My Recollections about Massachusetts

Based on my approximately three total years of having resided in the Bay State, the following are my recollections:

(1) I don't ever remember eating any Boston baked beans anywhere in the Boston area.

(2) I never once ate Indian Pudding in Massachusetts, even though that was a favorite traditional pudding among Bay Staters as they celebrate their state's American Indian heritage.

(2) I found it difficult to myself vicariously re-live the American colonists' involvement in the War for Independence from The United Kingdom. "Shouldn't the focus today be on the mutually-cooperative and mutually-beneficial aspects of the current relationship between the United States and United Kingdom?" I wondered. "Why all this emphasis on military conflict between those two nations, when we have been allies to each other ever since the early 20th Century."

(3) I felt a sudden panic one day in 1986 or 1987 after I exited from a subway stop in what I suddenly realized was a predominantly Italian-American section of north Boston. It was the first occasion in my entire life in which I had just entered a heavily Italian-American section of any city; and every step I took along the street in that section of town was filled with apprehension.

I had not planned to get off the subway in that much-rumored-about section of Boston. It was a section of town, I sensed, where law-abiding and polite Anglo-Saxon gentlemen who oppose illicit-drug consumption might be unwelcome. How could I be sure that there were no Mafia lurking in the shadows?, I wondered at the time. "And how can I trust a section of Boston where it appears to be dark outside even in the early afternoon? Isn't that a clue that this section of Boston is riddled with outlaws?"

I did successfully flee from that section of Boston within 15 minutes after I had entered it; and I felt very grateful for having achieved for myself a second chance at life.

It has since occurred to me that I might have felt more confident in that particular section of Boston if I had pursued a crash course in the Italian language before I visited that part of town. If an Italian-American resident of that section of Boston had shouted an Italian-language epithet at me, at least I would have known what to say in response.

My apprehension during my visit to a heavily Italian-American section of Boston was triggered in part by daily reports I had received in 1985 from an Italian-American roommate of mine in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That gentleman in his late teenage years habitually greeted me inside our duplex apartment unit by telling me he was very sure that the Mafia were going to break into our apartment unit and attempt to kill him! Nothing I could say could convince him otherwise; and he repeated his very dramatic concerns to me on numerous occasions.

(4) As I lay in bed late one night in 1985 in my upper-floor Beacon Hill apartment unit, I was suddenly roused from my sleep by rage-filled shouting from two Boston Police officers as they prepared to arrest a male adult criminal-law suspect on the narrow street below my apartment unit. "We're going to teach you," the Boston police officers shouted contemptuously at the suspect, "to never again show your face in Boston!"

(5) The many homeless people in Boston who asked me to please give them some money each seemed to offer elaborate and very lengthy narratives explaining their current plight. Looking back, I have to wonder whether some of those homeless people would have been well-suited to a career as a fiction writer. But it's unlikely that any representative for a book-publishing company in Boston actually approached one of those panhandlers, identified their creative talent, and offered them a lucrative advance on a book-writing project.

(6) My next-door neighbor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a self-identified Harvard University professor who habitually greeted me in 1985 by asking me whether I would like to smoke marijuana with himself and his roommate. I repeatedly declined; and it was a point of pride for me, in fact, that I had never been previously addicted to marijuana or any other illicit drug in my entire life, and that I myself had not consumed ANY marijuana on any occasion since 1984.

(7) During a period of 1985 in which I lived in Boston proper, I had a curious phone conversation with a veteran male coworker of mine from "The Patriot Ledger" daily newspaper, who told me on the telephone from his private residence that my copy-desk coworkers at our daily newspaper in the Boston suburb of Quincy all regarded me as being "very strange," he said.

When I asked that copy-editing colleague of mine why my coworkers all regarded me as being "very strange," he replied, "You didn't even know the term 'freebasing cocaine' when you encountered that term in a recent story written by a reporter for our daily newspaper. Everyone else at our copy desk is very familiar with the term 'freebasing cocaine'!"

