Carolyn Campbell (Kay)

Kevin, You remind me how important childhood friendships and community are. Maryann Sedegran was my next door neighbor. When we were the age for childhood diseases, we got ‘em. Probably from each other. We rigged a string between our bedrooms and passed notes in a soup can. It entertained us for days. Fast forward 60 years to last week.  We spent more than an hour on the phone talking kids, grandkids and old age gripes and ... just everything. She’s still in the Duxbury Plymouth area and I’m in Sacramento California yet the lifelong bond is still there. Growing up, my home was less than ideal,  but my Needham friends and community were stellar. I’m grateful I got to grow up there

Patricia Rossi (Campion)

It’s a different world today. As you know, I was at Pebble Beach yesterday with my favorite golfer, my son Kevin. I have lots of Kevins in my life:  you, my son, and a brother in law that I thankfully very rarely talk to or talk about. It does get confusing. Anyway, we were there. Getting there was not remotely like being dropped off at the front gate. Pebble Beach is about 90 minutes from Kevin’s house and driving on Monterey peninsula is reminiscent of driving on rte 6 on the Cape; a highway bordered by sand and scrub pines. We arrived at 8:30 am, along with hoards of other early arrivals, at a local college campus 13 miles north of the course and boarded a line of busses for the trip to Pebble Beach. 

When we were discharged from the busses, we walked a long way down hill to the course and the first hole. It didn’t seem like a long way or down hill on the way to the course, but the return walk after all day and 18,000 steps seemed like climbing Everest. I was loathe to admit that I was struggling and said only once that I’d have to rest a moment before the next set of steps. Stubborn to the end! 

The course is gorgeous, manicured and lush. The setting, though, is the star of the show. It’s breathtaking. I’ll attach a shot of a golfer climbing down a cliff to consider whether to hit out of the hazard.  And it truly was a hazard. I wondered whether we’d hear a splash and he’d have to be rescued. 

So we walked the course and got up close to the golfers by staking out a spot right next to ropes on the 11th tee and waiting for the leaders to play through. They are truly amazing. Not only do they appear to be playing a different game, they appear to belong to a different species! And they’re bigger than they look on TV. In addition to the rumored 10 lbs that TV adds, I think it subtracts 3 or 4 inches. And no one was smoking. 

Your comment about the butts on the fairway reminded me that my husband, Jim, who was a good golfer, would throw his cigarette on the ground while he hit and then pick it up and continue smoking it. He also used his tongue in lieu of a ball washer when one wasn’t available.  I wonder whether his dementia may have been the result not only of alcohol, but also pesticides. Unknowable. 

Anyway, the day was wonderful, not only the golf but spending all day with my son, just the two of us. When we were ready to leave, though, there was no one waiting to give us a ride home. Eddie’s dad’s Cadillac, BTW, was used to give me a driving lesson back in the day when I was always the youngest and didn’t yet have my license. I was terrified that I’d damage it!  After we got off the bus back at the parking lot, the traffic backup was epic, but we eventually got home and I remembered again that it was Father’s Day. I wish you had known my Dad.  The two of you would have gotten along famously. 

Kevin Tracey

For all of you that moved away from winter

The Low Winter Sky
I'm a winter person, there's something about the going out and the coming in from the cold that has a hold on me, takes me back.
We were made of wool back then, well, except for the long underwear. Everything else was wool-socks, pants, sweaters, scarves, coats, hats, mittens. The snow and the cold still seeped in. Cheeks raw, lips chapped, nose running, fingers numb. We'd stay out until dark, that low winter sky signaling it was time to go in. Trapped just inside the door until hat, coat, mittens and galoshes were taken off. The heat of the house hurting our faces and hands. In from the cold, wiping our noses on our sleeves, lining up for hot spiced cider or hot chocolate.
I miss it.


 

Russell Provost

Not all of us moved south. I moved north, live in a log home heated with just wood

I  still go hiking and snow shoeing  2-3 hours every single day.  I guess I never grew up.   

