul looked back at me and said, "I've never experienced such a beast in my life. Nothing could be as bad as that. That's why I volunteered."

So that's how we wound up in Anthony Sarno's homeroom for the remainder of that year. Now there's a prototype for a dedicated schoolteacher if there ever was one. There isn't a solitary soul who didn't absolutely love and respect Anthony Sarno. The guy was a saint.

Now let me tell you another interesting little story about Paul from Montrose Street. He was in my 9th grade homeroom at the Parlin along with Roseanne from Forest Ave, and Carol from Road B. Oh yeah, and so was Stephanie who grew up on Winslow Street.

That girl, Carol from Road B, and I used to look back at each other in class all the time and squint our noses up at each other. I never took it to mean anything really, but then again, I'm not always the brightest bulb on the tree.

So anyway, on this one occasion when Paul saw Carol and I do that, he turned to me and said, "She likes you." I just shrugged it off because the girl was just way too pretty to ever be interested in me. I just thought that she was being friendly, that's all.

He kept insisting, "I'm telling ya, man, she likes you a lot. You can see it." I still didn't buy it. It got me thinking, "So how come she's dating somebody else if she likes me?" Well, it never dawned on me that it may be because I never had the nerve to ask her out.

Sometime later, she and I spent the most romantic night of my life at the lighthouse on Rockport. Ah, the memories of days gone by, and of wine and roses - sigh! So you're probably wondering whatever happened to Carol from Road B. Well, I eventually married her.

So there I go again off on another tangent. With all the people I still gotta find, the last thing I need is to keep going off on different tangents - right? Let's get back to Joanne's front steps and catch a few more kids before we venture off somewhere else, okay?

There's only a few more kids from this gang left to catch. Like Dennis from Highland Ave. He's another one from the Swan Street Park gang. If we hang around here long enough we may even bump into Camille from Prescott Street. Oh yeah, and we'll find Charlie from Tileston Street amongst this crowd as well. He played on our Everett High School championship baseball team back in 1971.

Ya see what I mean? We just nabbed a dozen Everett kids right there. Sitting here on Joanne's front steps was a great idea. I knew it would be. It's time we mosey on now because we've still got dozens of other people to catch up to. Let's get on with it, shall we?

Since we're already in the general area let's take a stroll over to Linden Street. That's where Peter lived. Of all the things you can remember somebody for, what he remembered most about me back at Everett High are my big feet. At least I left a lasting impression of some kind - right?

Peter and I had a good gab for ourselves about a year ago. It did my heart good to really get to know this kid personally. He's a sensitive and caring person. You make friends with this kid and you've got a true friend for life.

There's Terry, our famous candy counter girl from the Park Theatre. She also sold tickets every once in a while when old "Battle Ax Norton" was out. Bobby from Elm Street worked there with her back then, as well. So did Adele.

Hey, my best friend, Hilary, eventually wound up on Linden Street. He started out on Devens Street, but where his old house once stood is now a bank parking lot. Now here's a kid who can completely blow you away on music theory and biblical ideology if there ever was one. By the way, Hillary, what's for supper? Don't bother to leave the light on for me. I'll just sneak in through that broken door. Yeah, and I'll finally bring that video with me, too.

Since I'm right here on Devens Street anyway I may as well get Eddie's gools. That's what he gets for poking his head up out of the bushes. If I know Eddy he's probably out looking for J M Fields. Either that or he's wandering around Star Market trying to figure out what happened to Marion Place. Marion Place? Man, now that's a street name I haven't heard in years.

I have no idea where Cheryl lived. She may be hiding out at the Messenger Insurance office upstairs from Kresge's. That's where her mother worked. Her dad worked at Kresge's downstairs. That's how they met. So I'll look for Cheryl there.

We're gonna have to start jumping all over the city to catch up with more of the old gang now. Keep your eye out for a 55 Nash Rambler. That was Dave's car. We might catch up to him down at Spencer's on Ferry Street making his weekly five-dollar deposit on that new clutch.

Maybe he'll give me a lift over to the other end of the city. I need to get to Estes Street to find Bobby. He may be over his best friend Billy's house on Lynn Street. So we'll check that out if we have to. I went to Everett High with these two kids. They were forever pulling pranks on each other. I understand they're still doing that after all these years.

Let's take a walk up to Fuller Street while we're here and see if we can't find Carol. Now there's a special friend of mine right there. We share somewhat of a butterfly effect between us. She's the kind of friend you'll cherish all the days of your life.

Now just because Brian actually grew up in Prattville doesn't mean that he isn't one of us. His family goes back for three generations in Everett. His maternal great grandparents lived on Chestnut Street. And his mother grew up in Everett during the 30's & 40's on Jefferson, and on Clarence Street where it intersects with Elsie. While we're right here on Elsie Street anyway we may as well get Janet's gools, too.

Brian's cousin is the one and only, Delight, from Prospect Street. Now you gotta know Delight. She's the most famous Fourth of July decorated doll carriage winner in all of Everett. Another interesting fact about Brian is that his maternal great grandfather had a hand in building the houses on the north side of Washington Hill. That's good enough for me, Brian. You're a bona fide Everettite through and through, kid. You're one of us forever.

Hey while we're at it, let me tell you about two very special friends of mine who grew up on Russell Street. That's up in the hill projects behind Glendale Park. Like I actually had to tell you that - right? These two kids are brothers. The older one is Geno, and the younger one is Bobby. I met Geno at Everett High. We hit it off the moment we first met.

Geno asked me if I liked to party. So naturally I said, "Yeah, I party." So then he goes, "Come down to the back hills in Glendale Park tonight and meet the crowd. I promise you a good time." The rest, as they say, is history. That's how I became a hippie. It's all Geno's fault.

Some people possess a charm that radiates about them. That was Geno all over. Ask anybody. He was always there with a sympathetic ear, always had something nice to say, and never ever put anyone down. Everybody admired this kid. He truly had a golden voice, and played guitar in such a mellow way that he would totally captivate you.

I learned a lot from Geno. Besides how to play "Eight Days A Week" by the Beatles, I learned the value of being pure in heart. If not for him I may have grown up bogged down with all the shallow burdens that so many people needlessly poison themselves with. You know, things like vanity and greed. Geno never had an ounce of either one.

I could just as easily say all of the same things about his younger brother, Bobby. When Bobby was working on the staff for the school newspaper he asked me if I had any suggestions for a new name for the paper. The name I came up with is "Bicarbonated Feeble." It's funny how he stopped asking for my opinion after that. Go figure.

What I do want to tell you about Bobby is that he is such a gifted singer/songwriter that you'd be taken aback at the depth of his talent. The kid is phenomenal. I've learned so much just by watching him play. He's that good.

