• “Don’t sit around waiting for somebody else to make you happy. Happiness is up to you.”
• “Enjoy the little and simple moments in life. They are what makes you happy.”

Share your favorite ‘Motherly Advice’ you have given or received….

Unfortunately, the City of Boston seems to feel that the streets of Boston
don’t need to be cleaned during the winter months.  I have to admit I do
breathe a sigh of relief when I no longer have to panic and run downstairs
- in whatever stage of getting dressed I’m in- to move my car.  At the
same time I also know it means the start of the dirty season.  One which
culminates in March – after not having any street cleaning since the end
of October.  It’s a disgrace and we pay the price in March – when it’s our
chance to show off our neck of the woods to every Irish descendent and
wanna-be in the metro area.

Something needs to be done about this.  “But we have too much snow to
worry about cleaning the streets” they say.  Well I have a solution that
works in many other major cities of the country – even those with lots of
snow.  Have street cleaning all year round.  Spring, summer and fall
cleaning would be done by the typical street sweepers and during the
winter or at least when snow covers the ground it would be a great
opportunity to get rid of those massive piles of snow that take up entire
parking spaces and allow the plows to come through.  How nice it would be
to come home from work in the winter months to streets that have been
completely plowed, leaving plenty of room to park without knocking your
car out of alignment on a frozen block of snow?   Not to mention this
would require everyone to move their cars once every two weeks – getting
rid of the “suspect” cars that are always parked all winter and no one
seems to ever drive. (I swear some of them probably don’t even live in
Southie).

I don’t know if we’ll ever see this happen – but that’s my rant.

H. Ward, South Boston

by Jay Rooney

In an article titled ‘They Don’t Like Black People,’ dated February 1, 1988, US News & World Report called South Boston, MA, one of the poorest predominantly white towns in the United States. There were thousands of ‘poorer towns’ that were predominantly black and Hispanic at the time, but few that were considered “white” and as poor as Southie.

I first read this article in 1993, my sophomore year at Tufts University, when I was taking a class called “Poor in America.”  I remember being shocked and even offended at the time because I thought it was another assault on South Boston by the media who had crucified the good people of Southie the decade prior during bussing.  Growing up on Gates Street, I knew we weren’t rich and I knew that I had friends whose families struggled from day to day, but my definition of poor was the people I saw on the Oxfam TV commercials who didn’t have food to eat or clothes on their backs. I guess at the time I didn’t think it was possible that you could be poor and happy, but we were definitely happy.

I am 36 years old now with a four year old daughter and a two year old son, and while I appreciate the material possessions I have that I have worked very hard for, I can honestly say that I wish my children could experience what it was like to grow up in South Boston when I did. We may have been considered poor in the wallet by those who did not know us, or understand us, but there wasn’t a “richer” town on the planet if you measured wealth by friendship, compassion, hard-work, talent, wit, loyalty, faith, ambition and resiliency. These are characteristics that shine in all of us and a gift that we all gave to each other when we were poor and happy.