6 nshoremag.com April/May 2010

behind the scenes

Bat Mana light fluttering sound wakes me from a heavy sleep. It emanates from the curtain rod above our closed bedroom window. Slowly, I fade back to sleep. A few minutes later, I feel an itch on my right hand. A mosquito, perhaps? Then a scratch like a claw, as if something

is walking over my knuckles. I freeze. My heart jumps from 0-60 in .02 seconds.

A quick jolt of my arm sends a heavy, winged object hurling across the dark-ness as small, high-pitched squeaks pierce the silence of the night. The dog immediately jumps up and starts bark-ing. Now I clearly see: caught in the cur-tain, a bat is desperately trying to escape.

“Bat, bat! Honey, get out of the room!” I yell to my wife, who, up until this point, had been enjoying a deep, coma-like slumber. Without hesitation and with the grace of a gymnast, she jumps from one side of the bed over

me and clears the floor on her way out into the hallway. I scramble out of bed, turn on the light, and watch in horror as a creature the size of a large rat flies in circles over our bed. I slam the door shut and stand in the hallway.

“Let’s get the tennis racket,” I quip, but then recant after imagining a swift collision of tightly wound strings and a small, fleshy rodent. “Stay right there,” my wife says, as she runs into the base-ment and returns with a fishing net large enough to haul in a polar bear. “Good plan,” I say, as I grab the net and slowly crack open the bedroom door. There it was, in the midst of its aerial reconnais-sance. I hunch down and wait for the right moment as the bat circles around and around. A quick leap, followed by a two-handed swoosh and the bat finds itself trapped in the netting and staring up at us with its cold, black eyes from the floor.

We both scream into the night air as if we’d won a medal. High-fives all around. The dog goes crazy. After taking the net outside and letting the bat go, we soon settle back into bed, but it isn’t long before my mind starts wandering. Are there more? Do they live in the siding of our house? How did that thing manage to squeeze between the cracks of our window? Do we need new windows and new siding, and if so, how much is that going to cost me?

In this issue, we catch up with Beverly resident and home improvement icon Kevin O’Connor, the host of WGBH-TV’s “This Old House” and “Ask This Old House” to find out what all of us can do not only to increase the value and safety of our homes, but the curb appeal as well (“Playing House,” page 94). I also recom-mend buying a large fishing net. You might need it. —Jack Morris, Editor

From the Editor

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from the outside, Arthur Ramalho’s West End Gym in Lowell looks like a typical abandoned mill building. But walk inside and it’s clear that this humble boxing gym, home to former World Champion “Irish” Micky Ward and the set of the upcoming movie The Boxer, based on Ward’s life (starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams) is a warm, inviting place where young kids and burgeoning fighters come to train and learn a little something about themselves.

It is this atmosphere that draws photographer John Goodman to the sport of boxing, and what drew him to shoot this issue’s fashion feature (“Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee,” page 102) on location at the West End Gym. After more than 30 years behind the lens (including a memo-rable shoot with Muhammad Ali) and a child-hood spent at a neighborhood gym in Brooklyn, Goodman’s passion for the sport and his chosen profession is evident.

“There’s an aspect that’s about betterment, discipline, maximizing potential, and getting peo-ple off the street,” he says. “As a boxer, you work to make yourself better to perfect your craft. As a photographer, it’s similar. Everyday you’re work-ing to get better: thinking, trying, experimenting.”

Goodman is also quick to shower praise on Ramalho, who has been in the boxing business since 1968. “He represents everything that’s good about boxing. He loves the kids and provides a place for them to work and move forward. People think boxing is brutal—and it is—but there’s a real beauty to the sport. It’s a father-and-son thing, and he’s training these kids like they’re his sons.”

While Goodman’s work has been seen in the pages of Rolling Stone, Time, and others, as well as in his book, The Times Square Gym, he says it’s more than just a job. “I’m trying to make pic-tures that say something about men and women, strength and power, masculinity and femininity. We’re not just shooting surfaces and clothes and skin. I’m shooting a story that speaks to what’s going on in 2010. It’s not frivolous fashion. It’s raw vs. refined. It’s the play of all those things against each other.”

NSAM10_Contributors.indd 6 2/19/10 4:22:31 PM