Part II

This is from Jim, Ed and Matt McGuire’s road trip in July 2012

 

Yeah.

So, we’re on Jim, Matt and Ed’s excellent adventure part two and we are leaving from the beautiful Marstons Mills, Jim’s homestead area. We’re on our way to New Hampshire to a museum, but first and foremost importance is we are heading on our way to Charlestown and that’s the homestead of the dad and his sister and the McGuire part of the family. A lovely place to be and dad’s era and no longer present, but at least present through probably the 70s. A very close-knit Irish area, sort of like South Boston, very, very tight. People visit and talk with one another. No information was given to anybody else outside of those whom you knew. You gossiped a lot with those whom you knew but not outside of that and just tough – brass knuckles, hard knock Irish families where, uh, if you couldn’t take care of yourself, you better go move somewhere else and this is where our dad grew up, as dad worked on the docks. He was – learned how to swim, was a great swimmer and what we didn’t know as children real early was that dad was a boxer and a pretty good boxer, uh, so he could take care of himself. He was – for us when we grew up – your dad’s always a big person, but dad was probably 5’8” and a middleweight, a little bit above middleweight, close to middleweight size. We just thought he was really smooth, pretty much even-tempered and certainly we really tried his patience, which was with three boys and a sister, you could do that quite often, but the worst dad ever would get was when he would say Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and, uh, he said that quite frequently with the three of us boys. But, we really didn’t realize, uh, his, his great accomplishments and, uh, his hard-scrabble personality and toughness cause he just seemed really easygoing to us, but we’re going to find the place where it all began. We know dad – when they had hard times and his dad passed away reasonably young – became a great card player. When his older brother was in school and other things were going on, dad was such a good card player that he put money on the table just from his, uh, gambling skills. And, as I say, he was a boxer, so he could take care of himself and even brother James and I a little bit – when Matt was a little bit younger, and we were sort of in our prime and we were kinda tough, we visited Charlestown and we’d think with dad being a local, we’d be loved and accepted. Well, guess what? We were in a bar and nobody wanted to see either one of us. We kind of got into trouble pretty quick, but more on that later. Jimmy’s got the great skill of either being loved or hated. Always very funny, so we had a little trouble with that, but it was just interesting, so we’re gonna go see that, take a look at the – take a look at the house and kind of just reminisce on where all things began for us in some ways and so …

So, some of the things I remember that, uh, I remember dad’s dad worked on the railroad. Dad used to talk about one story where he – they used to have crates that they’d ship things in and they were made out of oak and in the winter, um, they’d actually make fires at the house – he would bring those crates up to the house and his dad would, too, uh, to burn wood in the winter and the house that they had, we had one picture and I’m not sure we’ll see that today, of Kathleen, uh, riding a horse in the backyard. So, uh, they had a three-decker house and the kitchen was on the second floor, is that right?

I only saw the house from the outside as a child. I was never inside, so I’m not …

Do you remember anything about the inside of the house?

I never saw it that I remember.

Was it that dad lived on the third floor? Uh, sort of the entertainment part of the family was on the first floor. Maybe the greeting parlor was on the first floor. It was a narrow building, maybe 15-20 feet across, had a deck.

Did you ever see the picture of Kathleen riding in the backyard?

I did – I saw a picture of Kathleen on a horse, I didn’t know where it was. I assumed it was on.

I think it’s in the backyard.

Yeah, I was thinking that maybe the – I don’t recall seeing that one, but it would be hard to imagine in the backyard because all the triple-deckers, the backyards and, uh, our cousin, mom’s sister, had a triple-decker in Sommerville and I’m guessing Charlestown, some of those really next door neighbors close to one another – they would’ve been similar and if the, if the backyard was more than 60 by – 60 by 20 or 40 by 25 feet, that would be unusual, so that horse would be going in circles.

Well, I think it was just there for the day and I think that, uh, Kathleen was on it and I’m thinking that Charlestown, when they lived there, was, you know, early 20th Century. I mean dad was born in 1903?

Well, he died in ’75 and he was 72.

And, uh, I wonder how many people there were in Charlestown then?

Well, it’d still be reasonable numbers, maybe not as great as the populations in the city after his period of time are diminishing or have been diminishing somewhat because Boston I think was in the top four or five cities population-wise in the United States.

Really?

When we were kids.

Yeah, it was one of the top cities, so I would think it is probably a fairly strong population and based on the houses in Sommerville-Charlestown being triple-deckers and sometimes two- and three-family homes, I would think the population was reasonably dense, uh, even back then.

[Recording Stopped] 

 

 

[Transcribed by Karen M. Rayman, August 2012]

 

[Revised by September 25, 2012 & December 18, 2012]

 

 

 

(This is transcribed from Tape 2 which was copied from CD 2]            

 

Are we good to record some more? And, just push and we’re recording right now.

Dad’s mom and dad, they had six children. James P. McGuire just like Jim – the James P. McGuire and Matthew F. McGuire seemed to be names that we used by generations in the past – throughout so there’s a lot of James and James P. and Matthew F. McGuires. In any event, uh, Grandfather’s wife was Catherine Kelley and she had a couple of sisters and our grandparents had six children. Matt McGuire was the oldest and then Kathleen was the middle of that group and then James was – our Dad was the youngest of that three, but there were a total of six children. A set of twins and, unfortunately I don’t recall what their names were, what I was told as a small child because it really wasn’t talked about and I think there was a boy that was named Eddie – Edmund – and I think poor Edmund fell off a changing table – that was – when he was young and it took his life. And, the other two twins passed with meningitis. But, that was the – it was a family of six, but growing up I think – young ages – and going beyond that, it was Matt, Kathleen, and Dad, and James, the father, and, and, Grandma, which was Catherine Kelley, so that’s where we’re at and we’re on our way up there and I think Jimmie was talking a little bit about what Dad would do as a young man in the family.

