Tom Quinn in his Hyde Park home (Photo: Kelly Creedon)

A few years ago, Tom Quinn’s wife got sick. Cancer. She had to stop working, and the bills started piling up. Then one day, a glossy mailing landed on the couple’s kitchen table: “Refinance now with a 15-year adjustable rate mortgage!” The Quinn’s were smart; they were thoughtful; the deal looked good. The broker told Tom he could adjust the rate down if his wife’s conditioned worsened; then it did.

After his wife passed away, Tom was left to support the couple’s two teenage girls by himself. Money was tight, but he had a good job, and the family scraped by. Then Tom got a letter from Wells Fargo, informing him that his bi-monthly mortgage payments would now be consolidated into a single monthly payment. Tom couldn’t pay it in time. He asked if the terms could be adjusted. “No.”

After months of court proceedings and impassioned letters to the bank, Mayor Menino, and anyone else he could think of, Tom Quinn is finally getting ready to leave his foreclosed house behind. He only recently told his daughters what was happening. He has an apartment lined up, but he hasn’t started packing yet; he can’t bear the thought of sifting through his wife’s things.

Tom wasn’t a real estate cowboy, a flipper, an ill-advised investor. He wasn’t using his home as a piggy bank to buy a jetski and a pool table. Tom Quinn did everything right in his life, only to come out on the other side kicked out of his house and with wrecked credit.

How can we keep this from happening to more of our neighbors? Tune in Friday at 1 pm. Here are the guests we have lined up so far:

–Elyse Cherry, CEO of Boston Community Capital
–Chip Case, economics professor at Wellesley
–Evelyn Friedman, director of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development
–Prabal Chakrabarti, community affairs manager for the Boston Fed

Hope you’ll join us.

White Stripes - Hardest Button to Button

Moby - Porcelain

The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes

One organization based in Jamaica Plain, Cty Life Vida Urbana (CLVU), takes dramatic steps to keep homeowners in their homes.

This Friday, we talk to some of these homeowners and learn what CLVU does for them.

WBUR’s Bianca Vasquez-Toness spoke with a different set of homeowners back in January.  Click HERE to listen to their story.

This Car Up - “Tarzan vs Graham Chapman”

Boards of Canada - “Into the Rainbow Vein”

Sonic Youth - “Stones”

Moby - “Porcelain”

Newly relaxed laws on marijuana were passed by ballot initiative on election day. We’ll take a look at these new rules, and at the changing rules for tobacco sales and use. We’ll also re-examine the arcane way liquor licenses are awarded in Boston.

We visit Salmon Falls Canoe:

The Mouradian Guitar Company has been in the business of building and servicing electric and accoustic guitars and basses since 1983.  They specialize in repairing, restoring, and custom building. Here, Jim Mouradian, talks about building a guitar for his idol and later good friend, Chris Squire from Yes:

Taza Chocolate…mmmmmmmmm

Statue of James Michael Curley. Photo Credit: Molly Feit

I’m Irish, and I grew up in Massachusetts. Never mind that I grew up in the western part of the state, in the Pioneer Valley, a place true Bostonian’s believe is so far west, it’s practically upstate New York. Growing up, I thought of Boston as the big city, and loved my occasional visits with my family, mostly to go to Fenway Park. Boston was a wonderful place for me, and as soon as I could, I moved here; I have never left.

When I came to Boston, I didn’t know anything about James Michael Curley. This is what I did know: city government was controlled by the Irish. I knew of the hyper parochialism of South Boston’s Irish community, and even though I didn’t have a strong connection to my own Irish identity, when moving to Boston I felt I was moving to an Irish town.

Looking back now on the incredible life and flawed career of James Michael Curley, it seems to me that he’s at least in part responsible for Boston having that reputation. Curley grabbed onto the power of the Mayor’s Office, and used it to raise up his family and friends in the Irish Community. He personified the success sons of Ireland could find here in the Bay State, born of immigrants fleeing the old sod. He helped to make Boston a place the Irish could feel at home.

