Archive for February, 2022

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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