Our Hidden Agenda

To an outsider, the kids from Everett are an absolute bewilderment, to say the least. From a distance we look like we move in tandem, talk in rhythm, and are all of like mind. I've often heard it said that "If you fight one kid from Everett, you've gotta fight em all." They talk as if we were an army of robots unleashed on this planet to achieve a hidden agenda.

I can see where an outsider might get that notion. Like clockwork every Saturday 900 of us hit the sidewalks and dutifully marched towards one specific objective. Once we reached that destination we stood in line waiting our turn to do exactly what everyone else was waiting in line to do. And that was to enter into a relic we cherished almost religiously, known to the world as the Park Theatre.

As soon as those doors swung wide we frantically scrambled to get our hands on one box of popcorn and one box of Junior Mints. We gobbled down the popcorn in seconds flat so we could tear the box into a pair of goggles. Then we gobbled down the Junior Mints in one fell swoop so we could tear the end flaps off the box to blow through it like a whistle.

When the lights dimmed and the curtains drew back, we sat glued to the screen watching whatever Hollywood had to throw at us through our popcorn goggles. Before the main feature the lights came back on and the popcorn goggles came off. When our host stepped up to the mike and shouted "Hi kids," in unison we yelled back at the top of our lungs, "Hi Leo!"

There was truly something extra special about that man. Because of him we yelled and screamed in mindless ecstasy over something so simple as somebody trying to break a balloon. We didn't realize it at the time because we were just little kids, but that man was indeed, the Pied Piper of Everett.

Nobody else ever captured the hearts and minds of a whole city full of kids the way that man did. And for no other purpose than to be in his presence, did we make that pilgrimage almost religiously every Saturday afternoon throughout our childhood.

He passed away more than 40 years ago. You won't find a plaque in his honor at city hall, or a school bearing his name, or even so much as a street corner for that matter. And yet he contributed more to the welfare and the good of the children of our community than anyone else in the history of the City of Everett. Even after all these years we still feel the effects of his goodness right down to the marrow of our bones as if we had enjoyed them only yesterday.

His memory alone is enough to edge your eyes with tears. And not only because we miss that warm glow he ignited in our hearts, but also because he gave to us one of the very fibers to that thread that runs so true through our veins that binds us together for all time. He personified what growing up in Everett was all about.

Down on the corner of High Street and Ferry stood a little variety store called, "Vinnie's." Unlike many other corner varieties of our era, it did not have a snack counter to sit at to chat with your neighbors. What Vinnie did have was an extensive deli counter offering a wide selection of fresh cut meats.

I can picture him now in his white apron chopping off a leg of lamb with a big butcher's knife and slapping up on the scales. He'd roll it and wrap it in about four and a half yards of white wax paper and then bundled it up with a heavy twine. After that he'd carefully slide that into yet another brown paper bag before thanking you ever so politely for your custom.

It became almost a cliché in our neighborhood that if you couldn't find it anywhere else; you'll probably find it down at Vinnie's. Having grown up in Newfoundland, my mother knew the delicacy of vinegar flavored potato chips decades before you could ever buy them in this country. After having inquired about them at every other store in Everett, she found them at Vinnie's.

For those of you who had never shopped at Vinnie's, he looked a lot like Groucho Marx, including the mustache and glasses. He was a soft-spoken gentleman who knew every one of his customers personally. And as was so common in our day, he never refused anyone should they ask if they could put that on their tab.

When my great uncle Ed died, Vinnie showed up at the funeral. And when he found out how much I liked to draw, he often took the time to look over my work and make constructive criticisms. I learned a lot from that man.

Vinnie was an exquisite artist. He painted landscapes and street scenes. His mastery of light, shadows, compositional elements, and his blending of analogous colors rivaled that of the old masters themselves. You could see it in his paintings. They were all on display on the shelves that circled the walls up high in his store. None of them were for sale. If you praised one enough he'd just give it to you.

I have no idea as to when it was that Vinnie closed up shop. I suppose we could look it up in the city archives if we really wanted to. Come to think of it, I never knew his last name, whether or not he had a family, or where he lived for that matter. I was so very young then that I never thought to ask.

What happened was that I pulled into the Flying A gas station down on Ferry Street to fill up my Volkswagen Beetle. Would a real hippie drive anything else? I just happened to glance across the street while they were filling up my tank, checking my oil, and washing my windshield. That's when I noticed that Vinnie's was gone.