(7a) In late 1985 or early 1986, a female coworker of mine at "The Patriot Ledger" daily newspaper of Quincy, Massachusetts, invited me to accompany her to a social "party" being hosted by a male friend of hers in north Quincy. She also told me that she felt sure I would enjoy meeting her male friend who was hosting that "party," she said. Upon entering the party host's upper-floor apartment unit with that female coworker of mine, I was immediately informed by the bald male party host that it was a "cocaine party," he stated to me.

The party host, who was consuming cocaine himself, then asked me if I would like to consume some cocaine with him and the other party guests who were also consuming cocaine? I politely declined, and I felt myself to be thoroughly and comprehensively alienated from that entire scene. A few minutes later I left that party alone. I did that because my female coworker from "The Patriot Ledger" daily newspaper told me that she would like to stay at the party and would make arrangements on her own to herself leave the party at a later time.

(8) Coworkers at my "Patriot Ledger" copy desk in 1985 developed a habit of flashing messages that appeared on the top of our computer screen throughout our entire newsroom that repeatedly dubbed me as "The Reverend." Looking back, that may have signified the awareness by several coworkers of mine at that South Shore-based daily newspaper that I myself was consistently law-abiding and civil, and I did NOT consume any cocaine or ANY marijuana, and I myself almost NEVER consumed any alcohol, either.

(9) A male adult Russian Studies instructor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accompanied me one day in 1985 on a tour of the newsroom of "The Patriot Ledger" daily newspaper in downtown Quincy---a newspaper where I was employed at that time as a full-time copy editor. The M.I.T. instructor commented to me minutes later that "You remind me of a Jewish dissident inside the Soviet Union! You are obviously being persecuted in Quincy just like how the Jewish dissidents of the Soviet Union are being persecuted!"

I myself am not Jewish, and I have never been a subscriber of Judaism, nor have I ever been affiliated in any way with any Jewish group or any Jewish congregation at any time in my entire life.

(10) In 1986 while I was living in Quincy, Massachusetts, I received a surprisingly worded two-sentence post card in the mail from a fiction writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "It seems that nothing in the Boston area has escaped your attention!" he wrote in that apparently appreciative postcard addressed to myself.

The postcard message did not explain why a Minneapolis-based fiction writer would have any knowledge about the circumstances I myself had myself encountered in the Boston area of Massachusetts---a New England state situated thousands of miles from his own state of Minnesota.

(11) A polite female adult coworker of mine at an Office of Real Property state agency temp job for myself in Boston, Massachusetts, stated to me one day in 1986 or 1987 at our workplace that "You must be a Holy Man, since the hole underneath your shoe indicates that!"


(12) In May of 1987, during a period in which I resided in the downtown area of Quincy, Massachusetts, I was very abruptly and without prior warning of any type subjected to continuous and uninterrupted media "services" I had not requested, including inside my apartment unit and at my respective temp-job workplaces in Boston and north Quincy. Those "media services" featured the continuous sounds of "anonymous voices" in the background that repeatedly and incessantly shouted at me the emphatic message, "Eric Schwarz is superior to you in every respect but one---humor writing!".

"Die (sic) before your complement!", the "anonymous voices" involving sophisticated media technology in the background also repeatedly shouted at me in Quincy, Massachusetts, without their ever explaining to me at any time WHY they would seek to harm me or undermine my own medical longevity or my own medical health in any way.

"I have no sympathy for you!" a male-sounding voice shouted at me with surprising antipathy and surprising anger in his tone of voice through anonymous communications that that individual in the background verbalized to me in a context that was heard by me inside my rental apartment unit in central Quincy, Massachusetts, on the very first day in May 1987 when the voices began.

Those "anonymous voices" in Quincy, Mass., and elsewhere in the Boston area pf Massachusetts also incessantly subjected me to verbalized messages I did not want which referred repeatedly (with no cited reason for any of those statements) to three or more specifically cited respective University of Texas at Austin instructors, whose names I would myself be happy to share with any law-enforcement agency that might ever seek to investigate the matter at any time. I will be more than happy to remind that law-enforcement agency that NO instructor at the University of Texas at Austin has ever been authorized by me to violate my own privacy rights or impinge on my own privacy rights or meddle in my own life in any way, nor has any UT-Austin instructor ever been authorized by me to subject me to anonymous communications in any context or at any time.

