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ALSO: RETIREMENT CRUNCH / WILLING SPIRIT LLEGE magazine t \\v i alt Grace Notes EXPERIENCING JOHN MAHONEY & 3 PROLOGUE Prospectors What would become Somerville, Jersey is to the New York City region, watched the bright swirl of dancers. It Massachusetts, was first settled so, did we discover, was our new home- is no coincidence that when Charles- by "Charles Sprague and his bretheren town to the Boston area: the morning town allowed itself to be annexed by [sic] Richard and William," late of Sa- DJ's surefire giggle starter; an easy mark Boston, Somerville stayed a stubbornly lem. They arrived in 1628, when for a lazy columnist on a slow news day. independent municipality. "Somerville" was a thickly wooded sec- We came not knowing any of this, A year after we landed, we bought a tion of Charlestown ripe for land pros- but we learned fast from the raised double-decker in whose backyard a pre- pectors like the Sprague boys. Just sh< >rt eyebrows and concerned looks we saw vious owner had planted another of three centuries later, cover subject on the faces of new acquaintances the double-decker. We stayed there 1 John Mahoney's family also came a- moment they learned where we had years. They were good years for us, and prospecting, part of the flood of refu- for Somerville. A new reform regime gees from Boston'steemingstreetswho Ifother towns were belles of had taken over City I lall. It was led by sought healthful air and lebensraum Mayor Gene Brune—a balding, middle- the bally Somerville was within streetcar commute of Boston's aged business manager, quiet as Calvin someone's stogie-chewing jobs. Their numbers, combined with a Coolidge and savvy as Franklin zoning code so cleverly flexible that it great-uncle, sitting comfort- Roosevelt. On Brune's watch two sub- regularly allowed for the construction way stops came to the city; taxes were ably at the edge of the feast, of triple-deckers in the backyards of forcefully and fairly collected; a string practiced, triple-deckers, soon enough teemed cagey, bemused, of commodious malls was built on the Somerville's streets, turning the city keeping his own counsel as he former site of a defunct Ford plant; a into the most densely populated mu- high school annex was constructed; a sipped the house red and nicipality in the Commonwealth. commercial development office was watched the bright swirl It was in 1978 that my wife and I staffed; housing values soared; landed in Somerville, newly married ofdancers. Somerville jokes depreciated. And a and newly pregnant. Like the Spragues new set of citizens arrived: some, like and Mahoneys, the Birnbaums were settled. We soon realized, however, us, from near; and others from far: economic refugees, late of Vermont, a that none ofthese folks knew Somerville Greece, Brazil, China, Sri Lanka, state beautiful in all prospects save those any better than they knew Timbuktu, Haiti—all prospecting for the neces- of employment. Like tens of thousands but, aided by the morning-drive sary American foothold, an affordable who came before us, we were attracted jokesters, viewed Somerville just as home within striking distance of a job. by affordable apartments and the possi- credulous explorers had in ancient times Jane Jacobs, the universe's most as- 7 bility of finding livelihood in Boston viewed unmapped territory : "here there tute student of cities, observes that most (whose spires we could see from the bee sarpents." Not that it mattered by of us hold a false notion that what city windows ofour apartment above Union then. Somerville had already become a neighborhoods need is hardline pres- Square). Somerville itself, its gray and real place to us, complex and engaging ervation of the status quo. Not so, she black asphalt roofs stretched out below in its strange social ecology of blue- argues. Neighborhoods, and by exten- us like a patchwork quilt sewn by a collar, immigrant and graduate student; sion the cities they compose, are not depressant, was not in terrific shape at its tone of wry acceptance and stubborn fixed points, but float on shifting tides the time. Decades of crowds, intermit- pride; the way in which it ignored and that roll in from every corner of the tent but regular enough corruption and at the same time slyly judged its many world. Preservation isn't the issue. Stay- inefficiency scandals at City Hall, ab- judges. If other towns were belles of the ing afloat and inviting, as Somerville sentee landlords, the triumph of the ball, Somerville was someone's stogie- has done, is. suburban mall, and the southward flight chewing great-uncle, sitting comfort- Our story on Somerville native son of industry had all conjoined to bleed ably at the edge of the feast, cagey, John Mahoney begins on page 26. the city of jobs, taxes, shops, housing bemused, practiced, keeping his own Ben Birnbaum values, citizenry and reputation. As New counsel as he sipped the house red and £ Boston College magazine Home opener 18 f ALL 1 994 VOLUME 53 NUMBER 4 Photo by Geoff Why renovated EDITOR The Eagles' and expanded stadium Ben Birnbaum looked terrific. So who cares if the game didn't? SENIOR EDITOR Charlotte Bruce Harvey ASSOCIATE EDITOR Bruce Morgan Boomers or busters? 