Markin comment:
Private First Class, United States Army (RA), Jimmy Jacks would have been sixty-seven, or perhaps, sixty-eight years old this fall. You do not see the point of bringing up this unknown stranger’s name? Well, here is another clue Jimmy J. (his local moniker), a few years older than I am, was the first kid from my growing-up working class neighborhood to see service in Vietnam. Still not enough? Then take a little trip down to Washington, D.C. and you will find his “fame” listed on that surreally and serenely beautiful black stone work dedicated to the fallen of that war. Yes, I thought that might get your attention. This is Jimmy J’s story, but is also my story around the edges, and come to think of it, yours too, if you want end these damn imperial military adventures that the American state insists on dragging its youth, and in disproportionate numbers its working-class and minority youth, into.
My first dozen years or so of life were spend in a public housing project (“the projects” that every self-respecting mother warned their sons and daughters drifting down into if they didn’t shape up like a previous generation spoke of “the county farm,” the place of dreamless dreams), a place where the desperately poor of the day, or the otherwise displaced and forgotten of the go-go American economy of the 1950s were shunted off to. So you can say I knew Jimmy Jacks all my life, really, although I did not physically meet him until we moved across town to my coming-of-age working class neighborhood, a neighborhood whose ethos was in no way superior to “the projects” except that, unlike the four to a box project, the tiny houses were, for the most part, single dwellings. And I really only knew Jimmy through my older brother, Prescott (street name, The Gat Kid, ya real original I know) which is to say not very well at all as I was, okay, just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. And Jimmy was the king hellion of the neighborhood and dragged my brother, and the brothers of others, in tow. So this ain’t going to be a story of moral uplift, which is for sure.
See Jimmy, when he was around the old neighborhood, was the very large target, that is to say the number one target, of the “shawlies.” Shawlies? In our mainly Irish working-class neighborhood, although I confess I only heard it used by more recent immigrants just off the boat (or plane) from the old country or older ones who refused to become vanilla Americans, it signified that circle, council if you will, unofficial of course, of mothers, young and old, who set the moral tone, at least the public moral tone, of the place. In short, the gossips, old hags, and rumor-mongers (I am being polite here) who had their own devious grapevine, and more importantly, were a constant source of information about you to your own mother. Usually nothing good either.
And what conduct of Jimmy’s would bring him to the notice of that august body, other than the obvious one of corrupting the morals of the youth? Hey, as you will see this guy was no Socrates. Jimmy, it seems, or it seems to me now, was spoon-fed on old time gangster movies (and The Gat Kid too). No, not the George Raft-Jimmy Cagney-Edward G. Robinson vehicles of the 1930s in which the bad guy pepper-sprayed every one with his trusty machine-gun, everyone except dear old Ma (whom he would not touch a hair of the head of, and you better not either if you know what’s good for you). No, Jimmy was into being a proto-typical "wild one" a la Marlon Brando or the bad guys in Rebel Without A Cause. The ones who tried to cut James Dean up, cut him up bad. Without putting too fine a spin on it, he played out some kind of existential anti-hero. Something Jean Genet might have worked out character sketch on for one of his sullen plays.
So who was this Jimmy? No a bad looking guy with slicked-back black hair, long sideburns (even after they were early 1960s fashion-faded), sh-t kicking engineer boots, dungarees (before they were fashionista), tied together by a thick leather belt (which did service for other purposes, other better left unsaid purposes), tee-shirt in season (and out). Always smoking a cigarette (or getting ready too, and always unfiltered, natch, maybe Camels or Luckies, I really don’t remember), always carrying himself with a little swagger and lot of attitude. Oh ya, he was a tenth-grade high school drop-out (not really that unusual in those days in that neighborhood, drop-outs were a dime a dozen, including my own brother). And here is the draw, the final draw that drew slightly younger guys to him (and older girls, as well) he always had wheels, great wheels, wheels to die for, and kept them up to the nth degree. Employment (in order to get and keep those wheels, jesus, don't you guys know nothing): unknown
That last point is really the start of this story about how the ethos of the working poor and the demands of the American military linked up. Jimmy (and his associates, including my drop-out brother, and for a minute my younger brother, called “Stup” by Jimmy and The Gat Kid too, as look-out) was constantly the subject of local police attention. Every known offense, real or made-up, wound up at his door. Some of it rightly so, as it turned out. I might add that the irate shawlies had plenty to do with this police activity. And also plenty to do with setting up Jimmy as the prime example of what not to emulate. Well, as anyone, including me, in own my very small-bore, short-lived criminal career can testify to when you tempt the fates long enough those damn sisters will come out and get you. Get you bad. The long and short of it is was that eventually Jimmy’s luck ran out. The year that his luck ran out was 1963, not a good year to be nineteen and have your luck run out if there ever is one.
Nowadays we talk, and rightly so, about an “economic draft” that forces many working class and minority youth to sign up for military service even in ill-fated war time because they are up against the wall in their personal lives and the military offers some security. I want to talk about this “economic draft” in a different sense although I know that the same thing probably still goes on today. I just don’t have the data or anecdotal evidence to present on the issue. Jimmy, however, was a prima facie case of what I am talking about. When Jimmy’s luck ran out (and my brother’s as well) he faced several counts of armed robbery, and other assorted minor crimes. When he went to court he thus faced many years (I don’t remember his total, my brother’s was nine, I think). The judge, in his infinite mercy offered this deal- Cedar Junction (not the name then, but the state prison nevertheless) or the Army. Jimmy, fatefully, opted for the Army (as did my brother).
