Entry 3

I think this was the first Red Sox game we all went together. Its definitely before the joys of '04 and '07. Who knew we'd be traveling all over the East and Mid-West watching the Sox in a few years. The first Sox game I went to was in '67 when they were in a mad pennant race. In those days there were no divisional playoffs just two league champions that went to the World Series. Fenway was smaller by about 9,000 seats and no fancy air conditioned, glassed off area. Tickets in the bleachers were about $2.50 and you could often just buy tickets the day of the game. It started to change in '67 with the Comeback Kids. And yes even then the Yankees sucked! When I was in elementary school, first to eighth, Boston was largely a hockey town even though the Celtics were perennial champs. The Patriots were somewhat a joke franchise, playing at B.U.'s football stadium, and Fenway Park. This was before ESPN and Cable t.v.. Wayne and I used to watch football games on a small black and white television set at home. My Dad would join us often and say inspiring things like,"..there going to lose..." "...they stink..." Unfortunately, he was often right. I graduated from Center School in 1964 as a fairly mediocre student. My biggest accomplishment was learning to read Hebrew in the 4 months before my Bar Mitzvah. My folks joined Temple Beth Shalom, it means house of peace, in September of that year. Jewish boys almost always attended Hebrew school at least once a week for 6 or 7 years preparing for their Bar Mitzvah. I studied ridiculously hard to avoid the public embarrassment of messing up the prayers and reading from the Torah. We had a lot of orthodox relatives who would have loudly corrected any of my mistakes. I tend to be a quick study in some things so a flawless Bar Mitzvah boy was I, lol. I got pretty good scores on scholastic aptitude tests so I was placed in the Advanced high school track. This was one level below the accelerated track where dwelt the then yet unnamed Nerds. I actually did really well until they moved me in my Sophomore year up to the accelerated program. It took me a few years to adjust to competing with kids who were academically driven. I did graduate as a member of the National Honors Society. My real passion in high school was running. I had never been much of an athlete, remember short, and scrawny. I was o.k. at baseball but that was about it until my school had the President's Fitness Test. Every high school had these physical fitness tests once a year for all the students. One event was a quarter mile run. I knew from playing sports that I was a slow sprinter so I had no expectations of doing well. The starting gun went off and I was predictably at the end of the line BUT at around 150 yards something happened while other kids were beginning to suck wind I started to pass them, right past that prick Bruce Webster who always made fun of my clothes, and then by neo-Nazi Billy Linehan, who I was going to throw out a first floor window in a few months after he stuck me in the back with a sharp pencil, and then by well everybody. I was ecstatic, a victor, and that began my running career. I broke Peabody High School's half mile record my senior year and was recruited by a few college programs. Since there was no money to send me to college I took the best offer which came from U. Mass in Amherst. I did stop being short in high school, growing 9 inches over my Junior year. The scrawny/skinny part pretty much lasted till my early 20's. I'll probably mention Vietnam in the next blog entry because it truly shaped the choices of my generation. Love you three beyond words, Dad