Everyone loves pizza and a resident expert informed me that Lynn pizza choices back in the day often split closely along neighborhood lines. Monte’s and the former Embassy Gardens were the East Lynn choices while The Lido grabbed the Sacred Heart and General Electric crowd and Bennie’s saw a lot of traffic from former St. Jean-Baptiste parishioners.
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File under “small world”: Good friend Arne Adler ran into retired Lynn educator Patricia Mallett in Florence, Italy, proving the point that it only takes two conversations with someone you don’t know to make a Lynn connection anywhere in the world.
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It was an honor and a privilege speaking on Wednesday with Wayne Budd, senior counsel for Goodwin Proctor and a former Saugus resident who served as U.S. attorney and as associate U.S. attorney general.
His initial appointment in 1989 and subsequent one in 1992 were made by the late President George H.W. Bush.
Budd never spoke with Bush but recalled the honor of receiving the appointments and the challenge Bush handed Budd in 1992 to investigate the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.
Bush praised Budd in a press conference following the Budd-led investigation that resulted in indictments of four officers.
“He personally commended me, which was very nice,” Budd said.
Budd still maintains strong Lynn connections with friends Buzzy Barton, Ed Thurman, Don Smith, Willy Dupree and Kenny Turner. The pals were Sunday morning basketball regulars upholding Lynn honor and pride against Peabody rivals.
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I always love stories about airplanes and airports, including ones about seaplanes and early flight along Route 107 — aka The Marsh Road. Information from a good friend and a quick online search traces the history of Revere Aviation back through Goldman’s Revere Airways, Inc., to Muller Field.
A fascinating and fantastic woman named Marian Curtis lives in Revere and recounts in vivid detail how her family home near Wood Island park fell to the wrecking ball to make way for the construction that eventually became Logan Airport. Sadly-missed friend Dick Daley grew up in East Boston and recounted stories of staring through a fence with his childhood buddies watching old propeller planes lifting off from Logan.
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Loyal and learned reader Neil Rossman shared this poem about Lynn he discovered in his father’s papers titled “Our City of Lynn.” I think I’ve read its stanzas under a different title but it is full of old Lynn details:
“Bagels at New York Model for only pennies…
“French fries at Christies & Rolands for a cone was quite a thing…
“Burrows & Sanborn, T.W. Rogers, Magranes & Raymonds…
Henry the Hatter, Rooks, Empire & Sam’s Town & Tweed…
Theresa the balloon lady was at each and every parade”
And of course — “Friends sharing a pizza at Bennie’s.”
The author of the poem is not listed on the copy Rossman sent me but I look forward to including additional snippets in future columns.
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Mention of Tower Hill and the old Devlin Public Health Institute prompted Edward Landry to recall his Fuller Street childhood and getting a convalescent home resident to buy beer for Landry and his fellow underage friends at Lou Renda’s old store.