Here is the part that is important to understand though. Jimmy (and to a lesser extent, my brother), the minute that he opted for military service went from being “bum-of-the-month” in shawlie circles to a fine, if misunderstood and slightly errant, boy. Even the oldest hags had twinkles in their eyes for old Jimmy. Of course, his mother also came into high regard for raising such a fine boy committed to serve his country (and his god, and just so you understand that was a very Catholic god, don’t forget that part). Once in uniform, an airborne ranger’s uniform, and more importantly, once he had orders for Vietnam, then an exotic if dangerous place and a name little understood other than the United States was committed to its defense against the atheistic communists, his stock rose even further. I was not around the old neighborhood when the news of his death was announced in 1965 but my parents told me later than his funeral was treated something like a state function. The shawlies, weeping and moaning like their own sons were lost, in any case were out in force. Jimmy J, a belated R.I.P.
Showing posts with label corner boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corner boys. Show all posts
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Private First Class, United States Army, Jimmy Jacks, (1944-1968) R.I.P.
Markin comment:
Private First Class, United States Army, Jimmy Jacks would have been sixty-seven, or perhaps, sixty-eight years old this fall. You do not see the point of bringing up this unknown stranger’s name? Well, here is another clue Jimmy J. (his local moniker), a few years older than I am, was the first kid from my growing-up working class neighborhood to see service in Vietnam. Still not enough? Then take a little trip down to Washington, D.C. and you will find his “fame” listed on that surreally and serenely beautiful black stone work dedicated to the fallen of that war. Yes, I thought that might get your attention. This is Jimmy J’s story, but is also my story around the edges, and come to think of it, yours too, if you want end these damn imperial military adventures that the American state insists on dragging its youth, and in disproportionate numbers its working-class and minority youth, into.
My first dozen years or so of life were spend in a public housing project, a place where the desperately poor of the day, or the otherwise displaced and forgotten of the go-go American economy of the 1950s were shunted off to. So you can say I knew Jimmy Jacks all my life, really, although I did not physically meet him until we moved across town to my coming-of-age working class neighborhood, a neighborhood whose ethos in no way was superior to “the projects” except that the tiny houses were, for the most part, single dwellings. And I really only knew Jimmy through my older brother which is to say not very well at all as I was, okay, just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. And Jimmy was the king hellion of the neighborhood and dragged my brother, and the brothers of others, in tow. So this ain’t going to be a story of moral uplift, which is for sure.
See Jimmy, when he was around the old neighborhood, was the very large target, that is to say the number one target, of the “shawlies.” Shawlies? In our mainly Irish working-class neighborhood, although I confess I only heard it used by more recent immigrants just off the boat (or plane) or older ones who refused to become vanilla Americans, it signified that circle, council if you will, unofficial of course, of mothers, young and old, who set the moral tone, at least the public moral tone, of the place. In short, the gossips, old hags, and rumor-mongers (I am being polite here) who had their own devious grapevine, and more importantly, were a constant source of information about you to your own mother. Usually nothing good either.
And what conduct of Jimmy’s would bring him to the notice of that august body, other than the obvious one of corrupting the morals of the youth? Hey, as you will see this guy was no Socrates. Jimmy, it seems, or it seems to me now, was spoon-fed on old time gangster movies. No, not the George Raft-Jimmy Cagney-Edward G. Robinson vehicles of the 1930s in which the bad guy pepper-sprayed every one with his trusty machine-gun, everyone except dear old Ma (whom he would not touch a hair of the head of, and you better not either if you know what’s good for you). No, Jimmy was into being a proto-typical "wild one" a la Marlon Brando or the bad guys in Rebel Without A Cause. Without putting too fine a spin on it, some kind of existential anti-hero.
So who was this Jimmy? No a bad looking guy with slicked-back black hair, long sideburns (even after they were fashion-faded), engineer boots, dungarees (before they were fashionista), tied together by a thick leather belt (which did service for other purposes, other better left unsaid purposes), tee-shirt in season (and out). Always smoking a cigarette (or getting ready too), always carrying himself with a little swagger and lot of attitude. Oh ya, he was a tenth-grade high school drop-out (not really that unusual in those days in that neighborhood, drop-outs were a dime a dozen, including my own brother). And here is the draw, the final draw that drew slightly younger guys to him (and older girls, as well) he always had wheels, great wheels, wheels to die for, and kept them up to the nth degree. Employment (in order to get those wheels, jesus, don't you guys know nothing): unknown
That last point is really the start of this story about how the ethos of the working poor and the demands of the American military linked up. Jimmy (and his associates, including my drop-out brother) was constantly the subject of local police attention. Every known offense, real or made-up, wound up at his door. Some of it rightly so, as it turned out. I might add that the irate shawlies had plenty to do with this police activity. And also plenty to do with setting up Jimmy as the prime example of what not to emulate. Well, as anyone, including me, in own my very small-bore, short-lived criminal career can testify to when you tempt the fates long enough those damn sisters will come out and get you. The long and short of it is was that eventually Jimmy’s luck ran out. The year that his luck ran out was 1963, not a good year to have your luck run out if there ever is one.
Nowadays we talk, and rightly so, about an “economic draft” that forces many working class and minority youth to sign up for military service even in ill-fated war time because they are up against the wall in their personal lives and the military offers some security. I want to talk about this “economic draft” in a different sense although I know that the same thing probably still goes on today. I just don’t have the data or anecdotal evidence to present on the issue. Jimmy, however, was a prima facie case of what I am talking about. When Jimmy’s luck ran out he faced several counts of armed robbery, and other assorted minor crimes. When he went to court he thus faced many years (I don’t remember his total, my brother’s was nine, I think). The judge, in his infinite mercy offered this deal- Cedar Junction (not the name then, but the state prison nevertheless) or the Army. Jimmy, fatefully, opted for the Army (as did my brother).
Here is the part that is important to understand though. Jimmy (and to a lesser extent, my brother), the minute that he opted for military service went from being “bum-of-the-month” in shawlie circles to a fine, if misunderstood and slightly errant, boy. Even the oldest hags had twinkles in their eyes for old Jimmy. Of course, his mother also came into high regard for raising such a fine boy committed to serve his country (and his god, don’t forget that part). Once in uniform, an airborne ranger’s uniform, and more importantly, once he had orders for Vietnam, then an exotic if dangerous place and a name little understood other than the United States was committed to its defense against the atheistic communists, his stock rose even further. I was not around the old neighborhood when the news of his death was announced in 1965 but my parents told me later than his funeral was treated something like a state function. The shawlies, in any case where out in force. Jimmy J, a belated R.I.P.