20 SENIOR WRITER John Ombelets By Robert D. Reischauer DESIGN DIRECTOR The post-war boom generation seems to be pre- l.m.i Spacek paring well for retirement, said the Congressional ART DIRECTOR Susan Cailaghan Budget Office director at the recent BC econom- UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHERS ics conference, but don't count those annuity ( i.irv Gilbert checks just vet. GeofrreyWhy'88 Boston College Magazine is published quar- terly (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer) by BostOD College, with editorial offices ai. Grace notes the Office of Puhlieations & Print Mar- keting, (617) 552-4820. FAX: (617) 552- 2441. E-Mail: BIRNBAUM@BCVMC By Ben Birnbaum MS.BC.EDU. ISSN 0885-2049. Sec- ond-class postage paid at Boston, .Mass.. The most extraordinary thing about English Professor John and additional mailing offices. Postmas- Mahoney may not be the honors he's won, the books he's written ter: send address changes to < (ffice ol Publications & Print Marketing. 122 or his storied teaching skills. College Road,( :iiesimit Hill, MA02 1 67. Copyright ©1994 Trustees of Boston College. Printed in U.S.A. All publica- tion rights reserved. First light Opinions expressed in Boston College Magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of the University. BCM is distrib- By Chiiiics F. Donovan, SJ uted free ol charge to alumni, faculty, staft, donors and parents of undergradu- Born into a prominent Brahmin family, Joseph Coolidge Shaw- ate students. became a Jesuit and, at his death, the original benefactor of a college FRONT AND BY GILBERT BACK COVER PHOTOS GARY that did not vet exist. DEPARTMtNT IOGOS BY ANTHONY RUSSO DEPARTMENTS Letters 2 Journal 44 Linden Lane 4 Q & A 46 News & Notes 12 Works and Days 49 Sports 16 Alumnotes (follows page 24) Advancement 42 LETTERS Lost and Found Fr. Fortin asks how we go about recov- Fr. Fortin writes, "there would be a lot ering our lost sense of community. I suspect less talk about community everywhere to- I agree with Fr. Ernest Fortin ["Recovery that the way to recover our sense of both day if we all had a better idea of what a true movement," Summer 1994] that there are community and self is to affirm a good community is like. How we go about recov- fundamental conflicts between concepts of greater than either. This is crucial if we are ering our lost sense of community I do not the person as defined by duties (what he calls to resolve a painful paradox: the moral per- know." I wonder if we ever had a sense of tfie premodern) and the person as defined by son, observant of duty, can never and must community. Regardless of time and place, rights (modern). I, too, am saddened by the never cede moral volition beyond his or her I'd wager that history unpeels the same inevitable loss of human dignity that occurs person. St. Thomas More, for example, wars, deceits, tyrannies and exploitations of when self-expression supercedes the poten- couldn't bring himself to sign an illicit oath the poor we experience now in modernity. tial for exercising moral volition, i.e., of ex- "for fellowship's sake." I know of no ideal or beneficent "commu- pressing or communicating that which is It's not enough to acknowledge our duty nity" that lasted more than a few years, larger than the self. I take issue, though, with to the larger community or society; we are unless the word is redefined to mean the Fr. Fortin's assignment of that split to clean compelled by our obligation to others to genetic unit of the extended family or a tiny historical divisions—premodern versus mod- exercise our will in the service of truth. assemblage of persons with a common goal ern—or to a clear dichotomy between the Abraham had to break his father's idols. or belief. We are a cruel species, and we individual and community. Jonathan was morally bound to leave his reserve our greatest cruelties for those out- The historical dimensions are complex. father's table to be at David's side. The side the clan. The concept of community As Fr. Fortin points out, Moses descended "we" is more fundamental than the "I," and should entice us to be even more charitable from Mt. Sinai with not "a Bill of Rights but the truth is even more fundamental than the to those "others" and to look outward as a the Ten Commandments." Those Com- "we." Ironically society cannot endure with- true source of contentment.