Cathedral High School offers hope for future
Walking past the old South End Boys Club after attending the 4:30 Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross church this weekend, I thought back to all the fun times we had and all the basketball games kids from the South Boston Boys Club and other neighborhood teams from throughout the city played there with South End kids like Maurice Fitzgerald, Mel King, Chris Hayes and Leroy Thomas, and coach Joe Vennochi.
We often hear about a old racially and ethnically polarized Boston in the ’50s and ’60s, but if you grew up in the South End, Charlestown, South Boston or the West End, you lived with some of the most decent, caring and hard-working people in the world.
Many were newcomers who came from cities like Beirut, San Juan, Kingston and Damascus, while others were Italian and Irish who arrived earlier.
My wife’s mother came from Galway in the late ’20s and worked as a maid for rich people and lived in Back Bay, while Kathy’s father lived in rooming houses in the South End and worked in wool house factories and as a union dockworker on the unsafe Boston waterfront.
And that spirit still lives in the South End. That’s why so many of us will be at the Seaport Hotel on Oct. 26 to support a good urban Catholic school that is proving that Boston’s history is positive. Because of dedicated parents, committed alumni, faculty and benefactors of Cathedral High School, the future of the South End is hopeful and promising — as it was when I played basketball in its Boys Club, baseball and football in its parks.
But as I walked Saturday, I couldn’t stop thinking about the neighborhood’s early history and the reputation that it has been unfairly been given today in the media.
Yes, we still see a lot of young families and children playing in its parks and playgrounds. Hundreds of children attending great schools and programs like Cathedral High School and the Blackstone and Puerto Rican Bilingual Catholic instruction programs at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
No, we don’t read much about all those wonderful kids and families, just as we are never reminded about the good old days.
But if you open up your mind to all the goodness in those neighborhoods, you’ll still see more than middleand upper-income single young professionals filling up the trendy bars and restaurants.
You’ll certainly see some hard-working parents trying to raise their children as best as they can. You’ll also see some concerned adults raising money for Cathedral High School as well as coaching baseball and soccer to young girls and boys. Yes, you’ll see some single young professionals helping out, too.
As one of the students told us yesterday after Mass, “We work hard, love our school and are grateful to our parents and all those people who support us.”