Before I begin, I must state why I have delved into my life. My wife is aware of it, and she said,"I know that you believe that you must tell your life story as you lived it, or no-one could trust what you have to say."
True enough.
If I am to offer advise, it must be based on experience or it is worthless. Everyone has an opinion. Opinions based on experience are credible, opinions based on one's own feelings are not.
I am one of only a few people on this site that openly says who I am. I understand the need for most of you to maintain your anonymity, and I don't have a problem with it. I am disgusted that you feel the need to do so to protect your jobs, family, etc. Fearing repercussions by expressing your opinions openly is contrary to everything I have ever lived through, and I am heart broken that it must be done because of a few vicious thugs that happen to occupy elected offices.
I am going to try to wrap this whole thing up in the next few days so that all is out on the table, and hopefully you can concentrate on Town Meeting and the elections in April.
So, I finally had work.
The Boston Five Cents Savings Bank was a typical bank in a large city in those days. Huge! I was one of 50 tellers. The floors and even the counters were marble. The counters were probably 5' tall. I can remember having customers that had to stand on their "tippy toes" to reach over the counter.
The Managers of the Bank were typical in those days. Well bred, well dressed, very impressive looking and very competent.
My love and fascination for politics were rewarded by the fact that the bank was directly across form the old City Hall.
One lunch, I decided to walk across the street and introduce myself to the Mayor. A good friend of mine, Larry Green, was a teller with me and he asked if I was "crazy".
"Why in the hell does the Mayor want to meet you?"
My answer was, "Why in the hell not?"
I was never intimidated by politicians. I always figured they were just people that happened to be elected to office, and I had every right to visit them and to speak with them.
Much earlier, I was home on leave from the Marine Corps and went to visit my Aunt Irene and my family in Melrose. I brought a suit with me, and one morning I said to my aunt that I was going to go into Boston and meet the Governor. She looked at me, smiled and said,"Well, good luck."
So, I took the MTA system to downtown Boston and walked over to the State House. On my way, I was walking through the Boston Commons and saw a group of people gathered around a nice looking black man in a suit and bow-tie standing on a "soap box".
I listened to him and was fascinated by his presence and his message. He was a "separatist" and his message was simple. If you are black, don't bow down to the white man. Be better than the white man. Make your neighborhoods and businesses better than theirs. Improve your community. Be proud, fight for your rights and don't ever let anyone belittle you.
When he was done, a very nice black lady was standing next to me, and I said, "Wow, he sure knows what he is talking about."
She smiled and said, "Yes, he surely does." I asked,"Who was that man?"
She said,"His name is Malcom X."
I had never heard of him and I remember I made it my business to read about him later and know as much as I could about him.
He was  murdered not too long after, and I was shocked and saddened by it. But, having gone through the worst period of my life with the assassination of my dear President, John Kennedy, I wasn't too surprised. All I could think of is what the hell kind of Country are we living in?
I walked up to the State House. It was early in the morning. When I entered this huge, magnificent building, there were two ladies mopping the floors. Both of them were black. I approached them, a young kid of 19, looked like 12 with my nice suit and tie and asked,"Maam', could you tell where the Governor's office is."
They smiled and one lady directed me down the hall. As I walked away, I heard one lady say to the other,"What a nice looking young white boy."
I entered the Governor's Office and his receptionist, a woman in her 50's or 60's asked if she could help me.
I said, "Yes, maam...I'd like to see the Governor"
She smiled, more amused than anything, and asked if I had an appointment. I replied no, I was on leave from the Marine Corps and would like to meet him."
She opened a huge door, walked in and closed it. Within two minutes, a very nice looking man walked out and shook my hand. He said, "I'm John Volpe."
I shook his hand back and said,"I don't mean to bother you, sir. I just wanted to meet you."
He had a huge smile on his face, and he said, "Come on in, son."
He was gracious, very kind and very smart. We spoke for nearly an hour, and he told me about his life, his position as Governor, what he hoped to do with the Commonwealth and we discussed politics. In those days, I was too young to register to vote, but I told him that I was a Republican deep down, even though I loved our democrat President that was assassinated. He said, "I loved him too."
From that day on, whenever I was home on leave, and even after I worked at the Boston Five, I could always walk over to the State House, and if the Governor was in, I was ushered in by his receptionist. She was wonderful also. One day she said to me, "You know, you are the first person who has ever just walked into the Governor's Office without an appointment and I have worked here a long time. The Governor likes you a lot". I thanked her and said I felt the same about him.
Governor Volpe, over the years, introduced me to many other elected State officials, including the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, etc.
Just before I began working at the Boston Five, the Governor introduced me to the Secretary of State, Kevin White.
