Tell Me Something

Ever since I was a little kid growing up on Arlington Street I’ve had this funny notion that the entire whole world knows something that I don’t. It just seems like everybody knows exactly what it is that I don’t know, and they’ve all conspired to not tell me what it is. You talk about a conspiracy? That’s the ultimate.

What really gets my goat is that you are all in on it. You all know what it is that I don’t know, and there isn’t a single one amongst you with the common courtesy to let me in on whatever it is that only I don’t know. So what’s the big deal - huh?

Whenever I bring that up it reminds me of the time they lined us up outside of Miss Dyer’s fourth grade classroom at the Horace Mann. We were getting ready to march upstairs to the auditorium. Waiting for us up there was the nurse from the Hamilton School.

Each one of us held onto a form bearing our parent’s signatures giving their consent for us to get some kind of vaccine. Attached to that was a second page our doctor had to fill out. Two of my classmates, Nicky and Nelson, kept asking everybody if they could look at their doctor’s report. After looking at it they’d say something like, “No, she doesn’t have it,” or “No, he doesn’t have it.”

When they got to me I asked, “What are you looking for?” All they said was, “We just want to see something.” So I showed it to them. And wouldn’t you know, Nelson yells out, “Hey, Paul’s got it!”

“I got what?” And that’s when Miss Dyer said, “That’s enough talking. It’s our turn. Everybody get in line and single file up to the auditorium.”

All the way upstairs Miss Dyer kept scolding me for turning around to get either Nicky or Nelson’s attention. And every time I yelled back, “What have I got?” I either got yelled at for talking in line, or Nelson would just say, “Forget about it. It’s nothing.”

It’s nothing? How could it possibly be nothing if they went through all that to look at everybody’s doctor report? And now that I know that I’ve got it I really want to know what it is. What I’m worried about is that something on that doctor’s report reveals that I wet to bed. Back in the fourth grade, that was my one and only secret that I really didn’t want everyone else to know.

So anyway, there we stood in single file waiting our turn to get stabbed in the arm. Not a pleasant thought by any stretch of the imagination, and even more so to a little kid. And no matter how much you stretch your neck you’ll never get a gander at that needle until it’s your turn to step up to the plate. So you’ll have to be content with just watching the facial expressions on the kids who go before you to judge whether or not you’ve got anything serious to worry about.

The name of the game here is to carry on a casual conversation with the kid behind you so everyone will think that getting that needle is the furthest thing from your mind. It works, too. Once you get everybody laughing they won’t be able to hear your knees knocking.

Just when I’ve calmed my inner self down from all of this trauma, everyone’s head parted and I finally got a clear view of the nurse sitting halfway across the auditorium at her little makeshift workstation. This is the very first time in my life when something so far away as this came so sharply into focus.

I knew deep down that I really didn’t want to see what I just saw, but for some inexplicable reason I just couldn’t help myself. I had to look.

What I saw was the nurse sitting under a portable spotlight holding onto the most God-awful looking contraption that shimmered and glistened like razor sharp steel. In my mind’s eye it looked like a Samurai sword fastened onto an AK-47. It was that intimidating, I kid you not.

One of the “goody-two-shoes” girls in our class stepped up to get her shot first. It was over in the blink of an eye. She came sashaying by with this great big smile on her face as if she had just found a ten-dollar bill. Hey, if she can do it - I can do it.

Next up was my classmate, Tommy. He steps up and rolls up his sleeve like it’s nothing. The nurse stabs him with the needle, and he passes out right then and there, and drops to the floor like a wet rag. All pandemonium breaks out so I keep one eye on those auditorium doors because if I get the chance, I’m booking it down behind the car barns on Broadway, come hell or high water.

Ten minutes after that there’s no one else in front of me. I’m up next. It’s just me, that nurse, and her AK-47 with the Samurai sword on the end of it. And she’s holding it up in the spotlight with this devilish grin on her face.

