SOUTH BOSTON CHIPPEWAS

Before the New England Patriots captured the hearts of New Englanders they were known as the Boston Patriots. Most of the games were played at Fenway Park with temporary stands erected against the “Green Monster.”I was fortunate to have season tickets on the fifty yard line. There were no seats, just long benches. The ticket takers were known to let in anyone with a sawbuck secretly palmed in a handshake. Since there were no seat assignments I saw most of the games squashed like a sardine.

That was not the first Professional Football team. In the mid forties we had a professional football team known as the Boston Yanks. They only lasted a few years and they were not very good. I managed to see one of those games. At the same time there was the Boston Park League that featured teams made up from the local neighborhoods. Our team in Southie was known as the Chippewas. They played at Columbus Park and you could see them for nothing. They did pass the hat after the games but I was only 10 so I was forgiven for not donating.

As I remember they had an awesome team made up from players that mostly came from past Southie High School teams. They played mostly on the weekends so I saw most of their games. One year in particular…1949 they ended up playing St. Paul’s from Dorchester for the championship. They were so good that they won by a lopsided score of 32 to nothing. No wonder the Boston Yanks left Town early. How could they compete with teams like the Chippewas.

ALBANIAN PIES

 

Today when women and men wish to make pies and deserts with phyllo dough they go to their nearest Greek store and buy it ready made. My mother made it from scratch. After mixing the proper ingredients she would put a large lump of dough on a clean sheet and begin rolling it out into thinner and thinner layers with a long thin rolling pin known as an (okalia) phonetically spelled. Depending on what part of Albania you came from the pies were known as either “Berek” or “Lacrod. “The process of rolling would start at 8:00 AM and wouldn’t be completed until noon. The resulting phyllo dough was near transparent. As a young boy I was transfixed with the constant rolling. As an aside I should add that when I misbehaved which was often, my mother chased me around the house with that same rolling pin. I often wonder now that if she caught me would she have used it.

Inside these pies ingredients such as lamb, onions, tomatoes, sauerkraut etc. were added. My favorite of all was spinach mixed with feta cheese. These pies were made and kept in the refrigerator for the weeks’ meals. Just writing about them these many years later make my mouth water. When you bit in them you could hear the crunch of the dough. No ready mixed phyllo dough compared to my mothers’ hand rolled product.

I am leaving the best part for last. This same hand rolled phyllo dough was the basis for my mothers’ baklava. Made with walnuts, almonds and honey as the basic ingredients… were worth pound for pound the equivalent of a bar of gold. For many years I have tried baklava in the best of Greek restaurants but none come close to my mothers. I wonder if I ever told her how much I enjoyed her Albanian pies and dessert. If I didn’t I should have.

 

 

THE FINAL CHAPTER

I left South Boston after 32 years when I married. Since my father lived there in his own home until he was 101 I visited him often especially to drive him to his medical appointments. He lived in City Point close to the “L’ St. Bath House and spent most of his retirement years there. He was close enough to walk and used a cane although he didn’t need one. I asked him why and he said that the traffic on Day Blvd. will always stop for someone with a cane. On his 100^th Birthday the L St. Brownies decided to throw him a big bash. They invited City Officials and they came. My favorite, “ Dapper” O’Neil showed up. They read letters from the President and other Congressional leaders, made speeches and showered him with numerous gifts. My father was quite pleased.

The last year and a half of his life he spent at the Chelsea Soldiers Home Nursing Facility. Organizations like the VFW and American Legion often gathered the veterans and returned them to their halls for food and entertainment. When I visited my father would tell me of the wonderful meals served and of the music he heard. He was quite happy there.

My wife and I were on vacation in Paris when we got the call from my son that he had passed. I had made all the arrangements down to the detail of the casket with the Funeral Home long before, so I wasn’t worried on that score. We returned in plenty of time for the Wake and Funeral and the traditional memorial dinner at Anthony’s Pier 4. As a senior St George Parishioner he was waked at the St. George Cathedral on East Broadway. Members of the “L” St. Bath House and other Southie residents came to pay their respect. We were lucky to have him for almost 103 years.

