Worcester First!

I spent the first weekend in February in my home town of Worcester, Massachusetts - which will provide fodder for a forthcoming post on the fall and at least partial rise of one of Ye Olde Northeast Industrial Cities.

Now, I have no idea what it's like to grow up in (or live in at all, for that matter) the suburbs or in a small town, but there's really something peculiar and touching (or depressing and pathetic, if you choose to look at it that way) about hailing from a Second Tier City. These are the cities that don't have major league sports teams (excepting Green Bay, which is probably a Third Tier City in terms of size). These are the cities that have big city headaches - slums, gangs, poverty - without big city bonuses: rapid transit, opera companies. These are the cities that are nobody's tourist destination (other than for a bleak February weekend). These are cities that people come from, not go to.

Second Tier Cities are overshadowed by sharing state-space with the city that everyone's heard of: Boston-Worcester, New York City-Syracuse, Cleveland-Youngstown.

In the case of Worcester, you're also saddled with what is apparently an easily mis-pronounced name. You can always tell the newcomer newscasters on Boston TV stations by the way they pronounced Worcester (and Leicester and Leominster). Surely, by now, one of those TV stations could have come up with a pronunciation guide for the second largest city in New England and its environs.

It's not Wor-sess-ter, or (worse) Wor-chester. It's Wuh-stah!

(And it's not Lye-cester, either. Just think Lester. Not to mention it not being Leo-minster. It's Lem-minster.)

In any case, Worcester when I was growing up had such the Second City complex - and I suspect it still does.

This resulted in a combo of defensiveness (defending the city and your ill luck to be living there - come on, if you had any juice, you'd be in Boston) and boosterism: Worcester was always applying for and sometimes winning designation as an All American City. (When I was a kid, I really thought that this was an ultra-important and prestigious award.)

Another thing about growing up in a place that no one's heard of but should have: you're very aware of the famous people who were from there (or who lived there), and the things that were invented there.

(When my sisters/cousins were cruising Worcester on our recent weekend there, I pointed out where Boston Celtics legend - and Holy Cross grad - Bob Cousy lives/used to live. My cousin pointed out where Boston Celtics legend - and Holy Cross grad - Tommy Heinsohn used to live. When we drove by his home, my father invariably pointed out the home of former big league pitcher Elton Awker. I was a baseball fan, but I suspect I'd never have heard of Elton Auker unless my father always announced it when we drove by his house.) We were especially proud of these blow ins. Hey, they're not from Worcester, they don't have to live here, they could live anywhere!

We also had our home grown "stars": the humorist Robert Benchley was from Worcester. The poet (and Poet Laureate) Stanley Kunitz. Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman.

And we had our Worcester inventions and Worcester firsts.

• Dr. Robert Goddard, "The Father of American Rocketry", fired off the first liquid fuel rocket on Packachoag Hill in the 1920's. (Hmmm, when I typed the words "liquid fuel" there, I actually wrote "liquid fool," probably channeling my father's telling us that people used the expression "as crazy as Dr. Goddard" when he was a kid. And, by the way, my father and his sibs had Dr. Goddard on their paper route. He lived on Brookline Street, and his widow was still living there when I was growing up - right across the street from my friend Rosemary's house.)
• The smiley face was invented in Worcester. Of course, the guy who invented it - Harvey Ball - barely made a penny off of it, but I remember when it first started floating around. In the mid- 1960's, I had a smiley face ur-pin. If only I'd hung on to it.
• Forget Seneca Falls! The first national Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester in 1850. And speaking of women's rights, Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member, was from Worcester. (She was Secretary of Labor under FDR).
• One of the rumors when I was a kid was that the Worcester rock-and-roll radio station, WORC - 1310 on your dial, and on my dial until I decided it was more sophisticated to listen to radio stations from Boston - was the place where new recording artists were given a try out. We bragged (bragged!) that they chose Worcester because we had such discerning tastes, and I remember all the talk that "Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain" by the Cascades was first played on WORC. Well, maybe this Worcester-as-the-tryout stage wasn't a rumor. I read on Worcester.org that WORC was the first radio station in the country to play a Beatles record! I did not know that, probably because not only was I snottily listening to Boston stations, I was also snottily listening to Tom Rush and Bob Dylan, and sneering at those who got all hysterical about the Beatles. (I never did get hysterical, but, inevitably, I became I fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.)

Isaiah Thomas the printer - not the basketball player - printed the first Bible and the first dictionary in the US in Worcester. Eli Whitney ginned up the cotton gin in nearby Westboro. Just up Route 9 in Spencer, Elias Howe patented the first sewing machine in the US.

Could there be more?

Oh, yes, there could be:

The first typewriter and the first ballpoint pen were invented in Worcester. (Which I was not aware of.)

And, in 1847, "the first commercial valentine was mass produced in the very Heart of the Commonwealth."

Happy Valentine's Day, from my heart to yours!

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Source for any "first" listed that I did not know is here.

More Worcester firsts here, including first public insane asylum in the US, and the creation of the windchill factor (what better place?).