Dad told the  story that in the winter he and his Dad would go …

I think that they were a very proud family, but they were economical. I mean, I remember Dad sort of always buying things on sale and always trying to make the best out of a buck. And, what he and his Dad would do in the winter is that they, uh, they – the railroad shipped a lot of stuff and they shipped things oak crates and during the fall and maybe even in the winter, my Dad and his Dad used to go down and, every evening when they came home from work, they would bring some of the oak to burn in the, in the fireplace. I was thinking, as we were talking just a minute ago, about the idea of – Eddie and I went to Boston College (“B.C.”) High School. B.C. High had moved a year or two before we went to, uh, to South Boston – or Dorchester – and when my father and his brother went to B.C. High, they went to B.C. High when it was right next to City Hospital and there was an Immaculate Conception Church and so I think that – and they were day hops, I mean this was not a school you went and stayed at, but they must have taken a “T” (“subway”) from Charlestown to, uh …

Or the bus – it would’ve been, uh, reasonably close. I’m trying to think even if the MTA was – when they were in school – whether it existed.

So,  that’s a good question isn’t it?

Might’ve been trolleys and buses.

Right.

But, it wouldn’t have been.

It’d be about two and one-half, three miles away.

Right. It’d be reasonably close, but, yeah, I think that might’ve been on trolleys back in those days.

And, all the boys in Charlestown – they were Irish Catholic boys – would take an entrance exam together to go to B.C. High. Um, Matt was how many years ahead of Dad?

Like four years or five years between the two of them.

I’m thinking five years. 

So, there’s probably the same – almost the same separation – close to the same separation between me (“Eddie”) and Matt.

Right.

Closer than you and – maybe you and …

Matt and I are five.

So, you were probably be – it’s probably be like you and I and Matt on separation because Kathleen was between Matt and Dad, so I think, I think Matt was five years older and Kathleen was three.

So, [inaudible]?

Sure, why not?

Doesn’t embarrass me, I’ll go with it.

Okay.

I’ll tell you, being in an Irish family and this is a blessing, uh, through B.C. High, grammar school …

Maybe having Jimmy to tussle with early and Dad instructing and through the Navy and anything else, I’ve never been afraid of anybody, so you can call me Kathleen.

I don’t think she was afraid of anybody either.

No, she wasn’t and she was only five feet tall. She was a U.S. Marshall and escorted prisoners and she didn’t mind telling you like a good Irish person was that you, you’re way out of line. She'd be glad to tell you about it.

[LAUGHTER]

What do you remember about Kathleen? What do you remember about Dad talking about growing up?

I remember Dad talking a lot about growing up. He didn’t maybe go on more than one tape that we did together, but where the story comes from about the gathering …

I’ll tell you what my sense of, uh, just the stories that we got because I knew how many children were in the family. Grandma wouldn’t talk about anything. I think probably some people just didn’t like to share information. I think Irish families broke into two categories. I think all Irish families had a lot of relatives and maybe we’d get to meet them. On our – McGuire side of the family – other than the Kitty Kelley, which was a Kitty Hoyer – married a Hoyer – and Uncle Freddie in New York, I don’t know any other relatives.

Libby Fealey.

She wasn’t a relative.

She wasn’t a relative?

She was a friend of Kathleen’s.

Okay.

I don’t know any relatives on the McGuire side. I know from our Mom’s side, the Connors and Barrett side of the family that were relatives, so I think our Irish heritage was the Irish heritage that didn’t talk about anything. Didn’t talk about who the relatives were, didn’t tell you anything about what was going on or growing up we sort of got stories – at least the boxing and the card playing and all that talking with our parents, but generally, they weren’t the type that related the history of what they experienced and so – and, maybe not to keep it from you, they just didn’t do it. I think Irish descent either tell you everything or they tell you nothing and so I think we were in the …

Or, they tell you whatever they want to tell you.

Yeah, which may be nothing.

Right.

And, then, of course, Charlestown is a “tell you nothing place” anyway, so – except gossiping between people you know, so – anyway, so …

So, Dad used to swim close to his house. He said he used to dive off – that’s where he punctured his ear.

Off the piers. He’d dive off the those poles just like they would – when we were kids and we were altar boys, we’d take a trip to Provincetown and when we’d leave Boston and when we’d come into Provincetown, they had the piers with the telephone pole things that, that Dad described that he would dive off of and the kids in those areas would, would dive for coins – quarters – whatever people would throw in and I actually don’t know whether, whether or not Dad did some of the same. We knew he dove off the piers. I don’t know if they were diving for coins, it wouldn’t surprise me if they, if they didn’t do that to raise a little money. And, he turned out to be, uh, with the swimming stuff, he was a very good swimmer, very strong swimmer. When we went to the beach as kids, he would, he would go out and it seemed like he would almost swim a mile out. Never wanted us to go too far, but he’d swim out and then come back in just for the exercise, but surprisingly, we all swim in the family and we learned to swim, not from Dad who was very busy, but we got our swimming classes and abilities from Mom taking us to them, who couldn’t swim at all.