My father was born in the 19^th century, lived in the 20^th and wanted to make it into the 21^st. He died in 1999, one year short. It may have been the only goal he didn’t make in his lifetime.

AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

After WW I my father decided it was time to settle down and get married. In those days it was common to get married within your own ethnic group. So he travelled back to Albania to find himself a bride. He visited a family known to have daughters of marriageable age. As was the custom the family trotted out the eldest daughter but my father insisted he see them all. As he tells it he was instantly smitten with my mother. She thought he was handsome enough so it was all arranged. On his way back to Jamestown, N.Y. where he had a job in the mills he stopped off in Boston to introduce his new bride to his sister. When my mother discovered an established Albanian community in Boston, that was the end of any further travel.

Although my mother was married to an American Citizen, she herself was in the “Green Card” status. So after her last child was born (that was me) she decided she wanted to be an American Citizen. Now there was an obstacle in the way. In Albania she received little schooling. Women didn’t need an education…finding a husband and raising a family didn’t require one. When she found out our Representative James A. Condon was having English classes for immigrants in South Boston she enrolled. After cooking, cleaning and settling the family for the night she trotted off to class. She struggled but managed to master it “to a degree”. When she found out that Condon also had arranged for classes to become an American Citizen…she quickly enrolled in that as well.

Who was the first President, what are the Branches of Government, what is the Constitution, the Bill of rights etc.?..questions my mother had to master. This was quite difficult for her but she had set her mind to learning and committing to memory the answers. The big day came for the oral and written exam. She had studied so hard, she just could not fail. She didn’t. Her proudest moment was when she raised her hand and pledged allegiance to the United States of America.

To this day in my opinion, James A. Condon was the better Representatives that Southie ever had. He saw a need in the community and felt his duty to meet that need. I was only a small child when all this happened but even then I knew greatness when I saw it. That is Condon back row far right.

 

JAMES MICHAEL CURLEY

In 1952 Adlai E. Stevenson, the Governor of Illinois ran for President against General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He brought his campaign to Boston …more specifically to South Boston. A platform was set up right across the street from the “L” street Bath House on a lot which was then vacant. Since it was right in my neighborhood I went to observe Mr. Stevenson close up. A crowd that I estimate at a couple of hundred gathered around the platform. It was obvious that Mr. Stevenson was running quite late and the crowd was growing restless.

At that point I saw a figure climbing to the platform that was not Mr. Stevenson. A booming voice spoke and the crowd immediately recognized James Michael Curley, the same man who secured funding for the Building right across the street. A legendary person I heard so much about. The man who went to prison for impersonating a friend at a civil service examination, then used that as his campaign slogan…. a Governor, a Federal House Representative and more importantly Mayor of Boston. Now he was past his political career at this point but like nature abhors a vacuum…Curley could not resist an empty platform.

Now Mr. Stevenson eventually arrived but the real star that night was James Michael Curley. He spoke extemporaneously for 45 minutes and held his audience mesmerized with every word he spoke.  I felt privileged to hear him. When he died I waited in line at the State House for an hour to pay my respects.

OUR 47TH ANNIVERSARY

I was lucky to marry my wife Jane, 47 years ago today. The Catholic Church has told me she is on the short list for Sainthood for putting up with my shenanigans these past 47 years. Of all the decisions I made in my life…this was the best one.

SCHWINN BICYCLE

I was born in early 1935 in South Boston so my initial impressions of Southie may be different than yours. I remember taking the electric trolley at the intersection of West Fifth St. and Dorchester St. where I lived to either Andrew Station or the other way to Pleasure Bay. Often the ice truck came to deliver ice to families that could not afford the new appliance known as a refrigerator. The yells of the rag man from his horse drawn carriage “rags, rags bring me your rags” and the mobile scissor and knife sharpener are all familiar to me. The flags that hung in the window with blue stars indicating a son in the service or sadly changed to gold when he died in combat, are my visions. My street was devoid of cars since no one could afford one. Both sides of my street had beautiful elms that provided shade for those awful high heat and humidity days. Most of my impressions are quite favorable but not 100 percent. One incident in particular has bothered even until today. Let me explain.