When I got home that afternoon I asked my mother if she already knew that Vinnie's was closed. She took one look at me and asked, "What planet are you on? Vinnie's been closed for years."

"So what happened? Did he retire?"

"I have no idea," she said ever so nonchalantly as she went about her housework.

It was decades before I really got over the fact that Vinnie's was gone. Don't ask me why because I hadn't stopped in there for years. You have no idea how much that bothers me.

After all he had done for me, my family, and our whole neighborhood for that matter, you'd have thought I'd have the decency to stop and say hello every once in a while. He at least deserved that. Instead, I just went on about my business.

Sure, my life had changed drastically in a few short years. I moved up from a tricycle, to a two wheeler, and then to a Volkswagen Beetle. I went from thinking that girls had cooties to where I couldn't bare to be without one. And I went from playing "hide-and-go-seek" beneath the streetlights on Arlington Street to partying all night with the hippies up in the back hills of Glendale Park.

I'm sure there was a corner variety store in your neighborhood that was once just as much a part of your lives as Vinnie's was to ours. Not once did I ever stop to think that as my life was going through these drastic changes, that so was my neighborhood all around me.

I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall, but I didn't. I somehow thought that Vinnie would always be there. I should have known better. After all, it's been years since that Hoods milk truck came rolling down the street to deliver fresh milk to everyone's doorstep in the morning. From that alone I should have known the world had begun to change.

All of a sudden the post office stopped making both a morning and an afternoon mail delivery. The Boston Globe and the Record American no longer had a morning and an evening edition. And our doctors stopped making house calls.

The next thing you know they stopped handing out S&H Green stamps. Then they stopped stuffing Cannon towels down inside the Tide box. It didn't take long before the old "the customer is always right" philosophy got thrown to the wayside. And who ever thought that a gallon of gas would cost more than a meatball sub?

We've got no one to blame but ourselves. We let them get away with it and we never said a word. People tend to have their way with you unless you put your foot down and put a stop to it.

Going on in the back of my mind all this time are the sights and sounds of all my neighbors down on Arlington Street. You'd stop and talk to at least a half a dozen people before you made it down to the corner to hop on the Everett Square Trolley via Chelsea Street.

This wasn't just the "How are you?" and the "fine thank you" trivial chatter that casual acquaintances so commonly trifled with. These people knew you since the day you were born. They knew your family. They really did care about you.

I can still hear Mary Johnson's voice from up on her front porch whispering, "Psst, hey Paul. Martha's crouched behind Mister Bowser's car," when we were out playing "hide and go seek" under the streetlights. It makes you laugh to think that she was tattle tailing on her very own daughter. She always felt sorry for me cuz I was the littlest kid in the bunch at the time.

If you want to bust a gut then pull up a chair and take a look out my living room window at the kids playing stickball down on Arlington Street. Don't expect to see any stickball going on. What you'll see and hear is Jacky and Joey going back and forth for an hour and half over whether or not Stanley "ticked" it or "whiffed" it.

After Jacky lost the argument he lifted his leg to fart at Joey and shouted, "There's a kiss for ya." His mother stormed out into the middle of the street, grabbed a hold of his ear, and then dragged him kicking and screaming back into the house. You could hear the sound of that strap whacking his fanny all the way down to the corner of Ferry Street.

As I sit here in the quiet repose of my little home office typing my brains out, I'm mind traveling back to a time when a dozen or more grown ups crowded into our tiny little kitchen down on Arlington Street. Well into the night all the women sat around talking about Jacqueline Kennedy's wardrobe. And the men sat around the kitchen table playing cribbage and blowing the suds off a couple.

If only I could share with you the sound of their laughter, the smiles on their faces, and the smell of those home made brownies my mother had going on in the kitchen stove, then you'd see what it was that made Everett so special. And then you'd understand why the people from Everett tug at my heartstrings so.

Something inside of us died when they killed our president. For those of you who were born after the fact, believe me when I tell you, President Kennedy captivated the imagination of our whole generation. We worshiped that man. Regardless of all the hype they came out with about him after his death, President Kennedy represented all that was good and decent about America.

