Author Archive: Bill Black

Storyworth: What the Farthest You’ve Ever Travelled

In 2007, I was a public affairs consultant working at FleishmanHillard, a global PR firm based in St. Louis.  The company had offices all over the world, including China and Hong Kong.  I was contacted by the Hong Kong office to help with a client of theirs called Huawei.  Huawei is pretty well known now, but nobody in the U.S. (outside of the intelligence community) had ever heard of them.  The company made the guts of the wireless telecommunications system and were’ hoping to enter the American market.  They were in the process of partnering the American investment company called Bain & Company to acquire an American company called 3Comm.  Little did I know that this project would launch me on a seven year global adventure that would provide me both the highlights and lowlights of my professional career.

My recollection is that, in 2007, Huawei had a market cap of about $30 billion dollars.  Their customers were mobile phone companies in the third world, mostly Latin America and Africa.  The had achieved a breakthrough with British Telecomm which was their first entre’ into the industrialized world.  But the U.S. was the big prize.

Continue Reading

Storyworth: What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?

Roslindale is among the lesser known neighborhoods of Boston. Most people not from Massachusetts have never heard of it. I have to describe it in relation to other well known neighborhoods. “It’s between Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury,” I’ll say.

It has gotten somewhat better known since I left in 1981. It did become hot among so-called yuppies in the 90’s who liked the relatively lower housing prices than the hotter markets surrounding it. It’s a relatively quiet area with lots of single-family houses. I knew it was changing when the powers-that-be changed the name of the section known as Roslindale Square to Roslindale Village in the 80’s or 90’s. I don’t believe that branding has taken hold. It’s still “Rozzie Square” even to the more recent arrivals.

When I was growing up, Roslindale was a lower middle class neighborhood. Most of my friends were Irish Catholic, like me. But there was a substantial Greek population and my best friend was named Billy Jacob who lived across the street from me and whose parents were Lebanese immigrants. The hub of the neighborhood was “The Square.”.There were two supermarkets, Roche’s and Corey’s. I’d get my haircut at Frank’s Barbershop. My first job was working for Roche Brother’s delivery service, described in a previous chapter. That job forced me to really get to know Roslindale from end to end as I had to organize the routes by which we would deliver the groceries.

Washington Street ran down the middle of Roslindale and continued east for about 5 miles into downtown Boston. At either end of Washington Street in Roslindale there were housing projects, Archdale Projects at the east end and Beech Street Projects to the west. Most of the residents of the projects were Black. Segregation was alive and well in Boston in those days, so we considered them dangerous and to be avoided. In my late teens, however, I had one friend, Larry Cunningham, who lived in the Archdale projects with his mother. So, I would occasionally spend time in his apartment with our gang of friends. Let’s just say we could do things in Larry’s apartment (mostly drink beer) that were not permitted in our own homes.

I remember one time about 5 of us were in a car and we got crosswise with some other guys. I was driving and I probably cut them off or something. They got angry and started chasing us. Larry instructed me to head for the projects for safety. As a resident, Larry could rely on his neighbors for protection. I drove into the projects and our pursuers peeled off. The irony was not lost on me that, after growing up fearing the projects, on this night, it was the place to go for safety.

As I came of age, I spent a lot of time – waaay too much time – at the Roslindale Pub, owned by Vinnie Marino. We all thought Vinnie was a mid level mafioso. I doubt he was, but it was cool to think so. “The Pub” as it was known, attracted an eclectic group of people. It was literally the poor man’s version of Cheers. It was a place where everyone knew your name, unless they were too drunk to remember. Among our extended group, we lost one, John Steele, to a fatal car crash after leaving the pub one night when he drove his car into a tree about 1/4 mile away. Another, Kevin Downs, committed suicide. But the most dramatic event was the murder that took place in the doorway. I was not there that night, but one of our friends, Phil, had walked in right in front of the victim whose name was Ralph. My recollection is that it was some sort of attempted “hit,” but they got the wrong guy. Ralph had nothing to do with the dispute and Phil was a witness in the murder trial that followed. It was a tragic incident that did increase our suspicions about Vinnie’s “connections.”

I lived outside Roslindale for the first time in my life when I got a job with the newly-elected Rep. Barney Frank in 1981. But Rozzie was part of my identity, even in Washington, DC. One evening early in my new career as congressional aide, I was staffing Barney on a couple of events. The first one was with the incoming Secretary of Treasury, Donald Regan, at the Treasury Department next to the White House. The next event was a TV appearance by Barney at a PBS station in Maryland. The station was sending a limousine to pick us up. As we walked along Pennsylvania Avenue, I kept pointing out limos that might be the one that was to pick us up. None were. Finally, in frustration, Barney said, “Bill, this isn’t Rozzie Square. There’s lots of limos.”