Never could swim, right?

Never learned how to swim.  But, she was from western Massachusetts (“North Adams”), not the coast.

As a diversion and a little bit before, before, uh, Matt was on the scene, well, Matt was there, just a little baby, but we went up to Schuylerville, New York, because that was the Barrett side of the family and more often than not in the summer, with work and everything, if Mom was teaching, we’d go up to visit Aunt Ann (“Anna Barrett”) and we’d stay there for the summers until we were in high school and then we went to the Cape (Cape Cod, Massachusetts),  where Uncle Matt and Aunt Eleanor stayed, but up ‘til then, we probably almost always went up to Schuylerville. And, on the swimming end of things, uh, Marianne could swim, she was the oldest. Jimmie was really a great swimmer. They both did the Australian crawl. I’m a dog paddler. But, I wanted to be with them – as you’re the youngest, just like in my family, Matt always – eight years younger – always thought she was the same age as everybody else. So, we all learned to swim pretty well and we went up to Schuylerville and swam on the Hudson River. They had a current and a raft to go out and the lifeguard didn’t want the three of us going out there cause she thought we were way too young. I might’ve been six, Jimmie was eight, and, uh, Marianne was nine. And, she was really upset against us and with the current, you had to swim – you had to aim above going to the raft because by the time you get to the raft, the current would take you forty yards over, so she really didn’t think we should do that and when we went ahead and did it and she really couldn’t stop us and my mother said it was okay, she decided that maybe these little kids could swim better than she could. So, that was due to mom.

Wanted to make sure we did it.

Yeah. Anyway, we are on the road and we’re on our way to Charlestown and we’re excited about, uh, just being in, in that, in that area and in that background, it is very – like some of it’s very tony, very yuppie, very, very nice, but we’re gonna capture a little bit of the memories of it. We talked about the memories of it. We talked about Jimmie and I going there. The ship I was on in the Navy – in that big storm – actually nice weather on the way back to Newport – ran aground and we were dry dock in Charlestown for a while. And, just to tell you what kind of a town it was, the sailors were wearing the uniforms off the ship and they would get beaten up everyday, so the requirement was that they had to take them off – they changed it so they could go off in their civvies. So, that was – back in those days sort of how the game, game existed in Charlestown.

So, the story that Dad said is that, um, that she couldn’t – that in Charlestown, you either became a crook – who was telling us yesterday, the story that someone was telling me …

The Brinks job.

Well, actually the guy, the guy that I sat down with at lunch, he said, he had – he actually graduated from Boston College two – he was a Quinlan – he graduated from Boston College two years before I did and he’s retired and he has – was talking to a friend and he said that, he had a friend that was a chief detective with the Boston police and if there was any burglary that occurred in the environs of Suffolk County, he said that they would – the place he would begin to look would Charlestown because the – most of the burglaries, you know, most of the thefts – most of the sort of the clever chess-playing thief try to outsmart you, the people had headquarters in Charlestown. So, Kathleen was really surprised by the people in the Brinks job, uh, were playmates, I think.

People they knew?

Yeah. Matt and Dad.

Do you remember that story, Ed?

Yeah, I think, I think the history of Dad was he, he could  hold his own, he could take care of himself and, therefore, he was friendly and got along because people wouldn’t bother when you can take care of yourself, so you’d have a mix of who your, who your friends were and it’s a tight-knit community and it’s not – it’s big, but it’s not extremely big, so …

We were talking in the last couple days about how when we were growing up that there was a tight-knit community and I’m just thinking now as we’re talking that there was this same sense of, you know, ethnic community in Charlestown when Dad grew up and the idea of the way Matt McGuire eventually got to Washington was through political effort, but that there was, you take of your own.

Across the board.

Across the board.

For all that political service and political support you got rewarded and if you were working and you did something, somebody would look out for you and that wasn’t a bad thing.

And, if you violated the family, you were in trouble.

Right.

It is still the same. Charlestown was Irish and the hard-scrabble hard nosed, all Irish, uh, South Boston, still back then was, was all Irish. East Boston was all Italian and, uh, and I don’t know if Dad – I know for – in our era growing up, we had all those mixes and actually, in those days, we all called one another names, but kind of like them. We were friendly and kind of competitive in some ways, but they were all kinds of names that you wouldn’t use today, but just like using some names inside ethnic communities now, if you’re in it, it doesn’t matter, and if you’re all friends, you kid one another with it. It’s a different world today than it was back then on kidding and calling one another names and stuff. It just was, it was accepted, it wasn’t mean spirited, it was just kind of …

But, you wouldn’t cross that line to …

No, you’d have to know you could share it with one another, but you, you know, you would, you could be the, you know, the “Mick” or the this or that or the other …

The Guinea or the Wop or …

Say, hey, Wop, or hey, Mick, or and no harm no foul, it was more playful than it was mean spirited.

Matt, do you remember anything that Mom and Dad told you about Dad growing up?