He was the first president to sympathize with Dr. Martin Luther King. And what Martin Luther King was telling us is that the time had come to put our differences behind us. In the peaceful tradition of Mohandas Ghandi, he was trying to persuade us to reach out to each other, to love one another, and to work together to make this great nation of ours the promise land it was always meant to be.

Too bad we didn't listen. They killed him before we got the chance to really get to know him. It's gotta make you wonder as to why they always kill the ones who come out and tell everybody to love one other. Why is loving one another such a threat?

My generation arrogantly believed that we would be the ones who would shed all of the nonsensical rhetoric that enslaved the common people. In the end we got lost in the shuffle and just shuffled along with the lost like every other generation.

We thought people like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan preached a heartfelt philosophy with an important message behind it. We eventually woke up and found out that all they were really doing was trying to make a buck. I realized that when Peter Fonda started hawking Time-Life records on late night TV. This is the rebel Easy Rider we're talking about here.

When you go to the Rolling Stone's web site it's one big advertisement to buy this and buy that. Even Rex Trailer doesn't share anything with you on his web site. All he does is push you to buy his DVD.

I can't count how many people have written to me about how good it was for Rex Trailer to show up at the stadium for all us kids on the Fourth of July. It's not as if he had done that out of the goodness of his heart or anything. He got paid to do that.

That is not to take away from all the good clean family entertainment that Rex Trailer provided us with for so many years. The point I'm making is that he did it because it was profitable for him to do so, and not because Everett meant anything special to him.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing at all wrong with making a buck. At least share something of value with us to sweeten the pot for God's sake. The days of thinking we're gonna flock to your door because you're some kind of prima donna has gone the way of the wringer washing machine. Who needs ya?

So what it all boils down to is that some people step into the limelight because they get paid to do it. And then there are those who shun the pedestal in lieu of becoming an integral part of their community. That's what people like Leo, and Mary, and Vinnie were all about, as were people like Lenny, the singing bus driver, Rosie, our world famous cabbie, and Anthony Sarno, my eighth grade homeroom teacher.

With all the commotion going on all around us, we've lost track of what it was that made our lives so special. If any or all of the above mentioned people were to show up here today, they'd look back at us and say, "How did everything ever get so out of kilter? Why did you let go of each other's hand? Why didn't you put your foot down? You're better than that. You're from Everett."

And they'd be so right. We are from Everett and we are so much better than that. We're known to do some crazy ass things sometimes, but it is true that if you pick a fight with just one of us, you gotta fight us all.

That doesn't mean that we all believe the very same things. We don't always agree, but that doesn't change how we feel about each other because we're one big family. And like one big family, we didn't initially choose each other. Fate brought us together as a community. We bonded. We formed a peaceful coalition and we committed to it. We've gone toe to toe amongst ourselves at times, but when push came to shove, we stood beside each other.

That's what made growing up in Everett so special, and that's what makes each and every one of you so special. Don't ever forget that. That's who you are.

It makes no wonder why you stand out in the crowd like a beacon in the night. Your hometown is the only community in all of America with a bicameral legislature. That says something significant about your tenacity right there. Now you can go tell all those fancy schmancy prima donnas to stick that in their pipe and smoke it.

We're choosing a new president this year. From all the politically motivated forwarded emails I'm getting I'd have to say it looks as though we've got about a 50-50 split on the upcoming elections. And yes, I'm a registered voter and yes, I'm gonna vote.

What I'm not gonna do is tell you who I'm voting for. That's why there's a curtain on the voting booth so you won't know. I'll tell you this, though. From what you're telling me, each and every one of you has committed to the candidate of your choice out a genuine love for your country. You are truly concerned about the future and have made your choice based on your individual frame of reference.

Because of that, none of you on either side of the coin are wrong. Exercising your right to vote is the only rational choice to make. Just don't let your politics divide you. My dad voted for Nixon (God only knows why), and my mother voted for Kennedy. After all was said and done they still went on with their lives together as one.

The loser simply must be a good sport about the whole thing and throw his weight behind the winner so everyone can push in the same general direction. And that is precisely what we're going to have to do here if we're ever gonna get anywhere.

Okay, so let me get down off the soap box a minute cuz we need to talk. I've got a whole slew of unfinished business to tend to and I need to ask for your patience. I just don't want you to start thinking our "Growing up Everett" project is falling apart if you don't hear from me for a week or so.