After the WW II my father moved us from West Fifth St. to the “Lace Curtain” area of City Point. We were close to the L St. bath house and the “M” St. Beach and I took advantage of both. He bought me a used bicycle and that opened a new horizon for me. Columbia Point, Kelley’s Landing and Castle Island were now easy destinations. On my 13^th birthday he upgraded my bike to a brand new Schwinn Roadster. It had all the bells and whistles. Fenders front and back, a chain guard, a battery operated horn, a generator to light your way at night, a kick stand etc. I couldn’t have been more proud.

I had it for about 6 months when one day I went to get it for a ride…. it was gone. Someone was playing a joke on me and moved it to the other side of my house. I looked there and it was gone. I searched the neighborhood looking in everyone’s back yard…it was gone. I called the police station hoping someone had abandoned it and they picked it up…it was gone.  Eventually I had to face reality. IT WAS GONE. I only hope who ever took it enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

Japan Part 2

Travel log Part 2. When we finished our business in Tokyo we took the high speed Bullet train to Osaka. The train traveled at 130 mph back in the late 80’s. The Japanese took pride in the fact it had a 100 percent on time schedule performance. I noticed when we approached a Station, passengers readied themselves at the doors. It seemed they opened and closed in an instance. Along the way I sat at the side of the train that had Mount Fuji in view. I was looking at the mountain when something interrupted my vision. It happened so fast that had I blinked a second longer I would have missed it. It was a bullet train coming from the opposite direction. The relative speed of both trains was at that split second… 260mph.

We were met in Osaka by the local government. They escorted us immediately to a local restaurant where we feasted for two hours. They brought course after course. I wondered what this was going to cost us. The answer was nothing. Again, having the State Department make the arrangements obviously gave us special status. They must have thought that the President had personally picked us to come. If they ever found out, it was too late. By then we would have been back in Boston.

In the end we got what we came for.  Camp Dresser and McKee the engineering firm responsible for the overall coordination of the planning, design and construction of MWRA’s wastewater plant on Deer and Nut Islands utilized the techniques learned in Japan. My role as Chief Engineer for the Federal Environmental Protection Agency was to see that the MWRA completed the project and did it in a timely fashion. In my 34 years of government service it was my crowning achievement.

 As a youngster growing up in South Boston and swimming in the waters off Carson and City Point Beaches, who would of thought that one day I would have a role in cleaning up Boston Harbor. As the old tune goes…”one never knows does one.”

 

Japan Social Hour

The story I am about to tell belongs more appropriately on the Travelocity.com website than here on the “Originally from South Boston” site. Since I spent the first 32 years of my life in Southie, please permit me to tell it. In 1987, my EPA boss allowed me to head up a team of Engineers from the Commonwealth, the MWRA and our contractors to travel to Japan to learn the technique the Japanese used to treat their wastewater. We were in the planning and design stage for MWRA’s treatment plant on Deer Island. The Japanese had figured a way to maximize use of scarce available land, the same issue we we faced on Deer Island. In order to enter Japan I was told by our EPA headquarters that I had to go through the State Department. When I contacted them they said they would make all the arrangements with the authorities in Tokyo and Osaka and even provide the hotels we were to stay in. That was fine by me.

I won’t bore you with the technical meetings except to say we adopted the Japanese design and that is what is on Deer Island. I would rather like to focus on our overall experience with the Japanese. First when we arrived at the Narita airport in Tokyo after a very long flight from Boston we were confused by the signs. In Europe most signs are in their native language and in English. Not so in Japan. There was one sign I did recognized, ”KOTELLY”. It was held by our van driver and we all began to feel a little more comfortable.