I, uh, I remember a fair amount from Aunt Kathleen and she was sort of the social butterfly, if you will, of the family, and she said that, she said that Dad was – that my father, James P. McGuire was very funny. She talked about he used to do impressions of Liberace and, they would get laughing so hard they could barely speak after he did impressions of Liberace. And, I think he did impressions of what would be, I guess, other radio, radio people who would be popular. And, I think it would be Jack Benny and Amos and Andy and Abbott and Costello and he – and I know they had a number of different cats. One of the cats was named Garbo and my aunt would talk about it. Don’t know what the cat looked like – the cat she would talk about – how the cat was so dainty and that’s why they named it Garbo. They seemed to really like – they always had a cat of one kind or another, several over the years and they enjoyed having the pets and being with the cat and I think our Dad was sort of the, for want of a better term, the entertainer of the family. He loved entertaining his own family and he did school minstrel shows when he was a teacher. He was sort of the teacher who would arrange the drama club. And, he had a good voice. He was a good singer. And, really like – so, I think they like music. They liked to – they seemed – if you look at them, I – they – you wouldn’t see them weeping that much or crying that much, but they did like to laugh – they seemed very stoical if you see pictures of my grandmother, Nana. She looked like an American Gothic most of the time, but she was – she had a great sense of humor as did my father and my aunt and they could get laughing together and enjoying things and having a good time and I remember the quality of their voices was very mellow, smooth, very nice indeed. So, that was interesting. And, I remember they had several relatives like an Uncle Mike who lived to – my aunt said he went to church everyday – lived to be in his 90s. I never met Uncle Mike, but they had, I think, relatives in that area. The most amount of information that you would get would be probably be from Kathleen, although you’d get a little bit from – I remember my Grandmother, the stoical one would be very patient with children. She would read to you or play games with you, I mean, not for a half an hour, but hours, two or three or four hours.

They had a different sense of time.

Yeah, a great sense of, you know, just – and she was an interesting person in that she could be extremely patient and caring with her family and yet she had an enormously strong will and she could be very – I remember my Aunt Kathleen wanted to go in town (Boston) one day and she probably was 50 and my Grandmother was 70 and my Grandmother sat her down and pulled the coat off her back and said you’re not going. And, she didn’t go – it was like “wow.” But, most of the time, she was just quiet, and she didn’t like my Aunt’s husband, who was Uncle Bill, who was a good guy, helping me with tutoring and everything else. She would, she’d look in the direction of his room and roll her eyes and she’d say “him” like sort of under her breath. That was interesting.

She did not like Bill?

Oh, no, she couldn’t stand him. Didn’t like him at all. And …

So interesting – she was really – I remember her reading a little bit, but not like spending hours.

Oh, she did, she would read stories to me when I was little. I’d go upstairs, go upstairs with Kathleen and Bill or I’d go and they would always give me breakfast and serve everything. Give me some of those big old pans. And, would always ask you whether you wanted orange juice and we always did. And, the drink was, they drank the Adams Good Ale as Kathleen would say, which was water. But, it wasn’t just water; it was in a glass bottle, like a half-gallon bottle. It was always cool. Really thought it was great.

Nice cold water with …

Good drinking water.

… without ice. To this day, I’d rather have cold water than ice water.

And, I really liked the fact that they made some soft boiled eggs.

They had an egg cup?

Had egg cups to put ‘em in.

Oh, they’d make the most beautiful toast. They’d leave the butter out – yeah, I mean the toast was just, just perfectly toasted. Not too much, not too little, perfectly toasted brown, and then, they would hand-squeeze the orange juice and the orange juice was spectacular.

I’m with Matt on Grandma looking at me with sternness, cause there was a sweetness about her, but it wasn’t in words. She just had steely blue eyes, she would give you “the look” and it was a look like don’t even think about it. You know, the look’s telling you no, so I think Dad had a twinkle and stuff in his eyes and was capable of communicating not just in words, but just with their facial expressions and I think that was very true of Dad and he always had the twinkle and the laugh and you could see something was going on and when you would be in conversation with him, he was talking not only in words, but he was talking with his eyes, too. In fact, Dad’s, Dad’s favorite actor was Spencer Tracy and Spencer Tracy, when they asked him about acting, he said, “it’s all in the eyes” and really there is a lot that people could communicate and share and when you have the gift of being able to do that, you have a connection with people that usually is just deeper than a conversation because you’re drawn into what’s going on visually in their eyes. And, Dad had that and Grandma could do that, but her’s was just mostly “the look” and she had a lot of those looks. If she ever gave you “the look” she might point a finger and, well, no, don’t do that, but it was just “the look” – “the look” was plenty. That was – I think that would, I think that would scare, uh, anybody who had half a brain in their head. She just, just had that look, so …

Do you remember the sacredness of the bathroom upstairs?

Yes.

Kathleen’s?

Yes, yes, you didn’t use that one, unless invited to use it. And, it had the cushions, I think it always had like a cover, like a cloth cover, so, it was a very nice bathroom, but it was – you could ask to use it, but it was off-limits. Definitely off-limits

To young boys in particular. They missed the mark.

Kathleen was generous when we were little kids and the other little kids always liked to go up. She had money hidden everywhere and she’d always be giving you a quarter or a dollar or five dollars or something for this. She loved …

Especially games.

