A pair of aces

In the City Weekly section of today's Boston Globe there are a pair of stories that highlight East Boston's past and it's future. First there is a look back at Rosa DePasquale, who died in June at 83 after running Tony's Restaurant on Sumner Street by herself for 30 years.

When I was 17 years old I worked at Festa Liquors, on the corner of Cottage and Sumner, and I had dinner at Tony's a couple of times. There were no menus. Customers ate whatever she was cooking and drank from large jugs of red table wine (which we delivered from the liquor store). As the story says, Rosa -- above in a photo from Boston Magazine -- was "hostess, waitress, cook, bus person, and dishwasher." The walls were covered with pieces of neckties that her husband Tony -- who died in 1977 -- had cut from guys, many of them celebrities and politicians, who couldn't finish their meals.

The other story is about Ariana Nunes, a 17-year-old incoming senior at East Boston High School, who volunteered at a community center in Brazil over the summer. Nunes is now an excellent student, though she struggled a few years ago when she was "under the influence of the people around me." Nunes now has big hopes for her future. Too many teenagers never have that "a ha!" moment.