To begin with there may have been some confusion by the Japanese as to whom we represented. Don’t forget all arrangements were made by the State Department. I began to feel after a couple of days that they may have thought we came directly from the Oval Office of the President. Why should I tell them otherwise? They assigned us an engineer who graduated from Cornell and spoke perfect English. Without him we would still be roaming the streets of Tokyo.

One night we asked him to take us to a real Japanese restaurant not generally visited by tourists. We were all required to remove our shoes and don slippers. There were no chairs which meant we had to sit on cushions around a table the size of a football field. Now you may wonder how do you reach food on the opposite side from where you sat. The Japanese have it all figured out. Of course the table rotates on ball bearings. How did we win the War? I sat next to our Cornell colleague and asked what we were eating. Several times he said don’t ask, so I didn’t. The food was fresh because it was still moving when I dipped in the hot oil that was provided. It is not courteous to pour yourself a drink. The protocol is that your neighbor offers you Sake and you do the same for him. You can see where this can lead to. It was a great experience I will never forget.

This is long winded so let me continue another day about our trip to Osaka.

 

 

ELECTRIC SCOOTER

As my father got older he was restricted as to how far he could walk to go fishing. He resigned himself to the “M” St. Beach near his home. One day he called me and was so excited he had trouble getting out what he had to say. “I saw an ad in the American Legion magazine about an Electric 4 Wheel Scooter.”(My father was made an Honoree Member after 50 years in the American Legion…that‘s a story for another time.) “I can get back to Castle Island where the real fish are caught” Whoa, that is not the news you want to hear from an elderly parent. As much as I tried to dissuade him, it was to no avail. He had made up his mind and that was that.

For about a year he made it to and fro without incidence. He travelled on the sidewalk along City Point Beach, fishing rod and gear in tow all the way to the newly constructed pier at Castle Island where he made new friends doing what he enjoyed most…. Fishing. One day he called me and it was obvious that something drastic had happened. I had to pry it out of him and he told me this story.

After fishing for several hours he was headed back home and about a third of the way back his Electric Scooter died. Now if you lived or are still living in Southie you know we are a community of great Samaritans. Two guys in a pickup truck saw my father’s plight, stopped and put the scooter in the pickup bed and escorted my father back to his home and made sure he was settled before they left. My father never used the scooter again.

I had mixed emotions. I was sad he lost more of his independence but happy he was safer close to home.

EARLY TV SCREENS

Today when we watch television we feel cheated if the screen is less than 47 inches in diameter. Most homes I visit, 60 inches is the norm. That wasn’t always the case. When I was young Radio was the way we were entertained. My mind created the images in very vivid colors. Programs such as Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Fibber Mcgee and Molly had me rolling in laughter. Drama such as Orson Welles Mercury Theater, CBS Radio Workshop, The Campbell Playhouse had my imagination running wild. My mind provided all of the visual images I needed.

When television first made it to the airwaves very few people I knew could afford a set. My downstairs neighbor was the first to purchase one. What drove him to buy one was the Texaco Star Theater starring Milton Berle… “Mr. Television” as he was known. Now the actual TV screen was only 9 inches in diameter. Our neighbor would invite us once a week to see “Uncle Milty.” Now we were five in number and they were three. That meant 8 of us huddled around a 9 inch screen. The young ones like myself sat on the floor while our elders had the luxury of the couch and chairs.

Size didn’t matter. The thrill of viewing television live and laughing with everyone else at the antics of a madman funnyman was what counted. Nine inches may seem archaic to young people now, but to me it was as good as the biggest screens available today.

BABE RUTH

I never saw Babe Ruth play. Growing up, whenever baseball was discussed his name always came up as the longest home run hitter of all time. Balls would travel  5oo feet from home plate when the Babe connected. He had a lifetime batting average of 342 and hit 714 home runs. It was no wonder I had become so enamored. As I grew older I began to devour everything written about him. In my gullible youth I thought whatever was written in a book or a magazine had to be true. Not so, there is more myth than truth in most of the stories. What is true is that he rose from real poverty to one of the richest paid ballplayers of his time.