… and she liked playing games, and she was somebody that you could kid and joke with and Lord knows over the years, we boys played plenty of stunts with Kathleen, but I think Kathleen had the wonderful gift that brother Matt has and, uh, I think we can all take a little joke and laugh at it, but some people are really, really good at accepting humor going their way, get the joke of it and laugh about it and there are other people that are great at playing jokes, but don’t like any joke played on them. Kathleen had the gift of being able to, uh, to have little pranks pulled on her and enjoy the fun and the humor, especially if it was really clever and just laugh so hard tears would be rolling out of her eyes. And, she was really, really sweet about that. She was a great, uh – I think she did some secretarial work after she was doing Deputy U.S. Marshall and she was just extremely accurate grammatically and typing, and she was just wonderful, it was like, like having better than spell check in your family, so anytime you had to write anything or do anything, she’d type it up …

… absolutely, and she would, she would have everything accurate. She took great pride in, in her ability to do that, so she was a wonderful resource and I think for all the children growing up because Kathleen was probably about four-eleven, but really feisty. Everybody was kind of waiting ‘til they got to be as tall as Kathleen and hope they were gonna get a little bit taller. So, she was kind of a yardstick for all the, the little kids and especially the, the daughters and grandchildren growing up and they all loved her dearly.

I remember Libby Feeley. She was – Libby Feeley, I believe was her friend?

Libby Feeley was her friend.

Sort of like a Mutt and Jeff kind of combination, cause Libby was tall and I remember her coming into the upstairs floor. There was sort of – there was a – we lived on the first floor and Bill and Kathleen and Nana lived, so you came up a long stairway, so coming into upstairs was more like a grand entry than coming into our house. And, I remember Libby Feeley coming in, she had foxes around her neck – and their fur – and I was amazed by that.

Yeah, fox, fox coats were and mink – she may have even had mink stoles. They all had the full mink, not just the fur. They had the face, yeah, like a stuffed animal.

Kathleen had beaver, right?

No, I don’t – well, maybe, she had a mink.

You’re right.

Yeah. It was, cause it felt different.

Yeah, but I think she also had a rippled mink coat that was lined about two inches wide all the way down, it was very soft, very nice. But, people those days, yes, they did have the minks and fox things and you had the full fox and full mink around your neck.

It looked nice.

Button eyes, small buttons and they were, uh, always wearing a hat because everybody wore a hat …

Right.

… in those days. And, a little bit of the mesh showing that went with the hat and, normally, gloves. I would say Libby was, uh – my impression of how she would dress would be like seeing some grand dame of the theater in a play dressed like that. She was always dressed.

She had made an entrance is what she did.

Yes, yes.

And, that – going upstairs was really like going to another world. And, I remember how …

It was being a guest in the nicest bed and breakfast place you could go to where the people – the family was just bending over backwards to make you happy, so it was, it was nice, but it was – with four of us and things being busy, you know, we sat – we always ate together, but there everything was served. You sat down, you were asked what you wanted, how do you like your toast? Do you want it light, you want it brown, dark? You want it – and, uh, nice, nice butter always in a dish, you cut it out – nice and cold, so that was like being a little kid being out somewhere and you get to order what you want, which, uh …

I didn’t feel – I felt – I felt it was formal and that was really lovely, but I felt like – there was a blue chair that Bill sat in …

Right.

… and no one else sat in.

Correct.

And, there were these plastic covers on …

Yeah, that was the dining room and Uncle Matt sat in the chair when he visited and nobody else ever sat in the chair even though he wasn’t there.

Right.

Nobody sat in his chair.

Yeah, the dining room and the front entry area would’ve been their living room and they had a front door with a porch area, another kind of like a study room, those were, were extremely formal. The kitchen – it was a candy apply red Formica-type of table with, uh, the “pleather-leather” chair seat covers, which are really, really comfortable and it wasn’t all that big, so generally when we were having breakfast, they had already eaten. We just asked if we could go upstairs, you know, call or just go up and you’d have everything – everything was done for you. They’d visit with you, but you really were like, like a guest at a bed and breakfast or you were out at a restaurant and that – I think, not only were you welcome, but you just kind of had a feeling of, uh, being served a little bit.

You’re – so I was always figuring how I could get to the other rooms. But, I thought the kitchen was the warmest room in the house, but, uh – and then there was a piano room, which I thought, again, was a sort of a, uh – it was sort of like at Christmas time, there would be – Kathleen played one piece of music. Mom played one piece of music. Dad could play any kind of music cause he played by ear.

But, Dad wouldn’t playing the piano, was he? Dad played the …

He played the piano.

I can’t – that’s funny I don’t ever recall seeing Dad – the clarinet, he played.

He could sit down and pick out on the piano a song – you’d sing it to him, he’d play it back.

I don’t remember. I remember Freddie Hoyer (our cousin) could do that.

Dad could do it, too.

I don’t recall.

Even with a bum ear. Or, else my memory fails me and I just have …

Well, we, we could ask – I – well, maybe I was gone.

And, Mom played Fleur De Lis.

Yes.

That’s the one piece of music she learned how to play.

Well, I don’t know, she had that one with – it was that one with the high pitch on the high keys, when you had to – even with arthritic keys she could hit the – it was complicated at the top of the musical piece and, uh, Kathleen could play. She preferred to read the music and we knew Matt played the violin. I think he did, but I don’t think he was playing anymore. And, clearly, cause I don’t remember that part, I do remember this part – I do remember from looking at year books, Dad did play the clarinet when he was at Boston College. He had a band, it’s in his yearbook. He played kind of like, whatever, Benny Goodman-type of band when he was in college. He could flat-out dance and he was a great Irish tenor. So …

Well, I had Dad’s clarinet, but I never was able to have particular skill at any instrument.

