Lowell Strong, Too

This one goes out to a longtime friend, who found himself unwittingly thrust into not just the national forefront this week, but the global one as well.  Throughout possibly the most testing week of the Bay State's history, the man seen standing as a rock in the center of the chaos, was Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis, III.

I worked with Ed for quite a stretch of time, first when he was a Lowell Police Vice Squad Sergeant, and I stalked him as a Lowell Sun police reporter, and ultimately, we worked alongside one another, when he drafted me to be his Communications Director at the Lowell PD when he became Superintendent.  Here we were in 1996 hanging with a different Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

Since then, our careers have gone in different directions, but we've always managed to stay plugged in with one another.

This week, I watched with fascination as Ed stood in front of the global media, providing sporadic updates about the case that gripped the nation and forever changed the Boylston Street finish line of the Boston Marathon.

But the story I wanted to share was not about Ed's media exploits, not about his leadership at the front of the police investigation, it was about the mid-week conversation we shared.  The conversation had nothing to do with the investigation.  I wouldn't be so shallow as to put him into a pickle by asking him questions during a sensitive investigation that literally meant life-and-death circumstances for all involved.

No, the conversation was unforgettable, because Ed, who had barely been eating and sleeping for days, was calling to check on me.  He knew that my family, fellow E Streeter friends and I had been at the finish line when the bombs went off.  He knew that my son, Andrew, was running in his first marathon.  He knew my wife, Jackie, and daughter, Heather had been standing directly across the street from the first blast.  And he wanted to make sure we were all okay.

The man whose life, career, and and every syllable were the fodder of cameras and scribes worldwide, just wanted to make sure one of his friends was doing okay.  He listened to my version of what we all had experienced.  He told me his officers were doing everything they could to catch those responsible.  And then he had to bolt, because something else was unfolding.
On Friday night, I admit to sitting there with more than a gloating sense of pride watching him stand before all of those cameras again to tell everyone the nightmare was over, the bad guy was in custody.  Throughout all the week's champion cries of Boston Strong, I couldn't help but think it was Lowell Strong, too.  I hearkened back to the dozens of press conference we had worked on together.  I remember the discussions we would always have before he got in front of the cameras.  We didn't always agree on how it was going to play out. In fact, we disagreed frequently, but it was never an insurmountable difference of opinions.  We moved on, and stepped right back into the trenches the next time we needed to get a job done.

Ed will be forever changed by this, no question.  And at the same time, he won't be.  He'll still be the guy who grew up in Lowell's Centralville neighborhood, landed a job working for a department he loved, and then worked his way up through the ranks until he took the helm of that department.  He'll still be the guy from the law enforcement family, who has made his second family within law enforcement, not just locally, or statewide, but nationally, and now globally as well.  He'll still be the guy I remember during that fateful October in 1996 who personally visited the homes of each of his brother officers who were killed in a tragic plane crash, to meet with their families and pledge to do everything he could to help them go on.

And now, he'll be the guy I remember who took a couple of minutes away from one of the most horrific and gripping tragedies that has tested our nation to check on my family and me.  And when a bit more time has passed and the global news agencies have returned to their stations to await the next big story, he'll still be a man I'm proud to call my friend.