The Alewife

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

False alarms in the land of the Panthers

My daughter Katherine told me her school day was disrupted by a false fire alarm going off at her high school.  The very thought of it brought me back to my old high school days.

My junior year, we had such a crazy rash of alarms it reached three and four per day as we approached the end of the school year.

This was not a small problem because union rules meant that every time a firefighter responds to an alarm he gets triple pay, every alarm cost the town an extra $1,500 each time--and that was in 1982 money!  We are talking about Reagan/Volker dollars.

One day we had six alarms and the principal went ballistic.  He had the president of the senior class go on the PA to plead, "Come on guys.  Please, please stop."

I will always remember listening to this young man's voice crack into a crying whine as he explained that if there was one more false alarm the principal would cancel that night's annual Seniors' Bonfire.

Neil W. McCabe

The wood pallets had already been stacked on the field atop the hill side by the teachers' parking lot. It must have been 30 feet high--I would say that things seemed bigger then, but in fact I had basically reached my current height of 72 inches.

Unlike those slides at the JFK School, whose ladders seemed to my first grade self to reach up into the skies like redwoods, this pile was then as I remember, impressive and not distorted by time and a child's perception.  But, I digress.

I also remember thinking, as the boy wept into the microphone, this pathetic plea will not end the way he wanted.

When the address had finished an eerie spell descended upon the studentry. Many of us believed that the last two hours of the school day would actually pass without a false alarm. I was skeptical.  The payoff was too much for the vandal to pass on.  I even contemplated pulling the alarm myself.

For the next period, no matter what class one was in, everyone was listening to the silence.  Would it continue or would the Class of 1982 go down as the first class in memory not to have a graduation celebratory bonfire--even as the pallets stood there unlit and unloved atop the hill next to the teachers' parking lot.

You know things are not as simple as they seem.  For example, I was thinking the other day about the fact that the same people who complain about global warming are the same ones who want us to retreat in shame from Iraq. What if you proved that all of the airplane pollution from bring the troops home would hasten the planet catching fire?  One could argue that we have to keep the troops over there to save the planet!  Those self-loathing quislings would be torn between their hatred for our flag and their hatred of a working economy.  I just mention it because it was sort of what I was thinking about when I saw that huge pile of wood out the window. Certainly, it would be hassle to remove the wood, which the town bought for the one and only purpose of torching the black out of the night for our outgoing seniors.  What then would you do with the wood?  They could have just left the pile there until the triumphal graduation of my own class of 1983, but I suspect the since the field was where the Oak Street School held their gym classes--there were conflicting motivations.

Frankly, the town fathers, or the principal, or whoever was really making these decisions would have preferred to have the fire--if only to save the expense and toil of removing the pile and to allow the fifth and sixth of Oak Street to continue to have gym class.  Such was the pressure of these factors, I imagined that they could let the night pass without a bonfire and then out of spite and a rational acceptance of common day realities have a private fire for themselves over the weekend.

But, of course, all that would be immaterial if the the students of Franklin High School--home of the Panthers--could get through the final period without a false alarm.

As the time ticked away, people started to focus in on their classes and the idea of a false alarm and all of its turmoil and complications slipped away.

This calm made me more anxious. By now, I craved a false alarm. I craved the idea that the student president's weak, weepy begging would be repaid with contempt.  I craved to idea of our grown-up leaders struggling with what to do with this then-would-never-be pyre sitting in the middle of the field atop the hill next to the teachers' parking lot and where next Monday the sugar-addled and attention-deprived students of the Oak Street School would expect to have their physical education classes.  No fire = no kickball.

Were I to take matters into my own hands, there was one particular alarm box around the corner from the driving education classroom on the way to the field house. Since the shut down drivers ed as a program during the school day and since everyone going to the field house for our high school level physical education went first to the locker rooms, at the end of the day this alarm trigger was deserted by onlookers.  It was hanging there like a ripe tomato.

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

[Alewife columnist Roger Nicholson conceived of this project and dragged the paper into it. His knowledge of the events is encyclopedic and without him it would have never happened.--Editor.]

My chat with the Tylenol Man

Twenty-five years after eight people died from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in and around Chicago,  the man forever known as the Tylenol Man, who although never charged with the poisoning, is for many the only serious suspect spoke Sept. 24 at Andy's Diner in North Cambridge about his life then and now.