Those "anonymous voices" also incessantly subjected me to the verbalized message I heard on a continuous basis that "You're undergoing a breakdown of your former personality!".

It was never clear to me WHICH PERSON OR WHICH PERSONS were verbalizing those and other messages to myself during that time period, or why anyone was expressing criticism of, or a lack of full appreciation for, my own personality or values as a human being.

I was aware of being among the most civil and law-abiding of all of the single adult non-Christian gentlemen in the Boston area. I never consumed any marijuana or any other illicit drug, and I almost never consumed any alcohol during that entire multi-year time period in which I lived in the Boston area. Also, I had not physically assaulted or physically beaten any other person anywhere in the Boston area; and I had no criminal-conviction record. Also, I never verbalized profane speech to any other resident of the entire Boston area; and I never stated to any other Boston-area resident at any time that I myself sought to "harm" or injure himself in any way.

(13) In 1992, during a period in which I worked and resided in the Zapata area of Texas, and I made a long-distance phone call from my rental trailer apartment to the private residence of an adult female former schoolmate of mine living in the District of Columbia, she volunteered to me in that phone conversation that "Massachusetts is a gallingly provincial state!" (approximate quote).
That female former schoolmate of mine did not elaborate on her observation in any way, and she did not indicate whether that comment she had volunteered to me on the telephone related in any way to any conduct toward myself, in particular, by any person or group of persons or entity or business or government-owned institution based in Massachusetts.

(14) In 1996, a medical physician serving as my primary-care physician during that time period in which I resided and worked for a general-circulation local newspaper in Denver City, Texas, surprised me during a medical appointment for me inside his medical clinic in Denver City by indicating to me that the people of Massachusetts were notorious for their lack of niceness, in his stated view.

"When I was stationed with the U.S. Navy on an island near New Hampshire, virtually everyone in New Hampshire was labeling the people of Massachusetts as 'Massholes,'" that medical physician emphatically stated to me on his own volition. That physician, Dr. Cotton, had been providing me with medical-care services in 1996 for what had been diagnosed a year before as bronchitis-pneumonia, a medical problem I had reportedly sustained very abruptly in 1995 in Baytown, Texas, during a period when I was a reporter for "The Baytown Sun" general-circulation daily newspaper.

(15) In 1994 or 1995, I made a local pay telephone phone call from a pay phone situated near Airport Boulevard in east Austin to the private residence of a former classmate of mine from Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas, who had herself expressed an affinity toward me in prior years. "I recommend that you stay away from Massachusetts," that kindly Austin-based Jewish lady who was also an attorney member of the State Bar of Texas state agency, advised me that day.

(16) In 2007 or 2008, a single adult gentleman and full-time State Government of Texas employee who was dining with me that evening inside a Schlotzky's sandwich shop in northwest Austin, surprised me during our conversation by emphatically stating to me that in his opinion, "the entire state of Massachusetts" had been guilty of alleged corruption and alleged complicity in alleged crime and allegedly injurious conduct in some context that had significantly wronged and victimized myself, that off-duty State of Texas employee emphatically stated to me.

(17) In 2009 or 2008, the subject of Massachusetts arose again for me in Austin, Texas, during a meeting I had with an attorney member of the State Bar of Texas. It was a two-person law-office meeting during which I paid a $20 consultation fee through a signed personal check I handed to that private attorney that same day inside his law office in northwest Austin. I had been referred to that family-law attorney by the Central Texas Lawyer Referral Service, which provides legal referrals to any and all Central Texans requesting referrals to an attorney for a cited legal issue.

That Austin-based attorney surprised me by stating inside his law office in northwest Austin that I had an apparent need to myself contact a private attorney in Quincy, Massachusetts, and myself file a lawsuit on my own behalf in a court of law inside the state of Massachusetts, that attorney emphasized to me.

The State Bar of Texas member attorney also emphasized to me during our first-time meeting inside his law office that since he himself did not have certification to practice the law in Massachusetts, he could not assist me in regard to privacy-rights concerns of mine relating to alleged violations of my own privacy rights that had developed for me in Quincy, Massachusetts, beginning in May of 1987.