All of this happened in 1994, so my memory of exact events and places may be somewhat faulty. For that, my apologies.

During the summer and fall of 1994 I was living with my then-fiance in a small one-bedroom apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts. At the time, I was either studying for the New York and Massachusetts Bar exams or else I had started working for the small neighborhood law firm at which I spent my first few years of practice. I was a rarity at the time - a registered Republican in Massachusetts, although we had a charismatic Republican governor, Bill Weld (more on him in a separate post). We did, however, have two very well-known Democratic Senators, Kerry and Kennedy.

In 1994, Senator Kennedy’s continuity in the Senate was being threatened by a charismatic Republican challenger named Mitt Romney. He was doing so well in the polls that the Kennedy campaign was getting spooked. Luckily, a lot of old Kennedy hands came back on board to help the Senior Senator keep his seat, which he ultimately did. Say what you want about the Senator, he always looked out for the poor, for the less fortunate, and for the Commonwealth.

One day I received a call from a dear family friend who was helping the Senator’s re-election effort. He remembered that we lived in Waltham and asked if we wanted to come and see him address a campaign rally at a union hall on Trapelo Road. Not being one to pass up seeing and hearing a living legend speak on friendly home turf, I jumped at the chance.

We parked on the street and made our way through the union guys and volunteers handing out lit and chose our seats on the aisle halfway back in the majestic hall. At some point I recall being permitted to go backstage where I didn’t see the Senator, but then-gubernatorial candidate Mark Roosevelt was waiting to speak.

(Note this from the Wikipedia entry for Roosevelt: “Roosevelt was appointed on August 3, 2005, to the position of [Pittsburgh] school superintendent. He accepted this post under the terms of a unique performance-based “Accountability Contract.”)

After Roosevelt and some other pols spoke, someone went up to introduce Senator Kennedy. We stood up and looked back towards the doors of the hall and our family friend was pointing at me and whispering something in the Senator’s ear. As the Senator made his way down the aisle to a standing ovation, roaring applause, he shook just about every hand extended to him. He made a special stop to our seats and shook our hands, thanking us for being there.

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