Well, I don’t think Dad was – by the time we were rolling around, I don’t think Dad was playing his clarinet anymore and I guess you need to get the reed and get your breathing and all that down, you probably have to stick with it, but I remember …

He played – I must have been in the – what were you in the second grade?

How old was I in the second grade?

Eight, seven years old?

Yes.

Is that about right? Sister Mary John and a lot of others, I mean, they took me through and I had Dad’s clarinet – a black clarinet – and I learned how to play the reed, but I just have no, uh, musical skills – musical instrument skills. I went through – or else I’m not pretty patient enough to learn anything.

I think it was probably no interest, just like little kids, if they’re forced to play the piano and maybe later on in their life they’re happy with it. But, I remember when we were little kids, we were playing baseball – we wanted to be outside. It wasn’t that maybe musical instrument might not be fun to learn, but if we had to learn a musical instrument that was like a punishment.

I can taste – I can taste the reed in my mouth right now. There was certain little …

Yeah, unfortunately with a clarinet and trying it, I don’t think I took lessons, I think we all tried when you put the reed in and tried to play and we – all I can remember is always sounding like the Phantom of the Opera when the woman is cursed and the opera singer can only get a squawk coming out of her voice. And, that’s all I remember is the squawk when I was playing it.

The thing I remember about Dad, growing up, knowing how to play an instrument, uh, he loved boxing. He actually liked sports, I think, in general.

Loved them.

And, listening to the Gillette fights.

Every Friday night. And, he loved the middle weights. His favorite was, uh …

Sugar Ray?

Sugar Ray. He loved, uh, uh, he loved Kid Gavilan with his bolo punch. He liked the boxers, uh, he didn’t like the, the brawlers so much. Well, he liked Rocky Marciano..

He liked Johnny Most.

Uh, true, true. Johnny was, Johnny was probably the best radio announcer. It may be true of that time when kids were growing up. We all had nicknames. For us, we could be the McGuires, they could be Easy Ed or Jimmie’d have a name. He’d be Blaze or he’d be Mickey, or something. They had a half a dozen names, maybe Moose this, so it was lots of nicknames and Johnny Most would do the Celtics, every, every Celtics player had a name, uh, Jim Luskatoff.

Yeah, it was Jungle Jim, uh, Sanders was a great player, he was Satch Sanders, uh, Ed McCauley was Easy Ed McCauley. Bill Sharman was Battlin’ Bill Sharman. Frank Ramsey was The Kentucky Colonel. So, when you listened on the radio, it was more fun to listen to Johnny Most with his gravelly voice doing all his names and calling on the radio all these swishes. Until we got a chance to watch TV that we saw that maybe the swish bounced four times before it dropped through.

SWISH.

But, he loved to say swish.

He saw it with his eyes. And, put his eyes into his voice in a way that …

We used to turn off the TV announcer and listen to him on the radio.

Yeah, I think he was the most entertaining sports announcer I’ve ever heard. I loved the names. And, I loved the characters. And, Dad, Dad did – a special memory for me – Jimmie and I used to shovel snow and I’d go out in the winters – you could get a lot of money and Dad was such a fan and I, I saved all the money. I bought tickets for the Celtics, I – for Dad and for me. I don’t know where everybody else was, but it was just a game Dad and I went to. It was early time of the Celtics because Andy Johnson was the leading scorer in the NBA at about 29 points and Bob Cousey, Bill Sharman, Arnie Riesen still played for the team and the best tickets I could get was right behind the opposing team’s bench and Bill Russell was just up with K.C. Jones from the San Francisco Dons and, I think, for me – and we can talk about everybody else – the best player I’ve ever seen is Bill Russell, because he was a winner and he would guarantee winners and Dad and I sat behind the bench and watched Andy Johnson, who was averaging 29 points, only score six points against the Celtics and be on the bench in the 3rd quarter and end it. And, we watched Bill Russell chase people down and not even be near them, but they thought he was coming and they would blow lay-ups. It was just magical back in those days and I remember trying to get autographs, uh, and this is a thing for the kids – I knew all about K.C. and Bill Russell from Catholic grammar school because you got treasure chests and always had stories about Catholic schools in San Francisco Dons where K.C. and Bill Russell played. So, I knew all about ‘em before they came to the Celtics and Dad and I had a great time and Dad was helping me earlier in the game – we were trying to get autographs and we got autographs from most of the players. I think Jungle Jim was really the most friendly of all of them. They were all pretty good, and Bill Russell, just a handshake, he wouldn’t sign an autograph and, I think, as a little kid you’re a little bit disappointed, but I know he signs ‘em now, but back in that day, he – later on he explained in an article that he didn’t think any man’s signature meant much and a handshake was fine. He just didn’t believe in autographs and that’s why he didn’t sign …

Anybody’s commercial value …

Well, because people attached too much importance to ‘em. So, well, I didn’t know that at the time, I asked later on and I understood it and then I was like a little kid – like it deflated your hero, you can’t get as – you can’t get the autograph, but then later on I understood his reasoning, which I didn’t at the moment and I didn’t stop liking him – I understood it. But, that was, that was just, uh, a great moment for me with Dad.

Sounds like a great moment.