Promise me you'll check back every few days just so I'll know you're still out there. I do check my comments, my emails, and my hit counter every night before I go to bed. So don't ever hesitate to hit that email button over there in the right hand column. If you write to me I'll write you back.

I had this funny thought just the other day. Wouldn't it be great if we could plan a giant get together someday down at Glendale Park? Imagine having the opportunity to come together and meet up with each other just one more time? It's food for thought. Think about it.

Thank you for sharing this moment with me. You'll never know how much I enjoy our little chats. I missed out on telling Leo, and Vinnie, and Mary how much they truly meant to me. I'm gonna make damn sure that I don't miss out on telling you. I've learned my lesson well.

Above all else don't ever lose touch with who you are, and where you come from. Together we form a lifelong fraternity of family and friends who share a common trait. And put simply enough, that common trait is that "We're from Everett!"

Get Up and Go To School

Man, I can't count how many times I've heard that one. It never failed that just as I was drifting off in a rowboat towards a deserted island full of hoola hoola girls that my dream was shattered by the harsh reality that it was time to get up and go to school.

So I rubbed my weary eyes to adjust the focus on the reality channel and the very moment my warm feet hit that cold hardwood floor my fantasy shattered into a million tiny fragments. Like it or lump it, this was my life.

I have this funny notion that the guy who invented the alarm clock must have hated getting up in the morning so he designed a contraption to ruin everyone else's day from the very start. He really hit the nail on the head when he came up with the idea of shattering your dreams with an obnoxious clang. Follow that with the sound of your mother shouting "Get up and go to school" in your left ear and you've got yourself a bona fide Everett school day morning.

It seems like only yesterday that we were all sitting out on my front steps knocking down one of Richie's slushes when Mikey asked, "Who ya got for homeroom this year?"

"Oh no, don't tell me you've got Blake. Man, are you in trouble. I once saw her rip a kids arm off and beat him with the wet end."

What is it with you kids from Everett? How come you always have to frighten the daylights out of us smaller kids by making us think the teacher you had last year was the Godzilla of the century? Give us a break for crying out loud. Life is hard enough without you adding to the mix.

So with that hanging over my head already I'm hopping from one foot to the other banging on the bathroom door cuz I gotta pee my brains out and my sister won't come out of the bathroom. You think Grand Central station is busy? You ain't seen nothing till you've seen my house on a school morning.

The only bright and cheery morning person in our house was my dad and he left for work an hour or so before we got up to get ready for school. Now you know why he was always bright and cheery in the morning. My mother, on the other hand, was like a raving lunatic. Oh don't get me wrong, it wasn't her fault, it was ours. Let me show you why.

As soon as my sister opened her eyes she booked it into the bathroom and locked the door. God only knows what was going on in there, but whatever it was it took an hour or so. Then she'd come out and stick her face an inch away from yours and ask, "Do my eyes look alright?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, how do my eyes look?"

"They look evenly spaced on either side of your nose like they're supposed to. Now get out of my way before I pee my pants."

As soon as I closed the door behind me somebody else started banging on the door shouting, "Hurry up in there."

"Hurry up? I didn't even pull my fly down yet."

"Ma, Paul won't let anybody else use the bathroom!"

"Paul, get out of there and give somebody else a chance."

"Don't tell me I used up my five and half seconds of bathroom privileges already? Man, where does the time go when you're having fun?"

"You better not be late for school this morning, buddy, or you're gonna catch it good when your father gets home."

Ever try to pee while a crowd of people bang on the bathroom door shouting threats at you? What a way to start your day, I'm telling ya. And as soon as they can hear the water running in the sink they shout, "Ma, Paul's all done going to the bathroom and now he's just playing in the sink."

"Paul, get out of there. You've had plenty of time. You're gonna be late for school."

By this stage of the game I'm way beyond trying to reason with this unruly crowd so I skip all formalities and go straight into my good old Everett "piss em off" act. I turn the water on really slow to wash up so they can't hear a sound. That way they'll think I'm not doing anything.

Keep in mind that I've already over extended my usual five and a half second allotment by a whopping minute and a half. It only takes another three or four seconds of that act before they absolutely lose it altogether.

"What are you doing in there?"

"That's none of your business. That's why there's a door on the bathroom so you won't know what I'm doing."