“My wife and I had worked very hard to reconstruct my reputation and life since my release from federal incarceration in 1995,” said James W. Lewis, a computer and business consultant, and was once the president of the Cambridge chapter of Perl software code writers. He and his wife have lived in Cambridge since shortly after leaving prison. “My natural habitat is around people familiar with the language of technology.”

The burden of being the Tylenol Man is overwhelming. Another man, Roger Arnold was also accused of the poisonings and the pressure led him to shot and kill a man who had taunted him, he said.

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

Our Surge in Iraq in the context of American Military Science

The Surge is an interesting military decision in the context of the nine principles of American military science. It at once signals a return to its orthodoxy and embraces the unspoken tenth principle that has led to America's greatest victory and her greatest defeat.

Neil W. McCabe, editor of The Alewife

The nine principles as defined in Army Field Manual FM-3, are as follows:

Mass: Concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time;
Objective: Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective;
Offensive: Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative;
Surprise: Strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for which he is unprepared;
Economy of force: Allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts;
Maneuver: Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power;
Unity of command: For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible commander;
Security: Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage;
Simplicity: Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding.

These principles are taught to all military officers and every decision is expected to square with them. For the majority of our armed conflicts, these principles have served our soldiers well. Think of our victories of Trenton or Inchon and must see the power of these rules. Most flow from the ideas of Napoleon and the practices of Lee with a healthy appreciation for Washington, Grant and Sherman.

As a practical matter, it the attempt to codify our cultural approach to warfare. An approach that in World War II shocked the British sense of caution when we insisted on daylight bombing strikes and the German sense of fair play when we insisted on pressing infantry attacks in the middle of the night.

Often, our defeats can be linked to a failure to adhere to one of these nine rules.

The Battle of the Bulge may be celebrated as a victory of American will that broke the back of the Wehrmacht. But, an objective look reveals a shocking loss of life and material six months after Normandy--which came very, very close to turning 250,000 Allied soldiers into hostages.

In light of the principles, the Germans exploited our thin and un-massed positions that allowed them to create the Bulge. Our multi-headed command structure was not only un-unified it had our forces pressing in three different directions all independent of the objective of Montgomery's own drive to the North. All the way down the line, offensive, security, economy of force, maneuver and simplicity were neglected. In the Bulge, our greatest weakness was the failure to maintain a mass of forces.

But, it was Nathaniel Greene's un-massed forces that befuttled Cornwallis and set the British up for Yorktown.

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

Sunday Morning Good-byes

“I don’t want this! I don’t want this,” I can still hear the screams.  I never felt so loved or so wretched.  Meiyue grabbed my glasses as I picked her up and was prepared to twist them or throw them.  Our two hands wrestled like wild men until I got them back.

Neil W. McCabe, editor of The Alewife

Kyoko McQiao was already moving up and down the stairs with bags.  The Taiwanese man from Craigslist was packing up his Corolla. The only open space in the back was for the car seat.

When I picked Meiyue out of bed, I couldn’t stop crying and shaking.  That’s when she knew it was real.  The poor girl, stuck with two hard-headed, never give in adults she loved dearly.  As I carried her into the kitchen all she could say was she did not want this. 

Kyoko gave me a shirt and sweater to put over her tee-shirt for the flight. The pink shirt went on easy, but she fought me every inch of the yellow sweater with bunnies on the front. 

As we struggled I remembered the sweater’s purple piping made it look like it was done deliberated in Lakers colors.

Finally, I resolved to get the sweater on her and I forced it over her head, now bigger than before, and jammed her arms into the sleeves.  After I pulled it down to her waist, she jumped from the kitchen chair and crouched face to the floor pounding her fists and shrieking, “I don’t want this! I don’t want this!”

Her tears were hot.  Her eyes pleaded with me.  She knew I could have stopped this.  Instead, I let her mother take the hit.  I was crying and shaking again as we marched through the living room into to the stairs, to the sidewalk and to the car waiting.  All the while, words having failed her, she just wailed from her tiny heart.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

The Balsams get away

Minutes from the Canadian border is the White Mountain village of Dixville Notch, N.H., best known for its midnight voting in the state’s primary and in the general election, the ballot room of The Balsams hotel.

Neil W. McCabe, editor of The Alewife

The hotel is one of the grand railroad resort hotels built mostly between the Civil War and the First World War. After the Second World War, the golden age of these great matrons was over as automobiles on new interstate highways freed patrons to explore the un-railed country.