Now as I read more on him I discovered an amazing fact. He had courted and married Helen Woodruff of West Fourth St. in South Boston. I lived on West Fifth St. just two streets over. Then even more amazing, when newly married lived in an apartment over Joes’ Spa a restaurant my father worked in and eventually partially owned. My idol lived, walked and chewed gum in my neighborhood, unbelievable.

To this day I am still fascinated by Babe Ruth and the life he lived. It is amazing that wherever I travel I find evidences where he has been. Recently when I was in Asheville, N.C. at a site of an old hotel there was a stone in which was inscribed “Babe Ruth slept here during his Spring Training Tour going north.” I know it is childish of me to have an idol at my age, but I can’t help it. I grew up adoring him and his image and life are part of me.

BRAVES FIELD

When I was young during WW II I traveled to Braves Field to watch the Boston Braves play. We sat in the right field bleachers where you could get in for a quarter. What I remember was when the ball was hit into the stands the spectators were required to throw the ball back onto the field as there was a  shortage of balls during the War. The players that played were the ones that were not fit for the military. You might call them the Over the Hill Gang.

The player who impressed me the most was Pete Gray. He impressed me because he had only one arm. He played the outfield and it was uncanny how he could catch the ball and magically shift glove and ball then throw the ball into the infield. He batted one handed and hit very well. He must have hated the War to end because he was no longer needed when the regular players returned.

I never considered him handicapped. He was an inspiration to all of us that saw him play. He played as well if not better than most players in the league at that time. It was only when Ted Williams came back out of the service that I switched my allegiance from the Braves to the Red Sox.

4 PARTY LINE

I was talking to a younger relative the other day and mentioned a disease I knew nothing about. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, Googled the disease and gave me the answer. Now I too have a cell phone but the only thing it does is call or receives phone messages. Before the days of instant communication in your pocket there was a landline phone in everyone’s home.

After WW II my father applied to AT&T for a phone. It took several months but the phone was eventually installed. Imagine you could pick up the phone and actually talk to someone somewhere else. If you went outside of your area you had to go through a Long Distance Operator and pray you wouldn’t be disconnected before you reached them.

Now the telephone man said we were to listen to the rings before picking up since we would be sharing the line with 3 other parties. Our ring was one short, one long, one short and one long. Any other rings belonged to the other 3 parties. Now as a 10 year old the temptation was too great. I learned if you gently picked up the receiver and covered the mouth piece with your hand you could listen in on private conversations.

 I am sure that if I applied to the National Security Agency I would be a shoo in with all of my prior experience spying on other peoples conversations.

ORANGE LINE 1975

When I heard they were going to take the Orange Line down in 1975 I took my trusty 8mm camera and stood at the front of the first train to take pictures. This is the way I travelled from the north to my job in Boston. I apologize for the quality but I had no way of cleaning the glass. A few months later they tore down this section of the elevated subway. It starts at North Station and proceeds to Everett through the now demolished Sullivan Sq. Station. It passes by the old Boston Garden and 150 Causeway St. bldgs which are now gone. I can still hear the screech of the steel rails as the trains turn the corner onto the North Washington Bridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Hc4R4wN7w&list=FLjbfqpt6qWBfUk9dQIF7bgA&index=56

GONE FISHING

On Jan.18, 1973 I entered EPA’s Chief Counsel’s Office to discuss a matter of business. After our business was concluded he asked if I had seen the Front page of the Boston Globe. Not yet I replied. I should tell you first, my father’s recreational passions were the L St. Bath house, walking for miles on end and fishing. When he was younger he would take his fishing rod to the Sugar Bowl at the end of the wooden pier near the Head House, an area which we now call Pleasant Bay. When the 1938 Hurricane destroyed the pier he moved on to Castle Island. As he got older his distance to fish became shorter and shorter. Let’s get back to the Front Page of the Globe.  “Here take a look. Maybe you know this guy. He has the same last name as yours.”