“Hey, you don’t scare me, lady. I’m from Everett.” So I boldly step up to the plate and hand her my doctor’s form. The moment she glanced down at it a look of concern fell across her face. “Oh,” she said. “You better sit down over there.”

Another twenty minutes goes by, everybody else got their shot, and now I’m thinking I’m off the hook. Needless to say, my luck doesn’t run that way. She calls me back up, skims over the doctor’s report one more time, and then looks up at me and says, “Roll up your sleeve.”

God only knows what Doctor Corkery wrote in that report. Whatever it was, it sure got a rise out of everybody, let me tell ya. I was the only one who didn't have a clue as to what it was all about.

That is only one of many experiences that led me to believe that everybody else knows something that I don’t. And there were many others. Like that day when I showed up for school ten minutes after the last morning bell rang, as was my custom.

All the way upstairs towards Miss Blake’s sixth grade homeroom at the Horace Mann I could hear everybody’s voice carrying on this lively discussion with the teacher. Everyone stopped talking all at once the very moment I stepped into that classroom. They all then turned to look right at me. You could hear a pin drop.

Every one of them had that funny look on their faces just like you’d expect from the cat who just swallowed the canary. To add injury to insult, when I asked, “What’s all the excitement about?” Miss Blake replied, “Don’t worry, Paul, nobody was talking about you.”

So tell me something. Why do you suppose she felt it necessary to even say that if that wasn’t the case? I know I sound a little paranoid, but you can see my reasoning – right?

Okay, so now let me tell you what inspired today’s illustration. I’m mind-traveling back to my pre-kindergarten era. So we’re talking sometime around 1955 or 6. I couldn’t have been any older than about three or four years old.

It was around this time when I climbed up on the kitchen table and dropped a nickel in through the speaker slots at the front of our tabletop AM radio. All of a sudden the radio announcer’s voice stuttered. And then he said, “Bad boy.”

I totally freaked out, jumped down off the table, and ran in under my bed. For weeks afterward I threw a fit whenever my mother turned on the radio. I was scared to death that the little man in the radio was mad at me. It took me weeks to get over that.

Another memory that occurred about that same time was when my big sister, Julie, was babysitting me while my mom and dad went grocery shopping. My dad had been working on a strange mechanical device up on the kitchen table just before he left. His last words were, “Don’t let Paul get a hold of that.”

Yes, it caught my eye. How could it not? I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life. I didn’t want it, or anything. I just wanted to know what it was.

Every time I asked Julie what it was, she’d say, “That belongs to Daddy.” Granted, I was little more than a toddler, but I needed a little more information than that to quench my curiosity. That contraption was far too complex to simply be classified as just “Daddy’s.” There had to be more to it than that.

Julie kept a sharp eye on me when I crawled up onto the kitchen chair to get a closer gander at that thing. Every time I’d reach out towards it she’d scold me saying, “No, no, don’t touch. That’s Daddy’s.”

I was startled out of my fascination when the kitchen door swing wide and there stood my dad with an armload of groceries. “I thought I told you not to let Paul get near that,” he said to Julie. “I haven’t let him touch it. He’s just looking at it.”

“Daddy, what is that?” Hey, when you want some serious info you may as well go straight to the source. Wouldn’t you think?

The only response I got out of him was, “Don’t go near that. That’s just something that Daddy’s working on.”

To this very day I never found out what it was. Years later whenever I asked anybody what it was - they couldn’t remember what I was even talking about. So I will go this entire journey without ever knowing what that thing was. They all knew what it was. They could have at least had the courtesy to tell me.

A little common courtesy goes a long way. How true that is. I’ve found myself in many an uncomfortable circumstance for asking a simple question out of innocent curiosity. It sometimes elicited a scornful response because it just wasn’t fashionable not to know what I was asking. So how am I supposed to learn if it isn’t cool to ask? Explain that one to me, will ya?

