“For us, it's been five generations of family at the club. My father boxed in the service and after World War I, he and a bunch of guys would work out at the club. I guess I got started at the club about then, when I was eight or nine. We lived there, really. We'd go there after school, then go home, eat supper and go back

. Then my kids went there, and their kids, and now my great-grandchildren. And I have one granddaughter, Callie Gaherty, who works at the Dorchester club in Boston.

I've been on the board of the Alumni Association since the 1940s and we've always tried to promote activities that might not be in the budget. We'd get the painters' union to help with painting, for instance, and, believe me, that was a big deal. I was president of the Alumni Association in the '50s and we had a drum and bugle corps, the Cavaliers, that was ranked nationally in the top 10 one year. We had father-son days at the club and we'd have a family day at Camp Russell where your whole family could take a bus from downtown for $3 and spend the day at the camp, no charge for food or anything but beer.

We did minstrel shows before they went out of style and we booked musicians like Harry James and Duke Ellington at the club

. I'll tell you the kind of place it was. Once way back when, I got laid off at GE and I applied all over town but couldn't get a job anywhere. And one day I got a call from someone at the Ford dealership and he said he had a job for me in the parts department if I wanted one. So I asked him how come he called me when I couldn't find anything anywhere else. And he said a friend of yours called and said we should hire you; that you were a good guy. And that friend was Fred Fahey and I was long out of the club by then.”