Private First Class, United States Army, Jimmy Jacks would have been sixty-seven, or perhaps, sixty-eight years old this fall. You do not see the point of bringing up this unknown stranger’s name? Well, here is another clue Jimmy J. (his local moniker), a few years older than I am, was the first kid from my growing-up working class neighborhood to see service in Vietnam. Still not enough? Then take a little trip down to Washington, D.C. and you will find his “fame” listed on that surreally and serenely beautiful black stone work dedicated to the fallen of that war. Yes, I thought that might get your attention. This is Jimmy J’s story, but is also my story around the edges, and come to think of it, yours too, if you want end these damn imperial military adventures that the American state insists on dragging its youth, and in disproportionate numbers its working-class and minority youth, into.
My first dozen years or so of life were spend in a public housing project, a place where the desperately poor of the day, or the otherwise displaced and forgotten of the go-go American economy of the 1950s were shunted off to. So you can say I knew Jimmy Jacks all my life, really, although I did not physically meet him until we moved across town to my coming-of-age working class neighborhood, a neighborhood whose ethos in no way was superior to “the projects” except that the tiny houses were, for the most part, single dwellings. And I really only knew Jimmy through my older brother which is to say not very well at all as I was, okay, just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. And Jimmy was the king hellion of the neighborhood and dragged my brother, and the brothers of others, in tow. So this ain’t going to be a story of moral uplift, which is for sure.
See Jimmy, when he was around the old neighborhood, was the very large target, that is to say the number one target, of the “shawlies.” Shawlies? In our mainly Irish working-class neighborhood, although I confess I only heard it used by more recent immigrants just off the boat (or plane) or older ones who refused to become vanilla Americans, it signified that circle, council if you will, unofficial of course, of mothers, young and old, who set the moral tone, at least the public moral tone, of the place. In short, the gossips, old hags, and rumor-mongers (I am being polite here) who had their own devious grapevine, and more importantly, were a constant source of information about you to your own mother. Usually nothing good either.
And what conduct of Jimmy’s would bring him to the notice of that august body, other than the obvious one of corrupting the morals of the youth? Hey, as you will see this guy was no Socrates. Jimmy, it seems, or it seems to me now, was spoon-fed on old time gangster movies. No, not the George Raft-Jimmy Cagney-Edward G. Robinson vehicles of the 1930s in which the bad guy pepper-sprayed every one with his trusty machine-gun, everyone except dear old Ma (whom he would not touch a hair of the head of, and you better not either if you know what’s good for you). No, Jimmy was into being a proto-typical "wild one" a la Marlon Brando or the bad guys in Rebel Without A Cause. Without putting too fine a spin on it, some kind of existential anti-hero.
So who was this Jimmy? No a bad looking guy with slicked-back black hair, long sideburns (even after they were fashion-faded), engineer boots, dungarees (before they were fashionista), tied together by a thick leather belt (which did service for other purposes, other better left unsaid purposes), tee-shirt in season (and out). Always smoking a cigarette (or getting ready too), always carrying himself with a little swagger and lot of attitude. Oh ya, he was a tenth-grade high school drop-out (not really that unusual in those days in that neighborhood, drop-outs were a dime a dozen, including my own brother). And here is the draw, the final draw that drew slightly younger guys to him (and older girls, as well) he always had wheels, great wheels, wheels to die for, and kept them up to the nth degree. Employment (in order to get those wheels, jesus, don't you guys know nothing): unknown
That last point is really the start of this story about how the ethos of the working poor and the demands of the American military linked up. Jimmy (and his associates, including my drop-out brother) was constantly the subject of local police attention. Every known offense, real or made-up, wound up at his door. Some of it rightly so, as it turned out. I might add that the irate shawlies had plenty to do with this police activity. And also plenty to do with setting up Jimmy as the prime example of what not to emulate. Well, as anyone, including me, in own my very small-bore, short-lived criminal career can testify to when you tempt the fates long enough those damn sisters will come out and get you. The long and short of it is was that eventually Jimmy’s luck ran out. The year that his luck ran out was 1963, not a good year to have your luck run out if there ever is one.
Nowadays we talk, and rightly so, about an “economic draft” that forces many working class and minority youth to sign up for military service even in ill-fated war time because they are up against the wall in their personal lives and the military offers some security. I want to talk about this “economic draft” in a different sense although I know that the same thing probably still goes on today. I just don’t have the data or anecdotal evidence to present on the issue. Jimmy, however, was a prima facie case of what I am talking about. When Jimmy’s luck ran out he faced several counts of armed robbery, and other assorted minor crimes. When he went to court he thus faced many years (I don’t remember his total, my brother’s was nine, I think). The judge, in his infinite mercy offered this deal- Cedar Junction (not the name then, but the state prison nevertheless) or the Army. Jimmy, fatefully, opted for the Army (as did my brother).
Here is the part that is important to understand though. Jimmy (and to a lesser extent, my brother), the minute that he opted for military service went from being “bum-of-the-month” in shawlie circles to a fine, if misunderstood and slightly errant, boy. Even the oldest hags had twinkles in their eyes for old Jimmy. Of course, his mother also came into high regard for raising such a fine boy committed to serve his country (and his god, don’t forget that part). Once in uniform, an airborne ranger’s uniform, and more importantly, once he had orders for Vietnam, then an exotic if dangerous place and a name little understood other than the United States was committed to its defense against the atheistic communists, his stock rose even further. I was not around the old neighborhood when the news of his death was announced in 1965 but my parents told me later than his funeral was treated something like a state function. The shawlies, in any case where out in force. Jimmy J, a belated R.I.P.