There was my father at the “M” St. Beach puffing on his pipe. A photographer was on his way to an assignment when he spotted my father sitting and relaxing without a care in the world. Being a professional he stopped his car and took the shot of his lifetime. The editor liked it so much he featured it on the front page. The photographer probably never got another placement like that for the rest of his career. My father was 80 at the time and lived to almost 103 years old. Maybe there is something to fishing after all.

PUBLIC INPUT

In the early 1940’s and 1950’s the City of Boston made decisions without consulting the very public that was affected. Today Public forums are the norm but that wasn’t the case then. One incident that I got personally involved in… was when I found out the City was going to open up a new route to the newly constructed containerized docking facility near Castle Island. The fastest route from the Southeast Expressway to the new facilities was down Day Blvd., …that is along Carson and City Point Beaches. I couldn’t believe it. Was the City out of its mind? Huge 12 wheeler trucks passing by the shoreline with pedestrians coming and going to the beaches. This had to be stopped.

I started a letter campaign by getting as many people who would listen to write to the City to stop this crazy idea. It worked. No trucks are allowed on the causeway from the Southeast Expressway even today. I was only a teenager then but I learned a lesson that I never forgot. The public can influence policy if only they can be heard.

Forums like this makes it even easier.

AQUARIUM

One of the many destinations my father walked me when I was a toddler was the Aquarium near the Farragut statue. For a small child it was a wondrous place. All those sea species floating above my head was a true marvel to behold. As many as I saw, only one vision stays with me these 75 years later… that is the loggerhead turtle. I was told later that it weighed over 200 pounds and was probably 30 to 40 years old. You can imagine the impact it had on me. I was a third its size and a tenth its age. I can still visualize it slowly gliding about behind the glass enclosure. It wasn’t easy for my father to tear me away because I could have watched it for hours, it was truly mesmerizing.

It was torn down in the 50’s to make way for an ice skating arena. The citizens of Southie were not happy. A treasure was taken away. But the explanation was it was for own good. Thanks but no thanks.

 

 

 

KEROSENE/COAL HEATING

The choice for fossil fuel in the 1940’s was Kerosene. We had a single burner in our living room that was meant to heat the two flats we occupied. Days like today when the temperature reached zero or below you realized how inefficient that was. The farther away from the single source of heat the colder it was. The bedrooms were on the higher level and what little heat reached that level, the more blankets you piled on. By morning it was so cold that my mother would have to coax us out of bed. We raced to the living room burner in hopes of avoiding hypothermia.

When we moved we graduated to coal as our main source of heat. The coal truck would drive close to our cellar window, insert a chute and deliver coal to our coal bin. Now nothing was automatic. My father would shovel the coal into a monstrous burner that resembled the ones that powered the Lusitania Cruise ship. If we had exceptionally cold weather, then he would have to get up in the middle of the night to refire the burner.

I used to love to watch the coal tumbling down the chute. It is a wonder I didn’t get coal miners lung disease from all the coal dust I inhaled.

ANTHONY'S PIER 4

There have been many Immigrants from Albania that have been successful business men. The most successful of them all was Anthony Athanas. In his heyday he owned 5 major restaurants in Massachusetts. His flagship restaurant, Anthony’s Pier 4 was known far and wide throughout the country. At its peak it was grossing $12 million annually and was the highest grossing restaurant in the country. He was president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and named restaurateur of the year in 1976. Every celebrity or politician who was anybody came and ate at his restaurant. To prove it he had pictures taken immediately with that person and hung the photos on his walls throughout the restaurant.