My whole childhood growing up in Everett was a relentless search to uncover that one universal secret that everyone knows, but me. That elusive enigma still remains a mystery to this very day. So maybe that explains why I’m such a fanatic about rehashing my childhood experiences growing up in Everett. I’m still sifting through the embers trying to uncover that big secret.

I do realize that it may be my own fault anyway. For you see, I’m one of those people who sometimes doesn’t see the obvious even when it’s as plain as the nose on my face. And speaking of the nose on my face, I was two years old when I first discovered that everybody had a nose. But of course, those of you who have read the book already know that.

Another flaw of mine is that I get all happy and giggly inside when something good happens to someone else. Now I’m thinking about the time I went to a classmate’s birthday party back in the first grade.

I became self-conscious of my reaction to watching her open her gifts when I noticed that all of the other kids had these miserable scowls across their kissers. You could tell that they were all jealous over her getting all of the attention, so I stopped smiling so I wouldn’t be out of synch with everyone else.

That seemingly insignificant moment stuck in the back of my mind because it troubled me deeply that I let everybody else’s shortcomings so strongly influence me. After so many incidences like that, I eventually arrived at a profound conclusion. One that I still believe in to this very day.

You know how people talk about “What comes around goes around,” and “Karma is a bitch,” and “Your sins will come back to haunt you?” Well, you know what I believe? I believe that people, who live their lives bent on jealousy, revenge, one-upmanship, and things like that, reap the punishment of what they sow instantly, and not sometime later.

My line of reasoning goes like this. People like that insulate themselves from the rewards of genuine friendships, and most importantly, true love. Their friendships are not based on heartfelt sentiments. They are solely based on the tangible amenities that a potential friendship has to offer.

They make this journey with fair-weather friends who really couldn’t care less about them. Their life is a relentless pursuit to manipulate and plot to wind up on top. They are so twisted inside from the constant stress of it all that they’re lives are totally devoid of any heartfelt sentiments.

And the sad part is that they honestly don’t know any better. They think that that’s what life is supposed to be about. They’ll know better when they’re about to cross the threshold beyond the far horizon. Trust me, they will.

You know what’s really important during your stint in this mechanical universe? It’s time. That’s worth far more than anything else. You squander that and all the money and influential friends you’ve stockpiled ain’t gonna add up to diddly squat. You mark my words. When you’re out of time, you’re out of everything.

All of this reminds me of something that somebody once said on our way home from school. They were making fun of our music teacher, Mr. Boy. They referred to him as the fat guy who played all those stupid songs on the piano. And since everybody else seemed to agree, I didn’t dare say otherwise.

Yeah, I know I was just a kid, but I’ll be honest with you. That man made a profound impact on my life. It was Mr. Boy who introduced us to the likes of John Philip Sousa, and Stephen Foster. And if you’re akin to the works of Stephen Foster, then you know the value of soft arpeggios and harmonic melodies, because that was Stephen Foster all over.

Okay, so maybe I am a little sentimental sometimes, but that was another time when I let someone else’s narrow mindedness dictate my actions. I did it because I wanted to fit in. Needless to say, I regretted that moment for the rest of my life.

Besides giving us a cheerful break from the doldrums of our average school day, Mr. Boy taught us to enjoy the fun in music. Not to mention that he was, indeed, an accomplished pianists. Most of you will remember how he made a list of all the popular Rock Bands at the beginning of every school year to see how many of them were still popular come the following summer.

Sure, he was wrong on a few, but the point he was making is that the traditional music withstands the test of time. Hey, the Rolling Stones are still going strong. I was one of their biggest fans, but after so many decades of listening to the same thing over and over again you gotta move on. You know what I’m saying?

By introducing us to America’s musical heritage, he made it a part of our heritage. In his own way, he was preserving our musical history. We could gather around any campfire and we’d all know the tunes and the lyrics to the songs Mr. Boy introduced us to. There’s no doubt about that.

