Have Mercy

We all have our own set of reasons for the choices we make. There are so many alternative points of view floating around out there that it's hard to know what to believe. One thing you can make book on is that "the truth" is still "the truth" whether or not anyone chooses to believe it. I guess that's what freewill is all about.

For example, there are millions of people out there who strongly believe that there is no more to this life than what can be seen with the naked eye. I, for one, beg to differ. For you see, there comes a time in everyone's life when they feel the need to plead for mercy from a higher authority. That is especially so when the clock won't stop ticking and the time is running out on my summer vacation. The first day of school is just around the corner. There is so much to do and so little time.

The end of summer makes me frantic. It always did. It imposes a sense of urgency upon me that I can neither understand nor control. I feel this deep-rooted need to manage my leisure time to the utmost of my abilities. Everything I do from this moment on must be done with the conviction that this "is" my last day on earth. I know that sounds crazy, but that's the way I am. Like it or lump it.

I'm mind traveling back to the last week of summer in 1963. John F. Kennedy was our President. We no longer called the "110 Wonderland" a "trolley" because it didn't rely on those overhead electrical wires to get around anymore. And we were still smart enough not to cross the street when the light turned green without the aid of an LED hand icon that said "Don't Walk."

With all that common sense going on you wouldn't think that something so simple as going shopping for school clothes would send my whole world into tizzy, but it did. Like I said, the sands are rapidly running out on my summer vacation. I wouldn't mind if we could just walk into the store, grab what I needed, and be done with it. That's not my lot in life.

To my mother, shopping for school clothes was an intricate science beyond any other phenomena in our mechanical universe. At the expense of sounding like a spoiled brat, I must admit that had I not completely lost it sometimes, we'd still be standing in the middle of J.M. Fields looking at the very first shirt she ever laid eyes on.

You'd think she was gapping the points on a Thunderbird by the way she examined a shirt. She'd criticize how the stitching in the collar didn't line up with microscopic accuracy. Not that it was anything you could see with the naked eye, mind you.

She'd hold the sleeves up to the light to see through the material to make sure that neither one of the cuff buttons was a sixty-fourth of an inch off center. God only knows why she never thought to bring a micrometer along when we went shopping for school clothes. It would have saved a lot of valuable time, especially since that time gets deducted from my summer vacation. You know what I mean?

That's not my problem right now. What's troubling me now is that we haven't even gone shopping for school clothes yet. I know it's coming so it hangs over my head like a rusty ax. I'd just as soon get it over with so I can concentrate on efficiently managing the rest of my summer vacation time with a clear conscience.

All I ask is for a little common courtesy. At least give me a ballpark figure I can use as a frame of reference so I have a rough idea of what to expect. Don't spring it on me all of a sudden when we're first and ten at the headlights of Cecil Johnson's car with just the length of the chain link fence in front of Mister Bowser's house to go for a touchdown. I hate that.

Because of that I'm stressed to the max and it shows. I'm on edge. I'm jumpy. And I'm getting on everyone else's nerves.

It wasn't my idea to get a game of tag rush together after supper. It was Jacky's. So just to be on the safe side, when we all sat down to the supper table I got up the nerve to look my mother in the eye and ask, "Are we going shopping for school clothes tonight?"

"Not tonight, you're not," she tells me. "I haven't got the strength to put up with the likes of you in the stores tonight." God only knows what she means by that. As if I'm the one who makes going shopping such a burdensome experience - right?

"I'm taking Julie out shopping tonight. At least she appreciates it. If there's nothing left in the stores this weekend that'll be your cross to bear. So there," she said with somewhat of an embittered air of arrogance.

She was somewhat taken aback when I lit up and said, "Thanks Ma, you're the best." That's not the response she had expected after having put me in my place, so to speak. She put me in my place all right. She put me smack dab into the end zone as far as I'm concerned. Look out world cuz I'm playing tag rush tonight.

Okay, so if we're gonna squeeze in a game of tag rush tonight before the streetlights come on let's not fart around. Let's play hard and fast. Let's give it all we've got. And I don't care what we've got for supper tonight. I'm gobbling it down and getting back out into the middle Arlington Street so fast it'll make your head swim.

So what do you think happens when I finally do get outside? You guess it. There isn't another soul in sight for as far as the eye can see. And right here from my front steps I can see all the way up to Ann's house on Foster Street, and all the way down to Earl's on Nichols Street. So where are all these guys who wanted to play tag rush after supper? That's what I'd like to know.

As soon as Stanley steps out onto his front porch I yell out to him, "Hey, where is everybody?"

"How should I know? I just got here."

"Let's go round everybody up. Times a wasting."

"I can't go," he shrugs. "I gotta go shopping for school clothes."

"You gotta be kidding me? We're won't have enough kids for a game without you."

"I can't help ya. My mother says I gotta go so I gotta go."

"Maybe you'll get back in time to join in."

"Don't hold your breath," he smirks. "I've got two sisters who love shopping for clothes. I may not get back until the middle of next week sometime."

That poor kid, I know what he's going through. In the meantime, I've gotta scrounge up enough kids for a game of tag rush. Let me run over to Stevie's house and grab him. Then we can head over to Jacky's house to get him. This was all his idea in the first place.

It sounds good on paper, I know, but I'm beginning to have my doubts after banging on Stevie's front door until my knuckles are raw and getting no response. To make matters worse, I just caught a glimpse of Jacky rolling down the street in the back seat of his family's car.

"Where you going?" I yell out to him.

"They're making me go grocery shopping," he yells out the window. "It shouldn't take that long. I hope." Famous last words - no?

So here I sit out on my front steps with my head hung low. I've got no one to turn to and nowhere to go. I look up into the heavens and ask, "Why have you forsaken me? What have I done to deserve this? Why now all of a sudden?"

The sound of a familiar voice breaks my concentration. "Are you all right?"

"Tommy? Where'd you come from?"

"Where is everybody?"

"Jacky's gone grocery shopping. Stanley's gone shopping for school clothes. God only knows where Stevie is. So much for our game of tag rush before the streetlights come on, huh?"

"Here comes Stevie now," Tommy pointed across the street. "I just saw Jack getting out of his father's car in front of his house about two minutes ago. And here comes Stanley running up the street with a loaf of bread from Vinnie's. He doesn't look like he's going shopping to me."

"Hey Stanley, I though you had to go shopping for school clothes?"

"I threw such a fit that my mother let me off the hook. She's just taking the girls tonight. She said I was too miserable to take shopping for clothes anyway," he laughed.

"Yeah, that's what my mother said, too. This is great. Let's buck up sides."

You'd think the world was our oyster the way we were carrying on. Truth is, there are so many obstacles to overcome to get a good game of tag rush together that we'll be lucky if we get off a single play before the streetlights come on.

First we gotta buck up sides. That, in itself, is an experience to behold. Nobody wants David on their team cuz he can't catch for beans. So first we buck up to see who gets stuck with David. Then we buck up to choose each of the other players.

It ain't over yet by a long shot because whoever gets stuck with David wants to automatically receive the opening kick off without bucking up for it to even the odds. So they even buck up over that, which in all actuality, is the same as bucking up to see who receives the opening kick off. Try to tell them that and they'll look at you like you've got two heads. As they say, "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."

Okay, so we're finally out on the street and it's time to get this show on the road. We're kicking off to them, and I'll give you just one guess as to who we're targeting for the kick off. Yep, you guess it. We're aiming for David.

Hey, that's how the game is played. Half the strategy is to decipher your opponent's weakness and the other half is to hammer away at it unmercifully. That's what makes the game so much fun. Football is all about getting together with your friends to break each other's neck.

Running back the opening kick off sets the tone for the entire game. If the run back is a flop the spirit of your team breaks right then and there. That's why we're targeting David. Ten to one he drops the ball. We're counting on that. You can destroy your opponent's morale just by taunting them over the kick off return.

So you see, there's a lot more to football than just breaking each other's neck. There's a whole psychological mind game going on here. It's part of the over all strategy. And man, we were so ready for this. We even started laughing before we kicked the ball.

By now you gotta be wondering as to how David is taking all of this in. He's used to it by now, trust me. This kid has a great sense of humor. He doesn't take any of this personally and he knows it's no reflection on him as a person.