"Ma, Paul's still in the bathroom."

"Paul, what in God's name is going on in there?"

I'm telling ya, as God is my judge, that that is exactly what happened to me on any given school morning if I spent more than five and a half seconds in the bathroom. For some funny reason nobody thought I deserved any bathroom privileges. What is it with me?

There was so much noise and confusion going on in my house on any given school morning that I couldn't think straight. My mother had the volume on the TV turned up so loud that all you could hear was Bob Copeland trying to shout the weather report over three kids running back and forth yelling, "Where's my socks?" "Does my tie look straight?" And "Ma, Paul's still in the bathroom."

Girls have a harder time getting ready for school than us guys do. Besides making sure that every single hair is in place and plucking their eyebrows, they've got to color coordinate their outfit to their shoes and their pocketbook. I'm not kidding ya. Ask any kid who had a sister. They'll tell ya. Oh yeah, and they've gotta keep checking their legs to make sure that they don't have a run in their nylons. Whatever that is.

All us guys gotta do is make sure our shirttails aren't sticking out through our zipper and we're nectar. Our clothes always match. You can see that just by looking at us. Our shirts go from our neck to our waist. Our pants go from our waist to our ankles. And our shoes and socks cover the rest. That to us is a perfect match.

That is all so true for most of us, but it's not for everybody. My brother, Carl, was so neat and clean that he scared me sometimes. On our way out the door he'd stop and check his reflection in the window to make sure his string tie lined up perfectly with the buttons on his shirt. My string tie was still balled up into a knot in my pocket. I couldn't bare the thought of wrapping that noose around my neck until the last bell rang.

Carl was a teacher's dream come true. You'd never believe how many times I've had teachers look at me in utter disgust and say, "You're nothing like your brother." It really ticked them off when I'd come back with, "Thank God for that."

When Carl was still up at the Horace Mann with me he'd dutifully stand in line at attention, with his lunch box, mind you, until the bell rang. I, on the other hand, would throw my brown-bagged lunch on the ground to hold my spot in line so I could run off to play punch ball in the playground with the other kids. Carl would yell out to me, "I'm telling ma you're not standing in line like you're supposed ta."

Ask any Everett kid who grew up with me. When did Paul Huffman ever do what he was "supposed ta?" I'm an artist for gawd's sake. Trying to make an artist follow superficial rules is like trying to cage a wild animal. It doesn't work. It's not "supposed ta."

I always got a big kick out of those "only" kids who wished they had a brother or a sister. Man, I had a couple I was willing to trade off after just one typical morning of trying to get ready for school. Raise your hand if you grew up in a house full of kids and never once wished you were an only child. Anybody? I didn't think so.

By the time you're in the sixth grade your mother dispenses with that peck on the cheek she used to bend down to give you before you ventured off into that cold cruel world outside. Now she just looks back over the arm of that big comfy chair and says, "Have a nice day."

She's not fooling me one bit. I know what she really means. What she really means is, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

Now I know what you're expecting. You're expecting me to come down hard and heavy on the Everett public school system - right? Well, you couldn't be further from the truth if you tried because today I'm gonna focus on what I did like about going to school in Everett. Fooled ya, didn't I?

Right off the bat I can tell ya that what I liked best about going to school in Everett was recess. That and lunch. Now if they had graded us on lunch and recess I'd have been an honor student from the very start.

Another thing I liked about school were the fire drills. Those were exciting. They were always when you least expected them, and they got you outside in the fresh air away from the dreariness of your average school day.

I also liked how the teachers got all flustered when the fire alarm went off. They'd moan about how this awful inconvenience is disrupting our lesson. As if they're gonna get any sympathy from us - right?

The next thing you know they're running back and forth waiving their arms shouting, "Single file, everybody, single file. If this was a real fire you'd all be burned to death." Now that's a pleasant thought to implant in a young impressionable mind, wouldn't ya say?

Seconds later they had us all lined up out on Foster Street. Here we are standing outside in the fresh air, and they're telling us not to talk or turn our heads. After all, this is not recess and you're not "supposed ta" have any fun. This is like a giant game of "two feet off the mudguard." There's no laughing, or talking, or showing your teeth.

Needless to say, we did talk, we did turn our heads, and we did suffer the consequences. God only knows how many times I got pulled out of line for not following the rules to the letter of law. And the lectures that followed were an absolute riot.