I remember the time he started playing Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” on the piano and looked back at us and asked, “Does anybody know this one?”

“That’s Beautiful Dreamer,” I blurted out.

“How did you know that?” He asked.

My dad sings that all the time when he’s cooking breakfast.”

He smiled back at me and said, “Your dad is a man after my own heart.”

Years later when I needed to add a little more money to the kitty to buy that twelve string Epiphone acoustic I’d been drooling over down at Boston City Music, my dad said he’d help me out if I could demonstrate that I was indeed serious about my music on my old worn out six-string. After hearing my fingerpicked rendition of “Beautiful Dreamer,” he bought me that guitar.

Music doth soothe the savage beast. And the music that Mr. Boy shared with us truly defines who we are as a people. These are tunes you no longer hear over the mass media, but they are deeply imbedded in your hearts just the same.

I’m talking about tunes like “You Are My Sunshine,” “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” and things like that. From a distance, right now, I know it’s hard to fathom my enthusiasm for a music genre that has long vanished from the face of this earth, but let me tell ya something. I challenge you to download any one of my guitar renditions of the songs that Mr. Boy played for us kids and I guarantee you that it will get your feet tapping and bring a heartfelt smile to your face.

Hey, I’ve even done a short medley of patriotic tunes, because if you’ll remember, Mr. Boy always ended our music sessions with the likes of “God Bless America,” “America the Beautiful,” and the “Star Spangled Banner.”

There was this one modern contemporary number (well, to be honest, it was modern fifty years ago to be exact) that I once heard Mr. Boy play that absolutely moved my soul. You could tell by the way he so masterly played his rendition of it that it really meant something special to him.

It is a rather simple, but very pretty tune. They played it all the time on the radio back in our day. Funny thing is, once I heard Mr. Boy play it I couldn’t get it out of my head. So let this be my tribute to Mr. Boy and the musical appreciation he so loving shared with us kids. Just “click” your “Right” mouse button HERE and choose “Save Target As” to hear my rendition of Mr. Boy’s rendition of that tune.

Then go ahead and hop on over to My Guitar Page and get yourself some more of those traditional American standards. And since I’m in such a sharing mood, let me also guide you to where you can download a PDF sampling of my “We’re From Everett” book. This will give you the opportunity to kick the tires. And you can get that by “clicking” your “Right” mouse button HERE and choosing “Save Target As.”

Now wait a minute. Don’t go scurrying off just because the bell rang. I’ve got one more thing to go over with ya. Remember a while back when I moved over to the “werefromeverett.com” domain and lost most of the posts from our archives?

Well, because it is so important to the overall “We’re from Everett” experience that I get them back up - from now until Labor Day I’m going to repost many of those old archives at a rate of about one every other day. So I’m gonna keep you busy for the rest of the summer before school starts up again and we gotta go back to all those pencils, all those books, and all those teacher’s dirty looks.

Thanks for sharing this precious moment with me. It’s always a good time when we all get back together again. It reminds me of how all the neighbors used to crowd around our tiny little kitchen up on the second floor of that six-family house at the bottom of Arlington Street at all odd hours of the night.

Man, how time does fly. That seemed like only yesterday, and here I am now on the sunny side of sixty. Whoever thought – right?

Because of people like Mr. Boy, Anthony Sarno, Jim Malloy, Lenny the singing Bus driver, Leo at the Park Theatre, and even Crazy Rosie, just to name a few, we grew up on a very precious piece of this planet. We were so lucky. So by all means, sample some of those American classics that help define who we are as a people, because remember, even if we weren’t here when those songs were popular, our ancestors strolled hand in hand through Glendale Park humming those very tunes.

That thread that runs so true through our veins reaches all the way back in time to our ancestors. That’s all the more reason to keep their music alive. How I so fondly remember my dad singing his heart out along with Mitch Miller every week to the beat of these tunes.

And all of this is yet another example of the precious moments we shared growing up because – “We’re from Everett!”