The World According to Gillespie

A PASSWORD IS REQUIRED TO READ THIS COLUMN.   This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . For a society that is becoming far more inclusive and socially open (apparently), it is ironic that we now rely on so many passwords to maintain our privacy.   When we were kids passwords were simple.   There were essentially two passwords that you had to know:   Ollie Ollie Oxen Free and something to do with Ali Baba and Open Sesame.   Now the amount of things that require passwords is bordering on ridiculous.   A short list of the places and/or sites that I currently need passwords for include my ATM account, my CD Baby Account, Amazon, E-bay, Yahoo, Google, Aspen, Baseline Edge, Blogger, Naviance, Facebook, JetBlue, ITunes, PayPal, Banjo Hangout, VistaPrint, Aesop (now known as Frontline), not to mention needing various PIN numbers necessary for places like the doctor’s office (don’t get me started), Bank of America, TD Bank, ...

GATES OFFICIALLY PART OF SCITUATE HISTORY This column originally appeared exclusively in the Scituate Mariner on  Wicked Local . Scituate’s Gates Intermediate School closed down last week as the town awaits the opening of its innovative replacement on the same grounds as the high school. One hundred years ago when the Gates Intermediate School opened its doors for the first time, following an initial delay due to a shortage of teachers caused by America’s entry into World War I, it was acknowledged as historically significant.   “The whole town turned out that day,” says historian and former Gates teacher Bob Corbin.   “The opening of Gates was a big event,” says Corbin.     In fact, one of the pillars at the entrance to Gates contains a lined box, a time capsule that houses the following:   records of the meetings of the Scituate building committee, brand new coins from 1918, an edition of the Boston Globe, the signatures o...

Carrying on as usual      This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . When I leave for work in the morning, I always take the same four things from the top of my bureau.   I grab my car keys, my flash drive, my contact lens solution, and my IPhone and they all get stuffed conveniently into the left front pocket of my pants. Just for the record, I owned a flip phone until last summer when my wife convinced me to get a phone upgrade after tranquilizing me with a blow dart similar to one that Marlin Perkins used on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and whisking me away to Best Buy to take advantage of a buy one get one free deal that largely benefited her.   I keep my wallet in my right front pocket, a security habit I developed while living in the city.   If I kept my wallet in the left front pocket with the rest of those things, I would have had to wear a second pair of pants in order to fit it in.   I leave the hous...

MUSINGS ON THE 2015 BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTIONS Puh-lease!   Make it stop.   Lou Gorman is rolling over in his grave!   The Baseball Hall of Fame balloting is completely out of control.   I returned home tonight, made myself dinner, and sat down in front of the television where I listened to Sean Casey telling me that Craig Biggio is a deserving Hall of Fame candidate.   What?   Sean Casey should be walking off the set in protest, and although it is clearly not part of his nature, he must privately be thinking, “Why aren’t I being inducted into the Hall of Fame?”   This is now out of control.   Yes.   Craig Biggio was a good player, sometimes a great player.   But he was not a Hall of Fame player!   True.   He amassed 3,000 hits.   Sadly, that statistic used to mean a lot more.   I remember Carl Yastrzemski taking what seemed like months attempting to reach hit number 3,000, and when he finally grounded...

FAST FOOD DISAPPEARING FAST This column originally appeared on  Wicked Local , and is also featured on    4-traders.com . What has happened to real fast food?   I was up in Vermont in April.   I was driving down route 7 into South Burlington, a road that is filled with commercial properties including several restaurants.   Strangely, I noticed there were no real fast food restaurants, at least as far as my contact lenses would allow me to see.   I spotted a Chipotle and soon found a Panera.   I began to question whether these two places now qualified as fast food joints or should be considered actual restaurants.   Apparently, these are the things that I think of after driving for five hours.   I am not writing this column as a proponent of fast food.   I understand that a steady diet of Big Macs can be hazardous to one’s health, and the Surgeon General has determined that smoking them can be even wor...

IF YOU WEREN’T INFLUENCED BY PRIHODA, THEN YOU DIDN’T KNOW JACK This column originally appeared on  Wicked Local . I woke up last Saturday morning to a text from an old friend, a co-worker at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.   “Did you hear about Jack?   Heart failure.   Does not sound good.”   Jack Prihoda spent 33 years working at the Marriott Copley.   He became the Bellcaptain in 1990.   It was impossible to tell 27 years ago that the humble man who casually careened his well-worn car along the Jamaicaway every day on his way to work would become so pivotal in so many lives.   I was 22 years old in 1990 and, at that point in my life, had already survived abbreviated soul-searching stays in Chicago and San Diego, collected a few random credits from Bridgewater State College, and had managed to save up enough money to complete one very expensive trimester at Northeastern University.   I was broke, carless, essentiall...

LET'S GET PHYSICAL This column originally appeared on  Wicked Local .   I rarely see doctors.   I don’t usually have the need.   A pill regimen to me constitutes taking a daily vitamin.   That is, if I remember to take it.   Cats cause me to suffer asthma type allergy symptoms, and because I do not have a cat, this is of little concern.   I do, however, have an emergency inhaler for those times when I find myself at someone else’s house and they have a cat.   My need for the inhaler is so infrequent that sometimes years pass by without using it all.       This past February, however, I began to suffer from cat allergy symptoms.   I could not breathe freely.    To the best of my knowledge, I had not been in contact with an actual cat, but I was thankful to be able to turn to my emergency inhaler for relief.      If you have been following this column, you know...

HISTORY SHROUDED BY BLANKET OF TIME This column originally appeared on  Wicked Local . My wife and I sat on the couch with our yellow lab positioned in her customary place between us on “her” blanket.   Startled, Natalie (my beautiful wife, not the dog) yelled out, “Look at this!”   She held up the end of the blanket.   There was a gaping hole in it.   Although she refuses to retrieve things, our dog Hannah does have a penchant for interior decorating.   With a blanket in front of her, she will casually rearrange things until they are perfectly positioned, moving them about with her mouth.     Apparently, while I thought she was redecorating her space earlier in the day she had actually been gnawing away at the blanket.   I took the damage in stride.   I have a hard time getting mad at a dog.   Maybe it’s the floppy ears.   Maybe I just understand that dogs are sometimes unable to control their instinctua...

BASEBALL IS BETTER LEFT UNTOUCHED This column originally appeared on  Wicked Local . By the time you are reading this column, the Boston Red Sox will have opened the 2017 season and will be off to a record of 2-0 (boy, do I hope I am right).   I hope the first two games the Red Sox played were long, grueling encounters.   I hope they were marathons that forced both teams to exhaust all of their pitching.   I hope that the first Red Sox games of the 2017 season have left journalists in the press box reminiscing about the 33 inning affair in Pawtucket 36 years ago when the immortal Dave Koza finally drove in Marty Barrett to win the game.   I love baseball, and the more of it there is the better .   So I beg you, can we please stop talking about shortening the game?   The idea that the pace of our national pastime must somehow be abridged seems to imply that it is not enjoyable.   Baseball fans disagree. Monopoly purists...