Look at it this way. He's as lousy at football as I am at baseball. He made Little League, I didn't. So when it comes time to buck up sides to play stickball, I'm the one that nobody wants. It's no reflection on me. I just suck at baseball and I know it. That's all.

It just so happens that this was one of those rare times when David leaped up and snagged that ball out of mid-air. Without missing a beat he cradled it and came barreling up the street towards me. This was like shooting fish in a barrel, or so I thought.

I had him trapped up against Cecil Johnson's car. He had nowhere to run. With both hands I stretched out towards him for the super tag of the century. All of sudden he turned rubber on me and twisted up like a slinky. I missed him. Do you believe it?

Luckily, Jacky was right behind me. He came down on top of David like a ton of bricks. David razzle dazzled back and forth and smacked his side up against Cecil's mirror. He was hurt. He stumbled forward towards the pavement, and then miraculously caught his balance and took off like a bat out of hell.

This was a once in a lifetime event to behold. Here was David booking it down Arlington Street with everybody else in frantic pursuit. Our arms were stretched to the limit and our fingers were only a fraction of an inch from his back, but he kept on trucking.

We got desperate when he made it past the headlights on Mister Lassitor's truck. His teammates just stood there gawking with their jaws dropped open. And to think, this was the kid they didn't want on their team.

Seconds later I witnessed something I thought I'd never see in my lifetime. I saw David raise both arms in victory as he triumphantly crossed over that imaginary line that runs from the streetlight in front Nadia's house to the fire hydrant in front of the Storm Shield office window. David had returned the opening kick off for a touchdown - unbelievable! I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't of seen it with my very own eyes. We were stunned. Who's laughing now, huh?

I gotta tell ya tho, we were so proud of David that we all gathered around him in a victorious celebration. He deserved that. And not only because it was so inconceivable that it was he who had pulled it off, but also because it was one of the best kick off returns I'd ever seen in my life. I'm not kidding ya.

Of all the games we ever played out in the middle of Arlington Street over the years, that is the one moment that stands out in my mind above and beyond all the rest. And yes, it happened a week before the Labor Day weekend. It happened on the night before I had to go shopping for school clothes. And it happened in 1963.

That was the summer before my stint in Miss Blake's sixth grade homeroom at the Horace Mann. That was the beginning of my last school year in elementary school. I was only one year away from becoming a bona fide Everett Junior High Schooler. Look out world. Here I come.

We're only weeks away from the Beatle's American debut. Up until now the airwaves were dominated by the likes of Paul Anka, and the Four Seasons. The teenagers still greased the hair back with Vaseline and rolled a pack of Lucky Strikes up into the sleeves of their tee shirts. It was okay to smoke on the bus. And hanging out at Vargis after school, and cruising the Parkway down by the Big Burger at night were still the cool things to do.

We stood on the threshold of changing times. We didn't know it then, but everything we were taught to believe would come crashing down all around us in just a few short months. The world as we knew it would never be the same again.

Before all of that, I gotta go shopping for school clothes. Seeing how misery loves company, you may as well come along for the ride. It's no fun at all when I've got to suffer through this by myself.

Don't worry, we're not heading out all over the planet to buy school clothes. Let me narrow it down for ya. Living with six other people crowded into a tiny apartment on the second floor of a six-family on Arlington Street is not something you do by choice. It's the result of your financial situation.

Being that as it may, we're not going to hem and haw over the fashions at Jordan Marsh. We're not going anywhere near any place like that. As a matter of fact, we're only going as far as the McGrath Turnpike. We're going to J.M. Fields.

All the way there my mother hangs over the passenger seat waving her finger in my face to lay the law down before we get there. The list of rules goes something like this.

1. "Don't make me have to whack you around in public. If I do you're really gonna get it when I get you home." ... sounds to me like I'm gonna get it before I get home if she plans to whack me around in public. Don't ya think?

2. "Don't rush me when I'm examining clothes. I don't want to have to turn around and bring everything back the next day because I missed something." ... as if - right? Let me tell ya something. If they had programmed Windows with the same tenacity that my mother uses to inspect clothes with, you'd be able to pull the "ctrl," "alt," and "del" keys off your keyboard and throw them away.

3. "If I tell you to stand up straight then do it without me having to scream it at you. If I have to raise my voice in public you're gonna get it, but good. And wipe that silly smirk off your face right now or we'll turn this car around and you won't get any new clothes for school?" ...is that a threat or a promise?

Seconds later we're standing in the middle of J.M. Fields and my yearly excursion into hell on earth begins to unfold. All my mother wanted was for me to look sharp for school, and I don't blame her one bit. "Your appearance is a reflection on your family," she always said.

The problem is that my mother's idea of "looking sharp" and mine are worlds apart. She was always on the lookout for that unique style that stood out from the crowd. I'm not kidding ya when tell you that my mother picked out clothes that you wouldn't put on a crash dummy.

I knew I was in trouble whenever her eyes lit up. She'd pick up the most outrageous shirt in the store and say, "Here, try this on."

"Ma, let's not waste our time trying on clothes I'll never wear."

"Why wouldn't you wear that? That's a good quality shirt."

"Ma, really, a pink shirt with a white collar? I don't think so. It's just not me."

"You have no taste," she'd snap at me. "Dare to be different. Variety is the spice of life."

Variety may be the spice of life, but the last thing I need is to stick out like Crazy Rosie when I go walking down the street. That's exactly what would happen if I didn't put my foot down sometimes.

Let me ask you. You come from Everett - right? Where would you place me in the neighborhood pecking order if I showed up at the Parlin wearing a pink shirt with a white collar, and pair of yellow pants? I know you kids from Everett. I'd get beat up three or four times before I made it to the corner of Arlington Street.

When I tried to tell my mother that she'd say, "Oh don't talk so foolish." The way she's sees it is that if it looks good on the store dummy it'll look good on me. And she was even fussy about that. "It's not a dummy," she insisted. "It's a mannequin." Well, it looks like a dummy to me, especially dressed like that.

"I want to find something nice for your school pictures that Aunt Grace will like," she says. Oh great, now I've gotta please my great aunt Grace to boot. This is like jumping from the fire pan into the fire.

My great aunt Grace was well up into her sixties the day I was born. She's still shocked and appalled over the fact that men go swimming down at Revere Beach without a striped tee shirt on. She thinks that's vulgar. If these women had their way they'd dress me up in pink shirts and lederhosen. Right about now is a good time to plead for mercy from a higher authority.

All this time my dad's gone off to drool over the tools in the hardware department. Lucky for me, he was standing right there beside my mom when I came walking out of the dressing room wearing an exact replica of that costume displayed on the clothes dummy.

He took one look at me, winced his eyebrows down into that really pee-owed squint of his, and shouted at me. "You knock it off and stop clowning around. Get that silly suit off and pick out something sensible. I don't want to spend my whole day shopping for stupid school clothes." Thank God for dads. That's all I gotta say.

"He didn't pick those clothes out, I did," my mother snapped back at him.

"I should have known," he glanced back at her. "You can't go dressing that boy up in a silly outfit like that. He'll get beat up. Pick him out some boy's clothes, for Heaven's sake."

"Those are boy's clothes," she shouts back at him.

For crying out loud, Paul, you're old enough now to know what you like. Go pick out what you want and let's get out of here."

In less than five minutes flat I picked out five shirts, three pairs of pants, a pair of shoes, socks, and a bag of underwear. I kid you not. From that day forward my dad took me shopping for school clothes right up until I got my drivers license.

1963 was the year we passed through the threshold of the Age of Innocence, and entered into the realm of a harsher reality. Even this day is somewhat of a milestone for everybody who grew up in Everett. For on this day I've published my 200th posting in the "We're from Everett" on line journal.

Together we visit the past to get in touch with our roots. It reminds us of who we are, where we come from, and what we're made of. We're not living in the past. We're rekindling what he had as a community and getting back together again in a bond of friendship and camaraderie unlike any other community on the face of this planet.

You knew there was something special about us all long, didn't you? We're not arrogant. We're not conceited. We're proud. And so we should be. After all, "We're from Everett!"