Among the famous people who grew up in Roslindale were Mary McGrory, the legendary Washington journalist and Fr. Robert Drinan, the Jesuit priest and congressman who preceded Barney Frank in representing Massachusetts’ 4th CD. I actually had the opportunity to chat about Roslindale with Ms. McGrory, which she remembered fondly.

To this day, I consider Roslindale my home. All of my siblings still live there. And I even named my dog Rozzie.

Rozzie, the dog

Today, Roslindale is home to the Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, so I guess you could say the neighborhood has arrived. Soon, people from Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury will describe those locations as next to Roslindale.

Well, maybe not…

Storyworth: Who Was the Wisest Person You Ever Knew?

Abbot Aiden with Danny‘ and His Fellow Graduates of St. Anselm’s Abbey School

When my son, Danny, was in sixth grade, he decided he wanted to go to St. Anselm’s Abbey School. Rita and I didn’t know much about the school and were impressed with Danny’s decision to take control of his future. The more we learned about St. Anselm’s, the more impressed we were with Danny’s decision. So, we started the process of applying to the school.

As it turned out, some of the motivations Danny had for going to the school were misguided and he began to change his mind. But, by then, Rita and I were all in for him going to the school, so we didn’t allow him to back out. It may have been the best decision about Danny’s future that we’d ever made. Much of the reason he’s the extraordinary young man he is today can be traced to St. Anselm’s.

At the abbey associated with the school, the Abbot was a man named Aiden O’Shea, more commonly known as Abbot Aiden. After Danny had been accepted to the school but before he began attending, Abbot Aiden spoke at an event at our parish, Blessed Sacrament Church. I wanted to meet him, so I attended the event. I was deeply impressed with his spirituality, humility, intelligence and charisma. I was also surprised to learn he was a fellow Bostonian, having grown up on Beacon Hill. I spoke to him after his remarks and invited him to lunch and he readily accepted. At the time, I was wrestling with issues of faith and thought he might help guide me through. I didn’t fully realize then that this “wrestling” would be a permanent state of affairs, but that’s an issue I’ve dealt with in a previous chapter.

That lunch led to a ten year plus relationship. I’d asked him to be my “spiritual advisor,” but we became close friends. It is impossible to capture Abbot Aiden, the man, or the importance he had for me in a chapter such as this. All I can do is relay a few anecdotes that come to mind when I think of him. 

He was a Benedictine monk for more than 50 years. Benedictine monks are assigned to a particular abbey and they stay there for their entire lives. He became a monk in 1958 and spent his life at St. Anselm’s. 

He went into the monastery after serving in the military. He was drafted into the 82nd Airborne. He told me one story of his military service which was not your typical war story. He once encountered an attempted homosexual rape in the shower on his base. He broke up the attack by blasting hot water on the assailant. Other than that, he acknowledged his unsuitability for military service. Nonetheless, he earned an honorable discharge and became a monk.

I’ve tried to remember some profound sayings he may have provided me, but, honestly, he mostly taught by example. Being in his presence was a balm.

I did ask him once how, in the absence of proof, he could be so confident of the existence of God that he would literally dedicate his entire life to that belief. He said that, even if he learned that God did not exist, he would have no regrets. He found the monastic life so rewarding that he wouldn’t change a thing about the life he chose.

As he got older, he began to suffer from the ravages of Parkinson’s Disease. The physical effects eventually confined him to a wheelchair. But he found the mental effects much more frustrating. Our relationship evolved from one where I came to him to receive comfort to one where I visited him to provide comfort. 

I remember the day I got a call from his caregiver, Rowena, telling me that he was entering hospice care. I dropped what I was doing and immediately went to visit him. He was in bed and not fully aware of his surroundings. Rowena whispered in his ear, “This is Bill Black here to see you.” He smiled. I will take that smile to my grave. He couldn’t really speak, but I chatted with him and his face was pleasant and peaceful. It was a very spiritual experience.

When I told my family, Rita, Danny and Bridget that Abbot Aiden was receiving hospice care, we decided to visit him that Sunday, about three days from my visit. We arrived at the abbey only to be told he had died 20 minutes before our arrival. I was both devastated and immensely grateful for the previous visit. We were allowed to visit him one more time. We were struck by the matter-of-fact way the other monks treated his passing. They clearly believed he’d “gone home.” There was no grieving. They just went about their business. At first, it bothered us that they didn’t seem to appreciate the magnitude of what had occurred. But, we concluded that their behavior simply reflected their sincere believe that Abbot Aiden was in a better place.