And as much as I admire these two kids for the breadth of their talents, it is the quality of their character that always impressed me most. You couldn't ask for two nicer people, and I couldn't ask for two better friends. It is an honor to have walked a piece of this journey along side of them.

Okay, it's really getting late and I know my mom's gonna start getting nervous. She'll get livid if she has to send Billy and Julie out looking for me. There's a limit to how late they'll let me stay out on these hot summer nights so I better head back.

Don't worry if I haven't found you yet. I'm still looking. We're gonna keep this up for as long as it takes. I get the feeling this is gonna turn out to be one Everett summer we'll never forget. At least you'll get the chance to meet a lot of Everett people as we go.

Hope you don't mind all the little tangents I tend to go off on while I'm looking. It's just that you guys trigger so many fond memories that I can't help myself. I better try to curb it a little bit tho cuz you won't believe how many people I've still gotta find.

I'm having a good time with this. Hope you are, too. Having a good time is what life is all about. And if anybody knows how to have a good time we certainly do because - "We're from Everett!"

From Under The Streetlights

Okay, here's the situation. We're really deep into summer now, and man oh man, is it hot. This reminds me of those brutally humid days growing up in Everett when it got way too hot to have any fun outside. That's when my mother and father would let us stay out late at night after the streetlights came on. They were sitting out on the front porch cooling off and gabbing with the neighbors anyway, so what harm did it do?

The grownups always said that "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." Well, whatever it was, it sure was enough to knock the wind out of ya. Let's face it, nobody had air conditioning when we were kids. Nobody that I knew anyway. Oh sure, we knew what it was, but that's about the extent of it.

You gotta give our parents a lot of credit. Even though they were of such modest means, they still found ways to get us through the hard times. And they did it in such a way as to make for some unforgettable childhood memories. I know that sounds a bit prophetic on the surface. Nearly everything I say about growing up in Everett is a bit along the prophetic vein, don't ya think?

There's nothing wrong with trying to philosophize so long as you don't go overboard. Far be it from me to ever do anything like that. So don't worry. I have no intention of dragging you down into the murky depths of Schopenhauer's studies in pessimism, or Bertrand Russell's problems with philosophy. I'm not that deep. After all, I'm from Everett.

What I will do is take you back to Arlington Street on a hot summer night when we were kids to show you the magic and wonder of long ago, but not far away. Just let me set the stage first because you're about to step out of your comfort zone and become part of the action. This time, it's all about you.

Let me begin by telling you about Cecil and Mary. They have long gone beyond the far horizon now, but they left such an indelible mark on our neighborhood that they shall live on in our hearts forever. Those two lovebirds sat out on their front porch together morning, noon, and night. They were so much of a permanent fixture on the Arlington Street landscape that they truly helped define the character of our neighborhood.

Cecil worked for Bond Brother's Construction for years. Mary, on the other hand, ran a tight ship and ruled her family with an iron fist. Don't get me wrong. She was never cruel or unfair. On the contrary, she was a loving and caring mother. You'd know that just by the character of her children.

We're talking about the Johnsons from Arlington Street. Their oldest son, Walter, was so much older than me that I really don't remember him all that well. I do know him. I know that he was a perfect gentleman in every true sense of the word. I also know that he was highly respected and well liked by all who knew him. Many people have told me so.

Their other two sons, Charlie and Johnny, are icons in the City of Everett. Charlie saved me in the knick of time from getting run over by a car when I was only four years old. His brother, Johnny, had a wit and wisdom about him that was truly cutting edge.

Johnny saw the humor in many of life's idiosyncrasies and really knew how to hit the nail on the head in just a word or two. They both worked as ushers down at the Park Theatre from time to time. Charlie actually threw me out once for acting up.

Then there was Martha. She was the youngest. Man, I could write an entire book just about her alone. Martha means the whole world to me. She's just as much as a big sister to me as Julie is.

Martha was the toughest kid in all of Everett. Ask anybody who grew up in our neighborhood, they'll tell ya. Nobody picked on anybody so long as Martha was around. She never tolerated bullying of any kind. And she was just the person who could do something about it, too. And man, did she ever. That's just one of the bazillion and half reasons why everybody loved Martha.

I'm telling you about these kids so you will know, just by their character, as to what good stock they came from. They came from Cecil and Mary. Now you know how special they really are, and why they mean so much to me.

If only I could show you how adorable Cecil and Mary looked sitting out on their front porch together. Mary always with her hands folded across her lap, and Cecil leaned back in his chair with his hands folded up behind his head. Every so often he'd reach over and give Mary a little love pat on the hand. Yeah, they fought and fussed like everybody else from time to time, but they truly did love each other. You could see it in their eyes.

If there's anything else that sticks out in my mind about Mary it's hearing her call Martha home for supper. She could holler in decibels that could break the sound barrier. I swear you'd hear her all the way down to the Epstein's house on Nichols Street. That's how loud she got. And there'd be hell to pay if Martha didn't respond immediately. She certainly couldn't say she didn't hear her. That's for sure.

Believe it or not, I've set half the stage with just Mary and Cecil alone. For you see, on those hot summer nights when we were all outside playing "hide-and-go-seek" under the streetlights, Mary and Cecil took pity on me because I was youngest in the crowd, so they'd drop subtle hints as to where everybody was hiding.

They wouldn't say a word. They'd just motion over towards Mister Bowser's car, or behind the shrubs in front of the Skane's house, or over towards the Tadisco's driveway. Sure enough, I'd get at least somebody's gools thanks to them.

So thinking about that gave me this wild idea. Let's just imagine that there really is a time machine. We'll hop aboard and go back to the days of our childhood growing up in Everett for a good old fashioned game of "hide-and-go-seek" beneath the streetlights. And don't worry. We're not going to be confined to just Arlington Street.

One hot summer night a long time ago we played a citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek." What a blast and half that was, let me tell ya. Kids hopped on trolleys, hitched rides with neighbors, and even snuck off on their bikes to get away. You had to chase them from Bailey Street to Edith Street and then all the way over to Main Street sometimes to track them down.

So that's what this is all about. We're having a citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek." Now don't start worrying about bucking up to see who's gonna be "it" - okay? It was my idea so I'll be "it" first.

Here's how we play the game. The only rule is that you cannot go beyond the Everett City limits. There are no gools. If I spot you and call it out then you're caught. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Now honestly, there's way too many of you out there for me to catch everyone in just one night. So if I don't mention your name then you didn't get caught in this first round. Just don't get cocky cuz I don't give up so easily.

And I'm warning you right now. I really do pay attention. You're about to find that out. So let's get the ball rolling and get down to a good old fashioned game of "hide and go seek."