Friday, October 28, 2011
In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When "Stewball" Stu Stewart ’57 Chevy Ruled The “Chicken” Roads
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Chuck Berry performing his classic School Day to give a flavor of the times to this piece
CD Review
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
Scene: Brought to mind by the cover artwork that graces the front of the booklet that accompanies this CD. The artwork contains, in full James Dean-imitation pout, one good-looking, DA-quaffed, white muscle-shirted young man, an alienated young man, no question, leaning, leaning gently, very gently, arms folded, on the hood of his 1950’s classic automobile, clearly not his father’s car, but also clearly for our purposes let us call it his “baby.”
And that car, that extension of his young manhood, his young alienated manhood, is Friday night, Saturday night, or maybe a weekday night if it is summer, parked (priority parked, meaning nobody with some Nash Rambler, nobody with some foreign Volkswagen, no biker even , in short, nobody except somebody who is tougher, a lot tougher, than our alienated young man better breathe on the spot while he is within fifty miles of the place) directly in front of the local teenage (alienated or not) "hot spot." And in 1950s’ America, a teenage America with some disposal income (allowance, okay), that hot spot is likely to be, as here, the all-night Mel’s (or Joe’s, Adventure Car-Hop, whatever) drive-in restaurant opened to cater to the hot dog, hamburger, French fries, barbecued chicken cravings of exhausted youth. Youth exhausted after a hard night, well, let’s just call it a hard night and leave the rest to your knowing imagination, or their parents’ evil imaginations.
And in front of the restaurant, in front of that leaned-on “boss” automobile stands one teenage girl vision. One blondish, pony-tailed, midnight sun-glassed, must be a California great American West night teeny-bopper girl holding an ice cream soda after her night’s work. The work that we are leaving to fertile (or evil, as the case may be) imaginations. Although from the pout on Johnny’s (of course he has to be a Johnny, with that car) face maybe he “flunked out” but that is a story for somebody else to tell. Here’s mine.
********
Not everybody, not everybody by a long-shot, who had a “boss” ’57 cherry red Chevy was some kind of god’s gift to the earth; good-looking, good clothes, dough in his pocket, money for gas and extras, money for the inevitable end of the night stop at Jimmy John’s Drive-In restaurant for burgers and fries (and Coke, with ice, of course) before taking the date home after a hard night of tumbling and stumbling (mainly stumbling). At least that is what one Joshua Breslin, Josh, me, freshly minted fifteen- year old roadside philosopher thought as for the umpteenth time “Stewball” Stu left me by the side of Albemarle Road and rode off into the Olde Saco night with his latest “hot” honey, fifteen year old teen queen Sally Sullivan.
Ya, Stewball Stu was nothing but an old rum-dum, a nineteen year old rum-dum, except he had that “boss” girl-magnet ’57 cherry red Chevy (painted that color by Stu himself) and he had his pick of the litter in the Olde Saco, maybe all of Maine, night. By the way Stu’s official name, was Stuart Stewart, go figure, but don’t call him Stuart and definitely do not call him “Stewball” not if you want to live long enough not to have the word teen as part of your age. The Stewball thing was strictly for local boys, jealous local boys like me, who when around Stu always could detect a whiff of liquor, usually cheap jack Southern Comfort, on his breathe, day or night.
Figure this too. How does a guy who lives out on Tobacco Road in an old run-down trailer, half-trailer really, from about World War II that looked like something out of some old-time Hooverville scene, complete with scrawny dog, and tires and cannibalized car leavings every which way have girls, and nothing but good-looking girls from twelve to twenty (nothing older because as Stu says, anything older was a woman and he wants nothing to do with women, and their women’s needs, whatever they are)? And the rest of us get his leavings, or like tonight left on the side of Route One? And get this, they, the girls from twelve to twenty actually walk over to Tobacco Road from nice across the other side of the tracks homes like on Atlantic Avenue and Fifth Street, sometimes by themselves and sometime in packs just to smell the grease, booze, burnt rubber, and assorted other odd-ball smells that come for free at Stu’s so-called garage/trailer.
Let me tell you about Stu, Sally, and me tonight and this will definitely clue you in to the Stu-madness of the be-bop Olde Saco girl night. First of all, as usual, it is strictly Stu and me starting out. Usually, like today, I hang around his garage on Saturdays to get away from my own hell-house up the road and I am kind of Stu’s unofficial mascot. Now Stu had been working all day on his dual-exhaust carburetor or something, so his denims are greasy, his white tee-shirt (sic) is nothing but wet with perspiration and oil stains, he hasn’t taken a bath since Tuesday (he told me that himself with some sense of pride) and he was not planning to do so this night, and of course, drinking all day from his silver Southern Comfort flask he reeked of alcohol (but don’t tell him that if you read this and are from Olde Saco because, honestly, I want to live to have twenty–something as my age). About 7:00 PM he bellows out to me, cigarette hanging from his mouth, a Lucky, let’s go cruising.
Well, cruising means nothing but taking that be-bop ’57 cherry red Chevy out on East Grand and look. Look for girls, look for boys from the hicks with bad-ass cars who want to take a chance on beating Stu at the “chicken run” down at the flats on the far end of Sagamore Beach, look for something to take the edge off the hunger to be somebody number one. At least that last is what I figured after a few of these cruises with Stu. Tonight it looks like girls from the way he put some of that grease (no not car grease, hair-oil stuff) on his nappy hair. Yes, I am definitely looking forward to cruising tonight once I have that sign because, usually whatever girl Stu might not want, or maybe there are a couple of extras, or something I get first dibs. Ya, Stu is righteous like that.
