PHOTO BY BOB ROCHE
Owen Doherty and his mother Mary of Lynnfield waiting in the snow for the parade.
By STEVE KRAUSE
BOSTON — Steve Ahern of Revere stood under a tree, watching curiously as the scene in Government Center unfolded before him.
The snow was flying and the people were celebrating, waiting for the duck boats escorting the five-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots to come down Tremont Street.
“Is that keeping you dry?” Ahern was asked.
“I want to think so,” he answered.
Like many people who braved the cold and wet weather Tuesday to come into Boston for the parade, Ahern not only watched Sunday’s 34-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons, but he was sure they’d pull the game out.
“Everyone was freaking out at halftime,” he said of the people with whom he was watching the game, “but I kept telling them that they’re a second-half team, that they’d be all right.”
Mary Doherty of Lynnfield wasn’t so confident. She had already hoisted her son, Owen, onto the top of a mailbox on Tremont Street so he could get a better view, and began explaining how she came to see the ending of Sunday’s shocking victory.
“I was at my brother’s,” she said, “and I was ready to go home. It was 28-3, and I said this is it. They’re not going to win.”
She said she was getting ready to go home because “it was a school night,” when she heard cheering from the other room. So, she went back in, and watched the rest of the game.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
The majority of Lynn-area residents who sloshed their way into Boston say they were on board with the idea of a Patriots comeback.
“I never lost faith,” said Elsie Palmieri of Saugus. “Some of the people I was watching the game with did, though.”
Of course, she said, seeing Julian Edelman’s “miraculous catch” in which he picked the ball from between the legs of a defender and hung onto it cemented her confidence.
“That’s probably my lasting memory of the game,” she said.
Tom Colbert of Peabody called that “our David Tyree catch,” referring to the New York Giants’ receiver who came up with an improbable reception, balancing the ball of his helmet, in the 2008 Super Bowl in which the Patriots had their perfect season spoiled.
“That was the most exciting game I have ever seen,” he said. “I never lost faith. I never thought it was over. Not with that team.”
For Lynn’s Luis Pineiros, the game even had more significance.
“It was my 35th birthday Sunday,” said Pineiros, who had 30 people at his house watching. “That was some kind of present. Kids who were watching that game should learn never to give up.”
E.J. Carlson, who coaches an East Lynn Pop Warner team, admits his faith was wavering a little.
“I shut off the TV for about five or 10 minutes when it got to be 28-3,” he said. “But I turned it back on again.”
He was in a distinct minority among the people with whom he rode in from Wonderland.
“Not me,” said Rob McLennan of Lynn. “But I prayed throughout the whole game that they would do it, and stick it in Roger Goodell’s face.”
Still, said Suzanne Perry of Lynn, “it was a nailbiter. Amazing. That was definitely one for the books.”
And about the boos Goodell received as he presented the Vince Lombardi trophy to Patriots owner Robert Kraft?
“I was laughing,” said Alexandra Hernandez. “He deserved it.”
On the other hand, said Colbert, “I thought Brady handled the whole Goodell thing with class.”
Carlson is convinced quarterback Tom Brady can play for “three to five more seasons if he wants to. He has it in him. Brady is it!”
Though not every school in the area cancelled classes so students could attend the rally, Bishop Fenwick did.
Not so in Marblehead. A group of people, some of them students, were seen getting ready to board the train at Wonderland, but they were hesitant about getting their pictures taken.
“I don’t know if we should,” said the mother. “Some of these kids are truants today.”
