Cambridge firefighter Gil Albert, another lifelong buddy, said that Russell didn't use the largely ceremonial office for self-gratification, but rather, for the betterment of fellow Cantabs.
"He found good in people you weren't supposed to like. Look at the City Council, the School Committee. Those people are usually throwing bombs at each other!" Goode says about Cambridge's notoriously divisive city government and its late peacemaker.
As the conciliatory head of the School Committee, Russell is credited with finding a middle ground for the usually contentious body in the midst of a controversial superintendent changeover.
IN THE CHAMBERS OF City Hall the mayor considered the passage of a smoking ordinance--which mandates non-smoking spaces in restaurants--and the creation of a city human rights commission as his greatest legislative victories.
Russell's sincerity even provoked him to call for a dinner with Derek Bok and the entire city council last winter to iron out a few town-gown rough spots.
But in the midst of meetings with dignitaries and presidents, Lenny Russell never forgot his North Cambridge-bred good nature.
"I've walked with kings--with [Spain's King] Juan Carlos, with [Vice President George] Bush at the Olympic and with Presidential candidate [the Rev.] Jesse Jackson," Russell told me last winter. "And still I like to keep touch with the common people."
I distinctly remember how after the interview Lenny turned and, politician style out of the corner of his mouth directed a rather blunt question my way "So whaddya think of the way I run the City Council meeting?"
I didn't have an answer then, but the Muse seems to have instilled something of a mental picture in my mind. There Lenny, with bunches of school children marching beside him like they did three weeks ago at the opening of the And the only response that comes to mind is a short congratulations. "Job well done, Lenny, Well done."