So off we go, stopping at my house first so I can get a little cleaned up and put on a new shirt and tell my brother to tell our mother that I will be back later, maybe much later, if she ever gets home herself before I do. The cruising routine in Olde Saco means up and down Route One (okay, okay Main Street), checking out the lesser spots (Darby’s Pizza Palace, Hank’s Ice Cream joint, the Colonial Donut Shoppe where I hang during the week after school and which serves a lot more stuff than donuts and coffee, sandwiches and stuff, and so on). Nothing much this Saturday. So we head right away for the mecca, Jimmy John’s. As we hit Stu’s “saved” parking spot just in front I can see that several stray girls are eyeing the old car, eyeing it like tonight is the night, tonight is the night Stu, kind of, sort of, maybe notices them (and I, my heart starting to race a little in anticipation and glad that I stopped off at my house, got a clean shirt, and put some deodorant on and guzzled some mouthwash, am feeling tonight is the night too).
But tonight is not the night, no way. Not for me, not for those knees-trembling girls. Why? No sooner did we park than Sally Sullivan came strolling (okay I don’t know if she was strolling or doo-wopping but she was swaying in such a sexy way that I knew she meant business, that she was looking for something in the Olde Saco night and that she had “found” it) out to Stu’s Chevy and with no ifs, ands, or buts asked, asked Stu straight if he was doing anything this night. Let me explain before I tell you what Stu’s answer was that this Sally Sullivan is nothing but a sex kitten, maybe innocent-looking, but definitely has half the boys, hell maybe all the boys at Olde Saco High, including a lot of the guys on the football team drooling over her. I know, because I have had more than one sleepless night over her. See, she is in my English class and because Mr. Murphy let’s us sit where we want I usually sit with a good view of her. So Stu says, kind of off-handedly, like having the town teen fox come hinter on him was a daily occurrence, says kind of lewdly, “Well, baby I am if you want to go down Sagamore Rocks right now and look for dolphins?” See, Sagamore Rocks is nothing but the local lovers’ lane here and “looking for dolphins” is the way everybody, every teenage everybody in town says “going all the way,” having sex for the clueless. And Sally, as you can guess if you have been following my story said, “Yes” just like that. At that s why I was dumped, unceremoniously dumped, at my street while they roared off into the night. So like I said not every “boss” car owner is god’s gift to women, not by a long shot. Or maybe they are.
CD Review
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
Scene: Brought to mind by the cover artwork that graces the front of the booklet that accompanies this CD. The artwork contains, in full James Dean-imitation pout, one good-looking, DA-quaffed, white muscle-shirted young man, an alienated young man, no question, leaning, leaning gently, very gently, arms folded, on the hood of his 1950’s classic automobile, clearly not his father’s car, but also clearly for our purposes let us call it his “baby.”
And that car, that extension of his young manhood, his young alienated manhood, is Friday night, Saturday night, or maybe a weekday night if it is summer, parked (priority parked, meaning nobody with some Nash Rambler, nobody with some foreign Volkswagen, no biker even , in short, nobody except somebody who is tougher, a lot tougher, than our alienated young man better breathe on the spot while he is within fifty miles of the place) directly in front of the local teenage (alienated or not) "hot spot." And in 1950s’ America, a teenage America with some disposal income (allowance, okay), that hot spot is likely to be, as here, the all-night Mel’s (or Joe’s, Adventure Car-Hop, whatever) drive-in restaurant opened to cater to the hot dog, hamburger, French fries, barbecued chicken cravings of exhausted youth. Youth exhausted after a hard night, well, let’s just call it a hard night and leave the rest to your knowing imagination, or their parents’ evil imaginations.
And in front of the restaurant, in front of that leaned-on “boss” automobile stands one teenage girl vision. One blondish, pony-tailed, midnight sun-glassed, must be a California great American West night teeny-bopper girl holding an ice cream soda after her night’s work. The work that we are leaving to fertile (or evil, as the case may be) imaginations. Although from the pout on Johnny’s (of course he has to be a Johnny, with that car) face maybe he “flunked out” but that is a story for somebody else to tell. Here’s mine.
********
Not everybody, not everybody by a long-shot, who had a “boss” ’57 cherry red Chevy was some kind of god’s gift to the earth; good-looking, good clothes, dough in his pocket, money for gas and extras, money for the inevitable end of the night stop at Jimmy John’s Drive-In restaurant for burgers and fries (and Coke, with ice, of course) before taking the date home after a hard night of tumbling and stumbling (mainly stumbling). At least that is what one Joshua Breslin, Josh, me, freshly minted fifteen- year old roadside philosopher thought as for the umpteenth time “Stewball” Stu left me by the side of Albemarle Road and rode off into the Olde Saco night with his latest “hot” honey, fifteen year old teen queen Sally Sullivan.
Ya, Stewball Stu was nothing but an old rum-dum, a nineteen year old rum-dum, except he had that “boss” girl-magnet ’57 cherry red Chevy (painted that color by Stu himself) and he had his pick of the litter in the Olde Saco, maybe all of Maine, night. By the way Stu’s official name, was Stuart Stewart, go figure, but don’t call him Stuart and definitely do not call him “Stewball” not if you want to live long enough not to have the word teen as part of your age. The Stewball thing was strictly for local boys, jealous local boys like me, who when around Stu always could detect a whiff of liquor, usually cheap jack Southern Comfort, on his breathe, day or night.
Figure this too. How does a guy who lives out on Tobacco Road in an old run-down trailer, half-trailer really, from about World War II that looked like something out of some old-time Hooverville scene, complete with scrawny dog, and tires and cannibalized car leavings every which way have girls, and nothing but good-looking girls from twelve to twenty (nothing older because as Stu says, anything older was a woman and he wants nothing to do with women, and their women’s needs, whatever they are)? And the rest of us get his leavings, or like tonight left on the side of Route One? And get this, they, the girls from twelve to twenty actually walk over to Tobacco Road from nice across the other side of the tracks homes like on Atlantic Avenue and Fifth Street, sometimes by themselves and sometime in packs just to smell the grease, booze, burnt rubber, and assorted other odd-ball smells that come for free at Stu’s so-called garage/trailer.
