The “Bulletin”

West Roxbury / Roslindale, Massachusetts

Published originally in the West Roxbury/ Roslindale Ma “Bulletin” April 15, 2004

“The Rebellious Rotten Tomato* Incident!”

By Hank Brandli (Melbourne, Fl)

Next year marks the 50^th anniversary of my Boston Latin School class -- the class of 1955. Boston Latin School is the oldest public high school in the United States. It was founded in 1635. Illustrious graduates include Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and several other signers of the Declaration of Independence. More recent famous alumni include Leonard Bernstein, “Joe” Kennedy, and Theodore “Teddy “ White.

Recently, I was notified by several classmates that a fellow classmate, Richard Murray, had died. He had had melanoma. He had left word with his family that a few people be notified upon his death, and I was on that list. I really didn’t know why.

Two of my BLS friends who grew up near Dick in West Roxbury and were still close friends up to his death, called me and said, “Why? Why would Dick Murray want you to be notified on his death? You weren’t exactly a close friend; you didn’t grow up near him; you hardly knew him in high school; and you hadn’t seen him in almost fifty years.” There was no quick answer to this question.

After Boston Latin Dick went to Boston College. He graduated from BC with a degree in chemistry, and he went on to work for ITEK for several years. He had nearly a dozen patents in digital photography and transmission. Then, he formed his own small telecom companies- eventually selling out to AT&T, Venison, etc. He made big bucks -- $$$$$ -- in selling his companies. And Dick retired.

I, on the other hand, graduated from BLS, went on to Tufts Univ. and then went into the United States Air Force. After many years in the USAF, I had to take an early disability retirement. I had Multiple Sclerosis.

Why should I be notified of Dick’s death?

I pondered the question from this classmate of mine, and I started to laugh hysterically.

Bill said, “What are you laughing about, Hank”?

I replied, “Bill, I think it has to do with 9^th grade BLS homeroom and French class, with Mr. McGuffin, that odd teacher, on the third floor. In that year, Dick Murray sat next to me. I was in the second seat in the row next to the windows overlooking the large schoolyard.

Every morning in homeroom, Mr. McGuffin would read a New Testament passage of the Bible, even though seventy per cent of the class was Jewish.

After the “Pledge of Allegiance”, Josh Shapiro would get up and lead us in singing “My Country ‘tis of Thee”. He would use a ruler as a baton.

Mr. McGuffin’s unkempt mustache and glasses were distinctly familiar. His glasses had only one temple over his ear, so he always appeared with an odd tilt to his head. The window sills in this 3^rd floor homeroom were covered with large oil cans. He kept numerous tiny pieces of paper in them and gave them out when he gave daily tests in French. We always had to write the day and the date before he gave us the question.

I can still remember; it was Monday, March 24, 1952.

Aujourd'hui c'est le Lundi, vingt-quatre Mars, mille neuf cent cinquante-deux.

When he corrected these tests, most of the kids would immediately get a “0”. He never said, “So and so got a zero”. He would say, “Give Grant a plum”, and then he would go to the next student’s paper. If we made two mistakes, we got a plum. Although he was a very, very tough task master, he had his pets in the class. I remember the Sveikauskas twins, “Geddy and Smitty”. These two little twin boys were genii, but were younger than the rest of us. They were probably eleven when we were fourteen, and they were his pets.

Boston Latin was an all-boy school with all male teachers. I started in the seventh grade which was called sixth class (we were called “sixties”). When I had Mr. McGuffin in the ninth grade, that was called fourth class. When you graduated, you were in the first class.

Every day when I went to Latin School on the MTA (by two street cars or trolleys), I would arrive very, very early.

And every day, my mother brown-bagged my lunch. On Mondays through Thursdays, she always made lunch meat with mayonnaise and maybe a piece of fruit. On Fridays, it was either egg salad or tuna fish wrapped in cut-rite waxed paper that would sometimes leak. I had to fold the paper bag and bring it home so my mother would reuse it again and again.

On this one particular day in Mr. McGuffin’s class, I went out in the schoolyard with my lunch bag and decided to eat with “big Jack” who was a real cut-up. We were out in the schoolyard, the tar schoolyard on Avenue Louis Pasteur in Boston. I looked in the bottom of my lunch bag, and there was an overripe tomato. In fact, it was close to being rotten.

“Jack” was a big, husky, close friend of mine and lived in my neighborhood in Roslindale on Cornell St. He was always thinking up nasty and rebellious things to do. He said to me as he looked into the brown lunch bag at the over-ripe tomato, “I dare you to throw it through the 3^rd floor open window of Mr. McGuffin’s homeroom class.

Now, in all my years of Latin School, I was frightened. I never cut up, I never did anything wrong, just followed directions and tried to do the best I could. I did not want to disappoint my mother and father. I wanted to get good grades and go on to college like they had hoped for me.

To this day, I don’t know why I did it, but I reared back and fired this over-ripe tomato. And, sure enough, the red nearly-rotten tomato flew upward and parabolic in its arc. It missed the oil cans on the window sill but went sailing right through the space below the window sash. I immediately cowered back and hid next to the school with Jack so no one could see us if they looked out a window. Then we eased our way along the side of the red brick school building, up the worn stairs and on to the homeroom class.

As we entered the classroom, some of the students were sitting down, and others were milling around because it was lunch hour. But it was very quiet. Mr. McGuffin was sort of in a tirade, and we, very meekly and frightened, made our way to the seats. As we did, we happened to look over at the blackboard on the far side of the room. The rotten tomato had hit the slate blackboard on the top. The guts, the inside, the slime of the tomato were dripping down on to the chalk runners. We skulked to our seats.

Well, Dick Murray was sitting next to me, and he looked at me and said in a quiet whisper, “Did you do this, Hank?” I moved my head in a slight nod. Well, he put his face in his hands and started to laugh so hard his whole body shook. But, keeping as quiet as he could, he then put his head on his forearms and roared so loud Mr. McGuffin almost heard him -- but he didn’t. Dick was laughing uncontrollably.

Every time I saw Dick Murray after that in classrooms, in the halls, in the lunchroom, in the gym, and in the schoolyard for the rest of that year and sometimes after, all he did whenever he saw me was laugh. He was not an exuberant laughing type kid. He was a very quiet student, but he laughed and laughed and laughed.

I never thought of that episode with the near-rotten tomato until Billy called me and said Dick Murray died and he wanted me to be notified upon his death. I said to Billy, “You know, it was that tomato–blackboard incident. Dick never forgot it and that was the only reason I can think of why he wanted me to be notified upon his death”.

Billy, on the other end of the phone started to chuckle and said, “You know, Hank, I think you’re right”.

Dick is probably still laughing!

THE END

• “A goodly tomato rotten at the heart:
  O, what a goodly outside humor hath!”
  The Merchant of Venice,
• Act I, Sc. 3. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

THANKS TO WILK AND EL

PUBLISHED IN WEST ROXBURY’S “THE BULLETIN” April 15, 2004