New England Boxing Champ Bobby Tomasello

PART 1

It was one of those cold wet winters in Northern California when all you could do was wait.
The rain came each day, drenching everything in sight, while you were held captive inside, watching and listening. You could hear it patter against the roof day and night and the chill never let go, a chill that went deep into your bones, into your Soul.
And all I could do was wait. And dream of a better time.
The basement apartment where I stayed had inadequate heat and no insulation. I hovered close to the tiny space heater, trying to absorb as much warmth as I could, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t shake the cold, or the loneliness.
It was dead of winter and I had been back only just a few short months from my trip to South East Asia.
That tropical humid heat we complain about so much is like a fond memory when faced with the damp everyday cold. Like the aftertaste of a coconut shake under a bamboo shade. Or the wind blowing through your hair as you hit 4th gear on your Honda motor bike, riding along the balmy coast. The hot sweat dripping over your body at mid day and the refreshing splash of a cold shower. Swaying in the hammock at sunset with a cold beer and a joint. The smile of a beautiful Thai woman. These are the memories that linger when your feet are always cold and icicles of loneliness stab at your shoulder blades.

The Millennium was not an easy transition.
The year 2000 did not bring joy and peace like I had hoped but arrived like an unwelcome guest, rudely pushing itself through my door while I still lay half asleep, groping in the dark for my shirt.
Here I was, back in the States, still waiting for my Worker’s Compensation case to settle.
I had been involved in a car crash while driving for Yellow Cab in San Francisco.
It had dragged out way too long. And now I was out of work and running out of money.
I was racking my brain to come up with something I could do while waiting for months to hear from my Lawyer. I later found out that my Attorney, Anatol Zachs, had passed away. His Son, Adam, contacted Me and informed Me that He was taking over the case at that point.
But, Here I was, sub-letting the basement apartment of a friend’s house in Anderson Springs, Lake County, completely unaware that My attorney had died and my case was on hold.
My Australian friend was planning to remodel the house. Upstairs, the tenants had a real flat, and it was their rent that paid his mortgage. The basement was a quasi-legal dwelling that he used himself in between his trips to San Francisco. We made a loose agreement that I would quietly stay there for cheap rent and watch over the place when he was out of town. It worked out good for the both of us.
But best of all, it was within a few miles of my favorite place on Earth: Harbin Hot Springs.
And so We shared the place but We hardly saw each other. In fact, we’d made it a point to keep out of each other’s way, which was fine with me, since I had a need at that time for inner contemplation. If only it wasn’t so damned cold. But better then being out in the rain.
He had a computer too. I was surfing the Internet constantly. I learned a lot about how to access information during that time. And I kept steady correspondence with certain friends by email. That was how I learned the news about Bobby. I got an email message from Steve.
Steve Furbish was one of my other rare links to the past. I’d known him since I was 9 years old, growing up outside of Boston, Mass. We went to the Henry Waite School, in North Revere, since the 3rd grade, and practiced our music when we were teen-agers during the 60’s and 70’s.
After High School, I left Boston, and relocated to the West Coast. Steve and I kept in touch, during all those years. We had recently been in the recording studio. Steve had produced a CD of his original music at Tom Eaton’s Studio and was recording one of my songs: “New Born Butter” which I had written 25 years earlier. He was now working on his 2nd CD and we had been emailing back and forth about another one of my songs he was planning to record. I hadn’t heard from him in months when, one day, while checking my email, I noticed a message from Steve. It was very short.
It read:
Tom:
Benson’s Son collapsed after a boxing match last night. He is at the hospital in a coma. I’ll let you know what happens.
Steve
I was stunned. I tried to grasp the reality of this shocking news. But for now, all I could do was wait. I knew it was bad, real bad.

Two days later I get another email from Steve:
Tom;
Benson’s Kid died in the hospital last night.
Steve.
The room began to sway. I had to sit. This didn’t seem real. I felt nauseas and anxious.
I decided to sleep it off. “Everything will look different tomorrow” I told myself.
As I sank deeper into the chair, my mind began to drift. It was like viewing a home movie, specks and flashes of All of Us as young Kids, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, growing up in North Revere. All the short memory clips flooding in; things you would have forgotten, had not the jolt of a sudden death dislodged it from whatever secret place it was hiding.
Hatchets Mountain, The Pit, where We swam in the canals, Cliftondale Square, The railroad tracks behind My house, Ken’s Hill, Slippery Rock, Breakheart Reservation, Revere Beach, Anna Park, Rowes Quarry, The Old Bridge in North Revere.
It was truly a Wonderland.

PART 2

PART 3

I was 9 years old when I met Bobby Benson’s Father. Maybe I was 10.
The year was 1961. John F. Kennedy was the new young President. The Beatles were still unknown. Nikita Kruschev was launching space ships from Russia. Rod Serling was the T.V. host of “Twilight Zone”. “Hit the Road Jack” was the number 1 song on AM Radio.
I remember the day I was with my partner in crime, Danny Meagher. Danny and I lived in North Revere, which was right on the border between two towns: Saugus and Revere. In fact, I lived on Clifton Street, practically on the line itself, which divided the 2 towns. I grew up on the crossroads, as it were. That old Robert Johnson blues song, “Crossroads”, which the British Band, Cream, would later cover, has always been a recurrent theme throughout My life.
Somehow I always feel like I’m standing at the crossroads.
Anyway, on this particular day, Danny and I crossed over into Saugus.
We were on a destroy mission.
Our favorite pastime was to destroy things.
To feel the joy of rolling through someone’s hedge, or knocking out a streetlight with a rock, or spilling a gallon of purple paint on a public street, or, better still, spraying lighter fluid across the street and setting it on fire as a car approached.
Things a 9 year old boy can appreciate.
We were testosterone driven hellcats, bent on disruption.
To break it, snap it, crack it, tear it down, rip it apart, blow it up, chop it, slop it, drop it, and knock it was our purpose in life.
The crash of glass, the rumble of rocks, the smack of a stick, screech of tires and the boom of an explosion were the musical sound effects for our daily movie.
Bashing hammers, wood ripping crow bars, water filled balloon missiles, exploding fireworks, barrel busting boulders, slingshots of stealth, permanent markers to deface property, stolen pipe wrenches to open fire hydrants, garbage can lids to slam against walls, and our very own heavy heeled stomping boots to thoroughly finish the job; these and more, were our stock and trade. Whatever we couldn’t shatter, batter and splatter outright, we would fall back and deliberate for weeks on how to return and terminate the job. We were demolition derbies without cars. We were loose cannons in a house of mirrors.
And we were good at it. We were too young to be obsessed with girls but we had enough energy to take on twenty, so what could we do for an outlet? Pulverize. Annihilate. Destroy.
It was during this very important mission that we encountered Benson. He was by himself, just walking down Essex Street. We thought he looked like a cool kid who might want to join our squad so we went over and said hello: “Hi, I’m Danny.” “My name’s Tommy Nick”, I said. My real name was Nickerson, but some kid’s called me Nick. “Bobby,” he says. “Bobby Benson.” He had a look that reminded You of Anthony Quinn. Danny says: “When You think of Me, think of the Planet Mars”, Danny Meagher” “And when You think of Me, think of a nickel” I said, as I flipped a small coin.
“Well, We gotta go. See ya.”
“Yeah, O.K., see You around”.
As Danny and I shuffled down the street to continue Our reign of terror, I turned and said: ” Hey, that kid’s pretty cool. I like Him.”
“Yeah, Me too.”
Thus began a friendship that would last more then 60 years.