Boston Herald Howie Carr column

Oct. 01--Where's the gratitude, Mumbles?

Here I am, the guy who coined your most, indeed your only, enduring moniker, and you can't even bring yourself to mention my contribution once in your book, "Memoirs of Mayor Mumbles Menino."

OK, that's not the title of your new book, but it should be. "Mayor for a New America" -- sounds like something John V. Lindsay would have written, circa 1968. Or maybe Kevin Hagan White.

I wasn't really expecting a plug, but when the book arrived, naturally I went straight to the index. No "Carr, Howie," but there was a notation for my creation "'Mumbles Menino,'" 20, 25, 58, 114. See also Menino, Thomas M., speaking/language and."

As I recall, I began calling you Mumbles shortly after you became mayor in 1993. You were in my radio studio, and even with the headphones on, I was having great difficulty understanding you.

I believe I was asking you about your last job in the Dreaded Private Sector -- as a door-to-door life insurance salesman for MetLife. I seem to recall you saying you actually had to go around every week and collect the dime or quarter premium on the few policies you were able to peddle to the naive.

After you left, I was shaking my head. You needed a nickname. Mumbles was an old "Dick Tracy" villain. Chester Gould created a lot of great characters, but somehow Mumbles fit you better than, say, Pruneface, or B.O. Plenty.

In your book, you even admit, sort of, that it's an appropriate handle: "I talked out of the side of my mouth, mumbling decades before I was called 'Mumbles.'"

Later on, though, I got the feeling you thought Mumbles became, well, an "Alcatraz" around your neck, as you once described something or other. Mumbles became what everybody except real estate developers called you, from the "providences" of Canada all the way to "the state of Philadelphia."

I even set up a website with your greatest malaprops. Got great traffic for years.

Last week, I was eating lunch in the Stockyard when you hobbled in with Dan Rea. I came over to your booth to offer my regards.

One question I really wanted an answer to: What's it like not having a police car to drive you around Boston anymore? You see, as the years went by, Mumbles forgot what it's like to drive in Boston, and not for pleasure, either.

I swear, after 20 years of Mumbles, there are no more than four legal parking spaces left on Boylston Street between Mass. Ave. and the Four Seasons. Bicycle paths and 50-unit condo developments with 25 parking spaces -- the whole city is a bleepin' nightmare for cars.

"You know what?" he said. "I have to pay 80 bucks a month now to park at BU."

Beautiful. Welcome back to the real world, Mumbles.

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