Fond memories
Dear Editor:,
The news that Maxine Tassinari-Teixeira’s passing brought back memories to me of the early 1980s when I was a writer on the East Boston Community News when I was still residing in Charlestown. I remember the newspaper office just outside Maverick Square across from the bank building on Meridian Street. It was in a non-descript brick building above a storefront, with a little sign in the doorway. I met a lot of great aspiring community journalists and activists. I remember Maxine who I rarely saw inside the office. She had her unique style of writing as did I. She worked from home or wherever an idea entered her head.
I am still friends with two of those young journalists and activists, Gail Miller and Frank Conte. Both of them like myself are still quite active doing what each of us does best. We all learned much from our experience with a great little newspaper that used to like driving folks mad. We were not driven by ad revenue, but by what we perceived as truth. Sounds kind of idealistic but we all need some of that quality from time to time to tame our cynicism.
It was there I learned real life experiences cannot be boxed in by ideology. Maxine had a mouth with a large voice, and she found just the right vehicle to get to people in her writings that always made people think and laugh, sometimes at the same time. She will be missed.
SAL GIARRATANI
East Boston