Where I was on 9/11

Oddly enough, I was in Carlisle, a town about 25 miles northwest of Boston, during the 9/11 terror attacks. I had taken a new job that year and was getting ready for my last day of training at a beautiful facility off a rural road. When I pulled into the parking lot a young guy who was also being trained asked if I'd heard that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. I hadn't. My radio must have been off during the drive, probably because it was such a beautiful day and I'd rolled the windows down to feel the fresh country air and didn't want any unnatural sounds to disturb the moment.

We went inside and were joined by the others, maybe seven trainees and our instructor. Moments later someone from the facility stuck their head in and told us about the second plane. Of course, everyone knew what that meant. I think we went back into the lobby to watch the news coverage for a bit, then went back to start our training. We stopped a couple times to decide whether or not to continue on -- especially after the towers fell -- but decided that we'd rush through and get out as soon as possible. A television was wheeled in for a bit and we kept tabs on what was happening, and we did break so that everybody could call their loved ones, and I knew I'd better call my mother or she'd be worried sick. 

The training over, we went our separate ways, and I never saw any of those people again. We'd be working for the same organization, but at different facilities, and I've always felt it strange that I spent the most awful moments of my country's recent history in a place I didn't know very well with people I didn't know very well.

And stranger still, I drove back not to East Boston, but to Somerville, where I had moved just 11 days earlier. I had two roommates and one of them was sitting on the front stairs, crying, when I got home. I barely knew her, but Paula's fiance was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles from Logan Airport on business that morning. She had, just before I arrived, found out that he was not on either of the LA-bound planes that had been hijacked, but on a different flight and was, therefore, fine. I consoled her as best I could, and then went inside to put on the TV and my computer, so I could finally get connected to the information stream -- something I like to do during important events.

The next morning I went out early to get copies of The Globe, The Herald and The New York Times. I'd always saved historically significant newspapers and I needed to add editions from Sept. 12 to my collection.

30 years later

I'm just back from my 30th high school reunion and it was a good night. I graduated from Savio in 1981 in a class of 89 guys. Only 20 showed up tonight, but after 30 years people are living all over the place and have family obligations. It was good to see those who did come out.

As I was telling some of the guys tonight, I was a dorky kid from East Boston, but among my classmates I always felt like I could wander form group to group -- the athletes, the rock music rebels. the guys that came from East Boston Central Catholic with me, the guys from Revere, and everyone else -- and I was always accepted. Those were good days at Savio -- and I got a good education.

It's strange to see people virtually every day for four years and then to never see them again. That often happens after high school. At least tonight I got to touch base one time with some of the guys who -- no matter where we go or what we do -- will always be my friends.

An American classic

Fifty years ago today, Americans were introduced to Scout, Jem and Atticus Finch, as well as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, in the pages of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Today it is one of the most widely read, widely taught and widely loved books ever written. The 1962 film, with Gregory Peck (in photo, with Mary Badham as Scout) as Atticus -- the upstanding small-town Southern lawyer who defends an innocent but sure-to-be-convicted black man -- has also gone a long way toward ensuring the story's enduring popularity.

I was assigned Mockingbird as a freshman in high school, and it was the first time I'd read something where I wanted desperately to meet the characters. It also was the first time that I'd read faster and faster in the middle of the novel -- because I was so interested in the story -- but then slowed down toward the final pages, as I didn't want the magic to end. Mockingbird made me want to write.

Harper Lee, now 84, never wrote another novel, and published only a few small items in the last five decades. Someone -- I can't find the quote now -- once commented on the Pulitzer Prize winner's dearth of writing after her wildly successful debut, saying that Lee put the truth so clearly and absolutely on the page that she never needed to write another word. Here is one piece of that truth, as Atticus speaks to his children: "...before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Benefit breakfast

The annual breakfast to benefit the Salesian Boys & Girls Club will be held at Suffolk Downs on June 24. State Rep. Carlo Basile will host the event and an award will be posthumously presented to Wally Bowe, who passed away suddenly in January after a lifetime spent working with young people in East Boston, many of those years at the Club. Contact Fr. John Nazzaro for ticket information at 617.567.6626.

Making us proud

I called this one, and Bobby Casaletto can back me up.

It might say that Tyronne Pruitt's home town is Brockton on his Boston College football team bio page, but he spent most of his childhood in East Boston and was a member at the Salesian Boys & Girls Club. I worked at the Club for 13 years, leaving in the fall of 1997, and I knew Tyronne, as well as his three brothers.

Tyronne was at the Club virtually every day, and he was a great kid. Unlike older brother Gary -- who was just about the most outgoing and funniest person you ever want to meet -- Tyronne, the youngest of the foursome, was reserved and deliberate. He was an excellent athlete, but I'd seen a dozens of excellent athletes in my time as a member and staffer at the Club. Tyronne was unique in the attention he gave to his studies.

In the time after the Club opened at 2:30 and before we started running events, I distinctly remember Tyronne -- then in the 5th, 6th and 7th grades -- grabbing a table, pulling out his homework and getting it done, patiently and neatly. Other kids did homework at the Club, but I have no memory of any particular youngster doing it most every day -- except Tyronne. He cared about his grades, and he was an A student.

He was a smart athlete, too ... good at most everything he tried. It was football, however, that I saw as the perfect match for Tyronne. We only played tag football on the cracked asphalt outside the building, and I never heard Tyronne indicate that he loved the game above any other sport, but the combination of brains, build and ability led me to say aloud that I thought he would be an exceptional football player someday -- probably a running back. I know I said this to my friend and co-worker Bobby Casaletto.

Tyronne is now a senior at Boston College. He's not a running back now, but he was in Brockton, where the family moved not long after I left the Club. He was all-scholastic in his junior and senior years at Brockton High, rushing for more than 1,000 yards in each. He was also team captain those two years, which speaks to his character.

A defensive standout at linebacker in high school, BC put him in that spot and he started every game (except yesterday: sprained ankle) over the past two seasons for the nationally-ranked program. Tyronne is a political science major, and I'm going to guess that he invests some time in his studies as well.

A+

As the credits rolled on a film I saw this evening I heard someone call out my name. It was dark in the theater, so I didn't recognize the young woman at first, but it turned out to be one of my former high school students. I followed her outside the theater door, where she introduced me to her husband. Then we shot the breeze a bit about the good old days, and she said many nice things about me -- I had been her English teacher six or seven years ago.

I run into former students occasionally, and former members of the Boys & Girls Club, where I worked for 13 years. They always heap kind words upon me, and it's quite flattering. It often takes many years, but the young people that you work with do absorb some of what you tell them and they do appreciate it. Like most worthwhile rewards, it is a bit slow in coming, but it is indeed rich and savory.