Marty Walsh, prophet or incurable optimist?

Yesterday, January 7th, I went to see Cort Johnson, the bright and opportunistic co-founder of Terrible Labs, a design firm here in Boston. We had a pleasant chat, probably because Johnson wears slippers in the office. How can you be unpleasant when interviewing someone wearing slippers? As we were winding down, I ran across Terrible’s visitor book. I flipped it open and saw “Marty Walsh — Mayor. 1/7/14”

I showed it to Cort and asked if it was a joke. He said no, that Walsh came to a ‘meet the candidates’ forum at Terrible, where all the mayoral candidates in Boston got two minutes each to make their pitch to Boston’s tech community. Cort remembered that Walsh was late, and that it was really hot in the office — it happened to be June.

Walsh was the only candidate to sign Terrible’s guestbook (and the only person to sign it in the last six months, probably because it was buried under a couple of other books). He dated it six months in the future, and indeed the day after he was sworn in as mayor.

I signed the guest book “Michael Fitzgerald, Not Mayor. 1/7/2014.” Not saying I won’t be mayor of Boston some day, but it sure wasn’t true yesterday.