Under The Streetlights - The Grand Finale

What would you say if I took you for another nostalgic stroll down Arlington Street? You'd probably look back at me and say, "For cries sakes, Paul, can we at least take a walk down around the corner or something?" I really couldn't blame you if you did.

The first 15 years of my life were spent down on Arlington Street. After that we moved up around the corner onto Foster Street. 4 years later I graduated from Everett High and took off to Newfoundland for the better part of a year. Two years after my Newfoundland excursion, I got married and settled down in North Reading.

Moving to North Reading didn't break my association with the City of Everett by a long shot. For the next twenty years I worked as a gravedigger at the Woodlawn Cemetery. That being a six-day work week on the average, I spent the first forty years of my life in the city of Everett. Man, you talk about getting stuck in a rut, huh?

I focus so much on Arlington Street because that's where I grew up. By the time I mastered the art of riding a two-wheeler in the first grade, I was all over the city of Everett. Even still, when the daylight grew dim and the streetlights came on, Arlington Street was where I hung my hat.

Not once did I ever suspect how deeply my surroundings were embedding in my mind's eye as they unfolded all around me. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, mind you. These were just everyday things going on. It took another forty years or so before it dawned on me that these commonplace things had made such a powerful impact on who I was to become when I grew up.

We're not talking about some imaginary place located somewhere between illusion and nostalgia. We're talking about the places, and the people, and the things that played just as much of an influential role in the shaping of your character as they did mine.

You don't come here just for the nostalgia. You come here to get back in touch with your roots. This is where you belong. This is where you come from. This is what you're all about. Don't ever forget that.

What's going on in the outside world right now is so out of kilter that it's enough to drive you out of your freaking mind. That's why no matter how bad the day breaks, you need a place to come home to. You need a place to lean back, kick off your shoes, and get away from it all. And there's no place like home.

This is your home. This is not some nostalgic induced state of mind. When you come here you are surrounded by familiar people, places, and things. Everybody needs that. Yes, even you. And in your heart you know I'm right.

So now that you're here, you may as well set a spell with the rest of us and take a load off. I'll get ya a cup of coffee. We'll have a good gab for ourselves. We'll just hang out and do nothing together. We deserve that every once in a while.

Hey, you talk about familiar things? There's Charlie Johnson taking a leisurely stroll down the sidewalk across the street. He's always got a smile and a wave for anybody that crosses his path. He's just as much a fixture on this street as the streetlights and fire hydrants. Arlington Street wouldn't be Arlington Street without Charlie Johnson.

Every so often you'll hear a hearty laugh rise above the murmuring voices from the crowd of teenagers gathering around my brother Billy's Rambler American. He's got it back up on blocks again in the backyard. He blew the transmission burning rubber down at the Big Burger on the Parkway.

He keeps shooing me away every time they all bust out laughing. I can just imagine what's going on back there. Let me introduce you to a couple of these guys. You'll probably recognize some of their names. They all come from a long line of Everett families.

The two oldest guys down there are Sonny and Junior. They're brothers. I understand they're quite an item with the ladies. I'm not surprised. You'd be hard pressed to find a sharper looking and well groomed couple of guys. They come from good stock. Their mother is an absolute angel from God.

My fondest memory of Mrs. Forgione is sitting out on our back porch with her. She used to point out recognizable shapes and images in the clouds to me as they rolled by. On beautiful days like this she'd sit out in her rocker and hum pleasant tunes to herself. And of course she'd doze off every now and then.

I have this deep-rooted memory of Mrs. Forgione calling out to my mother across the back porch railing. She lived across from us up on the second floor. "Send Paul over," she'd say. "I got carried away again and cooked too much supper."

She wasn't fooling anybody. Mrs. Forgione had a heart as big as the Parlin library. That's what that was all about. I mean honestly. We all get carried away sometimes and cook a little bit more than we can handle, but how many times do you over cook so much that you could stuff an extra six people?

I'd step into her kitchen and she'd have this giant pot steaming on the stove that wafted such a heavenly aroma that it'd knock you off your feet. She'd wrap potholders around the handles and tell me to just take one step at a time. It's not as if I had a choice. That pot weighed about as much as I did.

What that woman could do with meatballs, sweet Italian sausages, and hand made raviolis is almost sinful. The gravy alone was so unbelievably thick and rich. Dipping a great big chunk of Italian bread down into that gravy and scooping up a mouthful was a dream come true. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it.

Okay, that's enough about Mrs. Forgione's cooking. It's making me hungry. Let's get back to that crowd my big brother hangs around with before I eat myself out of house and home, as my mother used to say.

Leaning up against the fence is Charlie's brother, Johnny. Johnny was one of the most easy going guys you'd ever want to meet. He had this dry wit about him that absolutely cracked me up. His style of humor reminded me of Bob Hope's notorious one liner come backs, if you know what I mean.

Then there's Arty and George. No matter how big and bad you might think you are, these are two guys you really don't want mess around with. As much as I love these guys, there is definitely a screw loose upstairs somewhere.

You could tell Arty was a little flighty by some the crazy schemes he'd dream up from time to time. And you just gotta take one look at his big brother, George, to know this is a no-go zone, let me tell ya.

Somebody once told me this crazy story about George. I have no idea if it's true or not. It supposedly happened one night when he was blowing the suds off a couple down at the Rendezvous Cafe on Ferry Street.

Some guy at the other end of the bar saw that George was packing heat so he called out to him, "Hey Pal? I'll bet you ain't got the guts to shoot me." Next thing you know George drew his piece and shot the guy. It's like I said. I have no idea how true that story is, but that does sound like something George would do.

My funniest memory of George happened one day down in Manny's Variety. His store was on the ground floor of Henry Gray's apartment building down on Ferry Street. Years later Tommy Gear bought the place and changed it to Tee Gee's sub shop.

This happened when Stanley and I were probably in the first or second grade. Believe it or not, we were stealing funny books at that age. That's what we were doing when all of the teenagers from Arlington Street came barging into the store laughing up a storm.

George was definitely three sheets to the wind. Besides that, he was dressed up in a flowered hat and a lady's sweater with two balloons stuffed in it for boobies. Manny yelled at him and told him to get out of the store. He said it was indecent to go parading around little kids dressed up like that.

George snapped back at him and told him to lighten up cuz it was only a joke. Then George turned to me and asked, "Hey Paul, are you offended by this?" As if I'm gonna say "yeah" to George - right? So naturally I said, "Nah, it doesn't bother me."

"See," George snapped back at Manny. "Paul doesn't care."

"Well I care," Manny yelled back. "Get out or I'm calling the cops."

"What are the cops gonna do? I ain't breaking the law."

Manny picked up the phone and said, "I'm warning ya. If you don't get out of here I'm calling the cops."

"You've got no sense of humor," George waived him off. He did leave. After all, George had a record longer than the Warren Commission. The last thing he needed was another run in with the law.

The only reason Stanley and I were bothered by the whole scene is because George had called Manny's attention to us. We were smack dab in the middle of stealing funny books. That really put a damper on our indiscretion, let me tell ya.

Leaning up against the car next to my brother, Billy, is his good friend, Pat. He's that muscular handsome kid with the crew cut. This kid's an awesome athlete, and a perfect gentleman in every true sense of the word.

The girls go crazy over this kid when he comes walking down the street. He's got somewhat of an air about him that even the grownups respect. Good things are coming this kid's way. You mark my words.

And that's Jackie sitting over there on top of that trashcan. He lives right downstairs from us. He's kind of a smooth operator in his own right. He plays a mean electric guitar. I do know that.

Even to this day Jacky tells the story about the day my mother frightened the living daylights out of him. He's a few years older than my brother, Billy. On this one particular day when Billy was about kindergarten age, he came running up into the house crying because Jacky wouldn't let him play out on the sidewalk.

My mother looked out the window and saw Jacky leaning up against the brick wall across the street so she took off after him like a bat out of hell. Jacky said, "your mother grabbed a hold of the collar of my shirt and picked me right up off the ground. She put her fist up to my face and yelled, "You son of a bitch. If you ever so much as go near any one of my kids again I'll knock every one of your teeth down your throat."

Jacky laughs about that now. "Can you imagine a skinny little kid like me picking on a big gorilla like Billy? Of course, Billy wasn't a big gorilla when Jacky picked on him. He was just a little kid. That sure changed in no time flat.

