Archive for January, 2022
Storyworth: What were your grandparents like?
This chapter will be much shorter than the previous ones. Of my four grandparents, only one was alive when I was born. My mother‘s mother was Margaret Mahoney. I knew her as “Ma.” She lived with my Aunt Theresa in the downstairs apartment from where my family lived. I remember very little about her, but I believe I was her favorite grandchild, probably due to the fact that I lived in the same house and was the first grandchild to do so.
I have a vague memory of being shuttled off to my cousins’ house in Roxbury when she died. There seemed to be unusual concern among the adults about the impact it would have on me. Clearly, I had a special relationship with Ma. Presumably, she loved me and nurtured me. I was her favorite grandchild. And I’m sure I loved her back. But I remember very little of any personal interactions with her.
In order to gather some information for this installment, I called my Aunt Mary, widow of my mother’s twin brother, Charlie. It was her house to which I was shuttled off when Ma died. She’s the only aunt or uncle I have left. She’s 96 years old, sharp as a tack and lives independently in Boston. I was hoping to get some warm family anecdotes that would help me describe Ma for this article. I was particularly hopeful that she might fill the gap in my memories of my very special relationship with Ma.
”Meanest woman I ever met!” she said when I asked.
Continue ReadingStoryworth: What Was Your Most Dangerous Adventure?
In December, 1980, about two weeks before Christmas, Barney Frank, newly elected congressman from the 4th District of Massachusetts, offered me a job in his Washington office, starting in 3 weeks on January 3rd, 1981. I was 27 years old and had never lived outside of Roslindale (aka Rozzie) my Boston neighborhood. This was a big deal. But I was utterly unprepared.
My first problem was that I had no place to live – or even stay – in DC. A good Rozzie friend connected me with the brother of his then girlfriend, a guy named Ralph, who lived in Falls Church, VA, a suburb of DC. He offered to put me up for a few weeks upon my arrival as I searched for an apartment. But Ralph had something else that appealed to me strongly. He had his own 2-seater plane.
Having never lived outside of Rozzie, I was very concerned about cutting off contact with all my friends and family while starting a new life in DC. Having a friend with his own plane meant I could easily come back to Boston on a fairly regular basis, or so I thought.
Continue ReadingStoryworth: What Was Your Mother Like When You Were a Child?
When I look back on my mother’s life, at least the part since I was born, I see specific chapters. The first chapter is the time when she was building a family with my father. The second chapter was the time after my father got sick and had to stop working. Then the period after he died.
They were married in June of 1952 and I arrived in May of 1953. So, they got right to it creating a family of three boys and a girl.
My father worked as a machinist at B. F. Goodrich Company. It’s known today as a tire company, but, in those days, they also made sneakers. They eventually sold the sneaker division to Converse. The two top brands were P.F. Flyers and Jack Purcell’s. P.F. Flyers were high tops for kids. Jack Purcell’s were tennis shoes that grownups wore. Every spring, my father would bring home a pair of sneakers from the “seconds” pile at the plant. These were sneakers with imperceptible flaws. He got them for free, which I thought was incredibly cool. One of my “coming of age” moments came when my father brought home the Jack Purcells instead of the P.F. Flyers. I felt that was a sign I was growing up. Back then, that was good news, less so these days. I know I digress and this anecdote should have gone into the chapter about my father, but it came to mind, so I’m sharing it here.
But back to my mother. She was what was known at the time as a “homemaker” or “housewife.” Today, it’s “stay at home Mom.” She didn’t have a job outside the home until after my father died.
Continue ReadingStoryworth: What Was Your First Big Trip?
There were no trips in my family when I was growing up. I can barely recall a cottage we had in Humerock, MA, about 40 minutes south of Boston. I remember it was right on the beach. There is an image of a starfish burned in my deep memory. I think I was probably 5 years old.
Other than that, a vacation was when I stayed over at my cousins’ houses in other neighborhoods of Boston. We were in Roslindale. My mother’s two brothers and a sister had families in Dorchester and Mission Hill. Two of them had eight children, one had seven. There were only four in mine. Each of them had a child near my age and we all were very close. Staying at their house was always fun and involved many adventures.
But that was it. We never went anywhere far enough away that I slept anywhere but my own bed or at my cousins’. We’d go to Wollaston beach for a day. And the more exotic trips were to Nantasket, which had an amusement park next to the beach. But they were always day trips.
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