Lou Pasquale, center, credits his bosses and longtime friends Phil Strazzula III, left, and Joe Sammartino, Jr. with helping him recover from a series of illnesses that nearly took his life last year. Pasquale, 80, has worked at the Phillips Family Properties on Morrissey Boulevard since 1957 and is back at work this week at Phillips Old Colony House reastaurant.


By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

In his eight decades on this planet, Lou Pasquale's been a lot of things: A proud Italo-American from Quincy Point; a World War II veteran; a bricklayer and a restauranteur.

Now, he's also a survivor and one of the most grateful men you're likely to meet.

Fifty years ago, Pasquale helped to build Boston Bowl- and the surrounding Phillips Family Properties on Morrissey Boulevard - with his own hands. And since the 1950s, he's become every bit a landmark along the boulevard as the Boston gas tanks and the candlepins that used to tumble above the bowling alley's old façade.

Today, the bowling pins have made way for a new, improved look at Boston Bowl. And only one of the two famous gas tanks are still standing across the busy expressway.

But Lou Pasquale, age 80, is still showing up for work each day at Phillips Old Colony House, the restaurant that has become his second home. His association with Dorchester and the Phillips Family Properties goes back almost fifty years now. In 1957, Lou's brother, Mario, convinced him to sell his ten year-old masonry business to go to work with the Strazullas and the Sammartinos, the two families who- to this day- own and operate Boston Bowl, Phillips Old Colony House, Phillips Candy House and two nearby hotels on the boulevard.

Last year, it seemed like Lou's maker was ready to punch his time card. In April, his gall bladder exploded in a sudden and, his doctors initially thought, deadly attack. Stabilized briefly, he then suffered a heart attack and went into septic shock.

"He bottomed out a couple of times," says Lou's wife of 55 years, Theresa. "I wasn't going to make it," Lou agrees.

After six weeks on life support, Lou had open heart surgery- a quadruple bypass- at Brigham and Women's Hospital. The procedure saved his life.

As he slowly recuperated from the ordeal, Lou says he was buoyed by the constant support of his wife and kids- and from his extended family in Dorchester, led by Joe Sammartino, Jr. and Phil Strazulla, III, who run the Phillips company.

"Every day, they would call or they would be right there by my side," Lou says. "My bosses kept me alive. Without them, I just wouldn't have made it."

"And they'd do that for any of their employees. It's not known, but I just had to express it. I want people to know how compassionate they have been."

His colleagues on the boulevard gave Lou all sorts of "extras", as he puts it, to help see him and Theresa through the difficult months. Mostly, though, they gave him something to look forward to when he made good his recovery: His job.

"They never said, 'Well, it's time for you to go, here's you're wristwatch, thanks for the memories.' And it's not just me. There's a few people here in their 80s- and some more in their late 70s- still working here at their own pace. You don't see that in a lot of places."

"Every day I get up and I can't wait to go to work. It's like my family. The big thing is being happy. If the material things comes, that's fine," says Lou.

Pasquale's outlook on life was shaped, in part, on a Pacific island, a long time ago, when he was still a teenager. As he lay wounded after a sabotage attack killed many of his comrades on Okinawa, Pasquale made a promise or two to himself and his God. One was that he would "never quit." The other was that he'd make it a point to help someone every day of his life.

It's been an emotional time for Louie. In the last two months, he's lost a brother and a sister. But, against the odds, this week he returned to action at Phillips Old Colony House, greeting regulars and newcomers alike with the same energy and wit that's made him one of Dorchester's great treasures for five decades.

"I'm still a builder by trade," says Lou. "I try to build people up, no matter who, what or where they're from."