Month: February 2023

I must have been around 19 or 20 at the time. So young now looking back. It could have all ended right there and then. I’m glad it did not, of course. I would have missed out on some of the best experiences and meetings of my life. So much would lay ahead of me that I was completely unaware of. Anyway, back to the moment at hand. The moment where I learned that life passing before someone’s eyes is a real thing. I know because I experienced it firsthand.

It started out as any other typical day I believe, as far as I can remember. It’s been quite a while. I was being given a ride to school in Boston. My grandfather had decided to offer me a lift since I might have been running a little late that day. It was a day I would become intimately familiar with a street named Huntington Avenue. I had taken the subway a bunch of times, but truth be told, I didn’t like it. The particular times of my schedule back then meant that I needed to ride it during the busiest times, the rush hours. It was hard to ever get a seat, and when I did I learned that I could not sit in a backwards facing one because it would tend to make me dizzy, get motion sickness, maybe a touch of vertigo. I still suffer from that to this day.

We were travelling down Huntington heading to the Ruggles stop, which is where my school was. However the way that street is set up, they have the trolley in the middle of the road so to cross over to the other side from where we were would require crossing over the train tracks at various gaps along the route.

I could see the Green line trolley in the distance, just what seemed like a little blob against the blue sky. I recall it being a clear spring day, no rain or snow or maybe even cold, although I can’t remember that last point truthfully. At that moment my grandfather decided he didn’t want to wait for the train and figured he could beat it. I’m not sure back then if they had gates that would block traffic from the trains when they passed by, but I don’t think they had those then, although thinking back now how could they not?

He swerved to “bang-a-Uey” as we say in the Boston vernacular and started the cross the tracks. Since he was turning left and I was on the passenger side I had quite the view. I happened to look out the window and there as plain as day was the trolley barreling down at us. At me. What was a moment ago just a green blip was now as large as a house and what seemed only feet from my face. The front of the trolley taking up my entire view. What chance would a little scrawny 130 pound boy, really, have against that behemoth of steel mechanisms and iron wheels. None. The only thing protecting me, if you could call it that, would be the door to my grandfather’s white Chrysler K-Car.

The moment. It seems like it was a lot longer that it was but scientifically it could not have been. As I saw the two headlights of the train coming toward me, and I stared at it like a deer caught by surprise in stunned silence , it happened. What little of my life I had experienced by then literally did flash before my eyes. It’s funny what pops up. Sure there were images of my family, of unscrewing the bars from my younger sister’s crib so she could crawl out over the frustration of my mom trying to keep her in, of trying to stay up on Christmas Eve to catch a glimpse of Santa but my eyes got to heavy and I never made it, of my grandmother teaching me how to skip in her kitchen because for some reason I had a hard time grasping the concept at first. But also some experiences you wouldn’t think of, like me riding my big wheel in the back yard, and eating pizza at the local Papa Gino’s. Maybe that was just me.

My grandfather cleared the tracks as the train honked away, but he kept going, now in the other direction toward the school. The day could now resume as it would normally play out. I’m not sure if I yelled at him for that moment. Probably not, just too stunned or scared or just pleased to be so lucky to able to grab another breath of air. To think of all that might not have been if things played out differently. It made a memory in me that I never forgot, so there’s that.

Actually recalling this story now makes me think of another close call I had when I was even younger, probably around 11 or 12 or so, when me and a buddy who grew up on Murdoch Street would ride our bikes around town. One day we barreled out of a side street and I didn’t see the car that was coming down the road. Somehow or other I lifted my Team Murray bicycle off the air, and literally bounced off the guy’s front bumper. It was a Volkswagen Beetle if I remember, a blue one at that. Must have gave ourselves and the driver a scare of a lifetime. I’m not sure how the hell I didn’t lose my balance or toppled over but I landed on the two bike wheels just fine. I just kept peddling away as fast as I could from the scene. Not really sure how I escaped that one. If there is such a thing as a Guardian angel mine was there that day. And on spring day along Huntington Avenue.

I seldom often pass by that region these days. When LD and I do occasionally pass there, I mention to her the place where my life, as I knew it at that time, almost came to an possible end, thankful that it never came to that.

When I was little and going to school, I was what you would call tiny. I was shorter than all the other kids and that sometimes made me the scapegoat of their jokes and teasing. I can remember in kindergarten, there was this kid, Basil was his name, and he would always push me up against the fence and cause me grief. At first I complained to my mom and not my teachers, because that’s not what you do (at least back in those times you didn’t), plus I was super shy and unassertive in myself. Eventually, though I’m not sure how, I figured out that maybe cracking a joke, or being self-deprecating, seemed to lessen the blows. It’s then I figured out, at that early age, that humor could be a useful tool to me.

Around that time the town had decided to close to school that I was going to and so I had to go to another school, a little further away but not really and that’s where I met Keith. Keith was another bully. I didn’t know why then that they focused on me. Now I now it’s probably because they felt powerless in their own homes and such but back when I was in first grade I had no concept of that. I just knew that they were really being a pain. Keith was more malicious than Basil and my humor didn’t really seem to work on him all that much. I lucked out in this case due to another kid in class, who I remember was into the Boy Scouts, his name was Chris, and he stood up for me – when no one else in class did. In fact, he took it upon himself to sort of be my bodyguard. I’m not sure why he did this, but was glad he did. I learned later that he had an older brother who was special needs so maybe that played into it. I sometimes wonder what happened to Chris. He was always looking out for me, even up through high school. I tried looking for him a while back but came up empty. I had heard he had fallen on some hard times though so I hope he came through alright. I would easily return the favor if I could.

Speaking of high school, it was more of the same, although by this time I pretty much had my routine down, and there were other nerdier kids than me that were easier targets. Again, there was this one kid on the first day of probably being a freshmen that would give me a hard time. Actually made me move to a different table than the one I had originally chosen, but I ended up hanging out with kids that were more in my clique eventually and it was all good. I don’t remember that particular kids name but I do recall he had been held back more than once. Sort of like he’d been in High School for seven years already (I’m exaggerating, but it probably was something like that). Looking back now, I feel pity for the kid – probably had a rough time of it all. But like I said, back then, you had to look out for yourself. Some of the kids in my clique had come to call me “Cookies” because they thought I was so small that when I went to the counter to get a cookie, the lady would have to reach across the front of the counter and look down to see what was going on down there (me). Of course, this was a gross exaggeration – I could reach the counter just fine, but I learned to roll with it and just laugh it off. I’m not sure if I found it hurtful at the time. It was more of a playful teasing than a biting remark, but those things do stick with you. Thankfully I think I’ve learned to look past those events, although who knows, maybe deep down there’s still some insecurities. We all have them, right?

I hear it’s not like that there nowadays. I even learned when I visited the old stomping grounds a while back as they were knocking down the old place to build a new state-of-the-art school, that they have a mediation room, where if two kids have a problem with each other, they go to this room, with an arbiter or some such, and work out the problem! Come a long way since fist fighting after school in the parking lot. I mean, I can even remember a teacher being beat up outside after class in the parking lot. Those were the days. Luckily I never got into any of those altercations. I suppose nowadays its all about cyber-bullying which I thankfully never had to experience. I had learned to keep my nose clean and use humor to get me out of scrapes. Now I’m not saying I was a laugh a minute comedian, or class clown, but I had used self-deprecating humor enough to know how to navigate through life at that time. I’m proud of myself that that little 5 year old kid that I was had learned and used that lesson