Goodbye, Dolly

Our first real meeting, in 1974, was rather inauspicious. I was having a beer or two in the Romey (Roman Gardens) with a couple of buddies, including an amiable teacher/lawyer-to-be named Bill. Suddenly, into this decrepit male haven stormed an irate, nearly six-foot blonde. She glared at the suddenly contrite Bill.

"You were supposed to meet me an hour ago," she blistered him, "to look at engagement rings!"

Bill, a tall, burly, former hockey player knew when he had screwed up. He made the walk of shame out of the Romey and into the Volkswagen that would carry him into married life.

The blonde was named Corinne. She has been my friend and colleague now for more than three decades. She has always been mercurial, and to some, intimidating, but to those of us who know her well, she is as sensitive and caring a person as you will ever meet.

Corinne and Bill recovered from the Romey fiasco and married. It took me two days to get home from Bill's bachelor party, and there are photographs of me singing with the band at the wedding reception, but otherwise I was most supportive of the match. They have been together ever since; to me, models of commitment and stability, although I'm sure they both would be amused by that characterization.

When you have been friends for so long, there are too many memories to enumerate. I'm sure that I'm the only one who remembers the folding television stand that they used as a coffee table in their first apartment on Gilmore Ave. I remember the moment when Bill told me that he had passed the B.A.R., and that I threw the party when he left teaching to go into law. When children came along, we took our families sailboat camping on Lovell's Island in Boston Harbor, and tossed footballs around on the sand flats on the beach in Sandwich on Cape Cod. On the occasions when our families suffered losses, we were always there to encourage and support each other.

Then there are those memories that cannot be explained--things that occur among people who truly have a connection that can never be broken. I list some here for my own remembrance: the Crampton Index; the Medfield file; the Newells spin-and-roll; The Newley chair; swamp-training; the Keetian Credo; the Bo-Gan; Hutch-trossed, Chev-trossed, Stir-trossed; MM under the table during dinner; turkey dinner with lemon-drop martinis during a blizzard.

Along the way, Corinne picked up the nickname "Dolly" due to a certain physical characteristic (or two) that she shared with Dolly Parton (I am not referring to height). This later morphed into "Nurse Dolly" when our mutual friend Lefty seemed in need of constant health monitoring. Other variants include "the Doll", "Dolly Rama", and the one she doesn't know, "Doll-icious".

Last Thursday, Corinne walked into my office and told me that Friday would be her last day-- that she had gotten her date for some needed knee surgery, and that she would not be back. She hugged me and told me that I've been a great boss, and I told told her that she'd just been under-appreciated before me. Then she cried, and I almost did.

She wanted to go through Friday, her last day, without any fanfare--Dolly is much too emotional for famous final scenes. Nevertheless, at lunchtime, a cut flower arrangement was delivered to her room with a note that said this:

To Corinne, who has inspired, loved, and been loved by the young people of Quincy for a generation.