Let me tell you about Stu, Sally, and me tonight and this will definitely clue you in to the Stu-madness of the be-bop Olde Saco girl night. First of all, as usual, it is strictly Stu and me starting out. Usually, like today, I hang around his garage on Saturdays to get away from my own hell-house up the road and I am kind of Stu’s unofficial mascot. Now Stu had been working all day on his dual-exhaust carburetor or something, so his denims are greasy, his white tee-shirt (sic) is nothing but wet with perspiration and oil stains, he hasn’t taken a bath since Tuesday (he told me that himself with some sense of pride) and he was not planning to do so this night, and of course, drinking all day from his silver Southern Comfort flask he reeked of alcohol (but don’t tell him that if you read this and are from Olde Saco because, honestly, I want to live to have twenty–something as my age). About 7:00 PM he bellows out to me, cigarette hanging from his mouth, a Lucky, let’s go cruising.
Well, cruising means nothing but taking that be-bop ’57 cherry red Chevy out on East Grand and look. Look for girls, look for boys from the hicks with bad-ass cars who want to take a chance on beating Stu at the “chicken run” down at the flats on the far end of Sagamore Beach, look for something to take the edge off the hunger to be somebody number one. At least that last is what I figured after a few of these cruises with Stu. Tonight it looks like girls from the way he put some of that grease (no not car grease, hair-oil stuff) on his nappy hair. Yes, I am definitely looking forward to cruising tonight once I have that sign because, usually whatever girl Stu might not want, or maybe there are a couple of extras, or something I get first dibs. Ya, Stu is righteous like that.
So off we go, stopping at my house first so I can get a little cleaned up and put on a new shirt and tell my brother to tell our mother that I will be back later, maybe much later, if she ever gets home herself before I do. The cruising routine in Olde Saco means up and down Route One (okay, okay Main Street), checking out the lesser spots (Darby’s Pizza Palace, Hank’s Ice Cream joint, the Colonial Donut Shoppe where I hang during the week after school and which serves a lot more stuff than donuts and coffee, sandwiches and stuff, and so on). Nothing much this Saturday. So we head right away for the mecca, Jimmy John’s. As we hit Stu’s “saved” parking spot just in front I can see that several stray girls are eyeing the old car, eyeing it like tonight is the night, tonight is the night Stu, kind of, sort of, maybe notices them (and I, my heart starting to race a little in anticipation and glad that I stopped off at my house, got a clean shirt, and put some deodorant on and guzzled some mouthwash, am feeling tonight is the night too).
But tonight is not the night, no way. Not for me, not for those knees-trembling girls. Why? No sooner did we park than Sally Sullivan came strolling (okay I don’t know if she was strolling or doo-wopping but she was swaying in such a sexy way that I knew she meant business, that she was looking for something in the Olde Saco night and that she had “found” it) out to Stu’s Chevy and with no ifs, ands, or buts asked, asked Stu straight if he was doing anything this night. Let me explain before I tell you what Stu’s answer was that this Sally Sullivan is nothing but a sex kitten, maybe innocent-looking, but definitely has half the boys, hell maybe all the boys at Olde Saco High, including a lot of the guys on the football team drooling over her. I know, because I have had more than one sleepless night over her. See, she is in my English class and because Mr. Murphy let’s us sit where we want I usually sit with a good view of her. So Stu says, kind of off-handedly, like having the town teen fox come hinter on him was a daily occurrence, says kind of lewdly, “Well, baby I am if you want to go down Sagamore Rocks right now and look for dolphins?” See, Sagamore Rocks is nothing but the local lovers’ lane here and “looking for dolphins” is the way everybody, every teenage everybody in town says “going all the way,” having sex for the clueless. And Sally, as you can guess if you have been following my story said, “Yes” just like that. At that s why I was dumped, unceremoniously dumped, at my street while they roared off into the night. So like I said not every “boss” car owner is god’s gift to women, not by a long shot. Or maybe they are.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Wollaston Beach (called Adamsville Beach in the story). The photo in the entry appears to have been taken from a point not far from Treasure Island (Cady Park).
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
Do you need to know about all the little family trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Merrymount end of Adamsville Beach that I have threatened to talk about when I mentioned how I “sold out” to my mother for a little Kennedy’s Deli home-style potato salad? Trips, that kind of formed the bookends of my childhood. Jesus, no. A thousand time no, and I say that having lived through them. My childhood memories overall can be best summed up in the words of the now long-departed black rapper extraordinaire, Biggie Smalls. He expressed it best and spoke a truth greater than he might have known, although he was closer to “hip-hop nation” than I ever could be, or could be capable of – “Christmas kind of missed us, birthdays were the worst days.” Ya, that’s the big truth, no question, but not the little Treasure Island truth, wobbly as it might come out. One such episode will give you an idea of what we (meaning me and my two brothers, one a little younger the other a little older than me) were up against but also, in the end, why although there were precious few wonderful childhood memories that are now worth the ink to tell you about, this one serves pretty well. Let me have my say.
******
There was a madness in this country in the 1950s. No, not the Cold War atomic-bomb-is-going-to-get-us-we-are-all-going-to-be-dead-next-week or “better dead than red” kind of madness although there was plenty of that, but a madness for the automobile, the sleeker, the more airplane-like, and more powerfully-engined the better. And, it wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight T-shirt wearing, rolled sleeve cigarette-packed, greased Pompadour-haired, long side-burned, dangling-combed , engineer-booted, chain-wielding, side of the mouth butt-puffing , didn’t care if school kept or not types bent over the hood of some souped-up ’57 Chevy working, sweating pools of sweat, sweating to get even more power out of that ferocious V-8 engine for the Saturday night “ chicken" run.
And it wasn’t even those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys either. And it was always guys, who you swore you would beat down if they ever even looked at your sister, if you had a sister, and if you liked her enough to beat a guy down to defend her honor, or whatever drove your sense of right. And, of course she, your sister no less, is looking for all she is worth at this “James Dean” soda jerk (hey, what else could he be) because this guy is “cute”. Go figure.