Bucking that trend, The Balsams, like a handful of her sisters, harnessed the post-war ski boom, until a three-hour flight to Vail made the four-hour drive from Boston or the seven-hour drive from New York City absurd.

Twice The Balsams has been literally handed off to new owners allowing the old owners to walk away. Once it was purchased at a bankruptcy auction. Still, there is something about the girl that endures.

I arrived shortly after midnight. Unheralded. As I wondered around the parking lot for the lobby entrance, two workers on a smoke break looked up and made contact as if to offer assistance. I broke off my own eye lock, because I wanted to be a guy and find it myself. Had I accepted their help I would have been in bed 30 minutes and one dark drive around the golf course sooner. This is my issue not theirs or yours, so I will move on.

The soundtrack of any stay at The Balsams is the babble and pop of the waterfall and brook that flows from the mountainside into Lake Gloriette. The lake, man-made to create beach and boating options for guests.

Wrapping up my water-take, it was really cool to have a separate faucet in the bathroom for fresh spring water. In fact, along the road to the hotel there is a station where anyone can come up and fill up on spring water.

The “Panarama” golf course opened in 1897. Designed by Donald Ross, who apparently is revered, it has it said to hold up well in the two departments golfers seek: challenge and view.

To bring in the golfers, the hotel is making offering $99 nights, which includes golfing and breakfast in the dining room.

I have played two rounds of golf in my life. The first time was in 1984 with Brian Darling, a conservative friend from college. The second time was a best-ball tournament sponsored in 1990 by my Coast Guard ship’s morale committee. It is a great game.

When I promised myself I would return to The Balsams, it was not because of the golf course. It was the dining room.

In the white-shoe tradition, guests have the same table throughout their stay. This not only sooths my routine traumas, but creates a familiarity with the couples and families at the surrounding tables.

At the Sunday Jazz brunch, the trio had me wracking my brain to figure out one of the songs they played. I sat at the table humming along, but unable to come up with it. Just before the band finished it, I reached back and pulled it out: “Money” from Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Maybe one-third of their songs were from the Beatles songbook, which is always good to me.

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

Tiananmen Square

This day has personal meaning for me. Like millions of other Americans, I watched CNN whose cameras were trained on the square from a hotel window.  When the Chinese police first came to shut off the cameras, CNN refused.  President George H. W. Bush made calls the the Chinese government demanding CNN be allowed to send back its video feed. I knew then the countdown to slaughter had begun.

My mother gave me, or rather cursed me, with a love of history and its patterns that constantly repeat.  I called her after the police left the hotel room to tell her that it reminded me of her listening to the broadcast from Polish Radio in Warsaw on short-wave as the Germans overwhelmed the city.

As the German soldiers moved to takeover the radio station, the announcer said: The German soldiers are now in the building. We are leaving to try to save our own lives.

Neil W. McCabe, editor of The Alewife

Before they left the studio, they put on a record of pianist Ignacy Jan Padrewski, who would lead the Polish government in exile until his death in 1941.

Before he left the voice signed off, "When you hear the music stop, you will know that Poland has died."

Mom, then almost four-years-old, sat right next the the radio.  If you saw it in my cousin MaryBeth's living room, you would recognize it by its art deco lines and big beige knobs. It is housed in a gorgeous dark wood cabinet making you forget about the forest of glowing vacuum tubes lined up in the back like a cityscape.

The music played on. For a time it seemed the music would never stop. Was there another record in the queue? The music kept playing. Then silence. Poland was dead.

Padrewski made President Franklin D. Roosevelt promise that his body would never be buried in Poland until she was free. Thus, his remains waited at Arlington National Cemetery.

I cannot do justice to my mother's telling and re-telling of this story. But, my yearning for a connection to it motivated me to volunteer for the Coast Guard's contingent at the June 29, 1992 ceremony when the American government formally transferred Padrewski to President Lech Walesa.

That day, I felt I had been part of healing a wound Mom had carried since she was too young to have hurts for people far away.

Despite the calls from the White House demanding that the Chinese government allow CNN to continue its video feed, after the police left CNN's hotel room, the students had 20 minutes of Liberty to go.

My mother told me exactly what was going to happen next. She had seen it all before.

