EXCERPTS

PETER & LADY

… My mother drove me to school for the first year. And she stayed and helped the teacher most days. She always said that I was scared to get on the bus. Lady would be waiting for me in the afternoon and we would head down to the beach to see what had washed in. Mom would sit by the porch window, ready to run down if I should get too close to the waves. I have this picture of her on Sandy Beach in her funny looking 50’s bathing suit holding my hand. I am maybe eight years old and my friends are out playing in the waves. And she is holding my hand with her hand, yet hers is like a vice, the only thing stopping me from drowning in the incoming surf.

THE IRISH RIVIERA

…I was born on what is fondly called “the Irish Riviera”, a stretch of rocky coastline south of Boston. My father worked first as a boat builder, then as a furniture maker. My mother’s job in life was to craft me into the first Irish Catholic American president. I was 15 when John F. Kennedy beat me to that job, but his victory only reaffirmed for her the road on which her oldest son was meant to travel. Before you could say “fish on Friday” I was sent off to the proper boarding school, then on to Harvard and finally stuffed into a naval officer’s uniform and pointed to a war in Southeast Asia.  If all the PT boats were not in mothballs I am sure she would have found me one to captain.

It’s not that I was all in favor of my parents’ program. Sometimes things just happen, especially when you are young, confused and a child of loving parents who have strong ideas for their children’s future. I was a pretty good kid, wanted to be liked and had little experience in making waves. It was really quite impressive how far Mom’s program progressed before it finally came apart.

I am writing these first words on a paper towel that I scavenged from the bathroom of a Russian train heading south towards Moscow. My wife is asleep in the adjoining seat and my normal writing materials are in a knapsack wedged under her legs. I have put off writing this story for too long now.