No, and forget all those stereotypes that they like to roll out when they want to bring a little “color” to the desperately color-craving 1950s. This car madness was driven, and driven hard, by your very own stay-at-home-and watch the television, water the lawn, if you have a lawn and it needed watering and sometimes when it didn’t just to get out of the house, have couple of beers and take a nap on Saturday afternoon father (or grandfather, I have to remember who might be in my audience now) who always said “ask your mother” to blow you off. You know him. I know you know him he just has a different name than mine did. And maybe even your very own mother (or grandmother) got caught up in the car thing too, your mother the one who always would say “ask your father. You know her too, don’t say no. I hope by now you knew they were working a team scam on you even if you didn’t have the kind of proof that you could take to court and get a little justice on.
Hell, on this car thing they were just doing a little strutting of their stuff in showcase, show-off, “see what I got and you don’t” time. Come on now, don’t pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about, at least if you too grew up in the 1950s, or heard about it, or even think you heard about it. Hey, it was about dreams of car ownership for the Great Depression-ed , World War II-ed survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, has arrived in the great American dream, and all on easy monthly payments, no money down, and the bigger, the sleeker the better and I’ll take the heavy- chromed, aerodynamically-designed, two-toned one, thank you. That was how you knew who counted, and who didn’t. You know what I mean.
Heck, that 50s big old fluffy pure white cloud of a dream even seeped all the way down into “the projects” in Adamsville, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” in Boston too that you could see on a clear day from Adamsville beach, although I don’t know for sure on that, and maybe in the thousand and one other displaced person hole-in-the-walls “projects” they built as an afterthought back then for those families like mine caught on the slow track in “go-go” America. Except down there, down there on the edge of respectability, and maybe even mixed in with a little disrespectability, you didn’t want to have too good of a car, even if you could get that easy credit, because what we you doing with that nice sleek, fin-tailed thing with four doors and plenty of room for the kids in the back in a place like “the projects” and maybe there was something the “authorities” should know about, yes. Better to move on with that old cranky 1940s-style un-hip, un-mourned, un-cool jalopy than face the wrath and clucking of that crowd, the venom-filled, green-eyed neighbors.
Yes, that little intro is all well and good and a truth you can take my word for but this tale is about, if I ever get around to it, those who had the car madness deep in their psyche, but not the wherewithal- this is a cry, if you can believe it today, from the no car families. Jesus, how could you not get the car madness then though, facing it every night stark-naked in front of you on the television set, small as the black and white picture was, of Buicks, and Chevys and Pontiacs and whatever other kind of car they had to sell to you. But what about us Eastern Mass bus dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least here it didn’t matter. Down South they got kind of funny about it.
As you might have figured out by now, and if you didn’t I will tell you, that was our family’s fate, more often than not. It was not that we never had a car back then, but there were plenty of times when we didn’t and I have the crooked heels, peek-a-boo-soles, and worn out shoe leather from walking rather than waiting on that never-coming bus to prove it. And not only that but I got so had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to Grandma’s Young Street, “up-town” North Adamsville if I had to. That was easy stuff thinking back on it. I‘ll tell you about walking those later long, lonesome roads out West in places like just before the mountains in Winnemucca, Nevada and 129 degree desert- hot Needles, California switching into 130 degree desert-hot Blythe, Arizona some other time, because it just doesn’t seem right to talk about mere walking, long or short, when the great American automobile is present and rolling by.
It’s kind of funny now but the thing was, when there was enough money to get one, that the cars my poor old, kind of city ways naïve, but fighting Marine-proud father would get, from wherever in this god forsaken earth he got them from would be, to be polite, clunkers and nothing but old time jalopies that even those “hot rod” James Dean guys mentioned above would sneer, and sneer big time, at. It would always be a 1947 something, like a Hudson or Nash Rambler, or who knows the misty, musty names of these long forgotten brands. The long and short it was, and this is what’s really important when you think about it, that they would inevitably break down, and breakdown in just the wrong place, at least the wrong place if you had a wife who couldn’t drive or help in that department and three screaming, bawling tow-headed boys who wanted to get wherever it was we were going, and get there-now.
I swear on those old battered crooked-heeled, peek-a-boo soled shoes that I told you about that this must have happened just about every time we were going on a trip, or getting ready to go on a trip, or thinking about going on a trip. So now you know what I was up against when I was a kid. Like I already told you before, in some other dream fragment, I was an easy target to be “pieced off” with a couple of spoonfuls of Kennedy's potato salad when things like that happened. Or some other easy “bought off” when the “car” joke of the month died again and there wasn’t any money to get it fixed right away and we couldn’t go more than a few miles. I blew my stack plenty and righteously so, don't you think?
So let me tell you about this one time, this one summer time, August I think, maybe in 1956, when we did have a car, some kind of grey Plymouth sedan from about 1947, that year seems to always come up when car year numbers come to mind, like I said before. Or maybe it was a converted tank from the war for all I know, it kind of felt like that sitting in the back seat because as the middle boy I never got to ride “shot gun” up front with Dad so I bore the brunt of the bumps, shakes, blimps, and slips in the back seat. I do know I never felt anything better than being nothing but always queasy back there.
This one, this beauty of a grey Plymouth sedan, I can remember very well, always had some major internal engine-type problem, or telltale oil- spilling on the ground in the morning, or a clutch-not-working right, when real cars had clutches not this automatic stuff, making a grinding sound that you could hear about half way around the world, but you will have to ask some who knows a lot more about cars about than I do for the real mechanical problems. Anyway this is the chariot that is going to get us out of “the projects” and away from that fiery, no breathe “projects” sun for a few hours as we started off on one of our family-famous outings to old Treasure Island down at the Merymount end of Adamsville Beach, about four or five miles from “the projects”, no more. It was hot as blazes that day that’s for sure, with no wind, no air, and it was one of those days, always one of those days, you could smell the sickly sweet fragrant coming from over the Proctor & Gamble soap factory across the channel on the Fore River side.
