In Character: Carol Bock

Remember high school: remember there was always that one kid that you hated...the one that was always so perfect. Disgusting! For us it was Larry McGuire. Sister Doloretta (Dolly, to us boys) was constantly opining "Be a Larry". Every school had its own "Larry". They were so good (and we heard about it so often) that we hated them.

It seems that everywhere you go these days, someone is saying nice things about Carol Bock. Tab readers voted her the #1 City Worker. Lianne Hunt of Great Harvest is more than happy to throw a few kudos in her direction and Chuck Eisenberg of LEA and the Economic Development Commission has appointed himself as her agency-of-record.

To make matters worse, despite all the bon mots she still retains her sweet, self-effacing demeanor with nary a whiff of egotism, its really sickening. Hey, tell me you like my tie and my head swells two sizes.

Well I for one have had enough of this. So I set out to find the dirt behind the real Carol Bock. Watch out Hard Copy, The Memo is on the case. So here is...the rest of the story.

Carol grew up in a triple-decker (No, Jim that's not a sandwich) in Bellingham Massachusetts with a brother. She went off to college to study psychology with a special interest in experimental psychology. There she met and married and had two children. But life changes and she found herself the single Mom of two toddlers with little support and a lot of demands.

Working as a waitress and selling Tupperware, she took care of her kids and completed her education. She went to work for South Middlesex Opportunity Council in Framingham, rising from counselor to Director of Adult Services and then to Director of Planning Advocacy and Community Organizing. She worked to establish an Energy Coop for poor families that has been a successful model for other programs and she worked with the Women's Alliance and others on issues around the feminization of poverty.

Keeping her day job, and still providing for her kids (now 11 and 8), she went back to school at Tufts University's Department of Urban and Environmental Policy for a Master's Degree and then to work for the Framingham Planning Department. Newton's then Director of Planning and Development, Barry Canner, hired her away and she came here to work with Alison Cohen in the Economic Development Department. When Alison left, Carol became Director of Economic Development and has been given some of the city's most intense and demanding projects to run, including most recently, the Management Study. She is also a vice-president of the League of Women Voters a member of the Board of Director's of the Chamber and active in the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus.

But wait there's more! After several years of traveling to Blues festivals, a love she shares with her husband Scott (who, by the way, is only your average exceptionally accomplished person), Carol has become quite in demand as a Blues photographer and writer and recently interviewed Blues legend Sonny Payne. You can expect to see more of her work in Blues wire and Blues Review, both available at Tower Records.

And what has become of those two kids who had to grow up with this woman? Well, Kim, the oldest, was a reporter for the Boston Globe, graduated law school (I know this because Carol once made me read one of her briefs...who's to deny a proud mom) and is now a junior associate with EG&G in Wellesley. Seth is in his last year studying Biology and Geology at UMass. He expects to go on to med school.

So there is the story. The plain, unvarnished truth. I just hope that you didn't read it at breakfast.

There is nothing worse in this world for us plodders than a good person who is, underneath that good person exterior, well.....a great person.