When I was a junior in High School, I moved from Whitinsville to Leicester and next door to Mike. Within a short time we were best friends. We had a lot of good times during our last two years of High School and we weren't always on the right side of our parents. But we made it through and went on to lead pretty good lives. We both had a love of cars and Mike was a genius when it came to working on and fixing them. I learned so much from Mike about cars that eventually we would change engines in a couple of days and have the cars up and running in a matter of hours. Mike was always the brains and I was his student.
One of the best stories I can relate about Mike was when my '59 Ford broke down in Worcester. The automatic transmission had blown and I only had reverse. It broke down on Canterbury St. and I couldn't afford to have it towed. Mike came up with a solution to my problem. He suggested that we back the car back home to Leicester, about 10 miles. Although I was a bit skeptical, I trusted Mike. I was in the driver's seat and contolled the gas and brake and Mike sat in the middle of the bench seat and took control of the steerng wheel. We had a car lead and one follow us. It was quite a scene and we had quite a few people shaking their heads when we passed by. Luckily we didn't meet any police officers on our journey. It took us about an hour to make it home as we had to stop several times because the car would overheat every couple of miles. We also had to stop for gas in order to make it home. Without Mike I would never have thought of this or would I have been able to make it home.
I'll never forget Mike and all the adventures we shared. Even though we weren't close in later years, I miss him already.