I sure hope that’s true.

Bill Black, April 16, 2022

• EDIT
• DELETE

Storyworth: Did anyone in the family play a part in History with a capital h?

When I was about 10 years old, I asked my father what he did in World War II. He told me he landed at Normandy on D-Day plus 1, June 7th, 1944. He said he was a mile from the front. To my young brain, filled with TV shows, like Combat and 1950’s war movies, his answer was a disappointment. There were no movies about the guys that showed up the next day. All that mattered was what was happening on the front lines. For me, my father was a day late and a mile short.

What an idiot I was (or maybe I was just a ten-year-old boy). To my lifelong regret, I didn’t say, “Wow! That’s amazing! Tell me more.” Knowing what I know now, I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to land on Omaha Beach the day after D-Day. A more recent war movie, Saving Private Ryan, was a more accurate depiction of war, specifically what happened on that day. The beach must have been littered with dead soldiers when he arrived. I suspect the surf was still red with all the blood. It must have been horrific.

A number of years ago, my cousin, Bob Black, sent me a trove of letters my father wrote to his sister, Ann, during his service in World War II. One letter refers to his arrival in France from England. Here’s what he wrote to Ann on July 22, 1944 after restrictions on letters home were lifted:

    “They have eased up on the censoring enough to so that I can say that we came to France the hard way – landed on the beach. There was no interference. It was quite a thrill tho as we approached the beachhead, to think that we were landing in another foreign country. I kept thinking about how Pete [his brother] had come to France + comparing the circumstances. As for the beach itself, at high tide, it might have been any part of the Cape. Boy, how it reminded me of it. Of course, at the Cape, you wouldn’t see a lot of destroyed barges laying about. For the next four or five days, it was kinda rough. I lived in the truck + ate K rations.”

That’s it. He was 26 years old. I’m sure his goal was to reassure his sister. I have to believe his landing was a bit more traumatic than he described.

[Interruption]

Since beginning this post, inspired by the question, I have systematically gone through all of my father’s letters to his sister during his service in World War II. There are 31 letters. The first letter was written from Aberdeen, Maryland on July 2nd, 1943. The last was exactly two years later, on July 2nd 1945. All were, of course, handwritten. Fortunately, he had pretty good handwriting and the letter’s have held up well. Some were so-called V Mails, which were like postcards that enjoyed expedited delivery, though they were short. Reading these letters was an extraordinary journey through the war experience through my father’s eyes. They are such a gift.

For the most part, they are very personal accounts of his experiences, his concerns and expectations. After getting bounced around quite a bit, he landed in the job that he truly wanted, that of a machinist. He had a girlfriend named Dottie Jayes, who was in the Coast Guard. She dumped him in January of 1945. In a letter on February 4th, 1945, he expressed anger that she also wrote to his mother, my grandmother, announcing the breakup. He was concerned that his mother would worry that “they might be sizing me up for a straight jacket” upon his hearing the news. Amazingly, I googled “Dorothy Jayes, Coast Guard” and she came right up. She died in East Yarmouth on the Cape in 2008 at age 86. She was married twice and had a career as a PR executive in NY. Incredible what you can find on the Internet.

Of course, the letters raise an infinite number of questions, most of which will likely never be answered. By their nature, they leave huge gaps in his experiences during the war. The main locations from which they were written were Aberdeen, Maryland; San Antonio, Texas; England and France. The locations in England and France were a bit vague due to wartime censorship. As noted above, he landed on the beach in Normandy as part of the Ninth Air Force. For years, I’ve tried to find some independent verification of his wartime service, particularly some documentation that he landed on Normandy the day after D Day.

Recently, I discovered a document entitled “A Condensed Analysis of the Ninth Air Force in the European Theater of Operations,” published in 1946. It describes the role of the Ninth Air Force in softening the Nazi resistance in advance of the invasion of Normandy. The Ninth Air Force dropped the paratroopers behind the lines the night before D Day. They also bombed bridges in northern France that prevented German troops and armor from getting to Normandy after the invasion started. The report quotes Herman Goering as saying about D Day, “The allies owe the success of their invasion to their air forces. They prepared the invasion; they made it possible; and they carried it through.” That was the Ninth.

As to D Day plus 1, the report says, “The first units of the [Ninth Air Force] Engineer Command landed on Utah Beach on D Day and on Omaha Beach on D Day plus 1.” My father may have been part of that landing. The Engineer Command were the people who built the air strips as soon as they secured the beaches. My father was with the Service Command, the guys that keep all the machinery operating. I could imagine that the engineers would need men from the Service Command with them when the landed. If so, Omaha Beach must have been quite a sight that day.

