The holidays are a time to gather with family and to share in the joy of the season. As a family ages grandma and grandpa can easily become quiet spectators, lost in the chaos of noisy rejoicing over the great PS3, Smart phone, or sweater, the turkey or ham, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and pies.
The greatest loss could be the next generations’ if we do not take time to ask about and really listen to the stories of our elders. These are the stories that join us as a family and to pass them down means not only to preserve the history but to remind our children that we are interesting, even fascinating people.
This Christmas my in-laws asked how my 16 year old son and his girlfriend met. Mitchell and Alanna shared that it was at a football game. Mitchell liked Alanna’s eyes and decided to walk up and introduce himself. Now 14 months later….well, we can’t really say the rest is history since 14 months hardly amounts to history unless you are 16. But this naturally led to the sharing of how my in-laws, Gene and Phyllis, met. And this is a good story.
Boston has the oldest subway system in North America, with the first underground streetcar traffic dating back to 1897. Today the whole subway network is owned and operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). You may know it as the “T”. My mother-in-law does not know it by that name.
In the early 1960s, the then newly formed MBTA hired Cambridge Seven Associates to help develop a new brand identity. Cambridge Seven came up with a circled T to represent such concepts as “transit”, “transportation” and “tunnel.” Today, Bostonians call their rapid transit network “the T”, and it is the fourth busiest in the country, with daily ridership of 549,000 trips excluding the Silver Line bus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_Boston#cite
This story begins before 1960, when the “T” was still called the subway. It begins on a night in 1953, specifically May 14th, 1953, in Boston at the YMCA. Gene was living in town, there from Waterville, Maine to work and go to school. Phyllis, from Unity Maine which is about 18 miles from Waterville, was attending a different college. Both decided to go to a dance at the Y that fateful night in May.
Gene spotted Phyllis across the room and walked the distance to make his introduction. They danced and talked and he was enchanted. When asked, Gene told Phyllis he was from New Jersey. He doesn’t know why, maybe it just sounded better than Maine. Phyllis may have grown up only 18 miles from his home town but she still had her Maine accent. Gene was sporting his French Canadian twang and Phyllis just knew he did not sound like her so she believed him!
Well, the night got late. Gene, being the gentleman then that we still know him to be today, told Phyllis he would escort her home. Gene took Phyllis right to her door, kissed her and told her he loved her.
By this time it was midnight and all of the street lights were turned off and the nearest subway still running was 17 miles away. At this point in the story I asked Phyllis if it was called the “T” back then and she had never heard of the “T.” By the time the subway became re-branded, Gene and Phyllis were raising their family back in Maine and not quite up on the metropolitan changes going on in Boston.
Gene walked the 17 miles in the middle of the street, walking on the white line so as not to get lost. Somewhere on his journey he realized he was thirsty. He approached a gas station to buy a Coke out of a machine and as he reached into his pocket to take out his 10 cents, he suddenly was cornered by 2 policemen with guns drawn. Eventually they were convinced that Gene was just love sick and not robbing the gas station. They let him go but would not give him a ride home.
Gene arrived home at 5 am. He wrote a letter to Phyllis and then went to bed. And now we can truly say “the rest is history.”
Don’t let your family history be lost. Use this New Year to begin writing down the stories that make your family interesting and special.