“I had some amazing teachers, and in particular the House Masters at Dunster House,” Patrick says, referring to James Vorenberg and his wife. “The two of them were my parents and have remained so until he passed away.”

For Charles W. Breaux, Jr. ’78, Patrick’s four-year roommate in Holworthy and Dunster, the candidate’s character was an early sign of a successful political career: “For a moment I thought he was to become the first Black president,” Breaux says.

Breaux remembers the young Patrick as a personal friend who cooked well, beat him at squash, and drank beer with him in their job as bartenders for Harvard Student Agencies.

Since Patrick did not come from a wealthy family, he had to take different kinds of “weird jobs” to support himself, according to Breaux.

The two once signed up to work for a traffic flow study, that required them to wake up at 6 a.m., go to the designated spot along highways outside Boston, and count cars while listening to jazz and drinking hot coffee grabbed from a Dunkin’ Donuts in Central Square.

Despite his rise to power, Patrick has remained unchanged at his core, his friends say.

“He brings his past forward with him,” Gregory says, citing an instance when Patrick named his dog after one of his teachers at Milton.

What has changed is that “he’s learnt to hone his skills to work on behalf of his people,” says Anna L. Waring, a Milton classmate and longtime friend.

GENERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Looking out at a mostly white-haired crowd in West Roxbury, with The Temptations crooning “My Girl” in the background, Patrick speaks of what he calls generational responsibility. He references the ways in which he believes the Baby Boomers have failed to live up to the standards of their parents’ generation, which fought in World War II, created the social safety net in America, and launched the Civil Rights movement.

“That whole idea of generational responsibility, that each of us in our time is supposed to do what we can to make it better for those who come behind us, has been missing I think from our commerce, from our governing for a long time now,” Patrick says. “And we’re trying to bring that back. We’re trying to model the lesson you taught us about generational responsibility.”

For Patrick, generational responsibility means investing in public education, health care, and job creation.

“It’s about finishing what we started,” he says.

He references Massachusetts as the state that leads in student achievement due to his education reform, which involved making it easier to shut down failing schools, encouraging innovation in education, increasing access to charter schools in poorly performing districts, and spearheading a campaign to close the achievement gap.

Patrick also wants to make the public option for health care more affordable in Massachusetts, which has become a national model for public health care, boasting a 97.5-percent insurance rate.