Francis "Moose" Mosher

Francis “Moose” Mosher, 72, of Canton, Massachusetts, passed away in his sleep at his apartment in Falmouth this week. He was born in Brighton and moved to Canton when he was in elementary school. He lived with his mother, Jane (McAdams), and three brothers, Bill, Michael, and Ray, on Highland Street. This is where he learned to skate on a small pond at the end of the road. He graduated from Canton High School, where he participated on the hockey team, in 1970. Though he never married, he had a wide circle of friends.

In junior high school, his social studies teacher nicknamed him Moose, an homage to his irreverent humor and jovial nature, and it stuck. Throughout most of his youth, many of his friends never knew Moose was Frankie to his family.

In family lore, this is Frankie’s childhood story: When he was in the fifth grade, his father, a lather by trade, promised him a new bike on his birthday. But when that day arrived, his dad did not bring home the bike. He never came home—ever. Frankie waited for him, looking out the doorway, day after day.

Frankie spent his sophomore year in Mexico City, Mexico, living with his uncle, who was the Principal of American University. After a year immersed in the Latin culture, he returned to Canton High School having mastered only two Spanish words, cerveza (beer) and siesta (nap).

While still a teenager, Frankie got a job at Burgen Tree Company, which was owned by the father of a high school friend. He had a preternatural sense of tree climbing. Each morning he would throw his rope over a high branch of the tallest trees, then scale to the top to prune it. He would spend the whole day swinging from one tree to the next. On the ground, his younger brother Billy would hoist up tools, and later his lunch, which Frankie would eat dangling from his climbing-belt, straddled between two trees.

Over time, Frankie ended up in the Combat Zone in Boston, now known as the theatre district. Between the Wang Center and Nick’s Comedy Stop on Stuart Street was a parking lot. Surrounded by nightlife, that is where Frankie worked, parking cars. He thrived on the night life happening all around him. Comedians, beat cops, bartenders, and hustlers—Moose knew them all, and everyone knew Moose.

He had this way about him. Self-assured without self-importance. But all the while, ready for the next new camaraderie. It would be easy to say he was a party guy, looking for fun, but there was something else going on. He was making memories, causing lifelong recollections. Every encounter, whether it was rolling over the van on the way back from Woodstock or socializing in after-hour parties with famous people, he was creating stuff to remember…a story he could tell years later.

One of the most fascinating things about Frankie was the way things just popped into his mind. An idea would come out of his mouth without conscious thought. For example, he was having a colonoscopy. He turned around and looked up at the doctor and said, “Hey Doc, does your mother know what you do for a living?”

All the memories that he had made with friends conjured in his brain and came out with a Robin Williams kind of spontaneity, leading to hours of hilarity. His humor lives with us forever. That is the memory of Moose.

A Graveside service will be held on February 5, 2024 at 10:30am at Cataumet Cemetery, off of County Rd. Bourne, MA.