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by Rick Winterson An important issue has been simmering in South Boston for a long time. It was emphatically brought into the open earlier this year of 2017 at a meeting of the South Boston Association of Non-Profits (SBANP). The members of SBANP spoke loudly and clearly that “Trauma” – especially childhood trauma – should become an essential focus of the SBANP mission here in South Boston. You may well ask how much of an effect trauma has on South Boston’s young people. From a non-medical, lay person’s standpoint, an accurate, meaningful answer is “a lot!” Poverty, violence, lack of good parenting, and neighborhood bullying can all be traumatic to children. And no one in South Boston has to be told that we have substance [...]

by Rick Winterson Last Sunday, May 28, the Thomas F. Fitzgerald Post, VFW No. 561 (Veterans of Foreign Wars) conducted its annual Memorial Day ceremony. This involved a solemn laying of the 2017 ceremonial wreath at the South Boston Vietnam Memorial - the nation’s first such memorial – in Medal of Honor (M Street) Park. The event was led by Ed Flynn, Commander of the Post. Occurring exactly 100 years after the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, it seemed that this year’s wreath laying was especially significant. World War I was called “The war to end all wars” soon after it ended. In part, this was due to many weapons of war that were used for the first time – gas warfare, the [...]

by Rick Winterson Sunday morning on May 21, there was the 8 a.m. Memorial Mass at St. Brigid Church for Timothy John Cook – Tim “Doc” Cook – who was a Corpsman in the Marines in Iraq. Afterward, the Timothy “Doc” Cook Foundation awarded three $1,000 scholarships in his name. This event, the Fourth Annual, took place in St. Brigid Hall. Thomas Casper, Eric Lopes, and James McDonnell were the three scholarship recipients. “Doc” was a hero in many ways – one of them, a highly unusual way. He was a Corpsman who brought medical care to the wounded on the battlefield, under actual hazardous combat conditions. In addition, he noticed that the ambulances for transporting the wounded away from the battleground were inadequate. They [...]

The A Street Park is another small green gem in South Boston, nestled in the ell formed by the State Street Building and the new parking garage. It has gentle grass slopes, curving pathways, and plenty of playing surfaces for those proverbial “children of all ages” who live in South Boston. A crowd of perhaps 100 or more showed up for a coffee-and-doughnuts mid-morning fete, on one of the few sunny May days we’ve had recently. In his remarks, Mayor Marty Walsh spoke of “green space” plans, echoing the “Emerald Necklace” concept of Frederick Law Olmstead 150 years ago. With Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty and Rep. Nick Collins, and accompanied by a boy named Jack, Walsh unveiled the Park’s sign.

Joseph Nee was an “Angel”, an angel nicknamed “Dodo” – the kind of angel one finds only in South Boston. You’d see him everywhere, enjoying himself and urging everyone else to have a good time, too. But behind the scenes, Dodo was a quiet, effective, non-stop mover-and-shaker for the good of our community. That was especially true of the South Boston Collaborative Center. Join us Tuesday evening, June 6, at 6 p.m. for the rededication of the Collaborative Center in Dodo’s name, immediately followed by a reception celebrating his life at The Lawn on D. by Rick Winterson The South Boston Collaborative Center was established in the mid-1990s to combat the epidemic of drug-related, teenaged suicides plaguing the South Boston community. Joseph Nee, more frequently [...]