For as many years as I can remember, a gang of us from EPA had our annual Christmas luncheon there. We occupied the largest round table in the corner and we were often visited by Anthony on his rounds. Since his uncle married my aunt he would greet me with the Albanian word “krushk” meaning a non blood relative.  Paul Keough of our group, (a former Public Relations Spokesperson at the Ma. House of Rep.) would jump up and rush to greet each politician as he entered the restaurant. He never got to enjoy his meal. Anthony should have hired him as his official greeter.

Sadly the restaurant closed its doors this past summer. Another Southie landmark no longer with us.

MOCK INVASION CARSON BEACH

When we were kids we either played at Cowboys killing Indians or soldiers killing “Japs or Natzi’s”. After watching movies like Wake Island, Bataan, Guadalcanal Diary, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo etc. we were ready to join battle with our wooden rifles. WW II however ended in 1945 when I was 10 so I missed out on seeing the real thing. But wait; there was another opportunity to witness a real live invasion with Marines, Navy pilots, Army personnel, amphibious vehicles etc.… the whole shebang. There was planned a mock invasion right here in Southie on Carson Beach. I marked Oct. 1949 on my calendar. I wouldn’t miss this for all the tea in China. Sure enough the Navy cleared the beach of the foe by flying literally 100 feet over the land. Explosives planted in the ground made it look like they were actually dropping bombs. Then came the amphibious LST’s that discharged the Marines and Army soldiers. They charged ahead to secure a beachhead. Weapons fired and it was all so realistic. It could have been Normandy as far as I was concerned. The event was not without controversy, however. A photographer for the Boston Post named Morris Fineberg was hit by flying shrapnel and killed. I guess it was too realistic after all.

ELIA (LEO) ANDON KOTELLY

You could only describe my father as a true American Patriot. He loved this country as I know no other man could. From my earliest childhood he would extol its virtues. Education was the gateway to success he would say and America was the land of opportunity where you could get as far as you want to go. Considering he never got to High School he saw  3  of his children graduate from college. He left Albania as a young teenager to escape the clutches of the Ottoman Empire. He was about to be drafted into the Turkish Army when he boarded a ship for the United States. As an immigrant in Jamestown New York he was exploited by the mill owners . He didn’t care. He made it to America and that was good enough for him. When WW I broke out he was anxious to join the Army. He thought those years were the best years of his youth. He was heartbroken when he was mustered out in 1918. After all why do you need a standing Army when the War to end all Wars was over. He settled in South Boston and lived the next 80 years there. He was well known as“Leo”of Joe’s Spa. At the L St Bath house he reigned as checkers champ for many years. He was a family oriented man and we were lucky to have him with us for almost 103 years.

"BOMBS AWAY CURTIS LEMAY"

 In 1987 I headed up a delegation to Japan to gather information for the MWRA Wastewater treatment planned for Deer Island. The first day of our visit we met with the Tokyo mayor and his staff.  He and I traded greetings and other pleasantries through an interpreter. I explained the purpose of our visit and he inquired if any of us had been to Japan before. On the way over from the States, Tony Fletcher a Board member of the MWRA told us he had been stationed in the Sea of Japan as a Navy pilot on an aircraft carrier in the waning days of WW II. After the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima he was asked to fly a reconnaissance mission over the city and report back his findings. Tony told us his report was simple. To his commander he said “There is nothing left of the city” So when the mayor asked the question I looked over to Tony and he nodded a quick no to me. I left it as none had.

Later that same day we met with the Tokyo engineers. They began our meeting by showing us a video depicting the bombing of Tokyo which occurred just months before the devastation caused by the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. General Curtis Lemay had unleashed tons of incendiary bombs on the city. He used the entire fleet of B-29 bombers under his command. The devastation was worse than that caused by the Atomic bombs. 100 thousand souls were lost, 250 thousand buildings destroyed and 16 square miles leveled. Why would they show us this? They pointed out it was an opportunity to rebuild the city anew, a sort of instant “Urban Renewal” project. I couldn't understand how nonchalant they treated such a disaster.