I met Ron Ricci at his East Bare Hill Road home. On the table in front of us was a piece of an autopilot unit that he was preparing to install in his sailboat.
When I was thinking of retiring, my wife said, “You gotta find something to do that’s outside of the house, and yardwork doesn’t count!” So I came up with “I’ll buy a sailboat.” But then I kept working to pay for the sailboat, because a boat’s a big hole in the water you throw money into. My neighbor at the time, Steve O’Brien, had a couple boats, and he helped me out. He told me, “If you want to buy something for the boat, and your wife asks you how much does it cost, you don’t say a number. You say, ‘Well, that’s only a BOAT unit.’” Because you know the origin of the name “boat”? It’s really an acronym; BOAT stands for “bring over another thousand.”
You’ve been very active in town government.
I made a mistake a long time ago. I lived in the Applewood Village condos by the skating rink in Boxborough, and things were not running correctly. Things weren’t getting done, so I made the mistake of opening my big mouth and my neighbors all elected me president of the condo association. I didn’t learn my lesson, and I opened my mouth when I moved here, and now I’m going into my ninth year as a selectman.
It’s difficult to get anything done because you just can’t go do it. There are different challenges, and you really have to adapt to the challenge. I went to the Galapagos recently and went to the Darwin Research Center, and there was a quote from Darwin: “It’s not the strongest of the species or the smartest of the species that survives, it’s the one that adapts.” So you have to adapt.
But being on the Board of Selectmen is fun. People can take shots at you all the time, but I think it’s really that people don’t like government, except their own government. So Congress has a very low approval rating, except for your congressman. Lawyers are the butt of many jokes, and everyone hates them, except you love your own lawyer.
I wish that more people who know how to run something, people who work in business, would get involved. People that have management experience, or small-business experience. I came onto the Board of Selectmen when I still worked full time owning a small business. Even when I was chairman the first time, I still worked, and it was a challenge, but it can be done. I’d just like to see, going forward, that things be made easier for elected officials to serve.
When I was a kid growing up in Falmouth, I had a newspaper route. I remember the big deal was Friday when you collected the money. I would go around to collect it and there was always somebody at home; usually the wife was at home. Now it’s both parents working, and people are working in Boston, with a long commute. The important thing the town’s going to have to do is adapt to the demands of people doing public service and being able to earn an income for their family at the same time. And there are opportunities for people to volunteer; there are things that can be done.
I try to rely on assigning tasks to the town administrator, and I really admire former selectmen like Rick Maiore who did it before we had a town administrator. It really frees the burden from the residents. Right now, there’s a limited pool of residents who are either retired or don’t work or don’t have jobs that are too demanding.
One thing for me is that I no longer have a child in the public school, so I’m somewhat disconnected from that. But I do know other people in Harvard that do, and I recently recruited somebody to serve on one of our boards who has kids in the school and who also works and who has a tremendous résumé, and I was really excited to recruit her. She stepped up to the plate, and she’s doing a great job. But we need those perspectives.
Tyler Alderson, a 2008 graduate of Bromfield, grew up in Harvard. Everyone has a story. If you or someone you know wants to share one with our readers, email voxharvard@gmail.com.
