Salute to a swinging cat
He was having lunch one day last week in the kind of downtown steak house that he undoubtedly wished had been around back when he was mayor.
And every time his wife, Kathryn, or his best friend, Robert Q. Crane, told another story about the good old days, Kevin H. White would ball his hands into fists, smack them lightly against the edge of the table, and proclaim with a smile, "We had some fun, didn't we?"
There was the time the Queen of England visited Boston for the Bicentennial, and White's aides set up an elaborate collection of fine wines in his palatial fifth-floor office to entertain her.
But when it came time to order a drink, the queen asked for a pink gin and tonic.
"We're looking at each other, wondering what the hell is a pink gin and tonic," recalled Crane, the former state treasurer, laughing as he often does. "So, we sent a couple of cops down to Quincy Market. They got the queen's drink and rushed it back up."
Just after that near miss, the mayor and the queen were preparing to exchange official gifts.
But to everyone's shock, one of the British aides started pulling the coveted painting, "Boston Common at Twilight," off the wall above the gifts, until the mayor's wife told him -- nicely, of course -- to keep his mitts off the artwork.
I bring this up as the city prepares to fete Kevin White tomorrow in a way that few living politicians are ever honored in this town, with his very own statue that will stand in a shaded corner of a brick park just outside historic Faneuil Hall.
Credit Mayor Thomas M. Menino for busting through a notoriously cumbersome bureaucracy to get the statue built for a man who was once his adversary.
White, you see, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and time is of the essence.
Credit, too, the legion of White's young advisers who have grown to become some of the most influential people in town. They've never forgotten their old boss.
But most of all, credit White himself. The very timing of the dedication, in the waning days of a remarkably humorless gubernatorial campaign, in an era of joyless partisanship across America, is a vivid reminder of how much different -- and in many ways better -- politics in Boston and the nation used to be.
Proof? Peter Meade pointed out yesterday that the day after White lost his bid for governor in 1970 to Francis W. Sargent, the two met for lunch, then became fast friends.
That doesn't happen anymore.
Crane was telling another story at lunch. When he was treasurer, he was given what he smilingly says was the first car phone in America. He slyly asked an aide to call him when he knew that White would be a passenger in his car.
White heard the chiming and urgently asked about it. Crane explained, then added, "You don't have one, too?"
About a month later, White called Crane in his car to brag that he had just gotten a phone of his own. Crane told him: "Great, but I've got to run. My other line's ringing."
There was the time White had the Rolling Stones bailed out of a Rhode Island jail so the awaiting concertgoers at Boston Garden wouldn't erupt in a riot.
There was the time, right after Martin Luther King was assassinated, that White persuaded WGBH-TV to broadcast a James Brown concert live from the Garden to keep people in their houses. From the stage, Brown called the mayor "a swinging cat."
As other cities erupted in race riots, White kept the peace. As other cities struggled for viability, White rebuilt the waterfront, redeveloped Quincy Market, redrew the skyline, and opened neighborhood healthcare centers along with City Hall annexes, often while dealing with the turmoil of court-ordered busing.
Tomorrow a statue will be unveiled for the rare leader worthy of one, a mayor whose vision became a city's foundation.
And, to answer his question, they did have fun, the kind of fun politicos don't seem to have anymore.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com. 
