23. December 2010 by pat desmond.

Shaquille O’Neal Conducts the BSO

My son, Timothy Ambrose and his wife of four months, Annie, came to Boston for a few days.

They are already back in California, enjoying the rain, and I’m here in Milton, feeling very chilly.

But I have my memories and they are better than I hoped.

We shared time with my daughter and her two children. June and the kids live in New Hampshire. We don’t often get together as a family any more. The problem is we live in three separate states. Getting all of us in the same location depends on work schedules, school schedules, plane tickets and the weather.

This year we’ve had a few times together.  There was the engagement party in July, the wedding in August and now our pre-Christmas weekend. It took me seven months to coordinate the travel plans so we could all be at the engagement party.

I loved every minute of family time. I get so little of it now that my two children are grown with families of their own.

Monday my son, his wife and I went to the BSO’s Holiday Pops. It was spectacular as the orchestra always is. A show of pomp and circumstance, signifying very much. Christmas music soothes the soul.

And then there was Shaquille O’Neal moving onto center stage in his giant tuxedo. Does anyone know how tall Keith Lockhart might be? He looked about half the size of the hoopster. But both men conducted themselves very well.

Listening to the Pops play “We Are the Champions” just seemed so politically correct. It is the season of love and peace. Shaq and the BSO made Christmas a little merrier for everyone who had the good fortune to be in the audience.

The holiday season is a chance to take time from the rush of life to celebrate the joy of family, friends and simple pleasures. It’s all about the joy.

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13. December 2010 by pat desmond.

The new Congressman from Quincy, who still happens to be the Norfolk County District Attorney, is calling for a federal investigation into the death of Delvonte Tisdale.

Late on the afternoon of Dec. 10, DA William Keating and Milton Police Chief Richard Wells held a press conference to talk about the evidence their teams have put together that indicate the 16-year-old Tisdale fell from an airplane in the sky Nov. 15.

It doesn’t seem conclusive. But then it seems Homeland Security, TSA and all of the people who are making Americans less free ought to be put under the microscope so they can explain how a young man could stow away in a wheel well of a passenger plane.

But the evidence is:

1. Earlier in the day, police personnel from a group of local communities searched the woods near where the body was found. They came up with a shirt and two sneakers, items of clothing that matched the description of Tisdale’s clothes.
2. Grease was found on the young man’s clothes. Tests are underway to see if the grease matches that on the plane.
3. A 737 US Airways plane left Charlotte about 7 p.m. on Nov. 15 and landed at Logan about 9:30. The mutilated body was discovered on Brierbrook Street around 9:30. Brierbrook Street is in the flightpath.
4. Handprints were found in the left wheel well of the plane.
5. The autopsy results were consistent with a fall from a significant height.
6. The autopsy also revealed no sign of death by known weapons.

Is the evidence enough to worry about airport security? Keating thinks so, which is why he said he decided to release the story before conclusive tests were available.

Tisdale lived with his father, Anthony Tisdale, his step-mother and other siblings in North Carolina. He moved there from Baltimore where his mother Jonette Washington and other family members still live. According to news reports from the south, young Tisdale, had run away from home the night before his body was found.

All reports say he hadn’t been in trouble but was unhappy about the family’s relocation.

Meanwhile when Keating goes to Congress next month, he already has some work to look into.

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