Because he loved it so much and we were right on the floor. We right by the bench, we could see the emotions of the players. You could see the pass and everything, you could see how dejected the leading scorer in the NBA was trying, trying to play a game with Russell defending him, so …

Nice of you to do, too.

Yeah.

I remember shoveling snow, you could, you could make money. You could make more money than you thought. I mean caddying was – that was like the first money I made …

Unless you were part of the union and been there for ten years then you …

Oh, yeah, if you were – you’d go up there and you’d play – maybe in a job – the bag’s were heavy and the people were snotty …

Cheap.

And, cheap.

I can remember being – it was like Caddyshack, the movie. You were up caddying. I was the young – Jimmie and I were caddies, I carried – I was looking for the money. I remember caddying for a guy, he couldn’t, he couldn’t hit near any fairway. Knock it nine miles into the woods and I would have to go looking in the woods, trying to find every golf ball he hit and, if you were an eagle flying above the terrain, you couldn’t figure out where his ball went. He was like where’s my golf ball?

You could go and sit on the bench up there for …

Hours.

Hours and hours. And, not get out (get a job caddying called “getting out”).

And,  not get out, and then …

There was one guy, he was a doctor. He had a about a 75 or 100 lb. bag, just like in Caddyshack. They guy was cheap as could be. You’d carry [name]’s you’d at least get a quarter or 50 cents if you take somebody around. The most this guy would give – it was a punishment – he’d give you a dime. And, uh, if you could walk after you carried his – like carrying a container – truck container around for the whole course, but he did pull off one of the funny – one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen and a guy on the 17th hole, you were caddying, you were trying to give him a club, you give him a sand wedge. He took – he said, no, and he got mad, he says, give me the putter. I have a sand wedge, I’m still holding it and he says give me the putter. And, it was a deep trap and it was all the way up and somehow he cut that putter, it came out rolled up smooth enough, got up on the green and it’s about three feet away from the pin. I, I – still to this day, I can’t figure out how he ever got it out of the trap. It was lipped that high. Yeah. So, but, he was, uh, he was unpleasant. He had a big bag and gave no tips.

I remember when I got duffle bags. That was worse.

Duffles were tough. But, that was when you were making money if you could carry a double loop and if you could get there early in the morning, you could go out twice, but you’re – you’re right, caddying wasn’t good money, snow time was good and, if you were in the union and the union for us was, we were right next to the church and the guy who was the manager or the caretaker for the grounds was a neighbor and we were altar boys there, so we were in the union as snow shovelers. So, that was the first job, you started there. And, the pay was – the pay was pretty good. So, Jimmie and I and then maybe Matt later, we’d shovel there first and then we’d start hitting the neighborhood.

We used to shovel for the Parrys, I know I used to get a huge – I did it by myself after you – it was like I got the job handed down and, uh, it was, uh, I’m thinking it would be something like twelve or fifteen dollars.

They gave a lot of money. They were our biggest – they were Jim and I’s biggest customer.

And, for fifteen dollars at that time …

Lot of money.

… you could buy four record albums.

Yeah, a lot of money.

At the time, they were about three dollars (for a record album). I don’t know what …

They were also really nice people. Those Parrys.

Oh, he was a great guy and the wife was nice, they would always offer us a little drink and Jimmie and I – I mean, we felt bad, but we took the money, we had one 12-inch snow storm and we shoveled the whole thing out, the two of us, and it was good working together and like I was saying they were the ones that, uh, paid the best. And Charlie Mahan, another street over, we’d do his stuff and he was really good. We had maybe like four or five regular, regular customers, but he was the best paying. But, anyway, we had the 12-inch storm and then like another day later, we had a 16-inch storm, so we got to shovel it twice and I think we made about, uh, 30 plus dollars, which was a lotta money, a lotta money.

For a kid in high school that was a lotta money.

We weren’t even in high school, I think we were in St. Joseph’s when we started with the Parrys. So, yeah, that was, that was nice.

I remember the snow as being “It’s A Wonderful Life” snow. Tall, fluffy …

Yeah, snow that we don’t have. We had an igloo in the backyard that was three and half, four feet high. And, we did get a lotta storms and, uh, I think we had one storm that was significant enough when we were there that school was out for about four days. It was really a powerful – and that’s an area where people are used to storms and it was that big of a storm that it just knocked everything out, so we were thrilled as kids not to be going to school, uh, I didn’t realize from Mom and Dad cause they didn’t express it, but when I met young teachers or people who were teaching later on in life, I didn’t realize the teachers were happier than the students were that there was no school. I just didn’t get that, I thought, oh, they must be disappointed. They were probably doing cartwheels, there was no school. Yeah, that’s good, I think Jimmie and I – there’s probably one time we didn’t run the line – we tried to get one job and the guy was ancient for us – he was in his 50s – that probably doesn’t seem that old, well, now, but he didn’t like our price, I think our posing the mark was all right, it was his heart attack, so we’d be glad got to shovel it for him. But, we didn’t get the job. But, that was nice, you kind of, kind of – kind of worked for everything.

Did you go to Saint Joseph’s all the way through?

Me? No, Matt did.

I started at Mount Trinity.

You did?

And, I went I believe …

Yeah, that’s right, you …

… kindergarten and first grade and I started at Saint Joseph’s the second. My teacher was Sister Leticia Ann who I did not like. And, I pulled her again for fourth grade, bad luck. The teacher I got in fourth grade, so I didn’t like her either time.