Okay, I'm gonna turn around and bury my head into my elbow against this tree in front of my house to block my eyes. As soon as I turn around you better book it because I'm only counting down from the number "three."

Are you ready for this? Okay then, here goes.

"Three" "Two" "One" "Zero" "Ready or not - here I come!"

Now the question is, "Where do I start?" Well, I haven't heard from Gracie in ages so let me try to figure out where she might be. She's a Hoodsie freak so she could be anywhere where they sell ice cream. She may even be home with her dad getting "Sadie" settled in for the night. That's what they call their furnace.

I just hope she didn't take off on her bike towards the Stoneham pool with her brother because then she'd be outside the city limits. That's cheating. Gracie never cheats so I really don't have to worry about that. Maybe I'll take a look in Mellon's down the square because she and Alice are always in there flirting with all the boys. They're a couple of hot tickets them two.

And now that we're on the subject of "hot tickets," I wonder where I'll find Walter? He lives down on Irving Street but that's no guarantee that he'll be there. We'll probably find him and Nellie up on Ferry Street flirting with all the Irish nurses.

One good thing about growing up in Everett is that you rarely ever find anyone by themselves. They're usually with somebody else so more than likely you'll catch more than one person at a time. That isn't always true, of course, but it is par for the course.

Then again, some people just like spending some time alone. Take Billy for instance. Bill maybe getting a morning coffee and newspaper at Bill's Deli on Hancock Street on his way up to Everett High. And only he will understand that hidden play-on-words. He's caught just the same. I got ya, Bill.

Camille is a hard person to track down sometimes. She really gets around. I think she lives up on Elmwood Street, but I'm really not all that sure now. I'd probably have more luck if I checked out Sargent's Drug Store at the corner of Oakes and Main where she hangs around. Either that, or I'll take a look in Art's Cleaners. It's right on Main Street just after KK Terrace. If I don't find her in any of those places then I'll just take a stroll over to Chuck's house. She's gotta be somewhere - right?

Charlene is another illusive character who's hard to track down sometimes. It's summer so we won't bother to look for her in her cooking class at Everett High. Maybe she's over Paul's house on High Street. If not, I'll check up in Ronnie's backyard right here at the top of Arlington Street. Hey, I may even catch Ronnie and Peter while I'm at it. If nobody's there we'll check over at Gloria's house on Yarmouth Street.

Since I'm right here on Arlington Street anyway I may as well go across the street to tag Christine. We'll catch her big sister, Angie, at the same time. They may be over Patty's house back across the street if they're not sitting out on their own front porch. We'll go easy on Christine because the last time I tagged her it was with a snowball and it blackened her eye.

Now I know where to find Gilda. She's easy. After all, her family was honored by the City of Everett for the distinction of six generations having lived in the very same house down on Union Street. Some things never change. We may as well tag Adele while we're at it. So you guys are caught.

As I understand it, Gilda is good friends with Paula. Now who doesn't know Paula - right? I mean really, when your Leo's daughter you carry a certain amount of nobility in this city. Leo made the Park Theatre all that it could ever be. And he also made every one of our Saturday afternoons a dream come true. How could you not love this guy with all of your heart and soul?

That makes Paula a sitting duck. I know where she lives. She lives right next door to the Hamilton School on Nichols Street. That was easy. Hey, and while we're there we'll nab Earl and Sam as well. Man, you talk about two birds with one stone?

You'll have to forgive me, but whenever I talk about Sam, and Paula, and Earl, I feel like I'm talking about my very own family. I feel that close them. These are beautiful Everett people we've got here.

Lillian is another one with a history of many generations who still live in Everett. I believe she's the third generation of her family still living in Everett. She should be easy enough to find.

Hilda shouldn't be all that hard to find. That goes for her sister Linda, and her brothers Frank and Gordy, as well. They'll be up in that tree house in their backyard on High Street. Their house had one of the most memorable staircases in all of Everett. It was one of those staircases that went up one side of their front room and came back down on the other.

Their grandmother used to live with them and she was a genuine Newfy, just like my mother. What a great bunch of kids, I'm telling ya. Frank used to play with Stanley and me from time to time. Now that I think of it, if Hilda's not there she may be over Kathy's house up on Broadway.

I know Kathy only too well. She sat in front of me in homeroom during all my years at Everett High. She possessed a sense of maturity about her that seemed well beyond her years. We had many a good gab for ourselves in homeroom just about every day. She's one kid I'd trust to the ends of this earth.

I've got a whole bunch of Pauls still to track down. It's amazing how many people in Everett named their kid, Paul. We'll start with Paul up on Freemont Ave. He was one of the notorious Hospital Hill Gang from the mid 40's to the late 50's.

You'll find him along with Freddy, Sonny, Jacky, Charlie and Cosmo. We may also find Freddy's sister, Marilyn, there too. She kind of had a soft spot for Sonny so she'll be there. There's a picture of all these kids on our "Growing Up Everett" web site. Go see if you can find it.

Then there's Paul from Hillside Ave. We always knew that kid would be a great success. From the moment he said his very first word all he ever talked about is money. I always looked up to this kid even though we were the same age. He's another one who possessed a natural wisdom and maturity about him that was way beyond his years. He hung out with the crowd in front of that Electric power building across the street from Angelino's.

Speaking of that crowd across the street from Angelino's, we'll probably find Joe (you know, the one you guys call G.I. Joe) there as well. Don't get me started on Joe. That guy is a hero of monumental stature in my eyes. And it's not because he comes from a family of Newfies either. Anybody who volunteers for two tours of active duty in Vietnam is the personification of bravery as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, let me get back down off the soapbox and get on with my finding a few more Pauls. Now there's one up on High Street. He's good friends with Ronnie from Arlington Street, too. And then there's the other Paul from down the Village on Wellington Ave. He went to the Adams Elementary school and graduated from Everett High in 1968. That should just about wrap it up for all the Pauls, except of course, for me, but I already know where I am, and I'm already "it" anyway.

Now, before I go any further, there are two very special people I'd like to find. Their names are Dorothy and Margaret respectively. These are two very special people, indeed. For you see, I've written about both them extensively over the past two and a half years. One of them was my second grade teacher at the Horace Mann. The other was my sixth grade teacher.

Nobody has taken the blunt of my discourse like these two people have. I feel compelled to explain why. Whenever I talk about my old school teachers, I do so through the eyes of a child. I portray my teachers as if I'm evaluating them from a child's point of view.

These two were really came down on me sometimes. Dorothy literally threw me up against Mister Divenuti's desk once after dragging me down to his office by my ear. And Margaret once demanded that Mister Divenuti expel me for something that I actually didn't do. He didn't, so that turned out okay anyway.

