2023 Annual Letter

Lawrence S. DiCara, P.C. / 175 Federal Street, Suite 1500 / Boston, MA 02110

Telephone: (617) 749-9403 / [email protected] / www.larrydicara.com

? January 2023

?Dear Friends,

Catherine, Sophie and Flora continue to enjoy their chosen professions and are working hard.?I never get to see them enough, but I probably see them more than many other dads.

Catherine is teaching third grade at The Meadowbrook School in Weston and living in South Boston with three friends from Hobart and William Smith.?Two of them were teammates of hers on varsity crew; believe it or not, they are triplets.?That is a significant coincidence.?Most weekends Catherine finds her way up to New Hampshire to hike.?She has made some wonderful friends along the way.

Sophie continues to live in New York, now in Williamsburg, and continues working at Bain Consulting. She has had a number of interesting clients regarding whom she doesn’t tell me very much.?She has attended games at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, but remains a diehard Red Sox fan!

Flora has relocated to Bain & Company's Venture Ecosystem Team. She is working with a mix of startups, investors, and large corporations. She is based in?the Boston office and takes the 39 bus to work most days. She often arrives home from work after I have gone to bed! She is still living downstairs and visits when she can, especially when I am in distress. There are many things I cannot do with one good hand. Replacing a printer cartridge is one of them.

As you just read, I have learned to ask for help. That has not come easily. There are things I cannot do on my own.?I have realized there is no reason to be so proud as to not seek assistance from others.?As I accept the reality of this next phase of my life, I have begun to jettison entire chapters of my old life.?I have given away squash and tennis racquets to people who can use them.?Shortly before Covid, I thought of myself as an optimist when I purchased an entire box of squash balls!?Those, too, were handed over to an old squash partner.

I opened up the gym bag which held my softball gear. I have given most everything away but will hold onto my glove, which was a gift from my parents on my 14th birthday; it will find its way to Cedar Grove.

I recall the old suggestion that there are three stages in life: youth, middle age and “my, you are looking well.”?If I had a dollar for everybody who has told me I have been looking well these recent months, I probably could retire!?The truth of the matter is I am well compared to a year ago, but I regret that most everything takes longer than it did, and than I would prefer.?I sometimes think I hear a voice from the sky which tells me “slow down, son.”

For me, 2022 was a year of celebration. ?In April, I came home for the first time since before Thanksgiving.?In May, Sophie and Flora graduated from Harvard on a warm sunny day intended to make up for the cancellation of commencement celebrations two years prior.?I was honored to be there and proud of my daughters for this achievement.?Sadly, Covid restrictions prevented Catherine from receiving her diploma at Hobart and William Smith in 2020 or at Lesley in the spring of 2021.?

A week or so later, I was back on the Harvard campus for my pandemic-delayed 50th Reunion.?Classmates came in from all over the country for what was the 51st anniversary of our graduation.?We are now walking more slowly, drinking less and going to bed earlier, but we still had a ton of fun. ?I was happy to see friends who I have seen regularly over the past 50 years and those who I have only seen rarely.

Also in the spring, I moved my office which in the ordinary course of business is a nuisance but in my case was a cause for celebration since, given what I had been through, having an office to go to is a significant accomplishment.?I have a view of the city I love from the window behind my desk. I am surrounded by old friends and new friends and Trish is right down the hall, as she has been for what will be 35 years this February.

Through a whole set of unforeseen circumstances, I found myself in May addressing a public meeting in Dublin (via Zoom) with respect to the structure of municipal government.?I was joined by the Vice Mayor of Paris and the Mayor of Manchester, England. It was great fun.

In addition to all the other good things happening in my life, in September I received a Shattuck Award from the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.?I was advised I received the award for “providing the city of Boston with a quality of leadership that serves as a model for all who work for the public good.?A lifetime commitment to bettering government, our community, and following in the footsteps of Henry L. Shattuck by providing extraordinary public contributions.”

As anyone reading this letter realizes, I am writing up a storm. I even did so when I was at Spaulding during the first three months of the year.?I think it is important I speak out on important issues and, if occasionally I ruffle a feather or two, so be it.

I remain actively involved in politics and am pleased that Maura Healey will be our Governor and Andrea Campbell (a fellow Boston Latin School graduate) will be our Attorney General.

I have brooded about the results of the November election for many weeks.?Throughout the fall, I was plowing my way through a new book about Watergate by Garrett Graff.?It reminded me of how very fragile our democracy is and how perilous the early 1970s were, perhaps far more than even those of us in politics at the time could have imagined. I really don’t know what will happen going forward either with respect to the relationship between the House and the Senate and President Biden, or in the life and times of Donald Trump, who may be angling for an award from the American Bar Association, given that his actions in office and out of office have resulted in employment for so many of the nation’s lawyers.?I pray for the preservation of our democracy, for the leadership of those who believe in it and certainly hope that we do not devolve into what some would refer to as a “banana republic.”

The other large book which I read this past year was Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands, which painstakingly details the historic tensions among various peoples in Eastern Europe. The atrocities imposed upon the Ukrainian people by Joseph Stalin and then by Adolf Hitler are beyond comprehension.??As I always tell any young person who is interested in listening, a knowledge of history is absolutely essential to govern at City Hall as well as in Washington.

As the year came to an end, I plowed my way through Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves. It tells the rather scary story of how men have not fared well in America in recent years, for a host of reasons. There are many solutions suggested, some of which made an awful lot of sense to me.

I will not comment on the 2022 Red Sox season, but intend to be at spring training this coming March.

I recently came across an essay written by Cicero: “De Officiis.”?In it, he reflects upon what one should do in the second half of life “the old…should endeavor by means of their counsel and practical wisdom to be of as much service as possible to their friends and to the young and above all to the state.”?That sure sounds like a guidebook for me and many of my contemporaries now that we are on the back nine.

Warmest greetings of the new year.

Sincerely,

Larry

Lawrence S. DiCara