I loved Kevin. He was a jokester and funny and brilliant. He told me one day, "I may call on you soon. I am thinking about running for another office." I said,"Sure. What are you going to run for?"
He replied,"Mayor of Boston."
So, the day I walked over to City Hall,, I entered the Mayor's Office, told the receptionist that I had just been discharged from the Marine Corps , was working across the street at the Boston Five,and would like to meet the Mayor.
Another bemused look on a receptionist's face. She said, "I can set you up an appointment."
I was naive, in a sense, so I said, "No, that's fine, maybe I can meet him some other day."
She said, "Wait a minute". She entered a large door, closed it, and came back out.
She said,"Have a seat Mr. O'Connell. The Mayor will be right with you."
I don't think I sat for more than five minuets, when she ushered me into this magnificent office with a large, affable man sitting behind a grand desk. He rose, shook my hand, and said, "I'm the Mayor. Collins"
I had a ball with this man!
For the year or so that I knew him he was kind to me, taught me many things, showed me where the bar was in the alley behind City Hall where all the women that worked at City Hall hung out (I was too young to legally drink. The law was 21 and I was 20).I never had a problem being in there because the Mayor introduced me to the owner. I thought I died and went to heaven. I thought every beautiful woman in this City was in the place. I spent many a wonderful evening in the bar. I was almost 21, not quite, and the owner approached me one night and said, "Dan, I'm going to take a vacation for a week. I'll give you $100.00 to come in every night and make sure my bartenders aren't ripping me off." I laughed and said, "Sure". I couldn't tell him I wasn't even old enough to be in the place drinking. But, I got $100.00 for doing him a favor. $100.00 in those days was a lot of money.
I never spent a minute with Mayor Collins that we didn't laugh and joke around. I loved him, and do to this day.
I said to him one day, "Kevin White has asked me to support him for Mayor."
He said, "He has my support, so you do what you think is right."
Shortly thereafter, I really found out what politics was all about and how to run and work in a campaign. What a campaign it was!
My job, along with a man named Edward Kennedy("NO, not Teddy, dammit") he would always say, was to check the obituaries for the day in Boston.
Any City employee, or neighborhood leader, was on the list to take Kevin to the wake.
In those days, most wakes were in people's homes, and Irish wakes are like a huge party. Quiet in the room with the body, raucous and lots of noise and booze in the surrounding rooms. We would take Kevin to 4 or 5 wakes a night for months.
People would whisper, "MY GOD! Kevin White is here. I didn't know dad knew the Secretary of State"
He didn't in most cases, but you would never know it. He was always gracious and sympathetic and kind to the families, and he as the type of guy that everyone loved as soon as they met him. Democrats, of course, not Republicans. We didn't bother with Republicans. Kevin used to say, "There isn't a Republican in this City that is going to vote for me. I don't waste their time, and they won't waste mine."
It was quite an experience for a kid from Wareham to be involved in such political activity and such a large campaign. But, being young, I just figured it was no big deal. I helped a good man become Mayor of Boston and I learned a lot about politics and it just increased my love for politics and the privilege to live history first hand.
Now, I knew the Governor, the Mayor of Boston, many State elected officials and I had a good job.
About a year after working at the Boston Five, a friend told me that Household Finance was looking for people to become managers . Household was the "Cadillac" of the business in those days. I couldn't make any money at the bank, no one ever did unless they stayed for twenty years. So, I left the Boston Five, went to work for HFC as a "branch representative" and picked up a few more dollars.
HFC had a training program that was supposed to be two years long to become a manager. I was single, lived in a little basement apartment in Dorchester, and had lots of time on my hands. It was mostly book work, so I completed the course in less than one year and became an assistant manager at the branch on Milk Street in Boston.
I then married my first wife, "Kris", who had just graduated from Boston Hospital as a R.N. and we were off to live the "American dream" of having a little house with a white picket fence and raise children.
As we all know, dreams are just that. Reality is what is life, and we struggled like everyone else. But we worked together to have a good life. Our son "Chip" was born in 1967, we moved to Brighton, lived in a very large "Boston duplex" home on Bostonia Ave., commuted to work by public transit and tried to settle in for the long life ahead of us.
My former wife Kris was, and is, a wonderful woman. We later found out, after we moved to Wareham, that sometimes people are meant to be friends and not married. We are friends to this day, and I speak with her often.
I think this is long enough for today.
We'll pick it up from here tomorrow.
We are almost there. We are going to move back to my home Town and establish a life there.
PShooter...get some damn sleep!

Last edited by danoconnell (2009-09-15 12:31:45)