During much of the 70s, Mark Wallace was in my inner circle along with George Hey, Steven Brenner, my brother, David Belcher, and the Mael brothers.
We hung out daily. Played a ton of sports. Street hockey. Ice Hockey. Football. Water-skiing. Snow skiing. And basketball too.
Mark was a really good athlete–he was strong, persistent. and had great instincts for scoring. He was popular in our inner circle, and over time he became popular in larger circles too. From the Leo’s Beach crowd to the Clickers in Winthrop Center.
He learned how to flirt with the high school girls–at times going out of his way to give them car rides, winning brownie points to hopefully cash out at a later time.
He enjoyed beer and could handle himself driving even after enjoying downing several cans of Bud. As well, he sharpened his wit around the older teenagers at Leo’s Beach which further improved his status of cool.
He was good at fixing things too–it didn’t hurt that his engineer father, John, had a full-scale tool room in the family basement.
During those endless summers, we water-skied behind his speed boat skimming along the surface of the choppy Atlantic Ocean, and made many excursions to the local islands–with a list that always included lots of beer, ice, and foot-long submarine sandwiches. Sunblock was never on the list!
Another summer treat was driving to his cousin’s lake house to water-ski and swim all of the day in the lake. At night, we drove to the local restaurant for dinner. And to meet girls to make out with! Mark always seemed to find a new girl to connect with and kiss.
One memorable evening, I ended up in my car with a pretty girl all set to make out. Then I started lecturing her about not smoking which put an end to ever kissing her at all. Oh, to be able to rewrite that night!
Winters were for skiing in New Hampshire. Having not much money, our trips up North were completed in one day–a long one at that.
We left at 5:00 AM and drove over 80 MPH, usually the first ones to arrive in the ski resort parking lot.
We skied all day with a short lunch break, then back on the slopes until the end of the last possible run before the ski lifts closed.
Then have dinner on the road.
And then play ice hockey back in Winthrop at 10:00 PM
All of this much to our parent’s bewilderment as to where we got all that energy!
Memories Winthrop 