But he was also convicted of fraud and influence peddling, and so he represents the corruption many associate with politics. That idea still has resonance today, as is demonstrated by the charges of influence peddling leveled against Bostonian State Senator Dianne Wilkerson. Wilkerson, the only African American member of the State Senate, also used her position to raise up friends and family in her community. She too, helped to give her constituents a voice among the powerful.

This week on Radio Boston, the week of the 50th anniversary of the death of James Michael Curley, we’ll spend some time with Jack Beatty, author of the best known biography of the Mayor, “The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley.” Tune in at tomorrow at 1, or comment below to join the conversation.

Video by Ernesto Morales
Courtesy of City Life/Vida Urbana (www.clvu.org)

Bobby’s War, originally uploaded by WBUR.

“[The decision to invade Iraq] was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.”
– Ret. Lt. General Gregory Newbold, Marine Corps

“You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.”
– Kaiser Wilhelm to departing German troops, August 1914.

As we observe Veteran’s Day this week, the war in Iraq will be heading into its sixth year. We did a show last November on the cost of that war on many of those who return. PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The numbers are staggering. It’s the war that never stops. Much of what we know about it we’ve learned since the war in Vietnam, when the phrase was coined…in the cases of so many living dead who came back. Even now, forty years later, substantial numbers of Vietnam vets are turning up for the first time at Veterans Administration hospitals with symptoms of PTSD.

Bobby’s story, which you can listen to here, says more than the numbers ever could about the cost of our wars and the sacrifices of those who fought them.

One of our callers toward the end of the show, Debbie, expressed her continued outrage over the misogyny that Hillary Clinton faced during the Democratic primary. Debbie said she’s having trouble accepting Barack Obama’s victory as a moment of national unity in the wake of that bitter contest. Several emailers thought Debbie was off base.

Jim: “The woman who called your show with the complaint, ‘President Obama doesn’t look like me!’ echoes the historical contradiction between white women and African-African struggle for full citizenship. Her angst to me speaks of entitlement and white privilege under the guise of women rights.”

Sheila: “Why do feminists continue to blame Barack Obama for the ‘misogyny’ of right wing talk show hosts? […] [Debbie’s comments reflect] a historic failure of the women’s movement from its inception. DuBois was at the Niagara Conference and supported women suffragists. Feminists drew their theory, their rhetoric, and their tactics from the civil rights movement. But whenever feminists have had the opportunity to achieve their goals at the expense of African Americans–their allies– they have done so. Clinton’s petulant, egotistical and willfully destructive horror show was just the most recent betrayal of their own principles.”

Still many more of our emailers were just basking in the glow of Obama’s election, and the historic achievement of the civil rights movement it represents.

John: “a child of the 50’s and 60s I still think of myself as a Greek-American, at 16 thrown out of a girl’s house by her Irish father because I was Greek. I knew Greek girls who could only date Greek boys, in college, I was denied the opportunity to take a Japanese-American girl, also 1st generation, out to dinner because it was not permitted by her parents or culture. I knew few Black people growing up, and didn’t encounter until I was older the depths of prejudice against minority black, hispanic etc ..my wifde is 1st Gen portugese american, from cape verde, 25% black (her grandmother was a cape-verdean black woman her grandfather a european white portugese man). I creid tuesday nite. We both did.”

One of our emailers pointed out that, while Tuesday represented a great step forward for the rights of racial minorities, the same day has been decried by many as step backward for the rights of sexual minorities.

Keith: “I am one of the countless caucasian americans who was in tears on tuesday night as obama accepted the presidency. unfortunately though, the joy that i and my husband felt was somewhat shortlived. this is because, while America was celebrating a huge success in the civil rights movement, the citizens of several states in the country were formalizing their prejudice and discrimination by stripping gays and lesbian of equal rights to marry.”

Your phone calls, emails, and comments mean so much to us here at Radio Boston. Jane, David, Mark, Jessica, Molly, Tim and I all come to work everyday with the sincere hope of facilitating conversations that inform, enlighten, and advance our community. Today, we’re feeling like we achieved that goal, thanks to you guys.