As any teacher will tell you, these are the kinds of things that happen when you get a student in your classroom who is so out of hand that he drives you to the end of your rope. That was me all over. If you knew me, and if you knew them, then you'd side with them. Trust me on that.

I was such a difficult student for them because they really did care. These were two very dedicated teachers we're talking about here. I've often heard someone say, "if you can read this, thank a teacher." Well, I actually wrote this so I'm thanking those two teachers right there.

If you're out there, Dorothy and Margaret, this one's for you. From the bottom of my heart do I thank both of you for being such an influential part of my life. After all, look at all the good writing material you've provided me with. And ... "tag" I got you last. You're it.

Now there are a lot of other people out there that I've still got to go looking for. There's no way I'm gonna find everybody all in night. That's okay because this is the summer vacation and we don't go back to school again for at least another six weeks. We're gonna have to continue with this into our next post. So don't be disappointed if I didn't find you this time around. I'm still looking.

Before I go I just want to tell you that I did find one other person tonight. Her name is Venie. She was an easy find. She was sleeping in her baby carriage just outside the doughnut shop in Everett Square next to Kresge's. God only knows where her auntie Pat took off to. She was supposed to look after her. I'm not worried, tho. I know she'll come back for her. She always does, doesn't she Venie? That just goes to show ya how safe our streets were back in our day.

This was a lot of fun, don't ya think? I gotta go cuz my sister just caught up with me and said the old man's been hollering over the back porch for nearly a half an hour now. If I don't go straight home he'll never let me stay out after the streetlights come on again. We don't want to spoil a good thing, now do we?

I cannot believe how quickly the time has flown by. That's what happens when you're having fun. Sometimes I wish the clock would just stand still. Hey, and guess what? We just broke the 100,000 mark on my hit counter. Not bad, huh?

We're doing all right for ourselves. We've come a long way since we first started. Back then the visitors only trickled in at about two or three per day. This is great. We're all getting back together again. Good friends, good times, and a lot of laughs, that's what life is all about. And nobody realizes that any better than we do because - say it with me - "We're from Everett!"

My Summer Workshop

Maybe it's just me, but it never really felt like summer until after the "Fourth of July." That's when the true character of summer came to life. Don't ask me why. That's just how it felt to me. By this stage of the game not so much as a fleeting thought about school ever enters into my mind. School seemed so long ago now that it almost feels like it doesn't exist anymore. That's when you know you're feeling the full effects of summer.

Let me take you back for the umpteenth time to those carefree days of my youth down on Arlington Street on a typical summer day in Everett. I had one of those wind-up alarm clocks on legs that sounded like a fire drill when it went off. And as soon as it did you'd hear everyone else in the house shout "Paul, for crying out loud. Get up and shut that stupid thing off before I bang you over the head with it."

I actually pity those lazy bums. Sure, they get to sleep in a little bit longer, but they haven't the faintest idea of how beautiful the City of Everett looks at first light. There's a kind of cool morning mist that settles ever so gently down over the city. You can actually smell the salt from the ocean in the easy morning breeze that moves it all around.

Ghostly teardrops dot the leaves of the maple trees that edge the sidewalks. Every blade of grass is saturated. You'll get soaked if you hold out your hand as you coast past the shrubs that poke out through everyone's fence.

Every form of plant life for as far as the eye can see is dripping wet from these teardrops. It's almost as if the night cries her heart out when it comes time to say good-bye. Little does she know that she'll be back again when the streetlights come on.

That shroud of mist vanishes into thin air as soon as the bright summer sun rises above the rooftops. A quiet repose is the best way I can think to describe how it felt at that hour of the morning on my way up to Robey's newspaper office. For those of you who don't recall, Robey's office was at the opposite end from Diblasi's Sub Shop in that small string of buildings at the corner of Broadway and Hosmer Street.

My morning paper route was somewhat of an escape from the maddening crowd. It seemed like the whole world was just waking up out of a deep sleep as I was starting out on my paper route. I didn't see any more than two or three cars on my way up to Robey's. By the time I coasted down Broadway flinging newspapers the cars were everywhere.

Don't get me wrong, there was no traffic jam or anything. Everything just moved right along at a fluent pace. Nobody had to slow down unless the lights changed or the trolley pulled over to pick up another flock. Other than that, everything was copesetic.

As I coasted down along Broadway I'd watch the shopkeepers crank open their canopies, squeegee off their storefront windows, and sweep the sidewalks out in front of their shops. Every so often I'd catch a glimpse of old man, Curnane, lugging yet another pine box up into his haunted mansion from the back of his black limousine. And it wasn't all that uncommon to see five or six city workers stand around in a circle with their hands in their pockets watching the guy in the middle pry the cover off of a manhole.

We're talking somewhere in the vicinity of about 1962 here. It really was a different world in so many ways. Not everybody had a car back then like they do today. That was no big deal. What it meant was that more people used the sidewalks instead. As a result neighbors got to know each other. People talked to each other.

Taking the bus was actually a very pleasant experience back then, especially if you got Lenny, the singing bus driver. Ask anybody. There was never a single frown on the whole bus. The guy was a joy to behold.

By the time I delivered the last of my papers down the Lynde, Bobby was finishing up down the Village. We'd come together in Everett Square sometime around Seven-thirty. None of the stores had opened yet, except for maybe the drug stores and the Summer Street Market. The streets were buzzing, though, with people and traffic going every which way.

The Summer Street Market was our favorite stop after finishing our paper routes. We'd treat ourselves to a coke and a bag of chips sometimes. What the heck? The grand total only came to about a dime.

We'd sit out on the curb of that little island that separated High from Summer and talk about important topics like whether or not Godzilla could out run King Kong, or whether or not a gorilla could beat up and elephant. I'm really not sure now if we ever came up with any decisive conclusions but it sure did make for some thought provoking discussions on the issues of the day.

After that I'd stop in at my house to cast off my paper bag, check in with my mom so she'd know I was still alive, and touch base with the locals to see what's going on. Only once in a great while was everyone still in bed by the time I got home. Most of the time the whole family was already embroiled in the proverbial daily uproar.

If you were standing outside my back door it would sound something like this.

Okay, where's the doohickey that goes in the middle of the 45's?"

"How should I don't know. I didn't have it."

"You did, too. You were playing that stupid "Roses Are Red" song by Bobby Vinton over and over again all day yesterday afternoon."

"I did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too"

"Okay that's enough gawd dammit. I can't take it anymore. Paul, take out the garbage like I told you a half a dozen times already. Julie, you were supposed to wash those dishes over an hour ago. Never mind about that gawd damn record player right now. Do your chores. If I have to listen to anymore of that foolish bickering I'm gonna go out of my friggen mind. You kids are gonna drive me to drink one of these days."

