Pictures from Fales (mid 1980s)

My guess is that these are from the 4^th or 5^th grade, but I really don’t know.

When I think of those days at Fales, these are some things is that come to mind:

• Playing kickball at recess, including when the 4^th grade team I was on beat the 5^th grade team (one of the moments in my life I wish I had on video)
• Being glad I was never the last kid picked for teams at recess (I wasn’t the first, either)
• Calling Mr. Fournier “Chuck”
• Getting busted misbehaving at an assembly by Mr. Gatley and getting “strikes” against me (he had fouls, penalties, and strikes, depending on the season, and if you ran out, he called home)
• Laughing so hard when I misread “Great Plains” as “Green Plains” that Mrs. Foley decided to take class outside for the rest of the period instead of finishing the lesson
• When Adam had the principal nearly freaking out because she thought he spilled a soda in the office (it was a fake spill practical joke can)
• Being one of a handful of 5^th graders who knew A) who Motley Crue was and B) when Vince Neil had his car accident that killed Hanoi Rocks drummer “Razzle”
• Missing the 4^th grade field trip to Sturbridge Village because I was sick that whole week
• The afternoon in 5^th grade when I started feeling “weird”, but all my friends thought I was kidding. I passed out, and woke up to the faces of my teacher, principal, and the school nurse (most likely a Crohn’s preview, I think)
• When Mrs. Graham asked me to carefully open the curtains, and I pulled them off the runners
• Doing The Wave in Mrs. Graham’s class
• Telling all of my teachers that there were two more McGraths to go after me
• Being the only McGrath to go to Fales K-5^th

Card from My 8th Grade Spanish Teacher (1992)

I’ve written many times about the power of positive thinking and how it helped me beat cancer. One of the biggest reasons I was able to do this was the way people rallied around me in support. Even though I hadn’t seen my 8^th grade Spanish teacher “C” in four years, he also reached out to me with these kind words. He also mentions the monks praying for me – I don’t know how many prayer lists I was on back then, but it was a lot and went beyond Massachusetts and the US. Whether you believe in God or not, I took all those prayers into positive thoughts and I know they helped me…

Spanish was one of my favorite classes in junior high, and “C” was a big reason for that. You could tell he was passionate about teaching the language, he made it fun, and he cared about the success of his students (even years after he had taught them).

I remember our weekly “Aquí” games in class. Aquí was Spanish Bingo – Señor C would draw an English word, and we would see if we had the Spanish equivalent on our cards. If you had a row, you yelled “Aquí”, and got a piece of candy. There were also quicker versions of Aquí like “Upper Left Corner”, where C would draw cards until someone had the same one in the upper left corner of their card. My friends and I quickly fixed the system and made sure the next time we played, just about everyone in class had the same upper left corner (you ever see 30 kids go up to a desk to get candy at the same time? We made it happen.).

In addition to many happy Aquí memories, I will never forget one day in C’s Spanish class. We were reading from the book, and the question we had to answer was “Qué es tu curso favorito?” (Or is it Cual?), which means “What is your favorite course?”. C told us a story about a former student who read it thinking it meant “What is your favorite curse?” The student read it and asked, “You want me to answer that?” C told him yes, not knowing that he was misinterpreting the word. “What DID HE SAY?”, we begged C to tell us. C just laughed, knowing he couldn’t swear in front of a bunch of 8^th graders. “Come on!”, we begged. He finally gave in and just said, “Well, it rhymed with duck!” It still makes me laugh. Thank you for being a great teacher C, and for this card. You were definitely an influence on how I approached teaching students as a special educator.

Article in Community News at Wheelock (1998)

12 years ago, I was getting my Master’s in Special Education at Wheelock College. In most of my classes, I had one or zero other males there with me. For the first time in my life, I was part of a minority. Here is what I wrote about it in the December 7, 1998 issue of the Community News:

I thought it would be a good article to share for Black History Month even though I will never know what it is like to be black or any other group that has been treated so unfairly.

What I do know is what my parents taught me. Even though they never explicitly said “Don’t treat others differently because of their race or how they look”, they taught me by example. I saw them treating all people with respect and never heard them making racist statements or even jokes.

Along with having great role models in my parents, racism and prejudice never made sense to me. Treat others as you would like to be treated is what makes sense to me.

I know racism still exists worldwide, and the only way to stop it is for everyone to teach the next generation to judge people based on their actions and not on their gender, race, religion, nationality, or sexual preference. Until everyone realizes that we’re all in this together, injustice will live on…

For more information on Black History Month, you can go to history.com and biography.com. MLK’s entire “I Have a Dream” speech is below:

Notes from a junior at Boston College

First of all, I have to apologize to my father. Dad, if I knew then what I know now, I would have studied a lot more and obviously would have made better choices with alcohol. I'm sorry that under the circumstances I wasn't able to realize how lucky I was to be receiving that education - an education you provided to me and for a school that rivaled the one you went to. Thank you for always providing for me and continuing to be one of my biggest supporters. I hope this makes you laugh...

It's pretty easy to figure out when I started and stopped drinking by looking at my transcript from Boston College (you'll have to wait for that scan in a later blog). Junior year was a year that I drank a lot. Although I told myself I was more in control because I drank "just beer" instead of the vodka I drank sophomore year, I still really liked getting drunk...a lot. And although I rarely got drunk during the week or went to class drunk, it definitely had an effect on my academics. Exhibit one, a page from my junior year notebook:

I guess by writing "I'm screwed on the midterm" I wasn't too confident going into into it. But at least "these notes suck" shows I was aware that my "note taking" really wasn't helping the situation.

What I didn't know then was that I wasn't the only one in the class severely slacking on studying for this midterm. My future friend Scott (who I didn't hang out with until senior year) was also not ready for the test. In fact, he and his friend had a bet: Whoever got a lower score on the midterm didn't have to pay for their upcoming road trip to see the Islanders play at the Whalers. His friend was first to go up and get his test back, and triumphantly smiled as he showed Scott his 7 (Yes, that's based out of 100). Scott was pretty sure he failed too, but was getting ready to treat his friend to the hockey game. That all changed when Scott saw his grade...a 3.

So, I hope all of you BC, HC, and whatever C students realize how lucky you are to be receiving your education. I am glad to report that even with his 3, Scott graduated from BC, has led a successful life, and is a very happy "New Dad". Dad, if more fathers were like you, there would be a lot less problems in the world...thanks for everything.

In case anyone was wondering, the "Cynical Fuck" on the cover is the name of an Extreme song on their album that came out that year.