Then there's little Mikey. We call him "little" because he's sixteen years old and he's no taller than I was in the second grade. All of the grownups do a double take whenever they see this "little" kid striking up a Winston behind the wheel of a car. Mikey's an excellent kid. He lives up the projects behind Glendale Park, but he hangs around here so much that he's considered part of the neighborhood.

The same goes for Donny. No, he's not little by any stretch of the imagination. He lives down around the Malden Street area somewhere, but he's always out on my front steps. In so many ways Donny reminds me of the "Fonze" on "Happy Days." You know the type. He's constantly slicking his hair back and always wears a tee shirt with a pack of Luckies rolled up in the sleeve under a black leather jacket.

Man, I could tell ya a hundred and one funny stories about Donny. He was still in the sixth grade when I got there. I think Donny and Beaver were in stiff competition as to who could stay back the most. It would be interesting to find out who eventually won out in the end.

There were many other kids in with that crowd, for sure, but that's a good sampling of some of the bigger kids who hung out with my brother. Those are the ones who come to mind when I sit here reminiscing about summer days gone by down on Arlington Street. We'll back away from these guys for now and let the scenery change.

Time is running out on our summer vacation. One by one we're being plucked off the sidewalks after supper by our mothers to go shopping for school clothes. Why do we have to wear a tie to school anyway? That's what I'd like to know.

This is probably our last night of playing "hide-and-go-seek" under the streetlights. That heat wave finally broke and my mother wants us to start getting used to coming in early again for when school starts. We've got the Labor Day weekend coming up. It's all down hill after that.

So what do ya say we get back to our game? There's a lot of kids I still haven't found yet. Man, I never realized how many kids grew up in Everett. If we all banded together we could start our own political party. We could call it the "Vargis" party. And as they say, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party." I remember my sister having to type that out a hundred times or more for her typing class up at Everett High.

Okay, enough chatter already. Let's play.

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

I'm gonna swing by the corner of Ferry and Woodward to see if I can spot Dale. I haven't seen him in ages. What a great kid he was. His mind could soak up information like a sponge. And he had a smile about him that absolutely radiated. Dale graduated with me. Let's go find him.

Them I'm gonna swing by the corner of Ferry and Shute to try to find Elly. She's probably still reading her cherished Everett newspaper that celebrates Everett's first 100 years. And by the way, has anybody seen Jerry in their travels? I can't find that kid anywhere. I know he lived down on Oliver before they moved to Gilmore Street. If you see him tell him I'm looking for him.

You're not gonna believe this, but if you're looking for Johnny K, he's still over at the 1964 Chelsea High junior prom. Now there's a romantic at heart if there ever was one. Oh yeah, and I still haven't found Linda from Irving Street yet, either. Her mother worked at Whitehill Pharmacy on the corner of Ferry and Nichols for years. I'll probably find her there.

Before I forget, I've got to get back up to Russell Street to find Mark. I better tread lightly, tho. This kid's scared to death of hippies. Which reminds me, I haven't found Rocky yet, either. Let's take a peek into Maxie's Bowling Alley in Glendale Square. He usually goes down there on Saturday mornings so he can bowl for a dime a string. If we don't find him there we'll track him down at Huskie practice tomorrow afternoon.

I've still got Ron down on Elm Street to catch up to, as well. He's probably down at the Meadow Glen Drive-in chasing my sister and Linda around the parking lot. If it wasn't for Ron's mother we would have lost sight of the last days of the Horace Mann school building forever.

And I better not forget Kelly. She comes from one of Everett's biggest families. Her mother was one of the Marsinelli kids from down on Cabot Court. Kelly has lived all over the City of Everett in her day. She's lived on High Street, Green Ave, Reed Ave, and Heath Street. She's also an alumni of the Horace Mann, the Parlin, and Everett High. I'd be nuts to forget a kid with that much Everett history in her veins.

I'm all worn out from chasing all these kids all over the place. There's still Danny from Harvard Street to find. What a "clam." And there's Richie from Prescott Street. He graduated with me. He played the drums in the Everett High band. And my best friend, Stevie, from Malden Street. His sister Barbara was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the Ultimate Spinach. I kid you not.

I've also got to touch base with my good friend, Mikey, down on Bailey Street. He comes from another big and well-known Everett family. They're not only big in numbers, but also big at heart. We worked together for many years. Friends like Mikey are a rare breed, indeed.

And I forget what street Vinnie grew up on. We shared many a good gab in class up at Everett High. He graduated the year before I did. He still remembers the day I told him that I wanted to be a cartoonist when I grew up. I told him that when we were walking down Broadway together after school one day. Isn't it funny how some things just seem to stick in the back of your mind somehow?

There are still a lot of kids out there that I never did find. I knew I couldn't catch you all, but believe you me, I will catch up to you in another place at another time.

By the same token, there are just some kids I'm not gonna find no matter how hard I try. Kids like Billy from Ferry Street. He was one of the stars on our football team who graduated with me. I fondly look back on all those times he'd stop me in Glendale Park with his fatherly advice. He was concerned that my bohemian hippie lifestyle would eventually lead me down the path of ill repute.

Billy had a good heart. He genuinely cared about people. There was nothing selfish about this kid whatsoever. I can't find him now because God called him home. An emptiness echoes in a corner of my heart because he's gone.

The same goes for my good friend, Charlie, from down on Mansfield Street. He's another star of our football team who graduated with me. He'd look back at me sometimes and shake his head and laugh. I'd say, "what?" and he'd laugh back and say, "You really are a space shot. Do you know that?"

"What do ya mean?" I'd laugh.

"When are you gonna straighten up, find a job, and latch onto a steady girl? You can't spend the rest of your life like a guitar playing beatnik. You're gonna need to settle down eventually."

"I'll worry about that when "eventually" gets here," I'd tell him.

And there's also Kathy from Russell Street. We once spent a winter afternoon together watching them light the Christmas tree down in Everett Square. You had to know this kid to really appreciate her. She was one in a million.

When I mention these kids now my eyes well up with tears. I'm not so sure if it's for them or myself that I cry. I loved these kids. I miss them dearly. The sound of their voices, the smiles on their faces, and the goodness of their character will live on in my heart for all the days of my life. They once walked among us. And because of that they will always be a part of us.

Okay, that's enough of that or I'll have us all bawling our eyes out.

This was the last night my mother's letting me stay out after the streetlights come on. Over the next few days she's taking me shopping for school clothes, and then it's down to the Eagle Barbershop on Ferry Street to get my hair cut. Man, where did the summer go?

Time passes by in the twinkling of an eye. I'm sure you know that. In what seemed like a sudden flash, most of the things we cherished in our lives growing up in Everett vaporized into thin air. That's why it's so important to appreciate what we have while we still have it.

Nothing is more valuable than time. Right now we have each other. Together we share a unique legacy that is warm in friendship and true in character. And I'm including all the kids we grew up with from the surrounding communities like Malden, Chelsea, Medford, Revere, Charlestown, Melrose, Saugus, Somerville, Cambridge, Lynn, and places like that. In so many ways our lives were so commonly intermingled with each other.

There's not very many people out there who can honestly say they had what we still share in our hearts together. We can tho, because "We're from Everett!"

Under The Streetlights - Part 5

The more I write about growing up in Everett, the more I realize that no truer words were ever spoken than "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." That thought occurs to me every time I hear the laughter of children playing outside. Listen carefully the next time you hear that joyful noise and you'll relive the sights and sounds of your very own childhood.

From our perspective, the kids of today miss out on that unsuspecting innocence our society as a whole enjoyed back in our day. That is before they gunned down President Kennedy, started playing songs like "The Eve Of Destruction" on the radio, and televised the rioting in the streets at the democratic national convention in Chicago. From that point on nobody trusted anybody over thirty.

Untold evils have lurked in the shadows since the beginning of time. We certainly did not grow up in a tranquil utopia totally devoid of any violence or discord. That was just an illusion set into place by our childlike mindset.

We were well aware of the potential dangers that lurked around every street corner even back in our day. It just wasn't so prevalent as it is today because policemen didn't go to jail for arresting criminals back then, and the neighbors poured out onto the sidewalks as soon as they heard a kid scream.