"How come I always gotta take out the garbage? I'm not the only person who eats in this house."

"You're gonna be the only person who doesn't eat if you don't do what your told. Now take that garbage out then get out of my sight for the rest of the day before I crown ya."

"Hey Ma, where's my shoes?"

"Oh, if they were up your ass you'd know it. You've got eyes in your head. Go look for em."

The next sound you'd hear is the "boing" from the stretching spring on that old wooden screen back door. And then you'd hear that infamous "thwack" when it slammed shut.

The last voice you'd hear is my mother yelling, "Stop slamming that gawd dammed screen door! And be careful not to let any flies in the house."

Letting a fly into the house was like the crime of the century. The whole family got into a great big uproar whenever that happened. And God forbid that you should be the one that committed the offense. You'd never hear the end of it.

I remember everyone running all over the house in a search and destroy state of mind swinging slippers and rolled up newspapers with only one goal in mind - to kill that fly.

"He's on the sink. Get him. Get him"

"Thwack"

"You missed him. He's over there on the window."

"I'll get him. I'll get him."

It's funny how back in the 1960's that hurricanes were always girls, and flies were always boys. I'll tell you one thing, though. No fly ever survived the wrath of the Huffmans from Arlington Street. No matter how elusive those flies got sometimes, their luck always ran out eventually. They'd bob when they should have weaved and "WHAPPO!" they'd catch it good.

We couldn't just leave it at that - no. My family crowded around that suffering fly as if we had just caught the spy who came in from the cold. We'd finish him off with an unmerciful vengeance that was almost sinful.

"Whack - whack - whack - whack - whack!" There'd be nothing left save a small dark spot on the floor where one of God's simple miracles once stood. We'll probably face charges for heinous war crimes when our turn comes to stand tall before the man.

So now we're probably talking sometime around Eight-thirty - Nine o' clock. That's just about the time when the playground teachers show up. Judy from Dern Street is the last playground teacher I remember. Her dad was the official photographer for the Everett High football games at the time. I do believe he was a police officer by trade, but I'm really not sure now.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Judy was only about sixteen years old. She seemed so much older and so much more mature than that. Of course, you must remember that I was only ten. She sticks out in my mind after all these years because of what a real class act she was.

Judy never talked down to you. If you got out of hand she didn't scold you. She had a way of letting you know that she was disappointed with you. You knew that she liked you even when you were displeasing her. It made you feel ashamed of yourself. You wouldn't be able to live with yourself unless you apologized.

We crowded around her like the Pied Piper of Hamlet. She made a point of speaking to each one of us of individually. When you spoke she listened attentively. If you didn't understand something she'd take the time to explain it to you in a way that she knew you'd understand.

My fondest recollection of her is of this one summer day, probably a Saturday, when she didn't have to work the playground. Her house had a garage that set right out at the edge of the sidewalk on Dern Street. Above it was somewhat of a patio.

So anyway, I had just finished my morning route and had cut through the Parlin with my bike on my way home. As I was leisurely coasting down Dern Street someone called out to me. It was Judy. "You don't happen to have an extra paper do you?" She asked.

I always had one extra. That was the one I set aside to take home to my dad. When I told her that she asked if I minded if she thumbed through it before I brought it home. There's no way on this earth that I could ever refuse a request from Judy.

She invited me to sit down beside her in one of the lounge chairs while she thumbed through the Record American. "Do you drink tea?" She asked. "I love tea." "I'll be right back," she said. Seconds later she brought out a rather impressive serving tray with a little teapot, cream, sugar, and two very British looking teacups.

For the life of me I cannot remember a solitary thing about our conversation. I do remember spending the better part of that morning with her. It was probably just the thrill of spending some quality time alone with someone I really admired that made it so special.

Playground teachers were an immeasurable asset to our community. They offered more than just an added safety feature to our playgrounds. They provided someone that the children trusted to confide in when nobody else would do. They stood as an example of responsible citizenship and mature guidance during our most formative years. Ask any kid. When the playground teachers went home at the end of the day the playground lost all of its charisma.

The only down side to summer is that some of the other kids in the neighborhood were lucky enough to go away somewhere for a week or two on vacation. I was never that lucky. I was always the one left behind waving good-bye when everybody else packed up and headed off to parts unknown.

Everett can actually become a lonely place in the dead of summer. I do remember times like that. Stanley's family headed off to New Hampshire for a week or two. Joey's family took off for the Cape. And Jacky's crowd flew off to Florida, which to me seemed like the edge of the Milky Way galaxy at the time.

If it wasn't for my paper route taking me all over the place to enjoy the sights and sounds of the many different neighborhoods, I'd have absolutely nothing at all to look forward to at times like these. Sometimes I'd get wrapped up in a game of tag rush with kids I really didn't know down the Lynde, or over near the Hale Jail. Other times I'd sit and watch a Little League game down at Glendale Park.

After getting back to the house on one of those hot July afternoons I can picture my dad stretched out snoring on the couch with the fan blowing on him while Curt Gowdy's nasally voice calls out "One ball, one strike, and two men on." There's another fly buzzing around the living room, but I'm just not up to taking on that challenge right now. Sometimes the fly gets a reprieve because it's just too hot to bother.

One thing I never did was sit and mope around the house complaining that there was nothing to do. My mother could always find plenty for me to do if I did. It was never anything I wanted to do so I was better off suffering in silence.

Lucky for me, we had a big cellar that stayed cool on those really hot summer days. My dad had this awesome workbench covered with tools down there. He also had a large bin filled with odd sizes of scrap wood, and a dozen buckets filled with nails, and screws, and all kinds of weird looking doohickeys that you could use to build some of the most unimaginable things.

Many a hot summer afternoon was spent down at that workbench building complex contraptions that really didn't do anything. I'll be honest with ya, though. I actually had a good time for myself. There were times when I really did enjoy spending the time alone.

Which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time that I designed and built a pantograph? What so amazing about that is that I figured this out on my own out of desperation when I was only ten years old. Let me explain it all in a little more detail than that.

You see, when you're a budding artist at the age of ten, you can't always afford the latest technologies. On a trip into Boston with my mother one day we happened into a big store somewhere that sold all kinds of art supplies. The two things that really caught my eye were a light table and a pantograph. Man, the possibilities seemed endless with what I could do with those two devices.

For the non-commercial artist out there, a light table is much like what the X-ray technician uses to look at your X-rays. It's the light box they clip the X-ray onto so they can see the negative image. With a light table you can trace your cartoon character while slightly repositioning his body to create a flipbook type animation of your character running, or walking. You get the idea, I'm sure.