Watching them mill about the square, I wondered how many of them knew what was coming. They had to know that the soldiers garrisoned at Beijing had been replaced after they refused to fire on the students. They had to know that the soldiers from the countryside, now surrounding them, had none of the cosmopolitan sympathies of the men they had replaced.  Still, like the children they truly were, they played as long as they could. They danced around bonfires. They ran with flags and banners and milled about from one group of friends to another. It was like it would never end. Then the feed was gone. Then they were gone.

But, that day at Arlington didn't heal my wounds from Tiananmen Square.  It only reminded me of our helplessness as creatures trying to be Creators. I was not there. I was not hurt or killed like all too many. Yet, I had had so much hope before the slaughter. It was the hope that everything they taught me in school about America and democracy was true.

When they shut off the camera, I was left with only faith. It is the faith that survived Calvary, survived Warsaw and will survive Tiananmen Square.

Eliot Spitzer

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

The show must go on

Johnny D's hosts the last performance of BeatleJuice

A courageous crowd of congregants gathered at Davis Square’s Johnny D’s Restaurant & Music Club Saturday for what would have been the second of two shows by the Beatles tribute band fronted by the late Brad Delp, the lead vocalist of Boston.

“No, BeatleJuice is not playing tonight. The band playing is Velvet Elvis,” said bartender John M. Bonaccorso to a caller five hours before the start of the 9:45 p.m., show and just 24 hours he learned Brad Delp was dead.

“We have been playing is BeatleJuice for 14 years,” said Steve Baker, the keyboardist for both bands. “I am grateful to have had the run we had. We had a great time.”

Standing with Tina DeLellis, the owner of Johnny D’s, Baker told her, “I am glad you guys asked us to come.”

Dave Mitchell, the BeatleJuice lead guitarist would be coming, too, he said to her. John Muzzy, the BeatleJuice drummer and manager, did not come.

Velvet Elvis lead singer Jimmy Rogers (left) joined BeatleJuice lead guitarist in the night's last song, The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There."

Alewife Photo by Neil W. McCabe

Johnny D’s is two rooms divided by a waist high wall. The long bar is perpendicular to the street and the dining area with the stage is two steps down through the opening in the center of the wall.

Members of the BeatleJuice family took over the back right corner of the dining room for the Saturday night show. As the men performed, wives and girlfriends watched on.

In addition to Baker and Maté, the Velvet Elvis is Joe Holaday, bass; Rich Bartlett, lead guitar and Jim Rogers, lead vocals. Holaday is also a member of BeatleJuice, along with his saxophonist son Jared, who sometimes joined the band. Muzzy was the only one not present.

For the second set, Mitchell and the young Holaday took their place on stage and it was as close to a BeatleJuice performance as one could hope to see for a while. After introducing the two, Rogers, reached for the third rail. “Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for coming out tonight. We really appreciate your support tonight. That is all I can right now,” he said. On the next beat, Rogers and the band retreated into the safety a convulsing iteration of a Mersey-style “Long Tall Sally.”

Mitchell spelled Bartlett for half the night and closed out the show. Jared, obviously distracted, stayed on for three songs before he packed up his sax and stepped away.
Friday night was like a wake, said DeLellis. “It got so bad, I had to go downstairs to the office.”

DeLellis said people came to Johnny D’s as they heard the news because of the club’s close association with Delp and BeatleJuice. The band played more than 90 performances at the club for Friday and Saturday shows every six weeks.

“They started throwing flowers on the stage. I picked some of them up and put them in a glass.”

Opening the cash register drawer to put bills under the tray, DeLellis called over to Bonaccorso, “Look at this.” She held up for him to see the check already made out to BeatleJuice for the previous night’s show.

“The timeline starts around three around three o’clock when the band’s sound man arrived,” Bonaccorso said. “The equipment guys and roadies showed up around 3:30 p.m.

“Between three-thirty and four, the band members started to come in,” he said. “At four, they were all here except for Muzz—and of course, Brad.”   

Been There by Neil W. McCabe

Acorns: The new game in town

Two local men invented a new board game whilst passing the time across the street from the Alewife MBTA station.

"It's called 'Acorns,'" said Michael J. Gainus (left), who developed the game with his colleague William J. "Billy" Graham.

Gainus said the two men spend at least two hours daily field testing the game and refining the rules on their only prototype model.The game is played on a milk crate that sits on a bread tray with each man on their own milk crate, he said.

Taking turns, each player tosses an acorn until one has fills the holes on the other player's side, he said. Then, with a tip of the crate, it is time for another go.