My Scout News

From the Lexington Minuteman

Everyone interviewed in the days after Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death seemed to say the same thing: He made everyone feel like he knew them.

It’s fitting, then, that on the day of his funeral Ted Kennedy’s influence would extend to a Lexington Boy Scout and his mother, who found themselves brushing shoulders with the powerful and famous people who were the late senator’s friends.

Curtis Réti, 17, was a part of the volunteer honor guard at Kennedy’s memorial service Thursday and Friday. The 50 members of the Boy Scouts’ Boston Minuteman Council were supposed to serve again on Saturday, during the funeral. But the weather made the Secret Service a little jittery, and they canceled the honor guard.

Curtis and his mother, Donnah Nickerson-Réti (also a Scout leader), still wanted to pay their respects. They called a Kennedy staffer who knew Curtis from his volunteer work and from his letter requesting a commendation from the senator, which Boy Scouts are required to solicit. Curtis has some physical difficulties, and he and his mother just wanted to ask where they could park close to Mission Church so they wouldn’t have to walk far.

The staffer arranged for them to park at a garage nearby. Once there, someone handed them two tickets, which they brought with them on a shuttle to the church.

That’s when they realized they weren’t just going to the church; they were actually invited to the service.

When they arrived, two men with umbrellas escorted them to the church door. They sat in the righthand aisle of pews, and had better seats than Steven Spielberg, who they could see off to their right.

“I don’t know how we got in, but we got in,” Curtis said.

The service itself, they said, was beautiful.

“People alternated between tears and laughter,” Donnah said. “It was a very warm place to be. You couldn’t tell which people in that room were his staffers. Everyone in that room were just people.”

After the service, Curtis and Donnah were some of the first people out. They came to the service in their full Scout uniforms, and a staffer mentioned they looked official enough, then asked if they would hold the doors for people as they exited.

It appeared to Donnah that every guest from Hollywood was funneled through this particular door.

They spent the next hour talking to Tony Bennett, Jack Nicholson, and other celebrities who Curtis didn’t even recognize. Lauren Bacall chatted him up about his badges (“What are those circles on your uniform?”) and, in a proud moment for his mother, the star of ’40s film noir called Curtis handsome.

“I had no idea how to respond to that,” he said. “I was like, ‘Thank you?’”

On the bus to the parking garage, Donnah and Curtis joined people who, like them, were seated in the “general public” area. That included the Rev. Jesse Jackson (who held up Curtis and Donnah at the garage as he talked to people behind their parked car), former Celtics star Bill Russell, and former Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was a Boy Scout and gave Curtis the secret handshake of the Order of the Arrow, the Scouts’ honor society.

The pair’s conversations covered many subjects, whether they were talking to former U.S. Sen. John Edwards about the weather or to Lauren Bacall about her travel arrangements. Those chats inevitably drifted back to Ted Kennedy, whose reach beyond political and social boundaries was demonstrated by the people who, for a rainy August Saturday in downtown Boston, were all just regular folks.

“He was Kennedy. He made everyone feel like he knew them,” Curtis said.

And on one day, he made at least two people aware of the value of unconditional service to others.

“You do service because you want to, but then you get these rewards …” said Donnah.

“… And you don’t even do it for the rewards,” Curtis finished.

Bryan Mahoney is the editor of the Lexington Minuteman. When he’s not wondering what Tony Bennett looks like up close, he can be reached at lexington@cnc.com.