Tom Barry:  

I went to Notre Dame on a Navy Scholarship intending to become an architect after serving as a Marine, after two years I resigned from the Navy, after three I left Notre Dame, went to work in Boston at a series of architectural firms; worked on hospital projects, a sewage treatment plant, college buildings, renovation of mill buildings and residential developments. Went to work for a project management firm in New York, commuted by air from Boston weekly to the eastern shore of Maryland and Delaware, building beachfront vacation condos. In short order I married Alice, OPEC embargoed oil shipments, the vacation condo market collapsed, construction all but stopped and I had no job. I started my own design build firm. Designed and built a sound studio, a variety of house and condo renovations; learned carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and welding among other skills. I also learned that Murphy’s Law was clearly optimistic. In the middle of this Alice opened a custom women’s wear shop. I renovated two successively larger shops on Dartmouth St. for her. I renovated a 6 1/2 acre warehouse near Lechmere Square to a natural food processing plant, cold storage and offices. During the Blizzard of ’78 I managed to keep it from collapsing from roof snowdrifts like the neighboring buildings. We got pregnant (how modern of me), moved to the Adirondacks to enlarge my in-laws restaurant for the 1980 Winter Olympics, during a large concrete pour, our son Matthew was born (at the hospital). The Olympics were a business tragedy, both of my in-laws became ill with cancer; we ran their hotels and restaurant. I became the chef, head bottle was...Expand for more