So probably more than anything, what the kids of today are really missing out on is a court system that worked, and neighbors who cared about each other. For as they say, "the more things change - the more they stay the same." Above all else, kids are still kids in every true sense of the word. It's the world around them that has hit the skids.

Kid's still argue over who's got the fastest bike, the biggest dog, and the smartest dad. They still double dare each other, and they still "bet ya can't do this" each other. They still get all worked up into tizzy over something so trivial as a bottle cap and swear they'll never play with each other ever again for as long they live. That is until five minutes later when you'll see them doubled over in laughter together. Whatever it was that came between them happened so long ago now that neither one of them even remembers it.

That's what being a kid is really all about. Kids don't trouble themselves with the evils that lurk in the hearts of men. They're too preoccupied with things like if you got more french fries than they did, or whether or not Zorro can beat up Superman. That's what's important to a kid.

So it's not so much as being a kid that we miss, as it is being able to tune into that childlike mindset. You can still do that, and every so often you should. That little kid that you once were dwells just beneath the surface of that outer crusty exterior that encases your inner child. That outer shell is the end result of all those hard knocks you've gone through during your grownup years.

Once you get back in touch with that child within, you'll fall right back into your childlike mind set. Only then can you begin to pick apart that crusty outer shell, piece by piece, like an old scab. God knows how much a little kid loves to pick off a scab - right?

What I do miss is actually being there. I miss Arlington Street. I'd give anything to watch two kids go toe to toe over a foul ball. I miss waving to Cecil and Mary sitting out on their front porch and hearing them call over to me, "Are you being a good boy?" When I said "yes" they'd laugh and say, "Well, that's a switch."

I miss running down to Anna's Variety on the corner of Cherry and Ferry for a loaf of bread. As I hurried past Anna and Maxie sitting out on the sidewalk on fold-up chairs she'd say, "Just leave the money on the counter." If I didn't have any money all I had to say was "put it on our tab" and she did.

I miss standing out on Karen's front porch next door waiting for her to come out so we could walk to school together when we were in kindergarten at the Horace Mann. And I miss looking back at Carol sitting at her desk in our ninth grade homeroom at the Parlin and watching her stare off into space with that far away look in her eyes. What was that girl thinking about anyway? Whenever she caught me gawking at her she'd squint up her nose and smile. What a cute kid, I'm telling ya.

After all my travels and experiences over these good many years, what I treasure most are those simple pleasures that tickled my funny bone when I was a kid. I'm not just talking about those innocent times when we sat around on the curb outside the candy story divvying up M&M's. I'm talking about those devilish pranks we pulled just to get a good laugh at each other's expense.

You know, like telling Jacky his shoe's untied so I could poke him in the chin when he looked own. And punching Stanley in the arm whenever a "padiddle" went by. That's a car with only one headlight for those of you who are not in the know. Or asking Joey if he got that letter I sent him so when he said "no" I could stamp on his foot and say, "that's because I forgot to stamp it."

Now don't look at me as if I was the bad egg of the century. I was only passing along what somebody else had done to me. If somebody held me down on the ground and gave me fifty-two noogies you can be damn sure I was gonna dish out fifty-two to the next kid down in the neighborhood hierarchy.

That's just the way it was growing up down on Arlington Street. I'm sure it was all the same in your neck of the woods as well. Don't tell me you've never held out a deck of cards to one of your friends and asked, "You wanna play fifty-two pickup?" And don't tell me you've never told one of your friends that "The first sign of mental retardation is growing hair on your knuckles" so when they looked at their knuckles you'd say "and the second sign is looking for it."

There is no magic contraption that allows you to travel back in time, at least not yet anyway. The only way to get back to those carefree days of your childhood is to reminisce about them. When you do take the time out from your hectic schedule to do so all of your worries and your woes will vanish into thin air.

So now I'm mind traveling back to my childhood down on Arlington Street. You're more than welcome to tag along. All you gotta do is follow me through this perceptual vortex that journeys beyond space and time. Once we step out on the other side you'll experience the sights and sounds exactly as they happened some 45 years ago down on Arlington Street. Be careful when you step out into the middle of the street cuz there may be a car comin'.

Get a load of this, will ya? A classic game of stickball unfolds before your very eyes. That's Stanley winding up for the pitch. For a such a skinny little kid, Stanley had an arm on him like the bionic man. Franny's up at bat, and Peter's catching. That's me getting ready to book it home from third, as if that's gonna happen. Ten to one Franny whiffs it. When Stanley winds up like that nobody gets a piece of that ball.

By the way, we're not playing with a whole ball. I know what you're thinking. I knew it the moment I said that. You're thinking, "You're not playing with a full deck either." I know you kids from Everett like a book, trust me.

What we're playing with is only a half of one of those pink rubber balls we bought at Coppin's for a nickel. Coppin's was at the corner of High and Ferry right across from Vinnie's. It was more of a miniature grocery store than it was anything else, but they always had a box of those pink rubber balls on the shelf behind the counter.

They never carried much. They were always out of whatever it was my mother sent me down there for, so I wound up having to run across the street to Vinnie's anyway. That probably explains why Coppin's didn't last very long. I don't suppose you're gonna corner any markets by specializing in five-cent rubber balls. That's probably why they closed the place down to open up a Laundromat.

Getting back to those pink rubber balls, we'd cut them in half so they wouldn't sail out into the middle of the traffic on Ferry Street when you nailed them. They're not so easy to catch on a fly cuz they roll and tumble somewhat clumsily through the air. Whenever we did lose one up on somebody's roof we still had the other half. See, we're always thinking. That's our "Everett Ingenuity" kicking in.

That's my sister, Julie up on the front steps telling me it's time to come home for supper. As you can plainly see, I'm pretending I can't hear a word she's saying from way out there beyond the curb. That's Patty on her bike telling her brother, Peter, it's time for him to come home for supper, too. He's pulling the same stunt I am by pretending he can't hear a word she's saying either.

It's not breaking up our game of stickball that bothers me. It's what's waiting for me on the supper table that's got me worried. My mother was boiled dinner freak. While everybody else went home to pizza, raviolis, and fried chicken, chances are I had a boiled dinner staring me straight in the face. Man, do I hate boiled dinners.

I always said that when I grew up I was never gonna allow a boiled dinner in my house. As fate would have it, I grew up and married an Everett girl who likes boiled dinners. I can't win for losing, can I? Thankfully, she's not as much of a boiled dinner freak as my mother was, and she is a darn better cook, too. Not too many people can actually say that so I did luck out on that end.

It's getting late anyway and we've got a game of "hide-and-go-seek" under the streetlights to catch up on. So I'll meet you right back here on my front steps after supper. Don't worry. I'll even gobble down cauliflower if I have to, okay?

Enough already with the monologue, let's go find some Everett kids. I'll give you a few seconds to take off running. You ready?

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

I'm gonna start the night off by finding a few kids I've known since I was knee high to a grasshopper. We'll start with Dean up on Foster Street. If you stand here beside me at the top of Arlington where it intersects with Foster, you'll be looking right across the street at the front of his two-family. His house was the third one down from the Horace Mann playground. He lived up on the second floor.

Dean and I started kindergarten together. We had two Deans in our kindergarten class that year. The other one lived down around the Argyle Street area somewhere. That one grew up to be either a plumber or electrician for the City of Everett. I'm really not sure which. We were good friends back in kindergarten. I somehow lost track of him after that.

I haven't lost track of the one from Foster Street, tho. I probably remember more about him than he does himself. His father had a wooden leg. No, I don't know why. And his mother always reminded me of one those sweet grandmotherly types like Aunt Bee on Mayberry. He also had a younger brother, named Glen, who had a really happy-go-lucky personality about him.

One of my earliest recollections of Dean happened in the second grade up at the Horace Mann. Our teacher, Miss Martinelli, was absent on this one particular day so we had a substitute teacher. We've had this substitute before, and what a beast and half she was, believe you me.

For the life of me, I cannot recall that substitute teacher's name, but the image of that despicable scowl that had permanently taken shape on her face after years of carry around such a miserable disposition has found a permanent home in the darker regions of my memory banks.