Back in 1962 they were asking about thirty bucks for a decent, but rather small, light table. Thirty bucks - can you imagine? That was so out of my range that it isn't really worth talking about. Even still, I wanted one and wanted it bad.

So guess what I did? I made my own. Yep, I even taught myself how to cut a light of glass with a glasscutter - no foolin.

Even though running the wiring for the light socket and the on/off switch may sound impressive for a ten-year-old, it wasn't building the light table that impressed me most. It was figuring out how to successfully build a pantograph that really worked.

Now let me explain what a pantograph does. It's a mechanical contraption that looks somewhat like those wooden expanding gates you put across a doorway to keep your toddler from falling down the stairs or getting into the bathroom to play in the toilet. As a matter of fact, I used an old broken one of those to build my pantograph.

What it does is allow you to trace your original drawing either larger or smaller at many different increments. Back in 1962 they wanted about twenty-bucks for one of those. Again, that was way out of my range.

Using only simple hand tools like a drill, a backsaw, a square, and enough trial and error procedures to take up almost a whole week of my time, I built a pantograph that stayed with me well up into my thirties. This thing took a lot of mathematical finagling to get it to work right, but because it wasn't associated with school in any way I really didn't mind at all. With that pantograph I could actually reduce or enlarge a drawing in ten degree increments, give or take a degree or two, up to four times its original size. Not bad, huh?

I'd get so involved in these projects that I'd forget about being the only kid in the neighborhood who hadn't gone off on a vacation somewhere. Building these projects not only provided me with useful skills that would stay with me for the rest of my life, but they provided me with the only means available to possess the tools of my trade that I couldn't otherwise afford.

Some of my best childhood experiences were spent alone building something down in that cellar. Besides my pantograph, and that light table, over the years during my lonely days of summer I've built a go cart, a skate board, and eventually worked my way up to a cross bow. Yes it was accurate, well thought out, and deadly. I put an arrow through an apple at thirty paces with it. That's how good it was.

Building these projects made time fly, sometimes even faster than I wanted it to. Before you knew it everybody was coming back home again from vacation. They all had million dollar tans and photographs of exotic far away places, but I had a light table and a pantograph.

It sure was great to get back together with everybody again just the same. We could now get back out into the middle of Arlington Street to fight over whether or not I got my gools before Jacky tagged me. We could now play "One Step off the Mud Guard" until the streetlights came on. And we could get back to shooting bobby pins at Mrs. Day's cat with elastics.

That's what the dead of summer was like for me growing up in Everett, or at least a small portion of it anyway. I get a big kick out of when people write and say that they never realized before how much they really enjoyed growing up in Everett. Let me tell ya something. I didn't really understand the full extent of it myself until after all of this. We really did have something special. We should all thank our lucky stars.

It's all so much more than just memories. What we had shaped our character. We've become a separate breed because of it. We stand out in a crowd. And we stand together with a common thread that runs so true through our veins.

We've got something to hold on to, to believe in, and to be proud of. We've got each other. And we've got all of that simply because - "We're from Everett!"

Our Parallel Universe

Everything we know, or thought we knew when we were just kids growing up in Everett, has undergone a paradigm shift towards the improbable. I say "improbable" because many of the things we take for granted today were instruments of science fiction yesterday. That not only goes for common household items, but also in the structure of our society and in our belief system as well.

Things we once laughed at because they seemed so far fetched are not so outrageous anymore. Think about it. We now send pictures back and forth to each other over little telephones that we carry around in our pockets. If anyone ever told you that thirty years ago you'd think they were off their rocker.

With all of the mysteries the scientific community has unlocked over the ages, we still have no clue as to what this life is really all about. Even still, what we consider to be common knowledge today would stagger our grandparent's imagination. This is a very exciting time to be alive. Don't you think?

It's gotta make you wonder. Was there ever a time that wasn't exciting to be alive? Take the year 1450 for instance. Prior to that the only known books in existence were handwritten manuscripts. Most people never read anything in their lifetime back then. They couldn't. Not only because they couldn't read, but also because there was nothing to read.

"Word of mouth" was the major source of news, entertainment, and communications. People had to talk to each other to find out anything at all. Now there's a lost art for ya, people talking to each other. The art of conversation was the lifeblood of the community.

That all changed in 1450 when Gutenberg invented movable type, and bingo bango, the printing press was born. From that moment on even a commoner could get his hands on a printed book. That got me thinking. Can you imagine what we would have been like if there were an Everett back in 1450?

If an Everettite had been the first one in their community to get their hands on a book they'd never let anyone else live it down. Let's be honest here. You know what we're like, especially when we were kids.

You can just imagine an Everettite sauntering through a medieval village with this great big book under their arm just waiting for somebody to take notice and ask, "Excuse me, but is that a book you're carrying?

"Why yes, it is. Don't tell me you haven't got one. Anybody who's anybody has at least one book by now. You simply must get one. I'll ask my cousin, Vinney, if he can get you one. He knows everybody."

Let's face it. If we had lived during the Roman Empire we'd have scaled the walls of the Coliseum to watch the gladiators beat each other's brains out. If we had lived during the days of Ancient Greece we'd have probably argued with Plato. And back in 850 BC we'd have hitched a ride inside that Trojan Horse. Not because we wanted to tear down the walls of Troy, but because we just wanted to go along for the ride.

That's an Everettite for ya. They always go where the action is and they're always a part of the action. Make no mistake about that. And we're proud of it, too. After all, We're from Everett.

Contrary to popular belief, we did not grow up in humdrum times. We've seen many exciting changes in our time. They may not seem so exciting as compared to what's going on today, but we grew up in an era when technology began taking infantile steps towards the future. Step by step we watched the world, as we know it today, unfold.

Let me take you back to Arlington Street some fifty years ago to show you what I mean. My earliest recollection is that of my family gathering around the living room of our second story apartment. We didn't go our separate ways after supper. It was a family tradition to crowd around the TV.

Yes, there were times when one of us felt like spending some quiet time alone. That's only natural. Every so often my mother broke away from the fold to sit at the kitchen table to write a letter to her brother or sister up in Newfoundland. Letter writing was the only form of text messaging in existence when we were kids. It has become somewhat of a lost art in itself.

The elegance of my mother's penmanship puts the Rhinehart Cursive Writing System to shame. She also had a way with words that pulled you right down into her letter. You could actually hear her voice speak the words as you read them. And I'll be honest with ya. I learned more about the art of writing by reading my mother's letters than I ever did in school.