After his arrival in France, his letters described a number of his experiences touring the countryside. He spent some time in Paris, which he LOVED. His next three letters had multiple variations of “Did I tell you how great Paris was?” He had another weekend in Paris when his brother, Franny, which was also very special.

His final letters were particularly interesting. He wrote one on May 9th, the day after VE day. He was pretty frustrated that he was in some godforsaken base in the French countryside when the war ended. He said he would have loved to have been in Paris for the celebration. The fact that he was writing a letter the day after the war ended in Europe suggests there wasn’t much of a party where he was. In the letters after that, he was very anxious about getting home. In one letter, he’s optimistic. In the next letter, a month later, he’s worried that he would be assigned to “the occupation.” The letters stopped on July 2nd, so I don’t know when he got home.

So, my detective work continues….

Storyworth: Do You Believe in a Higher Power?

This Storyworth thing allows you to head off questions if you get to them before they are posted. Since I fell behind in my writing, I didn’t see this one coming. I would have headed it off. This is a topic that I’ve wrestled with since I was about 14 years old. I’ll ignore the carefully worded question and just consider the question to be “Do you believe in God?”

Buckle up. This is going to be a long one.

I was raised Catholic and went to grammar school at Sacred Heart School in Roslindale. I was pretty much all in on Catholicism. I was an altar boy for the whole time I was eligible. I almost didn’t make it because I had so much trouble learning the Confiteor Dei, a long prayer in Latin. At my last recital before being washed out, I finally got it. Less than a year later, Vatican Two converted the Mass to English, so it was all for naught. By the time I retired as an altar boy, I was the longest serving altar boy in the parish.

As i approached graduation from grammar school, I was probably headed to one of two Catholic high schools, Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury or Xaverian Brothers in Westwood. Both cost a lot of money and my family had no money. But there was no way my parents were going to send me to Roslindale High the local public school, which was seen as a “thug school.” My grand uncle, Brother Jason, was the librarian at Xaverian, which I think entitled us to a break on the tuition. But it was about a 40 minute drive away. Catholic Memorial was close to home, but no tuition break. In the hope that lightening would strike, I took the notoriously difficult exam to get into Boston Latin School, Boston’s most elite public school founded in 1633. Against all odds, I was one of two boys (only boys could go there) who got admitted from Sacred Heart.

The nuns at Sacred Heart strongly urged me to go to one of the Catholic high school. But BLS was free, so that’s where I went.

Continue Reading

Storyworth: What were your favorite subjects in high school?

Oddly, my favorite subject/class in high school was physics, mainly due to the teacher. I think his name was Mr. Jacobs, but I’m not sure. But I had physics classes with him in my junior and senior years. There was a lot of lab work, which I thought was really cool. I remember one lab where we calculated the diameter of a molecule. I loved the technique for doing so. You would have a dish with water in it. You‘d sprinkle some powdery substance on top of the water. Then you would take an eye dropper with a precisely measured non-soluble liquid in it. You‘d drop the liquid into the dish and the liquid would spread out on top of the water, pushing the powdery substance into a circle. You‘d assume that the spreaded liquid would be one molecule thick on top of the water. So, if you knew the volume of the liquid, you would somehow divide the circumference of the formed circle into the volume and get the diameter of the molecule. Even trying to explain this, I’m not sure I got it right. But I do remember thinking how cool it was to be able to do it.

I remember another class where Mr. Jacobs asked us to consider the possibility of inter planetary travel. Would we do it if we could? Very cool to contemplate. But all I remember from the discussion was Mr. Jacobs‘ frustration with the answers from the class. Kids kept saying that they’d have a hard time leaving friends, presumably permanently. Finally, Mr. Jacobs said, “Get over it! You’re going to spend you life leaving friends.“ I think he was looking for a more elevated discussion of space travel.

I was so inspired by Mr. Jacobs that I started college at Northeastern University as a physics major. What was I thinking??

Actually, I did OK for the first semester and kind of enjoyed it. At the beginning, the math was all differential equations and I understood them. It was in the second semester where I crashed and burned. That’s when you start having to learn calculus. It was as though the class switched from English to hieroglyphics.

That was when i decided I didn’t need a college degree and enrolled in the New England School of Photography in Kenmore Square. That didn’t work out so well either, but that‘s a story for another chapter.

Storyworth: Who were your favorite professors in college?

This one is easy. Professor Louise Smith (English) and Professor David Hunt (History).