Because we had no cafeteria at the Horace Mann, we sat at our desks and ate our brown-bagged lunches before going out to play at recess. Yes, some kids did carry lunch boxes, but definitely not any of the kids from Arlington Street. You'd never live it down.

Anyway, during recess Miss Martinelli allowed us to take turns to tell something amusing about our personal lives. Dean once told an entertaining story about the day that his father had replaced some of the woodwork in their house. Apparently, he and his little brother, Glen, were playfully running through the house, as kids so often do, when Glen accidentally ran head on into the frame of one of the new interior doors, knocking off a piece of the new woodwork in the process. Naturally, he wound up with a good-sized lump on his forehead as a result.

To comfort Glen, his father made a playful remark to the effect of, "Are you trying to help the termites destroy all my hard work?" He was only trying to make Glen laugh so he'd forget about that painful lump on his forehead.

Having received such a warm response from both Miss Martinelli, and from his classmates over that story, he felt compelled to share it with this substitute teacher, as well. Instead of a warm response she looked back at him with disdain and scornfully remarked, "Well your father's wrong. Termites chew. Did your brother chew the wood off or did he knock it off?"

You could feel the embarrassment and hurt in Dean's eyes when he somberly responded, "He knocked it off."

"Well then your father shouldn't have compared him to a termite. "Isn't that right?"

Dean sadly hung his head low and murmured, "Yes."

"Sit down then," she demanded. Then she asked, "Does anyone else feel the need to tell anymore silly stories?" Like you're gonna raise your hand after that - right?

I'll tell you one thing about Dean that anyone who knows him will verify. He's a good kid with a good heart. He has never hurt, or said an unkind word about anybody. It is his nature to share his joys with others. He likes people. He likes life. He's been that way since I first met him in kindergarten.

Because of the kind of person that Dean naturally is, the way that substitute teacher came down on him that day always troubled me. I never felt such a deep loathing for a person as I did for that teacher on that day. The way she hurt that kid's feelings still bothers me to this very day. It's gotta make you wonder as to why some people go into teaching if they don't like kids. That's like an atheist joining the clergy. You know what I mean?

So anyway, I got Dean's gools. Let's go find a few more kids.

Hey, you wanna meet one of the most avant-garde people you'll ever find in your lifetime? Okay then, let's take a walk over to Pleasant View Ave. Let me introduce you to the kid I shot in the backside with a BB gun.

Even after that, he stood up as my best man at my first wedding. If you think that's incredible, just wait until you hear this one. The girl I married was his girlfriend. I kid you not. I wound up with her because he asked me to give her a ride to visit him in the hospital.

Of course, there's so much more to the story than that, but explaining it that way makes it all that more amusing. Sadly enough, that girl no longer walks among us. That's a whole nuther story in itself. We won't dwell on that right now because it's way too heavy.

This kid's name is Jon. He's the only kid I ever met in my lifetime who spelled that name without an "h." His people also hail from Newfoundland. If you stand here at the corner of Foster and look down towards the bottom of Pleasant View Ave, his house is the second one down on the right hand side of the street. Well actually, it's the first one down because the triple-decker before it is really on Foster Street.

I first met Jon through his brother, Glen. Glen and I were in kindergarten together. We hit it off the moment we met. Glen and I hung around together in the lower elementary grades. That's how I first met Jon. Our paths didn't cross again until many years later when we both wound up together in Anthony Sarno's eighth grade homeroom at the Parlin.

That was my second year in the eighth grade. It was Jon's first. Having repeated the eighth grade I was no longer with Glen's class, but with his younger brother, Jon's. Glen was a more down to the earth kind of kid, and Jon was a bit of a weirdo from birth. Great minds think alike so that's how Jon and I became such close friends.

Even to this day it amazes me at what this kid could do with a Bic pen. I would liken his artwork to that of M. C. Escher's, with the strong surreal influence of Salvador Dali. His family moved to Reading after the ninth grade. Years later, when his parents moved to Tennessee, Jon stayed behind and eventually settled into Cambridge.

Jon is now into sculpting. I've not yet seen any of his work, but knowing him as I do, his work is both unconventional and masterful, I'm sure. That's just the kind of artist that he is. As they say, "When the weird gets weirder, an artist turns pro." That's Jon all over. He once plastered the windows in his car with rainbow decals so anybody who took a ride in his car would get drenched in color as they drove around. Yes, I'm serious.

We've shared a lifetime of laughs together, far too many to list here. We once had a competition going on between us to see who could buy the cheapest chess game. I eventually won when I found one at Brooks up on Broadway for sixty-nine cents.

I shall always treasure his friendship dearly. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of those lifelong friends you acquire while growing up in Everett. And besides all that, I just got his gools.

We better move along if we're gonna find any more people tonight. At the bottom of Pleasant View Ave, on the same side of the street as Jon, is where Ernie lived. Ernie's a few years older than I am. I've always looked up to this kid with great admiration.

What really astonished me about this kid was his uncanny talent for training homing pigeons. He was amazingly successful at it. Years later when Ernie gave up his paper route he let me add it onto mine. Thanks, Ernie. I needed the bucks.

I'm gonna take a run back up over the hill to cross the Horace Mann playground towards Dern Street. Before we go I'd like to point out Betty Ann's three-decker here on Foster that's right across from the Playground. Her backyard was always nicely decorated with all kinds of ornaments and things. Some kids criticized it saying that it looked as gaudy as a miniature golf course, but I always thought it was a very pleasant variation from the drab conventional.

Mary Ellen lived on Prospect Street right behind the playground. It's funny how I said that she lived behind the playground, because in all actuality, she lived across from the front of the Horace Mann school. We always looked upon the Foster Street steps to the playground as the front. Don't ask me why, especially when the school was facing the other way. That's Everett kids for ya.

There are three kids on Dern Street that I haven't seen since my elementary school days. They didn't go to the Horace Mann with me. They attended the Immaculate Conception on Summer Street instead.

Right on the corner of Dern and Prospect lived Donny. My funniest recollection of Donny is the day I let him cut my hair. Our mother's gave us five-dollars each to go get a haircut. This happened just a week or two before the end of our summer vacation. These haircuts were supposed make us look all snazzy for our first day back at school.

We came up with the wild idea of cutting each other's hair so we could pocket the money. We went down into my cellar and I was bright enough to let him cut mine first. After he saw what he had done to my hair he changed his mind about letting me cut his.

The whole time I was sitting there watching the hair fall I thought he was doing a great job. Bobby and Tommy were sitting across from us reading funny books and not paying any attention to us whatsoever. Bobby lived in the last house on the left on Dern Street just before you entered the backyard to the Parlin. He had a little dog named, Blacky, who followed him everywhere. Tommy lived right across the street from Bobby. Tommy's dad was the Chief of the Everett Police Department for years.

When Bobby and Tommy finally did lift their eyes up out of their funny books, they took one look at me and doubled over in laughter. My hair looked like it was chopped off by a lawnmower. I had bald spots and everything.

My mother went ballistic when she saw my haircut. I held my ground and insisted that the barber, had indeed, cut my hair. She was so furious that she started getting ready to march me back down to that barbershop. She was gonna tear that guy a new rear end, if you know what I mean. When I broke down and told her the truth she let me have it, but good.

She still marched me down to the Eagle barbershop on Ferry Street next to the Everett Springs Hardware to see if he could somehow repair the damage. The best he could do was to give me the shortest whiffle of my lifetime to try to hide as much of it as he possibly could. I wore a stocking cap for weeks after that to hide how silly I looked. So I just got Donny, Bobby, and Tommy's gools in one fell swoop.

Man, where does the time go when you're having fun? I better turn back before it gets any later. I'll tell you what. We'll take the long way home by going down around High Street to catch a few more kids along the way.

When we get to the bottom of Prospect we'll be able to see where Billy, and his sister, Donna, used to live on High Street. Billy was the electronic whiz of the century. Can you imagine building a device from scratch that would allow you to eaves drop on people who were whispering 50 yards away when you were only in the fifth grade? That's how amazing that kid was. Some of the kids you meet growing up in Everett are absolutely phenomenal.

It's really getting late now so I'm gonna cut through Janice and Sandra's backyard here on High Street to get back home. What the heck, they only live on the other side of the fence from me anyway. They used to hang out at Oliver Street Park with Jeanne, Patty, and Kathy. Kathy is Rosemary's sister. They lived on High Street, too.

