UHS Meets the Boss

     Choosing to take a path in life can bring a varying mix of fear and exhilaration.  It can also be one of the few things that causes authentic surprise, because you never really know what opportunities await as you take this new avenue.  Whether it's a new job, a new relationship, or having a child, each brings an endless amount of unforeseen scenarios, both pleasant and painful.  When I chose to teach, I never could have expected that it would allow me to travel to the likes of D.C., England, Scotland, and Italy, or experience winning a high school super bowl as an assistant coach.  But, the most unexpected and vivid memory that I’ve been able to experience because of my time at Uxbridge High School was a three minute brush with the Boss himself.

     This all begins with the Big Dig, a huge public undertaking to beautify Boston and simplify travel through it.  One part of this project was the replacing of the Charlestown Bridge that connected Boston to Charlestown.  Construction of the new cable structure began in 1997, and would be completed in 2003, and would include two large towers that mirrored the look of the nearby Bunker Hill monument.  Fittingly, the name of the bridge would partly reflect this.  But, there was also a growing movement to name the bridge after a local civil rights activist named Leonard Zakim.  After a decent amount of back and forth, a compromise was reached, and the official name would be the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.

       Lenny Zakim was the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League and founder of the Team Harmony Foundation.  He was honored by Pope John Paul II with the Catholic Church’s highest honor for lay people, mainly because of Zakim’s work on connecting Catholics and Jewish people.  When Zakim had his picture taken with the pope, he was wearing a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band hat, something he was quick to point out according to an interview with Springsteen (Ken Maguire, Associated Press).

       How does this connect to Uxbridge High School?  Well, the powers that be decided the best way to honor Mr. Zakim and his quest for social diversity and equity was to send invitations out to every high school in Massachusetts for a dedication ceremony.  Each school was to send a delegation of students and chaperones that would symbolize the causes Mr. Zakim stood for.  So, at the beginning of the 2002 school year, I was approached by Principal Dan Stefanilo and asked if I had any interest in organizing a group from UHS to attend.  Knowing very little about the bridge, and knowing nothing about Lenny Zakim, my first reaction was a hard pass.  Field trips mean permission slips, buses, missed classes, lunches, and getting back to school in time for bus pick up.  I also had three young children at  home, one of them only three months old, so I was running on fumes for the most part.  But, I had also learned that nothing is ever gained by sitting in place, and the real experiences in life only come from branching out, so I reluctantly accepted the task.

     My biggest obstacle was trying to figure out how to find a diverse group of students in Uxbridge (not exactly a hot bed of diversity).  I asked guidance counselor Kathy Misiaszek for some help, and we were able to cull together a great group of kids that represented as many ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual identity groups as we could.  With the bus scheduled, the permission slips signed, and a group of respected chaperones (including Justin Pominville, Geno Cabral, and the late Georgette Knapp), we were ready to depart for Boston on October 4, 2002.

     When we arrived, the bus was diverted to a space at the base of the unfinished bridge where a large tent was set up.  As we disembarked, we checked in at some tables where each of us was given a shirt, an official pass that we would wear around our necks, and a bag of rocks (more about which later).  There was music playing in the tent with tables of food and drink, and as we got more comfortable mingling, we found ourselves face to face with the Jordan’s furniture brothers (Barry and Eliot Tatelman.  Barry went on to produce Broadway shows in 2006, Eliot is still the face of Jordan’s furniture commercials).  They were both very pleasant and welcoming to all of us.  It was a nice little celebrity surprise to open the day up with, but we had no idea what was waiting only a few hundred yards away.

     Not much later, an announcement was made to line up by school, and we would start to march up the entranceway to the bridge.  We had a nervous energy due to the size of the crowd and the enormity of the event, but something started to buzz around my consciousness as we began moving.  A rumor had sprung up around the faculty at UHS that Bruce Springsteen would be at the ceremony, mainly because he had a friendship with Lenny Zakim before Mr. Zakim died in 1999 after a five year battle with cancer.  High school rumors usually have the credibility of a campaign promise, so I quickly dismissed it.  But, as we made our way up the bridge, I allowed my mind to accept the minute possibility.  

     The scene was difficult to take in.  Somewhere in the near distance (close to the midpoint of the bridge) was the staging and bleachers.  Hundreds, if not thousands of teachers and students were slowly making their way towards the staging in a very haphazard way.  To our left, Jersey barriers divided the lanes we were walking on from another set of lanes lined with police cars.  (This was just over a year after 9/11, so security at an event like this was still a high priority.)  A wave of random thoughts, everything from student behavior to terrorist threat, enveloped me, when one of my students said something to me that I couldn’t quite make out.  

     “What, Pat?”

     “Mr. Silbor, I think that’s him!”

      ...And there he was. 

 

     Standing with a pack of staties on the other side of the barriers was Bruce Sprinsteen.  He was smaller than I expected he would be, and it was hard to square the person in front of me with the celebrity musician who had dominated a generation.  Pat boldly shouted out to him, and Bruce made eye contact with us.  You could see him contemplating whether or not he should engage with us, and after a couple of seconds he kind of shrugged and walked over.  In a surreal few minutes, Bruce Springsteen was talking to the students of Uxbridge High School,  took a couple of pics with the group, and even accepted a UHS t-shirt.  It was incredible to watch, from a few feet away, the excitement of a group of young people who were able to meet greatness, and greatness showing them some attention back. 

      It didn’t take long for others nearby to see what was happening, and, for a second, I was able to feel what happens to celebrities on a regular basis, as a crush of people descended on us in a blink.  His retreat was just as quick.  I actually felt sad for him at that moment.  I couldn’t imagine not being able to interact with people with the degree of anonymity that we all take for granted, knowing that so many only want a part of you because of your fame.

     And then we moved on to our original goal, which was the actual dedication ceremony.  We sat through a series of speeches from Boston Mayor Tom Menino, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, and US Senator John Kerry (who would soon announce his candidacy for president and run against George W. Bush in 2004).  There was a segment when students could go up to the stage and place the rocks we were earlier given on a memorial to Mr. Zakim, a Jewish tradition that I would later recognize at the end of the movie Schindler’s List.  I noticed, with some trepidation, that our students were walking past former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law as they did this.    

     The grand finale was Bruce performing an acoustic version of Thunder Road, a Lenny Zakim favorite.

     The ceremony ended, we walked back down the bridge, got on the bus, and, before we knew it, were back at UHS.  There was an excited, but tired, buzz about the group about everything we had just witnessed together.  It was different from anything else I had ever encountered.  It wasn’t a concert.  It wasn’t a political speech.  It was a perfect storm of events that would culminate in a once-in-a-lifetime experience, highlighted with a three minute session with the Boss himself.  Three minutes that would ultimately last a lifetime.