By Kevin Devlin
This past week I was sitting in my living room, watching TV, enjoying retirement, and beating the heat, as I reflected upon years now securely filed away in the book of my life.
I remembered:
- When I was a kid living on Maryland Street and then on Doris Street in Savin Hill. I loved cleaning the sidewalk and the gutters along the street in front of my house and my neighbor’s homes. It was called PRIDE. Helping others.
- The “ragman” coming down Maryland Street in his little wagon driven by a horse. He was dirtier than dirt but he made money collecting those old clothes because he always came back for more.
- The door-to-door salesman who’d come by every week to collect two bucks from my mom. Most of the time my mom would ask him to come back next week or we made believe we weren’t home and wouldn’t answer the door.
- That there weren’t many vehicles on the city streets back in the late fifties so nobody had to worry about parking spaces. Times have changed indeed.
- My brother Pat and I had paper routes and delivered the Boston Herald. We delivered papers to homes on Sagamore, Auckland, Doris, Elton, Midland, Maryland, and Sydney Street as well as parts of Dorchester Avenue and Savin Hill Avenue. We usually had about fifty customers and the paper cost eight cents. We always bought a few extra papers so we could sell them on the corner of Dorchester and Savin Hill Avenue(s) to people driving by the intersection or we would go into the local bars and sell them. We also shined shoes to make a buck.
- My four brothers, Pat, Jack, Buddy, and Jimmy, and how close we were.
- Watching Creature Double Feature on Saturdays. Now that was scary but fun. Loved “Godzilla.”
- Going to the Strand Theatre located at Upham’s Corner or the Park Street Theatre on Dorchester Avenue across from Town Field, with my cousin, Tommy O’Toole. Loved watching the Three Stooges in-between the double movie feature.
- As a freshman up at Southie High a slick upperclassman tried to sell me tickets for the fourth floor swimming pool. The building only has three floors.
- The fight on the MBTA bus between the two biggest kids up at Southie High. One kid was from Savin Hill, the other from Southie. Both battled hard. Nobody won. Nobody lost.
- Working on Kneeland Street in the garment industry for an old Jewish couple for $1.25 an hour.
- Watching the Patriots lose all the time on the small black-and-white TV that you needed to put Reynolds wrap on the antenna to get clear reception.
- Swimming at Savin Hill Beach and hanging up the Savin Hill woods.
- Playing hoop behind the former Motley School, near the woods, or up at the Bird Street gym.
- Playing CYO, high school, and college hoop.
- Marching for Saint William’s Championship Band and winning every year.
- Asking my mom to make me a tuna fish sandwich.
- Watching my father decorate the Christmas tree without fail every year.
- When “everyone wished everyone” a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year without hesitation.