Linda Gudas (Sayler)

Kevin,

Remember waking up on snowy school mornings, hoping Don Kent would announce "No school in Needham?"  And listening for the fire alarm to blare rhythmically- beginning sometime before dawn- to confirm we could stay in bed?  Later, the neighborhood kids and I would bundle up and make a snowman (now, politically correct, a snowperson.) The day after a storm, I recall walking home from Stephen Palmer with my girlfriends, petrified that "the boys" would suddenly appear from behind a tree or snow fort, with snowballs hurling. (In retrospect, that was a bit of prepubertal flirting.)  My parents warned me to never look up at a hanging icicle. Oh, and DO NOT eat yellow snow....

Yes, New England winters are compelling.  We have lived full time on the Cape for 6 years now.  There is something exquisitely beautiful and peaceful about the ocean this time of year - frost-tipped beaches, icy white capped waves, birds huddled together in same-species conventions on the bay.

However, we have succumbed to a few weeks in warm weather come mid-winter.  We will never be snowbirds, but a break is nice.  Sunny golf courses and heated swimming pools have a strong graitational pull when the wind chill factor here is 10 degrees.

I will think of you from the south in February, as I walk the beach barefoot, looking for seaglass.  Wishing you a bunch of no -school snow days....

Linda

Charles Charlton

Your postings really bring back memories. Snow days were the best. Building snow forts with seemingly daily snow ball fights. I have often thought that we had more snow in the mid to late 50's In NE than they have today. No proof - just a feeling. I remember on no school days getting up early to help my father shovel out the car so he could go to work. However walking to school on the road because the side walks were snow covered are not great memories. I will always fondly remember no school snow days because they were fun. Nancy and I have lived in FL for the past 21 years so snow and winter weather are and will remain distant memories for us.

Jeffrey Feeley

I don't believe any of Kevin's musings are contemporary. No one has that good a memory!

I beleive he kept a very unmanly diary and periodically riffs through it, selects a passage and sends it out to his legion of followers to make us all feel like we have early, or maybe mid, stage dementia! 

There, Kev. You've been exxposed! Fess up!

Jeff

I've been blessed/cursed to receive Kevin's "musings' for 10 or more years. He really does have a superior writing talent.

Richard d'Entremont

Kevin is our Charles Kuralt. On the memory road with Kevin

Gunnard Johnston

Winter.   Snow days. A great money-making opportunity!    Back when I was around nine and ten years old,  I loved the chance to go and shovel snow to make a few bucks in the neighborhood.    
Then, there was the ice!   Always looked forward to winter for the freezing of Rosemary Lake, the Reservoir and any places where skating could be done.   Having learned to skate on the Charles River down by the border with Newton Upper Falls, I was hooked on hockey and eagerly awaited for the frozen waterways around town.
Now, as to Tracey's memory trove, I think Feeley may have nailed it:   Kevin has been keeping secret journal so he can pull out pages when the mood strikes.

Class Administrator

I am sad to report the death of Walter Kochanek.  RIP.

Thank you to Les McKechnie for letting us know.

https://www.eatonfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Walter-KochanekJr

Sandra Hartshorn (Hicks '68)

Kevin Tracey

November
When I was a boy I loved November. 
My birthday fell in November, presents, chocolate cake with butter cream frosting
November, ice forming on the ponds, hockey on the horizon. 
November, Thanksgiving with the Needham-Wellesley game followed by the best dinner of the year. 
November, the Bruins and Celtics games on the radio
November, the Sears Christmas Catalogue to pour over. 
November, when I got my drivers license
November, listening to Lenny Welch on the radio before my first real date
November, raking and burning the last of the fallen leaves. 
November, I loved as a boy
 

Gary Campagna

Kevin, Well said!

