By Scott Michael Harney
My father, Donald Michael Harney, passed away on January 8, at the Mass General.
He was 94 and, up until the end, he was living life to the fullest. The Sunday before, he and my brother Donny had a great time at one of his favorite local restaurants – Murray’s in Revere. Everyone knew him at the restaurant and loved him.
He was the last classy guy in Everett.
Well, really not the last. There are a few still around. I include Sal Sacro, Billy Hart and Frank Parker. They attended my father’s funeral, to thank him for his years of political and community service to Everett. I also include the classy and beautiful State Rep. Judith Garcia from Chelsea, who attended my father’s wake. My father played a role in getting her the Chelsea Chamber of Commerce scholarship, a fact that she remains grateful and had the grace to share at the wake.
Sal Sacro, in particular, epitomizes the type of class that my father – and his generation- had. Despite being a bit under the weather, Sacro still attended the graveside service – dressed to the t’s – to honor the memory of my father.
My youngest son Maxi – the Marine – noticed Sacro and the way he was dressed and classy way he carried himself . I was curious about him, as well, so I went up to him after the cemetery service.
Sacro, a prominent real estate developer, knew my father from the various boards my father served on.
“Your father had class,” Sacro said to me. “There aren’t many left like him.” Sacro seemed genuinely moved, particularly with the realization that my father represented something in our culture that is now lost.
We now live in a generation of disgrace. Many in mainstream culture wear their disgrace like a medal, on view for the world to see – flaunted in social media and in the way they interact with the word.
Everett lost a lot when they lost my father.
In my fathers’ day, we knew all of our neighbors and- if there was a death – we would go to the wake and funeral. That’s how my father raised us.
Now, we have no idea about our neighbors. The new ones walk into their homes without making eye contact. And the neighbors we do still know, didn’t bother to put an effort in attending the wake of someone who has been a great neighbor for the past 50 years.
My father loved Everett and, unlike many of his age, he stayed in Everett. He never moved to the promised land of Peabody, which seems to be the current migration for people who grew up here.
I don’t really care. This is just a commentary on the current state of affairs and why class still matters.
My father lived for his family and the community. Everything he did was for us and my mother.
He did not have an easy life. He grew up the youngest of ten children, next door in Revere. He told me that he was extremely shy growing up, something that bothered him.
But like any great man, he embraced his weaknesses and made them strengths.
He decided to get involved in politics, in order to overcome his shyness. He forced himself to get out and worked on a number of political campaigns, including for the late great president John F. Kennedy.
He then focused on local politics and turned his shyness into a powerful personality. He began by serving on the Everett Housing Authority Board and later served on the Everett City Council and the Everett Liquor licensing board.
He was involved in numerous charitable organizations – Lions Club, Knights of Columbus, Kiwanis to name a few. He was deeply involved in the community and there were very few community events that he did not attend.
He was a self-made man. He began his long career at New England Telephone as a repair man, climbing telephone poles to fix the lines. But he wanted more for himself and for his future family. So he enrolled in night school at Boston College – working outside during the day, going to school in the evenings and even bartending on the weekends to help pay his tuition. That was his work ethic – always working to better himself.
He told me that he initially hid the fact that he was going to night school from his mother. It wasn’t a thing working-class kids did back then. He was the first in his immediate family to attend college and his mother proudly attended his graduation.
My father rose through the ranks at the telephone company, trading in his work clothes for a Brooks Brothers suit.
My father actually had three careers. After retiring from the telephone company, he went into politics full time and eventually became the chief of staff for Everett Mayor John Hanlon. And then became the executive director of the Chclsea Chamber of Commerce, where he worked from 2000-2013, until he was well into in his 80s.
My father always dressed well, even simply going out for errand. He rarely left the house without a suit coat on. Brooks Brothers was his favorite. He was known for his warm personality, his integrity and his strength. He had a wide circle of true friends, many of whom he has known through his whole life, like the McKenzies and Fitzgeralds, from Chelsea.
He was an honorable man and taught through example. I remember when I played hockey in Everett. My father never missed a game. He was one of the few parents who always attended the games.
My father taught me how to be a parent. The other night – on New Year’s Eve – and my oldest son Nur was too drunk to drive home at 3 am. Thankfully he called me and I drove to get him. As I was driving there, I recalled the time a number of years ago when my brother Ken’s car broke down on the way to NYC. Ken was nearly three hours away, yet my father – without any thought – got into his car in the middle of the night and drove to pick him up. This was typical in the caring way he brought us up and cared for us.
When we got sick – or our families got sick – my father and mother would be the first at the hospital. And when I had my own medical issues in NYC, my father immediately drove four hours to the hospital to be with me.
My father was selfless with his family and his friends. He was a beautiful and gentle soul, content and grateful with the beautiful life he carefully created for us.
I remember when he built our house on Rosedale Avenue in Everett. We were living in an apartment on Mount Washington Street and my father purchased a small lot of land and built his dream house from the ground up. I recall the care he put into designing the house, that became the home which would hold so many beautiful memories.
My father touched many lives in Everett and Chelsea. Some came to the funeral, others didn’t.
In the end it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that my father live his life with class, dignity and honor.
He lives on though his good deeds and the lives that he touched in the community. His life – and the class in which he lived it – is something that we can all emulate.
Scott Michael Harney is a retired CIA Officer, writer and former editor at the Independent Newspaper Group.