Record of Hopkinton History Should Be Repeated

We have all kinds of communication today, but we don't have boys so enthusiastic about cars that they time the daily routines of their favorite autos in town and run out into Main Street to stop them before they pass to ask for a ride.

Paul Annunziata, who grew up in downtown Hopkinton in the '50s and went on to become an auto diagnostician like his father Dr. Joe Annunziata was a people diagnostician, not only stopped cars, he once started the Boston Marathon.

It was always a big event, even back then, but there were more like 100 runners than 10,000. Annunziata, who you catch on quickly watching A Hop Skip and Jump Down Hopkinton's Memory Lane, was a bit of a devil as a kid, first asked if he could fire the gun to start the marathon.

Tom Brown, then the postmaster, said "of course not!"

So Annunziata bought a watch with a second hand, tested caps in his cap gun for maximum loudness (too many didn't explode - too few didn't make a big enough noise - seven was perfect), hid under the draped starter's platform, jumped out 20 seconds before the start of the race, fired his cap gun, yelled "Go!", the runners took off and Annunziata was over the fence heading for Grove Street several blocks away before anyone realized what happened.

Annunziata is one of those unusual people who listens as well as he talks. He spent a lot of time after yesterday's showing of his movie reminiscing with people, listening intently to their memories, encouraging them to put their recollections of Hopkinton's past on DVD.

The movie is beautifully produced by HCAM-TV, with film and photos from the '50s and '60s interspersed with Annunziata's modern narrative in the form of a walk downtown with Librarian Susan Marshall.

Annunziata was never shy about talking to and getting to know everyone in the day when televisions had tubes, moms told their kids to go outside and make themselves scarce and Pee Wee's, Pinchie's, Charlie Chins (the tavern-keep who apparently had a lot of them) and Ropey Pierson and his parrot crowded Main Street.

"I think the big difference between now and then is consideration," Annunziata said after about 40 people watched the show Thursday at Hopkinton Senior Center. "We're all so busy," he said. "It's hard to think of one another the way we did back then."

Contact Adult Services Librarian Susan Marshall smarshall@cwmars.org or (508) 497-9777 if YOU have Hopkinton memories to share or know someone who does. She also has DVDs of A Hop Skip and Jump Down Hopkinton's Memory Lane which you can watch - well worth the 90 minutes. I'm pretty sure HCAM-TV also has some copies for sale and of course, Paul Annunziata always love to talk. And listen.