Carolyn Campbell (Kay)

Kevin

Thanks for the Needham memories. I got to visit Needham and see the house I grew up in the September. We were all lucky to grow up in Needham weren't we.

David Drake

Hi Kevin,

I always enjoy reading your well written messages!

I hope you have a Happy Birthday and a Happy Thanksgiving later during this month of November!

Dave

Deborah Davis (Sturgis)

 Kevin,

Thank you for the memories.. For many years, my extended  family gathered  for Thanksgiving after freezing at the Needham vs Wellesley football game.  I  recall the excitement over my siblings and friends returning from college for the holiday.  Of course this was leaf raking season.   No lawn companies came and hauled out leaves away.  My father commanded our childish labor and we raked the leaves into huge piles by the side of  the road.   At dusk we lighted them and watchied them burn.  I still recall the the pungent smell of those leaves burning. and the excitement of being out after dark with my father.   I think we were fortunate to have these simple pleasures in our lives and to live in a community that offered such a sense of belonging.  

Gunnard Johnston

Ah, yes, November!   The great transition time, when leaves rapidly meld from brilliant gold and radiant red to burnished leather!   I would only add one memory:  on the football team getting ready for the Needham-Wellesley game wearing the same uniform and undergarments as when we started in the sweltering early September.   Needless to say, the warmth provided was not adequate in those relatively minimalist underclothes, as I witnessed the upper classmen adorned in waffle-textured long johns and gloves, launching me into a fit of envy!       Ah, the ignorance of youth.

Linda Gudas (Sayler)

Thyanks, Kevin.  Your posts down memory lane are always fun to read.!

Howie Appel

Reading all these posts do remind me of NHS buddies.  Kevin, I've been reading your posts too.  I miss New England for the fall.  I do not miss the snow.  I live outside of Orlando, Florida (yes, 45 minutes from WDW).  Far enough away from the tourists yet close enough to pretend I'm one from time to time.  Keep these posts coming.  Hoping to return next Fall to Needham area again.  Meanwhile, to all my classmates, Happy Thanksgiving. 

Kevin Tracey

Learning To Fly
Here in the frozen north we had 4-6” of fresh snow on the ground until rain and warm weather hit overnight. Next morning the snow was gone. All that was left was maybe 2” of ice covering the tennis courts where I live. I walked out on the court, carefully, and thought about skating, thought about learning to fly. The progression from the strap on quad runners, to double runners and finally real skates. Days spent at Rosemary Lake, hours at Tabor Rink. As for flying, two memories stand out. First, if it was windy enough and the wind was at your back, arms out the wind would take you across Rosemary.  Second, when kids would form a whip at Rosemary or those Friday night open skates at Tabor. If you were lucky enough to catch the end of the whip, you’d just hold on and fly, fly till the whip broke and the skaters went cascading around Rosemary or into the boards at Tabor. 
I’m sure that whips have been banned, that skating at Rosemary is now restricted to “safe” areas. No kid learns to fly now. 
We did. 

Paul King, MD (King)

Just a delayed thank you to Representative DeFazio for his many years of service.

Peter DeFazio

Thanks Paul!  36 Years - 65th longest House service in our history. I got my major objectives done within my Committee jurisdiction and it seemed like a good time. 

Now I will be able to slow down and post - Thanks Kevin f;or your reminiscences. Peter

John Halbrooks

Peter,

Let me add my congratulations for your long and dedicated service to our country. I've followed your work in the NYT and often wondered at the experience it must have been to serve in Congress during these tumultuous years. A memoir? Look forward to seeing you again at a post-Covid reunion.

Enjoy retirement. 

John

Jane Weihe

Thank you, Peter, for being such a strong progressive voice in Congress all these years. You will be missed there!

Peter DeFazio

Jane and john:  Thanks for your kind words about my service. My District was greatly improved in redistricting from a Republican plus 2 to a democratic plus 4 so another Dem can hold the seat and there is a great experienced candidate who I will support. Peter