According to Miss Martinelli, because I talked in line, every other kid in my class would have burned to death had this been an actual fire. I fail to see the logic, but there it is. The whole time she stood there shouting and waiving her finger in my face I wanted to ask, "If I should catch on fire may I talk and turn my head? Because if not, I may as well forget all about that whole "stop, drop, and roll" routine. I can't imagine trying to pull that off without turning my head.

My sister had a "bomb scare" once up in Everett High. Of course, back in our day that's all it was, was a "scare." I'm not complaining, believe me. At least you can run from a fire. A bomb is another whole ball game altogether.

Oh, and remember when the airplanes started to break the sound barrier? You'd be sitting at your desk nonchalantly reading out loud to the rest of the class when all of a sudden you'd hear this great big "BOOM!" The whole room would shake and the windows would rattle. I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time it happened, but like every thing else, we got used to it after awhile and never paid it any more mind.

Another thing I liked about elementary school were those Coronet Films they used to show us. They were always ripe for a good belly laugh. Those were the instructional films that taught you how to be a good citizen, an ideal student, and how to survive a nuclear holocaust.

Crawling under your desk when you see that mushroom cloud off in the distance sounds like a real good idea to me. That way all of your DNA will stay in the same general vicinity when you vaporize. That'll increase your odds of being all in one piece when you arrive at the pearly gates.

For those of you who would like to relive the experience of watching those Coronet Films again, the Prelinger Archives host hundreds of them on their web site and you can freely download them. They're in the public domain so you can legally do whatever you'd like with them. You'll find the Prelinger Archives HERE.

Some of these films are quite large in file size. Don't even bother if you're on a dialup modem. It'll take you a month of Sundays just to download one movie. Mpeg video files will play fine on any computer running Windows2000 or above.

If you're running WindowsME or Windows98 (second Edition) you'll need a codec. Rather than to confuse you with all kinds of techno jargon, all you need to do is download and install the "free" VLC Media Player. You can get that right HERE.

There were many other little incidentals that I also liked about school. I absolutely loved those Lindy ballpoint pens. You must remember those. They were those round blue pens with the little groves running along the length to give you a better grip. And they sported the little logo of a seal balancing a beach ball on the end of his nose.

Needless to say, that's another quality writing instrument that has gone the way of all flesh. You'd be hard pressed to find it's equal no matter how much you're willing to spend.

Speaking of quality, how well do you remember that white composition paper that the teachers used to guard with their lives? Being an artist and a writer at heart, I absolutely cherished each and every sheet of that paper I got my hands on.

If you ever looked closely at one of those sheets of paper you'd have seen the fine linen texture smoothly woven right into it. You could feel that texture as you wrote. It gave just enough resistance so as to allow you complete control over your penmanship. I know it sounds as if I'm going a little over the edge about a simple sheet of paper, but just take a run down to Charrette's and see what they'll charge you for one sheet of that kind of paper today.

You know what else I loved? I loved those West Lynn Creamery milk bottles we got for lunch. You remember those, don't ya? They were those bowling pin shaped glass bottles with that white paper cover over the stopper. I'm talking about the cardboard stopper that fit down inside the mouth of the bottle. On that stopper was the image of West Lynn Creamery's logo bearing the words "West Lynn Creamery, Lynn, Massachusetts, circulating the logo.

Okay, now here's the challenge. If you "google" West Lynn Creamery, you're not going to find their logo. Yes, of course I've tried. What you will find is lot of litigation against them in the early 1990's, plus the fact that they've been swallowed up by Garelick Farms and therefore no longer exist. So to my knowledge the West Lynn Creamery logo has vanished from the face of the planet. If you've got a copy please share it with us.

Which reminds me, people have sent me things over the past couple of months and I've lost some of them due to a fatal disk error. So I'll be getting in touch with a few people to ask them to resubmit. I've been working diligently on some new updates for our web sites so bear with me from time to time cuz I'm only one person, okay?

So anyway, just because we don't actually have a copy of the original West Lynn Creamery logo does not mean that it's lost forever. I'll explain that.

People are always commenting on how phenomenal my memory is. Well, the truth is, my memory is no more phenomenal than yours. I kid you not. We all have a photographic memory. Most people just don't take the time to develop the film. That's all. We'll try a little experiment so I can show you what I mean.