Sandra went to the Horace Mann with my brother, Billy. And her younger sister, Janice, went to school with my sister, Julie. They also had two brothers, named Joey and Ray, in their family. And you talk about coincidences? Ray served in Vietnam the same time my brother, Billy, did. Okay Sandy, Janice, and Kathy, I got your gools. You didn't think I'd forget ya, did ya?

Which reminds me, Sandra once said that besides her mother, father, and the four kids, her mother's sister and brother also lived with them in the same apartment on the second floor of a rented house. Even still, she never knew that she was poor.

That says it all right there, doesn't it? You see, the reason none of us realized that we were poor is because we weren't really. Granted, we had holes in the knees of our pants sometimes, and the souls of our shoes flapped when we walked, but that doesn't constitute being poor to a kid. You can have a lot of fun with a shoe that flaps, unless of course, you're an old stick in the mud.

Okay, so maybe all we had for supper sometimes was a bowl of lima beans and a glass of water. I didn't know that was poor. I just thought that was all we had in the house to eat that night, and I was right. That's all we did have. I was still thankful for that big bottle of ketchup up in the cabinet. With enough of that you could make just about anything taste appetizing.

What was far more important than that was that we had a family sitting down to the supper table with us. Together we could laugh our way through just about anything. And when we stepped away from the supper table we had a world full of friends waiting for us outside to play "hide-and-go-seek" under the streetlights.

And guess what? They are still out there waiting for us right now. We don't need two nickels to rub together. We've got the best friends in the whole wide world. These are the very people I've been telling you about all along.

For those of you out there feeling like you're wandering around in the dark, looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, and wondering what this life is all about anyway, let me tell you what it's all about.

It has nothing to do with fame or fortune. Some people come into this world spoon fed notoriety and wealth, and they live a miserable existence. You can't buy what we have. It's that precious.

We've got each other. We've got memories that make us smile right down to the marrow in our bones. And we will never walk alone because we were born into a fraternity of camaraderie that we are so in tune with that we will never lose sight of who we are, what we stand for, or where we come from. That's us in a nutshell because - "We're from Everett!"

Under The Streetlights - Part 4

When I think back on my childhood growing up in Everett, it makes me wonder as to how I ever survived. Every Sunday morning my dad sizzled up two pounds of bacon, and then deep-fried a feast of hand-shredded potatoes in the leftover fatty oils. After that, he broke open a dozen and a half eggs and plopped them down into that very same bacon grease.

Add onions, peppers, and a little garlic into the mix and you've got a bouquet of fragrances that will absolutely tantalize your senses. The aroma filled our entire apartment, spilled out into the hallways, and wafted out into the neighborhood below. That is precisely why Joey came banging at the back door an hour before Sunday school every week like clockwork.

By the time you licked that platter clean you swallowed enough fat and cholesterol to kill or cripple a rogue elephant. Besides that, my dad was a butter freak. He couldn't stand the sight of margarine. So on top of all that bacon grease you sat down to at least a half of a stick of butter if you add up what he put on your toast, your home fries, and your scrambled eggs.

You've never tasted anything so mouth watering delicious in your life. The funny part is that in the eyes of our parents, that was about as healthy as a meal as you could get. And I'll be honest with ya, since I've started eating healthier foods my tastes buds have gone flat.

Besides getting away from that supposedly life threatening diet we grew up on, I do believe it was my generation who started taxiing our kids all over the place. That was so unlike our parents because, for one thing, when we were kids not every family had a car. By the time I graduated from Everett High just about everybody had one.

I can't imagine walking up to my dad and asking, "Can you give us a ride down to Glendale Park? We wanna play tag rush." He'd look at me like I had two heads. Besides, I could almost fit as many kids on my bike as he could into his 1952 Ford Custom. That was mainly because my dad was a truck mechanic who always had tools and rags strewn all over the back seat.

Whenever the urge hit us to take off anywhere, the thought of asking our parents for a ride never occurred to us. If we wanted to take off to Revere Beach for the day we just stood at the bus stop in front of Whitehill Pharmacy at the corner of Nichols and Ferry to hop on the 110 Wonderland. And if we wanted to take off for Pine Banks we'd hop on our bikes.

Back then nobody suited up in spandex pants and a helmet just to coast down Ferry Street on a bike. You wouldn't be caught dead in anything like that when we were kids. All we ever did was roll up our pant cuffs so not to get caught in the chain.

We can poke fun at and ridicule our modern day bicyclists all we want, but we had just as many hang ups about our bikes back then as they do today. Ask any guy who grew up in Everett. There was a certain modus operandi involved with bike riding back then, that if not observed, all the other guys would think you were a sissy.

As soon as you got a new bike you had to knock off the fenders. Fenders weren't cool. And please, don't even think about venturing beyond your backyard with streamers flowing from your handlebars. You'd never live it down.

A chain guard is okay so long as it's black or red and there's no decorations on it. If there is you'd better peel them off before that thing ever sees the light of day. Better yet, go ahead and knock that chain guard off altogether so you won't have to deal with any unnecessary flack.

You'd be crazy to totally ignore at least the basic rules of safety involved with bike riding. We did anyway. As a result we crashed into telephone poles, got hit by cars, and fell down that long flight of steps at the back of the Parlin.

Frankie from Foster Street tried to ride his bike without handlebars once and wound up getting a surgical plate put into his head. He's lucky he wasn't killed. You remember Frankie, don't ya? His father used to own the plumbing shop on the corner of Villa Ave and Ferry.

I can't tell you how many times my mother screamed at me from our second story window for having more than one kid on my bike at any one time. It was no big deal, really. I've done it at least a hundred times.

There really was something to that 1960 classic horror movie called the "The Village of the Damned" they showed down at the Park Theatre. That was the movie in which if you taught one kid anything at all, all the other kids automatically knew it without being taught. It just seemed like if any kid anywhere in these Untied States figured something out - every other kid in the country found it out instantly.

I'm talking about things like how to fit five kids on an airplane you made by wrapping three swings together, how to make a matchstick shooter, and how to ride three kids on a bike. When was the last time you saw three kids on a bike? And when was the last time you saw a matchstick shooter?

Come to think of it, do they even make those white-tipped stick matches that you can strike on just about anything imaginable to spark em up? It was once a favorite past time of ours to see if you could spark it up by striking it across the seat of your pants. Hey, and do you remember that song we used to sing? It goes like this ...

"Matches, matches, m-a-t-c-h-e-s,
You can light em on the wall,
You can light em on the grass,
I once knew a kid who could like em on his,
Matches, matches, m-a-t-c-h-e-s."

Those white-tipped stick matches were the very reason that every little boy became enthralled in playing with matches. They always said, "the way to a man's heart is through his belly." That may be true once he grows up, but when he's still a little boy the way to his heart is through matches and firecrackers. Ask any boy who grew up in Everett. He'll tell ya.

Of course, you're hearing that from the very kid who charred all the back porches on that six-family down on Arlington Street with a box of white-tipped stick matches when he was in the first grade. That certainly cured him of his obsession of playing with matches, let me tell ya. That is, without a shadow of a doubt, my most noticeable contribution to the Arlington Street community, if I do say so myself.

That's why I say, regardless of how small it may seem, each and every one of us has made our own contribution to the growing up in Everett experience just by being a part of it. Unlike when we were kids how we just knew something automatically because another kid halfway across the planet figured it out, I know nothing about your contributions to the "growing up in Everett" experience unless you tell it to me. And since we started this project you have told me plenty.

I guess you could say that's what's really behind this citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek" series anyway. This gives me the opportunity to share with you what other kids from Everett have told me about their childhood experiences, and the contributions that their families have made to our community. I say "kids" because when we gather here to reminisce about the moments we shared growing up in Everett, we become kids all over again, regardless of how old we are today.

So let's get back to our citywide game of "hide-and-go-seek" under the streetlights, shall we? We've still got a whole slew of people to touch base with. Which reminds me, I wanted to jump back to Dorothy who I tagged on our last outing.

All I knew about Dorothy was that she was a good friend of Paula's. That, plus the fact that she still had some of the dishes her mother got as give-aways so many years ago at the Park Theatre. That's all she ever told me.

