The Ides of June

Pictured above left to right: Terry Sweeney, Tom Quatromoni, Toby Lineaweaver

I better hurry up and write this chapter, because I only have a few days to live. You see, it’s all about (ominous music swell here) the Ides of June!

I know there isn’t such a thing, at least in the literary sense, but they sure as heck exist for me, a loaded time of the year fraught with neurotic tensions and portents. Have the petrels returned? How will the year-end race to the fiscal finish line end up? Can we get the place and all the various projects tidied and tied up for the summer visitors?

How about, will I live past June 29? That little superstition has to do with Terry Sweeney, Penikese’s director before me, someone I knew for only a short but indelible and life altering spell. The clock is ticking, so let me tell this story as quickly as I can.

Terry hired me in August 1995 to be a part time clinical consultant to the school. During my interview Terry explained that he had been charged by Penikese’s Board of Directors to perform a ground-up assessment and make whatever changes necessary to help Penikese recapture some of its faded zeal and reputation. At the time I had a busy outpatient practice working with children, adolescents, court referrals and people with substance abuse issues, so my work with Penikese was meant to be a bit of a branching out, a dalliance and a few extra dollars in my pocket.

As happens for so many dipping their toe into Penikese waters, I quickly became smitten, then dedicated, and soon I was thinking of little else. Apart from the school’s rich history and the island’s unmistakable magic and beauty, I quickly came to recognize Penikese as providing an optimal way of working with intractably resistant and high-risk adolescents, and, in spite of the school’s mixed reputation, a gold mine of treatment potential.

Terry and I hit it off like long lost friends, and discovered we shared many similar impressions of the school and dreams for change. Terry, he of the penetrating blue-eyed gaze, woolly eyebrows and ever-smoldering cigar, possessed a quick, scarily biting wit and a razor-sharp mind with years of experience in higher education and non-profit organizations. An eager disciple, I vacuumed his brain like there was no tomorrow. Funny thing…

In late 1995 Terry offered me a full time job as Assistant Director, a do-your-dream opportunity to get way from office cubicles and managed care paperwork and into a genuine experience where ideas and passion mattered! I accepted and, after a brief interim while I wrapped up my other job, I drove to the Penikese office for my very first day of full time work in February 1996. And when I arrived, there was Terry waiting by the front door making a show of glancing at his watch. Oblivious, I bounded out of the car with tail wagging and ready to change the world, that is until Terry bored into me with those eyes of his, growled, “You’re 5 minutes late,” and then disappeared into the house in a cloud of cigar smoke.

Uh-oh. Here, folks, is where I began to understand the difference between dating someone and being married to them. No more candlelit dinners, no honeymoon, just work, slavish galley work under a cracking, slightly paranoid whip. Yes, we got a lot done and I learned much, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I liked Terry far more as a friend and mentor than a boss, and for us to begin to clash and battle. There was some mitigating circumstances, chief among them Terry’s battle with serious diabetes and the possible effects it was having on his moods.

Our relationship went steadily downhill until one day in late-June we got into a verbal fistfight about a student I thought Terry was being unnecessarily hard on. Now, when I get pissed off I tend to cry, and on this occasion I was so angry I probably looked a bit like Sally Struthers, tear-streaked and mascara running down my face. Of course Terry took it for weakness, and the capper came when Terry bit off his cigar and snarled, “You don’t have what it takes to be in this business. I think you need to go home and think things over. Now beat it!” That was Friday.

Well, I did just that, straight to the bosom of my wife, and we had a long discussion about what to do. "Everything will be fine," she reassured me, "we'll make it somehow, just do what is right for you." And, with the thought that I had already spent too many years in therapy recovering from my maniac father to be working for someone turning out to be pretty goddamned maniacal in his own right, I decided to quit. The next day Terry called me about some operational detail from his vacation spot up in New Hampshire, and in the process managed to toss in a few barbs. When I rang off I said to my wife, “That tears it, when I go in on Monday I am quitting!” Then we went to a wedding in Woods Hole, resolved to our fate.

That afternoon during the reception our first child, then about a year old, began to show signs of melting down, so I volunteered to take him home for a snack and some naptime. I got to the house, put him in the high chair and began feeding him. While doing so I noticed a message on the machine, and when I replayed it was Dave “Pops” Masch, long time Penikese-er, asking me to call him about something important. With spoon of applesauce in one hand and telephone in the other I called Pops and instead got his wife, Jeanne, and asked her what was up.

“Toby,” she said, “Terry is dead. He had a heart attack and died earlier this afternoon.”

I was shocked speechless, utter, blood-draining shock and disbelief. After a moment's pause Jeanne asked, "Toby, are you there?" I stammered, “You, you... are ... shitting me!” Jeanne, ever the therapist in her own right, then calmly but firmly talked me down until I was able to rationally comprehend what had happened. I had just spoken to Terry at 11 that morning, and now, just like that only a few hours later he's gone!

That was Saturday, June 29. The next day, June 30, the Board of Directors convened an emergency meeting and, instead of going in to quit, I went into work on that Monday as Interim Director. Everything changed just-like-that, and nothing has been the same ever since.

Lassie, Get Help!

The following is the first in a series of occasional chapters, arranged in loose chronological order, that recount a span of Penikese history beginning with founding director George Cadwalader’s retirement in 1994 through Terry Sweeney's brief tenure that ended with his death in June 1996, and the turbulent aftermath in which Toby Lineaweaver inherited George and Terry’s mantle and Penikese was reborn (the latter two not necessarily being causally related).