As I conjure up that image in my mind's eye, I better understand now as to why everything had to be just so before she sat down to write. That ungawdly overhead ceiling light would never do. It shed such a bland and displeasing light.

She always placed a small lamp on the kitchen table whenever she sat down to write. It cast a delicate light that complimented the romantic shadows that fell ever so softly about the room. It helped set the mood she so desired. In some ways it inspired her, and in others it comforted her. She never told me that. I could just sense it by the expressions on her face as she poured her feelings out on paper.

Sometime it was my sister who broke away from the fold. She had her own room. I suppose that's a given seeing she was the only girl in the family. Having a sister was my first insight into a girl's eccentricity. Not that I ever understood them, mind you. I never said that.

My sister could spend hours at a time talking on the telephone to somebody she just spent the entire afternoon with. God only knows what they could possibly talk about. I can't imagine calling Stanley on the phone after just playing three and a half hours of stickball with him out in the middle of Arlington Street.

Here's how I envision such a telephone call taking place.

(Me) "Hey, Stanley. It's me, Paul."

(Stanley) "What do you want?"

(Me) "I just felt like talking. Do you feel like talking?"

(Stanley) "No, I'm watching Zorro. Good-bye."

"Click."

The next time I'd see Stanley he'd probably come out with something like, "What was that stupid phone call about? The next time you need to talk when Zorro's on try pulling the string on your sister's Chatty Kathy. What's wrong with you, Man? Get some therapy."

Our telephone was the source of many a frustration for my sister. Not that a girl ever needs a legitimate reason to fly of the handle or anything, but that phone really got under her skin sometimes. I guess anything would if you spent more than six hours on it every night. Try sitting on the toilet for six hours and then tell me how much you like the seat.

Hardly a night ever went by when we didn't hear her shouting, "Get off the phone" from behind her bedroom door. She was forever arguing with the other people on our party line. It makes no wonder. I can't imagine when those poor souls ever got the chance to talk on the telephone.

One thing I did learn about girls is that once they make up their minds to do something, they just go ahead and do it whether it makes any sense to anyone else or not. I'm still out to lunch as to whether that's a curse or a blessing. It sure makes for some interesting family situations, I can tell you that.

That thought occurred to me when I came running into the house during a game of "hide and go seek" one afternoon because I had to pee my brains out. Just as I stepped into the back door "THWANG" a wire caught me under the neck and knocked me for a loop backwards. I almost choked to death on that darn thing.

The first thing that came to mind was "Where in the world did that come from?" So naturally, I followed it. It stretched across the kitchen and out through the window behind the sink. Then it extented across the back porch and over the railing. When I looked out over the back porch I saw my sister downstairs in the backyard talking on the telephone.

Without telling anybody, she called Ma Bell and had them install a fifty-foot extension cord on our phone. You couldn't install your own extensions or phone jacks back then. It was against the law, if you can believe that. From that day forward we tripped over or got strangled by that extension cord on a regular basis.

I must be fair and admit that boys have their own eccentricities that I'm sure the girls would find a bit odd. Like when we spend a whole afternoon in the field behind Spencer's catching flying grasshoppers to feed to a preying mantis. I can't explain why, but that makes all the sense in the world to me.

The only times I ever drifted away from the family gathering is when my dad insisted on watching something that bored me to no end. We didn't have a hundred channels to surf. We only had about five or six. You make a kid sit through a night's line up of "Meet The Press," "Perry Mason," and "Lawrence Welk" and he'll come to within an inch of going outside to bang his head against the sidewalk. I kid you not.

On second thought, I should be thankful for boring television programs. They drove me out onto the front porch with my sketchbook. We learn by doing, not by watching, unless of course, you're watching Captain Bob show you how to draw a whale.

When the whole family did get together we had a specific protocol we usually followed. My dad laid claim to that over stuffed comfy chair opposite from the couch. That was on the other side of the coffee table that he always kicked his stocking feet up on top of. We did have a hassock, but I always sat on that.

If I sat all the way back on the couch my feet barely dangled over the edge of the cushions. That compelled me to wiggle my feet, which in turn aggravated the living daylights out of everybody else on the couch. So instead of listening to everyone shout, "Paul, cut it out. You're shaking the whole couch" I made the hassock my roost. Besides, you couldn't lean back on the couch to make it teeter on the brink of falling over backwards like you could on a hassock. So what fun was that?

My mother usually sat on the couch along with Julie and Carl. And most of the time, Billy sat on the floor as far away from the TV as possible. There was a reason to his madness. Whoever sat closest to the TV became the clicker, and that was usually me.

As funny as it may seem, I rather liked being the clicker. Of course, we never called it that. Nobody ever heard of a clicker back then. To us, a "clicker" was a noisemaker you toyed with on Halloween or New Year's Eve.

That's why I've often said that my dad was one of the first people on the planet to have a voice controlled wireless remote. All he had to say was "Paul, change the channel," or "Paul, get up and turn the volume down" and it happened.

My other job was as the reception technician. I'm the guy who adjusted the rabbit ears on the antenna. It never seemed to fail that at the most crucial moment your reception would start to break up. Just wait until the two-minute warning when the score is tied and the Giants are first and ten on the Packer's two-yard line, then you'll see what I mean.

I'm also the guy you called on when the picture started jumping. Which reminds me, there's no horizontal or vertical hold knobs on these new fangled televisions. What do you do when the picture starts jumping? Come to think of it, I haven't seen a TV screen stuck between two scrolling frames in decades. Have you?

Nobody had to adjust the color. It was always perfect. The grays were gray, the blacks were black, and the whites were always bright. That was, of course, after the picture tube finally warmed up and actually showed you something. When the TV started burning out it sometimes needed a good bang on the chassis with the heel of your hand to get it going. That worked wonders.

Our TV's seemed to last forever because you could easily pull them apart and tell which tubes burned out just by looking at them. All you had to do then was pluck that sucker out and take it over to A&W Electronics to buy a new one. A&W was just past Anderson Little after Wellington Circle. Those tubes only cost a couple of bucks at the most so why throw your hard-earned cash away on a new TV?

Sometimes your TV would outlast your channel selector knob. When that wore out you couldn't get it to stay "clicked" directly on the channel. We had a quick fix for that, too. All you had to do was fold up an empty matchbook and jam it in under the knob when you got it centered over the channel you wanted. It takes an electrical engineer to design a TV set, but it only takes an Everett kid to get it to run right.

On Friday nights they allowed us to stay up later than usual to watch the late movie. That's when they showed the really awesome stuff like "King Kong," or "Godzilla." After the late movie all of the channels went off the air. It was somewhat of a thrill to sit and watch the National Anthem just before they ceased broadcasting for the night.