Well, it just so happens that Sam, Paula's better half, filled me in on a few more details. Dorothy is obviously very modest about her family's contributions. Her family goes back for many generations here in the Everett zone.

Sam told me that Dorothy lived on Nichols Street in the house just past the block of stores that ran from the corner of Woodlawn Street. She later moved to Malden Street. Many generations ago her grandfather drove a horse & buggy through the streets of Everett as a junk man.

Now there's a term that conjures up an image that is so uncomplimentary to the true character of its profession. When somebody says "junk man" you picture a poor laborer who hasn't got two nickels to rub together. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In all actuality, "Junk men" (we used to call them "junkies" but that means something altogether different now) salvage precious metals from discarded goods and are rewarded handsomely for their efforts. It is a bit of a dirty job, but it is certainly a respectable one, and it contributes to the recycling of usable goods. I dare say, a "junk man" was the first profession of the Industrial Age to ever contribute to the good of our environment.

So let's give notable recognition to Grandpa Shapiro for his contributions to a cleaner environment a hundred years before it was fashionable to do so. And let's do that with pride because Grandpa Shapiro was from Everett.

Dorothy's family contributions don't end there. For you see, her father was once the proprietor of the Summer Street Market. That's the store at the fork in the road between Summer and High. I've written about that store many times over the past two and half years.

I can't count how many times I've strolled from those steps at the Horace Mann playground down to the Summer Street Market for a Hoodsie on a hot summer afternoon. If you grew up anywhere from behind the Parlin down to Ferry Street, then you've frequented the Summer Street Market more times than you could possibly remember. It was that much of an icon to our community.

Since I had already found Dorothy, I figured I'd pass along that info before we got into tonight's game. Thanks for sharing that with us, Sam. And thank you, Dorothy, for all the contributions your family has made to our "growing up in Everett" experience.

And now without further adieu, let's get back to our game in progress.

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

Since we're kind of on a roll here about the contributions that so many Everett people have made to our growing up experience, let's go hunt down a few more people of noticeable recognition. Let's start with George.

George has made many contributions to our "Growing Up Everett" picture archives. The pictures he's shared have brought back into focus many of my long lost childhood memories. Like seeing the back of our old Everett High School as it once looked in 1970 before the new addition. I'm still calling it the "new" addition even tho it happened decades ago. Funny thing about me is that anything that happened after the 60's still seems like it's new.

Those bird's eye views of Everett Square from the 50's and 60's have conjured up countless memories of coasting down Broadway on my bike delivering newspapers. Seeing the old Devens school again rekindles the time we all ran helter-skelter down Broadway to watch it burn to the ground. Even that aerial view of Norwood Street back in the day makes me feel like I'm standing right outside Freddy's record store. It makes me wonder whether I should take a stroll into Gorins to say "hi" to Peter, or just head on over to Kresge's lunch counter for a grilled cheese and a side of fries.

George's family is an icon in the City of Everett for many reasons. His family has enjoyed a multi-generational history in proprietorship of the famous "Home Appliance" shop down on Main Street. It is still there along with a dry cleaner and a real estate agency. And yes, it is still the same family owned proprietorship serving the Everett community.

George's father is affectionately remembered as one of Everett's most popular mayors. He was elected to six consecutive terms. His administration spanned from 1967 right up until 1978. Keeping within the family tradition, George's Uncle also followed in those honored footsteps by winning six consecutive terms as our Mayor spanning from 1986 up until 1998. Now that to me shows a true blue Everett spirit with a sense of local pride that has community responsibility written all over it.

I dare say, George has also followed that path of family honor for giving back to our community by his many contributions to our "Growing Up Everett" picture archives. He has shared so many of his childhood memories with me that I feel as though I've known him all my life. It is a privilege to count him amongst my most treasured friends. And besides all that, I just got his gools.

Another person I'd like to tag tonight whose family has made notable contributions to our "Growing Up Everett" experience is Victor. He is a proud alumni of the 1978 Everett High school graduating class. It is upon Victor's father that gives me great pleasure to shed some interesting insight.

Many of you will remember Victor's father as the highly respected Everett High School teacher we all know and love as, Mr. DeRubeis. This native of Tussio, Italy, arrived in theses United States way back in 1924. And he introduced the study of Italian at Everett High School when he began teaching there in 1937. Pretty cool, huh?

By the time Mr. DeRubeis retired from teaching in 1979, he was personally responsible for many notable innovations to our education. Just to give you brief idea as to some of those distinguished accomplishments, let me begin by pointing out that he was instrumental in giving birth to and organizing the annual Italian Night (Una Serata Italiana) presentations by the students. They included plays and skits, many of them written by Mr. DeRubeis himself, and songs celebrating the Italian culture. And might I also add, they were all done in Italian.

Mr. DeRubeis also instigated the introduction of the language laboratories at Everett High and at the Parlin Junior High. The introduction of the Multi-Language Lab in the early 1970s allowed students to independently study any language they chose through programmed learning tapes. It was a forerunner of the Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone programs so popular today. Among Mr. DeRubeis former multi-language lab students was Patrick Schena, who is now a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

I pass that information along almost verbatim from Victor himself. What that tells me is that Victor is proud of his father's legacy, and for the contributions that his family has made to our "growing up in Everett" experience. And so he should be.

I, on the other hand, am truly grateful for the opportunity to have walked in the shadows of such an accomplished individual. That is the kind of selfless quality in character that made Everett such a wonderful place for a kid to grow up.

Think about it. Those innovations didn't fatten anybody's wallet. They were not done out of personal gain. They were done for the good of our community as a whole. And that is precisely what is missing from our society today.

Ever since the "We're from Everett" project began, we've spoken about many individuals who have made selfless contributions for the good of their neighbors. They have come from all walks of life. They were Jewish, Italian, African, German, Hispanic, Native American, Irish, and God knows what else. Because we grew up in a community that looked beyond the limitations of labels, we accomplished things that people with closed minds could never have achieved.

Everett always was an authentic representation of the American melting pot. Because we lived together as people, instead of as splintered factions of isolated ideologies, we formed a trusted community with a bond that ran so true through our veins.

Some people's contributions may seem more influential than others, but the truth is, you may never realize how just one small act of selfless kindness may change someone's life. Who knows, it may have been your very smile that caught my eye when I was just a little kid that kindle the fire in my heart to be so passionate about my hometown, and all of its people. You never know.

Each and every person who has ever lived in Everett has contributed to the overall experience. Even crazy Rosie played an influential role in our community. It was people like her that taught us to be more receptive to the less fortunate. She taught us how to open our hearts. And she certainly taught us how to deal with an embarrassing brutal honesty. I'll give her that.

I do hope that you will forgive me for not finding very many people tonight. There was just so much to tell that the night flew by like that bat of an eye. Hey, I'm a poet and don't know it.

There are many stories still out there yet to be told. If you've got an interesting tidbit to tell, by all means, share it with us. Throw your two cents in. Get your story out there. Everyone deserves to be heard. All of the stories you've so enjoyed about other people who grew up in Everett only materialized because those people were generous enough to share their experiences with us.

Keep in mind that what we're doing here is not only to reminisce about the good old days. We're leaving a legacy behind for our grandchildren's grandchildren. We are telling our story to our descendants who have yet to be born. A hundred years after we've gone they will know their ancestors personally because of the stories we've told today.

Tell your story to your grandchildren's grandchildren. Don't take it with you beyond the far horizon. Tell it now so they will know you personally in their own lifetime. Wouldn't you have valued the opportunity to know your great grandfather on such a personal level?

This is, by far, the greatest gift you could possibly leave behind to your descendants. The stories you tell will double them over in laughter sometimes, and at other times their eyes will edge with tears. They will know that we were human. They will know that we had our trials and our tribulations. And they will know that we had loved and we had lost.

We won't be there to rest a reassuring hand on their shoulder when they can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we can actually do the next best thing for them if we chose our words wisely, and give to them our truth. They will feel our presence. It will give them a sense of reassurance and pride.

Above all else, they will know that we do love them from beyond the far horizon because we cared enough to reach across the infinite distance of time to touch their hearts in such a personal way. And just as importantly, they will also know that - "We're from Everett!"
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