Yeah, well, I think I had Sister Georgiana.

No, I sorry, Sister Leticia Ann was my first grade teacher and I liked her.

She was nice.

It was Sister Ellamark.

Yes, Ellamark.

She was not very likeable.

Sister Leticia Ann, I had for my first grade …

We’re getting closer to Boston now.

Okay, let’s continue this conversation later. [end of side A tape 2]

There’s Ho Chi Min tower. When I was traveling up from Newport one time, my father-in-law, Francis Noone (“Hink”) said look at the tower, it has all those different things on it and, I don’t know why I hate it, but do you seen anything on that tower, it’s got a purple painting, green, blue and red, and I looked at it real quick and said Ho Chi Min. He looked and that’s what it was. But, I didn’t know at the time.

Ho Chi Min in the blue?

Yeah, it’s his face.

Uh, huh. It’s down to his – you see his beard, his eyes, his nose.

That’s the intent?

That was the intended. It’s very distinct. It wasn’t accidental. It’s interesting, it’s one of those things, you look at it, sometimes you can see something. I always want first look, I didn’t have any particular …

What was he like, I mean, I just knew him as the card playing guy who really tried to kick my ass all the time.

Well, the card playing was really tough, he was probably one of the most generous people – of all the pets we had, Laddie and just other things, he just always brought, brought by. He was, uh, tough guy, he was a very conservative guy, he was very – could be extremely, he was about five-seven, but sort of like a Tellie Savalas and he was a strong guy. He was one of five Irish, Irish brothers and he was on the tail-end and you never pick on the tail-end of an Irish family, so I’d say he was a tough guy. He was a state trooper, he rode motorcycles with a friend of his that, uh, they did all kinds of stunts. He had a couple incidents where – one where he came upon somebody on a porch with a shotgun. It was a very difficult situation and trying to figure out how to disarm him and, “Hink” tossed his hat to him and the guy went to catch it, just reflexively, and that was the end of the situation. And, I can see him having the guts to do that. He was a detective. He could get in anywhere and he would crash, he was like the great pretender of crash. He’d invite you to go to games. If sporting events happened, there were tickets. If it was a football game, he’d throw a towel on his neck – around his neck and walk in where the team was going like he was a trainer. So, he could get into anyplace, anywhere, but he would give you the shirt off his back. If you broke down and you were three hours away, he’d come out in the middle of the night and, and help you – help you out, uh, so the, the kindness part – he was tough on the cards, but the kindness part that he had and the giving of himself, I found that there’s very people who would go to the lengths he would do to help you out with a situation. But, he was a very intense guy. He really, really, really intense.

So, was he just a state trooper, that’s the only job he had?

No, he was a private investigator and a very good one. He got award – he got an award from France and Kodak had a big case that they couldn’t solve and he got his way into it. When we were little kids, he took us to Pleasure Island or something on a grand opening. We all walked in and I think he kind of like crashed in, so he was a character and he was an intense card player and for little kids, he could probably be overpowering for a man, it was a little bit, a little bit different, but I don’t know of a kinder, more generous, a more generous heart helping you out and as I say, he was, he was – I don’t think he was afraid of anything. So, that was, there was a dichotomy in his personality. Like I say, for us, he gave us most of our pets. If you needed a car, he would give you his car to, to loan. I think Jimmie had his DKW, they had a great Gran Prix, you needed a car, you’d just see Uncle Hink. And, we had relatives and friends that were so close that it was Uncle Hink, even though we weren’t related.

Well, I’m now sure however that happened, but, you know, Mom and Ruth were best friends.

They were, the end of the best friendship had to do something with the wedding (Ed and Candy McGuire’s wedding), which was for Candy and I and Romeo and Juliet had really horrible aftereffects, wedding dialect and didn’t know anything was wrong and afterwards, the world had blown up and I didn’t know where or how or why, but everything changed.

It’s just been awful for Candy, too, yeah?

Well, it was growing up just, just separation of, uh, families and separation of trying to connect and you sort of have to do everything, on, on your own. It’s okay, go see this person, go see that, but not including that part of your life, so that was really, really tough. And, I guess, on my end, everybody figured – thinking somehow I could sort it out and solve it and I couldn’t, so everybody was a little big angry on why you couldn’t figure it out. And, not completely, but for a long period of time, I felt quite alone on that, you know, that both sides were angry about stuff and couldn’t make either side pleased.

Did you ever figure out what happened? I knew never that.

I think they were – there was some kind of – the wedding – I think there was some dispute, the wedding reception was at Anthony’s Restaurant in Boston; therefore, it was really nice and there was some fuss over something connected with weddings that neither I nor Candy knew about.

I think the reception – it was at the reception, is what I heard.

Yeah, something.

And, uh, I think on – at the reception – afterwards. Mom didn’t want to have to have it at her house because our dad had a heart attack.

You can understand that?

Well, there was supposed to be a reception after the reception, an afterglow – well, this is sort of second-hand and that, uh, Ruth thought that Mom wanted Mom to have it and I think sort of thought Mom should have it as an obligation, you know, helping out on the – and, uh, Mom didn’t want to  have it either because of the money or she thought that they were …

 

[Tape 2 copied from CD 2 ended here.]

 

[Transcribed by Karen M. Rayman, October 2012]

 

[Revised by Karen M. Rayman, December 2012]