March 17, 2010

The staff at South Boston Online worked with Michael Bare frequently over the years.  We were fortunate to be allowed to help him with many of the incredible number of projects and community services he was responsible for.  All of us here are left with memories of a man who can never really be replaced.

One of us immediately recalled his enthusiasm for everything he did.  Michael played a role in countless South Boston political campaigns.  If you had Michael on your side, you had his boundless energy along with his pickup truck and his loudspeakers working for you.

Michael created the “Citizen’s Corner” on BNN Live, Channel 9 (please see the note about the Special Broadcast elsewhere on Page Two).  Since that program’s inception in 2002, Michael anchored nearly 400 broadcasts.  Ask anyone in the media, and he or she will tell you that required a huge amount of effort and imagination, as well as an intimate knowledge of the South Boston community - its joys, its sad times, and its issues.  And Michael held down a day job, too.

“Citizen’s Corner” was an instant success.  It seems now as if it has been with us forever.  It became one of those true South Boston traditions in a hometown built on tradition.  All of us here at South Boston Online wonder how Michael and his program can ever be replaced.

We recalled what a fantastic team he and Pauline were.  Each one magnified the other.  They worked as one, whether it was on the South Boston Citizens’ Association operations, Evacuation Day programs, numerous historical projects, or their own home on Third Street.  In that regard, one of us recalled them as “gentle, giving people.”

Michael revived the history of Henry Knox, who was so instrumental in that first Evacuation Day 235 years ago.  Evacuation Day was the very first colonial victory against the British – a victory that created the momentum that eventually resulted in our independence.

South Boston Online published many of Michael’s historical essays on Knox.  Through Michael’s writings, we came to realize that Knox, the “bookselling boy from Boston” rose to become Washington’s key Major General of Artillery.  Along the way, Knox’s “Noble Train of Artillery” enabled the fortifications on Dorchester Heights and at the end of the Revolutionary War, his artillery forced British General Cornwallis to surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.  Later, Knox became Washington’s Secretary of War, laid the keel for the USS Constitution, and established the basis for the Military Academy at West Point. 

Michael perceived that Knox was the “Unsung Hero” of the Revolution, so he had the square at the west end of the Dorchester Heights Monument named for Knox.  He created the Henry Knox “Unsung Hero” Awards that are conferred on worthy South Bostonian volunteers at the Kickoff Breakfast late in February each year.

We used to kid Michael about his cannons.  We jokingly accused him of fortifying South Boston all over again.  But he laughed along with us and then brought the lone remaining Knox cannon – a priceless relic - to South Boston from its resting place in Fort Ticonderoga, New York.  He used his trademark pickup truck, of course.  And “if you would see the man’s monument”, just go to Castle Island and look around at those enormous cannons restored to the northeastern parapet.

Michael reached out to bring historic groups here – the Lexington Minutemen, the Fort Ticonderoga Fifes and Drums, the Boston Allarum Society, and Roxbury’s Dudley Street Initiative.  We celebrated at Fort Hill with him.  We traveled with him when he arranged a weekender by bus to Fort Ticonderoga, a truly fond memory as well as an enjoyable historical event.  The Fort Ti folks treated us like visiting royalty.

Michael had a deserved reputation as a perfectionist in everything he did, even at the end.  Therefore, it is highly fitting that we bid him goodbye on Evacuation Day itself, the Holiday he cherished so much.

Michael Bare never held an elected office, was not a chief executive, and had no influence beyond what he achieved entirely on his own.  He was South Boston’s greatest “Unsung Hero”.

Godspeed and Farewell, Michael.

Your thoughts and remembrances of Michael.