It took me 8 years to finish undergraduate college. This is one of the defining facts of my life. To this day, I’m not sure why I had so much trouble. But my problem was very specific. I could not get through Freshman English. And the reason I couldn’t get through Freshman English is that I had a pathological aversion to writing. It’s very ironic looking back, given the amount of writing I’ve done personally and professionally throughout my life. But there you go.

Here’s how it would go. I would get a writing assignment for the class and I would put it off and put it off. I might be able to force myself to write something and submit it and I would get a good grade. But that wouldn’t motivate me for the next one. Inevitably, I would fall hopelessly behind and end up either dropping the class or getting an incomplete. I think I felt that putting my thoughts on paper was too revealing. I was worried that something I would write would make me look stupid. And there was, of course, the laziness. Writing was, and is, hard work.

Continue Reading

Storyworth: Did you have a job while you were in high school?

In Roslindale Square, there were two grocery stores when I was growing up. As you went down Corinth Street through the middle of the neighborhood shopping area, Roche Brothers was on the left and Corey‘s was on the right.

My father got friendly with the delivery guys from Roche Brothers. When I was 13 years old, he convinced them to hire me as what was called a “striker.” Generally there were two people in the car or truck delivering the groceries, the driver and the striker. The striker was the kid who would actually bring the groceries into the House while the driver waited outside in the vehicle. If the order was four bags or less, the striker would grab two bags in each hand. This is before bags had handles so you would just sort of scrunch them up and grab them in a fist. When you started doing this, you would get blisters on your knuckles from rubbing against the paper of the bags. It was a real badge of honor when, over time, those blisters would turn into calluses. While they would be unsightly it would show that you were an experienced striker. Also, after the blisters turned to calluses the pain would stop.

The crew that did this delivery work were various types of miscreants from the neighborhood. This was my first exposure to the delinquent class of Roslindale. I also learned a large number of new words.

Continue Reading

Storyworth: What’s the Dumbest Thing You’ve Ever Done?

The VW on the Beach

It’s an overcast, cold day in May in the mid-70s.  I’m in my twenties, standing on Humarock Beach in Scituate, Mass.  I’m looking at my pride and joy.  A recently acquired cherry red Volkswagen Beetle in perfect condition.  Not a scratch on it….yet.  

It is completely surrounded by water, sunk in the wet sand up to its axles.  And the tide is coming in.  I’m psychologically preparing myself for the fact that it will likely be washed out to sea and trying to figure out how I’m going to explain this to the insurance company so the will pay the claim and I’ll be able to pay off the car loan I’d taken out to buy it.

This was during what I like to call my “lost decade,” because I was lost professionally, psychologically, academically, spiritually, etc., etc.  I had joined a group of neighborhood friends who rented a cottage right on the beach for the month of May.  It was about a forty minute drive from Boston, so it was easy for us to visit and stay over, without necessarily taking time off from work.  And it was technically off-season, so cheap enough that we could afford it.

On this day, there were about five of us in the cottage and it was decidedly not a beach day.  Cloudy and cool.  With nothing else to do, we decided to play a drinking game where you drink a shot a beer a minute.  That’s it.  That’s the game.  Just drink beer.  I’ll do the math for you.  60 one-ounce shots means you drink five 12-ounce cans of beer in one hour.  Utterly reckless.  Don’t try this at home.  I’m only revealing this publicly because both my kids are older now that I was then and are much, much more responsible drinkers than I was.

At some point, we ran out of beer and Jimmy and I took my new red VW bug to the liquor store to get more.  Jimmy drove.  I’d like to think that was because Jimmy was not participating in the game and that this reflected at least one example of responsible behavior.  But I don’t remember for sure and it would have been out of character for us on that day.

Continue Reading

Storyworth: Did you have any pets growing up?

I was about 10 years old when my Uncle Charlie brought Butch to our house. I don’t recall agitating for a dog. I don’t think it occurred to me that we’d ever have one. Charlie was my mother’s twin brother and had brokered dogs for others in the family. But I don’t think he ever owned one himself. My mother and father discussed whether to keep the dog and decided to do so. I’m not really sure why.

Butch was a rescue dog. He was a one year old Beagle when we got him and was extremely timid. We were told that he was a hunting dog who was “shell-shocked” when a gun went off close to his ear.

Whatever the reason, his timidity was profound. When he walked along the sidewalk, he would always stay right next to walls and bushes. He seemed fearful of being exposed, walking out in the open.

The first time he barked, we’d had him for a least a year. Yes, a full year without making a sound. And the bark came under extreme duress. He actually got himself locked in a closet in our third floor attic. He was missing all day, hours and hours. We had no idea where he’d gone. Then, after about six hours, we heard a very tentative yelp coming from the third floor. And there he was, stuck in the closet.

Continue Reading