Some names and events will be altered sufficiently to protect the people involved from embarrassment without affecting the truthful gist of the story (Oprah forgive me). I would also like to say that every single soul who has given themselves to Penikese, no matter how wonderful and saintly or difficult and maddening, deserves their own star in the crown of heaven if for nothing else than wanting to contribute to this worthy but steeply uphill mission, and even if in the end Penikese (or I) wasn’t for them. We all meant well and were doing our best, and I thank and salute each and every one of you.

I gave my first-ever clinical presentation to Penikese island staff on a Friday in September 1995. Recognizing that Penikese had long been resistant (if not derisive) to therapists and the whole clinical realm in general, Terry and I worked carefully to strategize this first foray into enemy territory. We debated the merits of several texts, chose the most promising and relevant one, and then handed a copy to each of the island staff with instructions to read and bring reactions and questions to the next staff meeting.

I then spent several concentrated hours trying to boil everything I knew (looking back, not as much as I thought) into a brief, user-friendly primer on adolescent psychology. I neatly typed up the handout, and even made sure to format in a cartoon clipping spoofing therapy for a little disarming humor.

The Friday finally arrived and with my Penikese debut now moments away, I awaited with handouts ready, pencils sharp, bright-eyed and eager to make a strong first impression as Terry introduced me to the island staff and described what he had hired me to do. With that I thanked Terry, launched into some nervous introductory patter, then handed out my outline.

A quick aside: much later I realized that for Terry, hiring me to be the school clinician was more than just about Penikese coming into closer alignment with the modern-day expectations and regulatory requirements; this was the first salvo in a full-on culture war and march to total school revision. Little did I know at the time the Trojan horse purpose I was serving, embedded within my guise as a simple clinician.

Anyway, during my introduction the island staff sat around Terry and me on the porch overlooking Little Harbor. Some had just come off the island, as evidenced by that distinctive odor of kerosene and woodsmoke I long ago dubbed “eau de Penikese.” It seemed to me that I was being regarded somewhat warily, like an unannounced guest or intruder whose purpose and intentions were yet known. A welcome with open arms it surely was not, but hey, I knew what I was getting into.

I plunged in, gathering confidence and momentum as I went along, convinced in my mind that I was opening up new worlds for these dedicated servants of youth at-risk. That is, right up until I noticed one particular staff, Jim, not looking at his handout but directly at me with an expression that fell just short of a glare.

Wondering what I had done or said wrong I faltered, my arms slowed down their animated waving and, sensing my loss of momentum, Jim turned to Terry and without so much as apology or prelude blurted out, “Terry, what the hell are we spending money on this shit for?”

Welcome to Penikese, Toby!

Only on Penikese

Yesterday Penikese hosted Ian Ives, Sanctuary Director of the Ashumet, Long Pasture and Skunknett River Wildlife Sanctuaries out to the island. Ian plans to lead two Audubon trips down the Elizabeths this fall, including a tour of Penikese Island and we invited Ian to join us for one of our regular Wednesday trips so that he might learn about the school and the island’s natural history including Agassiz’s Anderson School and the Penikese Leper Colony, and this way enrich his tour.

Ian responded enthusiastically to our suggestion and arrived with two guests, John Galuzzo of Mass Audubon South Shore Sanctuaries and David Sibley, author of the Sibley Guide to Birds. Though constantly distracted by birds flying every which way all three proved gracious and attentive guests, accompanying me on a tour of the school and out to the Leper Cemetery before putting down their field pieces long enough to have lunch with the staff and students.

Naturally, the students had to trot out the island’s battered copy of Sibley’s, given to us a few years ago by Dick and Reta King and now bound down the spine with duct tape. David autographed the book and listened as one of the students politely requested he make a gift of a replacement copy, the student at once demonstrating good manners and promise for a career in development. After lunch Ian, John and David were trooped out to Tubbs Point by Mass Wildlife’s ornithologists in residence to view their camp and the swarming tern colony.

As the festivities drew to a close we made our way down towards the dock, and a few of us paused at the bottom of the tractor path in front of the Mass Wildlife Sanctuary sign. David planted his tripod to take a last look out over the cove, at which point I distinctly heard amid all the cawing and crying bird racket a cricket-like ch-chip, ch-chip. It sure sounded to me like a Virginia Rail I heard during the night one fall, but standing next to the David Sibley, the last thing I was going to do was venture a guess. 

Instead I said something to the effect of “Gee, is that an insect or a bird I hear?” David cocked his ear, the sound repeated itself on cue, and David immediately declared,“Oh, that’s a Virginia Rail. There must be a marshy area nearby” (there is, just on the other side of the bushes we stood next to).

Then (and this is the kicker), he whipped from his pocket an iPhone, did some scrolling with his thumb, hit another button and played the very sound we had just heard. Impressed, I had to ask what it was he was playing and David explained he had a beta version (working but not yet ready for release) of the soon-to-come interactive e-Guide to Birds that will be downloadable onto computers, iPhones, Blackberry’s and the like. He even played the Leach’s Storm Petrel burrow calls for us. Wow!

Again thanks to Ian, John and David for making Penikese, always an interesting place, even more interesting on that day. Here are links to blogs written by John and Ian about their experience.