Close your eyes and picture yourself sitting at your desk back in elementary school. I can see it already. Tommy from High Street is sitting right in front of me, and Elizabeth from Broadway is right beside me. Nicky from Elm Street is sitting behind her, and right behind him is Tommy from Hall Ave. In the next row over is Linda from Chestnut Street, Eddie from Franklin Street, Glen from Pleasant View Ave, and Nelson Gray, who sadly enough, no longer walks among us.

I can name just about every other kid in that class and I don't even have a class photo to go by. This is all from memory. And no, I did not forget Paul from Hillside Ave, Dean from Foster Street, or Ann Marie from Russell Street. So there.

Now go ahead, open your eyes and tell me who's sitting beside you. And please don't give me that "Oh, but that was so very long ago" routine. I don't care how long ago it was. These are the very kids you saw just about every day of your life growing up in Everett. These are the kids you shared the best years of your life with. These are your best friends.

Take a look around the room. What do you see? Remember those giant slate blackboards? It's amazing how none of us ever choked to death on all that chalk dust, especially when the teacher used to send us outside to clap them together to get all of that dust out of them.

Hey, how about those great big pencil sharpeners mounted on the windowsills? Remember those? They had a wheel on them so you could dial to the width of your pencil. They were so old you nearly wore your arm to a frazzle trying to sharpen your pencil, but at least you got to get up and look out the window without getting in trouble for it.

The harder you concentrate on conjuring up these images in your mind's eye - the more the memories will come sharply into focus. Like all those papers and drawings the teacher strung up along the top of the blackboard. And those inkwell holes in the top of our desks that served absolutely no purpose whatsoever. And all that chewing gum stuck under your chair. And that giant globe every teacher had that she only pointed at once with her pen during the entire school year to show you Magellan's route around the Cape of Good Hope.

Now that you're here, bend down and take a look at the elaborate detail in the cast iron supports that bolted your desk to the floor. Amazing what you remember, isn't it? Okay, you're in the zone now. Lets go get what we came here for.

Picture this. It's lunchtime and you're sitting at your desk. Now you're reaching down to get your lunch bag next to your foot. The very moment you unwrap that wax paper to take a big giant bite of your baloney and cheese sandwich you catch a glimpse of that milk bottle out of the corner of your eye. Where in the heck did that come from?

You can see it, can't you? Okay, all together now, let's peel that paper cover off and look right down at that stopper. What do you see?

Oh man, do I have to do everything for you people? You better pay close attention cuz there's gonna be a quiz on Friday. Okay, let me tell you what I see.

The logo is printed in red and it's encompassed in a circle. Around the outer edge of that circle it clearly says "West Lynn Creamery of Lynn, Massachusetts." Inside of that is the logo.

The logo is a woodcut type line illustration of a building with about four smokestacks reaching up into the clouds. It just so happens to be a rendering of the West Lynn Creamery building as it stands on the Lynnway. You can see it now, I'm sure.

To the best of my abilities, that is the image I'm seeing in my mind's eye. I do make mistakes sometimes, believe it or not. I'm going to be embarrassed to no end if I find out I'm way off base on this West Lynn Creamery logo thing. It has happened. Nobody's perfect. You already know I'm not.

The truth is, your mind's eye is the most powerful tool in your arsenal. No matter what it is, or how long ago it was, if you looked at it enough times it's waiting for you somewhere in the back of your mind just in case you ever need it.

Carol taught me a good trick. If you can't seem to get a hold of something that's right on the tip of your tongue - take the time to go through the alphabet and nine times out of ten, you'll come up with it. Try it, it works.

Another reason I have such a vivid memory about growing up in Everett is because those were the best years of my life. And you made them happen. For you see, what this journey is really all about is not as complicated as it seems. This is just one step in a journey of a thousand miles.

The most important elements of this journey are those good times that we share with each other. So don't be afraid to reach out to each other. We need each other. That's what it's all about. It's as simple as that.

We have so much to be thankful for. We are so lucky to be making this journey surrounded with our lifelong friends. And we were lucky enough to have begun this journey in Everett. It wasn't the landscape that made Everett so special. It was the people. People like you.

That's what makes each and every one of us so special. That, plus the fact that "We're from Everett!"