By the end of the National Anthem my dad would say, "That's all she wrote. Hit the sack." You might as well anyway because the only thing on TV after that was static snow. I'm talking, of course, before Jack Paar started hosting the late show. When that happened a lot of people got all up in arms about how scandalous it was that they were now broadcasting late into the night during the week.

So what do you think I did every night before I hopped into bed? No, I mean after I peed and washed up. I knelt down beside my bed and said my prayers. Yes, every night. The longest part of my evening prayers wasn't the actual prayer, it was all the God blesses I tagged on at the end. There were a lot of people to God bless, especially when you live in Everett.

Oh yeah, and another thing I forgot to mention is how being the youngest means that you get all kinds of extra duties to take care of whenever the family crowded around the TV. Seniority had its privileges even in family life.

Whenever my dad got the urge, which usually depended on whether or not he had any spare change in his pockets, he'd say "Paul, run down to "Little Anne's" and get us a bag of chips." That's what he always called "Anna's Variety" on the corner of Cherry and Ferry.

There was a time limit involved here. There was no such thing as a 24-hour store back then. If you wanted a TV snack you'd better get it before Nine o' clock or you'd go without. And that goes for Sundays as well. You'd better score those snacks on Saturday night because the only store open on Sunday was Whitehill Pharmacy.

You didn't have to worry about me running down to the corner store by myself in the dark. Nobody was gonna bother me. It's not that I was a bad ass or anything. It's more because I came from a close knit neighborhood. All I had to do was yell and a half a dozen neighbors would be out on the sidewalk in seconds flat. And I don't care how big the bad guy was, he certainly wasn't gonna beat up Charlie Johnson. Trust me on that.

Every year at this time the excitement really starts building up inside. For you see, the Fourth of July was definitely one of the most fun days of the year in Everett. I especially liked it because my dad got to stay home from work that week so we got to do all kinds of wild and crazy things.

Besides going up to the playground for free Hoodsies, we stood out on the sidewalks of Broadway with everyone else from Everett to watch the parade. That may not sound like much on the surface, but take a look beyond the fanfare and you'll catch the magic in a little boy's eyes the moment he sees the Yankee Division coming right at him. You'll also see the wonder light up on any little girl's face when she sees a majorette twirl her baton up into the sky.

These are not strangers passing by. These were our neighbors. We knew those people. They were a part of our everyday lives. Seeing them parade before us at their very best made us proud to be a part of this community.

I used to go crazy when my brother, Carl, came marching down Broadway banging on that big bass drum with the Statesmen Drum and Bugle Corps. He looked so smart all dressed up in that uniform and all. I couldn't help but to point and shout, "Hey everybody, that's my big brother." I was so proud.

After that we booked it down to Glendale Park to join in on all the festivities. There were three legged races to win, bicycle decorating contests, and some of the most adorable baby doll carriages on the planet promenaded before your very eyes. Behind the "Rec" the fireman held a water shooting competition with the fire hoses. And after that they let us climb all over a real fire engine. What a blast and a half, I'm telling ya.

And just because the sun went down it doesn't mean the fun was all over. Up until I was in the Parlin (that's junior high school to you outsiders) they had some of the most awesome fireworks displays on the planet right here in good old Everett. Once they discontinued that we all headed over to the Esplanade for the best show in the whole universe. It still is.

The entire "Fourth of July" week always turned out to be one big family get-together at our house. We'd go to Asbury Grove for our church picnic that week. We'd see a movie at the Meadow-Glen drive-in. And we'd spend at least one whole day that went well into the night at Revere Beach. Man, those were the days. I thought they'd never end.

That was all so very long ago now that it almost feels like it never happened. Perhaps it was all just a dream. My dad isn't here anymore. Neither is my big brother, Billy. Anna's Variety, Whitehill Pharmacy, and even the Meadow-Glen Drive-in are all gone. Nothing is where it used to be. I don't even recognize the landscape anymore. So maybe I did just wake up after all.

If it was just a dream, then in all actuality, it was a dream come true. I'm not really so sure that it was a simpler time. It was a happier time for me because my family was all together. That, plus the fact that so many of our neighbors gave so much of themselves to make Everett an exceptional place to grow up in.

The years do fly by. It only seems like yesterday that I was delivering newspapers down on Waverly Ave. I still so vividly remember hearing the uproar from all of the kids out on the sidewalk in front of my house that night when Billy laughed so hard that root beer came running out of his nose. And I'll never forget how mad Ann got at me that day I stuck the chewing gum in her hair.

She has forgiven me. And so did Christine for blackening her eye with a snowball. And so did Jon for shooting him in the backside with a BB gun. What a great bunch of kids, huh? They had to be to put up with the likes of me. They were the best.

I've yet to find out if Ronnie remembers punching me in the stomach. Or if Huddie remembers standing in my kitchen when he asked, "Do you have a bathroom?" So I said, "No, just pee in the sink." Now honestly, who didn't have a bathroom in 1967?

That was just the wise guy in me coming out. It's probably hard to imagine me ever being a wise guy. I can't believe it myself sometimes. I look so angelic in the mirror and all.

We do become more philosophical with age, I suppose. Someone once told me that people become less in tune with the world around them as they grew older. Now that I'm there I realize it's kind of true.

I also realize that we pine for the past not because it was a simpler time, but because we miss a lot of the people we held so dear to our hearts who are no longer with us. That's why it's so important to reach out to those who are still here.

To all of you who knew me as a kid growing up in Everett, it's been a rewarding experience to find each other again. Reliving the good times we've shared has added a new depth and meaning to my life. You mean the world to me.

To those of you I've only met since this project began, from the bottom of my heart do I thank you for welcoming me into your circle of friends. Your comments and letters have broadened the scope of my growing up in Everett experience, and have given me a whole new outlook on life. May God bless each and every one of you. I'll add your names to my "God Bless" list at the end of my prayers before I go to bed. And yes, I still do that.

To those of you who didn't grow up in Everett, but keep coming back anyway because you enjoy the nostalgia, let me welcome you into our extended Everett family. Thanks for hopping aboard. You are always welcomed here just as if you did grow up among us. People from Everett love everybody. You ought to know that by now.

And to those of you who visit, but have yet to make contact, don't be so shy. If you can't think of anything to say then just say "Hi." Just keep in mind that we are not strangers here. We're the kids you grew up with.

That's it in a nutshell. That's the world we grew up in. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. You are a very special breed of people. You've made my life worth living. It was you who made Everett a special place to grow up in. And in turn, it was you who made America so beautiful.

Happy Birthday, America! No matter where we all are in body, we will all celebrate your birthday together in spirit. You'll know us when you see us. How could you not? After all, "We're from Everett!"