Remembering Tommy
Once upon a time, well over 30 years ago, I was a primary school student at Holy Cross, a Catholic parish and grade school in Western Massachusetts. On one random day, I got into a schoolyard brawl with some goofy smart-mouth kid named Tommy. To this day, I don't recall what that particular fight was about, just that it was the first of several knock-down, drag-out, schoolyard scuffles that would repeatedly land both of our asses in the principal's office. Whenever Tommy and I were sent to the principal, we would sit side-by-side outside the office, on a tacky green office couch, waiting to be scolded by the top nun in the joint. Thankfully, this was in the years shortly after nuns had permanently holstered their rulers. Each time Tommy and I were sent to the principal's office, we would just sit petulantly, semi-supervised with no choice but to be civil towards each other while we waited for our scolding and were forced to make up. Over the course of
