Muggsy Whitaker lived on the third floor of a three-decker at 75 Saxon Street. Luzzy Lundbohm lived on the first floor. That’s at least what I seem to recall although it has been quite a while ago and I haven’t  though much of it over many years. So I may not be recalling this correctly but if I’m wrong,, my apologies to Muggsy.

I never knew he real first name. It might have been Matthew. It might not have been. He wasn’t the only Muggsy in the neighborhood. Muggsy Lynch had been around for a while before he arrived. I forget which one of them was friends with Porky Lyons or Wimpy McDonough but that’s not important to the tale.

Muggsy had come to the neighborhood even later than I did. I did not arrive there until after I completed 5th grade at the John A. Andrew in South Boston. Muggsy I believe also moved in from South Boston.

I was a relative newcomer. Most of the kids knew each other from at least kindergarten or first grade in either St. William’s school or the John Lothrop Motley. The latter school was for the kids who weren’t Catholics, had been thrown out of St. Williams, or Catholic people like me whose parents preferred the public schools over the parochial schools.

By now pretty much everyone knows the Armistice between the fighting forces of WWI, of which the United States was one, took place on the eleventh day at the eleventh hour of the eleventh month 100 years ago. It is from that date we get Veterans Day.

From what I can tell leaders from countries all over the world who were involved in the war have been invited to Paris to celebrate the Armistice. Russia has also been invited. There is apparently going to be a big parade and I assume other ceremonies that take place commemorating the Armistice or honoring those who died in that bloody war.

The Armistice did not end the war. It did end the fighting. There would be other steps taken before the war was officially declared over. There was the meeting that took place in Versailles where the victors, if anyone was really a victor from this mindless slaughter when one side used 19^th century tactics to fight the other side using 20^th century equipment, dictated the terms on Germany which would eventually leave Germans so embittered that they were suckered into succumbing to the blandishments and threats of  Adolph Hitler.

Happy birthday U.S. Marine Corps. Lore has it that it was first assembled in Tun’s Tavern in Philadelphia back in the early days of the Republic 243 years ago on this date. The year was 1775 which was during the Revolutionary War. The British would not surrender to George Washington at Yorktown until 1781. Strange as it may seem, the Marines we’re not part of that battle as best I can tell but the French were.

It seems somewhat strange the Marines trace their founding back to the days before out country became a country. They did go out of business for a few years in the 18th century before they were reestablished.  But that’s neither here or their so we won’t let that interfere with a good story.

Although few may remember the Marines almost disappeared prior to the late 1950s . Harry Truman wasn’t a big fan. He called the MarineCorps “the Navy’s police force” with “a propaganda machine almost equal to Stalin’s.” He wanted to get rid of it. So did Eisenhower  whose anti-Marine biases were exposed. He said “the Marines should hereafter be allowed to fight only in minor shore combat operations.”

I don’t know how many remember when it was first revealed in articles written by David Boeri that Father Robert Drinan, S.J. had tried to help Whitey Bulger straighten out his life. He was at the time a twenty-something inmate serving his first hitch in federal prison for some robberies he committed. Drinan, a Catholic priest, was following the teachings of his Church as set out by Jesus who said among the things one must do to gain the kingdom of heaven was to visit those in prison: “I was in prison and you came to me.”

When Dick Lehr of the Globe heard about Drinan contacting Whitey he said that Whitey was laying a beachhead with Father Drinan, implicating that somehow Whitey was grooming Drinan, then Dean of Boston College Law School, to become part of his  then non-existent criminal team that he was going to build up after he got out of prison. Lehr had no idea of a Catholic priest’s role or the teachings of the Church. Neither did Boeri who went around asking people if they knew Drinan was connected to Whitey.

It was from Joseph Goebbels the Boston Globe learned it tactics. The Jewish Virtual Library quotes him as saying: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”  

I often think that Trump has learned from the Globe that tactic. Like the Globe he thrives with the Big Lie. He knows little of history but much about media so we could very well point the finger at the Globe for showing him the way to follow Goebbels.

The Globe’s Big Lie is the one it tells about William Bulger, known as Bill or Billy. I will write more about this when I reflect in future columns about his brother Whitey. What prompts me to write about it now is a column I read on election day by Globe columnist Joan Vennochi who continues the tradition of the Globe dating back to 1988 or even before that to the early 1970s to attack Bill. Her column is titled: “Bowing to the Bulger Brothers Tainted the Commonwealth.” 

Our nation has faced peril before. The Revolutionary War gave us the nation; the Civil War kept the Union together; the ongoing wars against the Native American tribes and the Mexican government allowed us to claim all the lands between the two oceans as part of our Manifest Destiny; World War I showed our willingness to fight across the seas; World War II demonstrated our commitment to the rights of man throughout the world by freeing nations in Europe and Asia from dictators and establishing democracies. The one thing all these wars had in common was that they were fought by the male members of the country with the females standing in the background providing courageous support.

98 years ago they won the right to vote throughout the nation. They had that right in some of our western states prior to that time but the 19th Amendment gave it to them throughout the nation. Even with the right for most of the 98 years that followed they continued to act as if nothing had changed. They had the vote but never felt compelled to unite to advance their own. It was not until 1941 that they hit double figures in Congress when ten of them joined that body.

It has been a long time coming. We can finally get a mid-term report card on the Trump. The vote will tell a lot about America. I really can’t believe there are many who are happy with Trump. As a Democrat I’m hoping there will be good news which.means a Democrat takeover of the House.  Time will tell. Before I wake up tomorrow the results will be known. I don’t think I’ll watch them. Can’t take the agony because so much is at stake.

I’ll crash early with a book of short stories. If things don’t go well I’ll be living in the world of fiction for a long time. Maybe I’ll re-read all of Dickens or Trillope.

One downer about living in MA is as far as DC is concerned my vote doesn’t count so I could stay home. I’ll vote for Keating who has done a good job and for the woman who is running for Senate. I’m not a big fan of hers but I’d vote for anyone with a D after his or her name even if I had a personnel abhorrence of that person. I’m really at a loss to see how anyone could vote for a Republican in Congress – the way that party has acted is deplorable. It is as if the Founding Fathers and their wives or friends had forgotten to provide for a Congress. Why have a Congress if all it does is rubber stamp the president’s actions?

Over the last week or so I’ve received three of those big 8 ½ by 11 post cards asking that I “re-elect Vinny deMacedo.” One card had photos of various elected town officials who were supporting him with each one being quoted saying something nice about him. I looked to see what party he belonged to. It was not indicated anywhere. “Hmm,” I thought, “this guy must be a Republican who is embarrassed to say so.” The latest card I received suggests he had something to do with the minimum wage at “$15.00 an hour,” vague words about criminal justice reform including “increasing judicial discretion,” his voting for “millions of dollars in grants to community colleges” and his concern over the opioid crises. Those sound like Democratic positions. I figured maybe I was  wrong thinking he was a Republican. I figured he didn’t show his party affiliation again because everyone must know he’s a Democrat.

Rather than walking around in the dark (don’t own any candles) I figured I’d turn on my computer  and check. My first impression was right. He is a Republican. He doesn’t want people to know that. He suggests he had been working for Democratic programs. “Why,” I wondered do people do this. “If he’s supporting Democratic programs as he suggests why isn’t he a Democrat?”