We got the old heap loaded with all the known supplies necessary for a “poor man’s” barbecue in those days. You know those cheap plastic lawn chairs from Grossman’s or Raymond’s or one of those discount stores before they had real discount stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart, a few old worn-out blankets fresh from night duty on our beds, some resurrected threadbare towels that were already faded in about 1837 from the six thousand washings that kids put even the most resilient towel through in a short time, the obligatory King’s charcoal briquettes, including that fear-provoking, smelly lighter fluid you needed to light them with in those barbaric days before gas-saturated instant-lite charcoal. For food: hot dogs, blanched white-dough rolls, assorted condiments, a cooler with various kinds of tonic (a.k.a. soda, for the younger reader) and ice cream. Ya, and some beach toys, including a pail and shovel because today, of all days, I am bound and determined to harvest some clams across the way from the park on Adamsville Beach at low tide just like I’d seen all kinds of guys doing every time we went there so that we can have a real outing. I can see and hear them boiling in that percolating, turbulent, swirling grey-white water in the big steaming aluminum kettle already.
All of this stuff, of course, is packed helter-skelter in our “designer” Elm Farms grocery store paper shopping bags that we made due with to carry stuff around in, near or far. Hey, don’t laugh you did too, didn’t you? And what about hamburgers you say, right? No, no way, that cut of meat was too pricey. It wasn’t until much later when I was a teenager and invited to someone else’s family-famous barbecue that I knew that those too were a staple, I swear. I already told you I was the “official” procurer of the Kennedy’s potato salad in another dream fragment so I don’t need to tell you about that delicacy again, okay?
And we are off, amazingly, this time for one of the few time in family-recorded history without the inevitable- “who knows where it started or who started it” -incident, one of a whole universe of possible incidents that almost always delayed our start every time our little clan moved from point A to point B. Even a small point A to point B like this venture. So everything was okay, just fine all the way up that single way out of “the projects,” Palmer Street, until we got going on Sea Street, a couple of miles out, then the heap started choking, crackling, burping, sneezing, hiccupping, smoking and croaking and I don’t know what else. We tumbled out of the car, with me already getting ready to do my, by now, finely-tuned “fume act” that like I told you got a work-out ever time one of these misadventures rolled around, and pulled out every thing we could with us.
Ma, then knowingly, said we would have to go back home because even she knew the car was finished. I, revolutionary that I was back then, put my foot down and said no we could walk to Treasure Island, it wasn’t far. I don’t know if I can convey, or if I should convey to you, the holy hell that I raised to get my way that day. And I did a united front with my two brothers, who, usually, ignored me and I ignored them at this point in our family careers. Democracy, of a sort, ruled. Or maybe poor Ma just got worn out from our caterwauling. In any case, we abandoned a few things with my father, including that pail and shovel that was going to provide us with a gourmet’s delight of boiled clams fresh from the now mythical sea, and started our trek with the well-known basics-food and utensils and toys and chairs and, and…
Let me cut to the chase here a little. Of course I have to tell you about our route and about how your humble tour director got the bright idea that we could take a short cut down Chickatawbut Street. (This is a real street, look it up. I used to use it every time I wanted to ride my bike over to Grandma’s on Young Street in North Adamsville.) The idea of said "smart guy" tour director was to get a breeze, a little breeze while we are walking with our now heavy loads by cutting onto Shore Avenue near the Merrymount Yacht Club. The problem is that, in search of breeze or of no breeze, this way is longer, much longer for three young boys and a dragged-out mama. Well, the long and short of it was, have you ever heard of the “Bataan Death March” during World War II? If you haven’t, look it up on “Wikipedia.” Those poor, bedeviled guys had nothing on us by the time, late afternoon, we got to our destination. We were beat, beat up, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday, beat every way a human being can be beat. Did I say beat? Oh ya, I did. But Ma, sensing our three murderous hearts by then, got the charcoals burning in one of the fireplaces they provided back then, and maybe they still do. And we were off to the races.
Hey, do you really need to know about mustard and relish crammed char-broiled hot dogs or my brother’s strange ketchup-filled one on white-breaded, nasty-tasting hot dog rolls that we got cheap from Elm Farms or maybe it was First National, or my beloved Kennedy’s potato salad that kind of got mashed up in the mess up or "Hires" root beer, or "Nehi" grape, or "Nehi" orange or store–bought boxed ice cream, maybe, "Sealtest" harlequin (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all together, see), except melted. Or those ever- present roasted marshmallow that stuck to the roof of my mouth. You’ve been down that road yourselves so you don’t need me for a guide. And besides I’m starting to get sleepy after a long day. But as tired, dusty, and dirty as I am just telling this story… Ah, Treasure Island.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
Do you need to know about all the little family trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Merrymount end of Adamsville Beach that I have threatened to talk about when I mentioned how I “sold out” to my mother for a little Kennedy’s Deli home-style potato salad? Trips, that kind of formed the bookends of my childhood. Jesus, no. A thousand time no, and I say that having lived through them. My childhood memories overall can be best summed up in the words of the now long-departed black rapper extraordinaire, Biggie Smalls. He expressed it best and spoke a truth greater than he might have known, although he was closer to “hip-hop nation” than I ever could be, or could be capable of – “Christmas kind of missed us, birthdays were the worst days.” Ya, that’s the big truth, no question, but not the little Treasure Island truth, wobbly as it might come out. One such episode will give you an idea of what we (meaning me and my two brothers, one a little younger the other a little older than me) were up against but also, in the end, why although there were precious few wonderful childhood memories that are now worth the ink to tell you about, this one serves pretty well. Let me have my say.
******
There was a madness in this country in the 1950s. No, not the Cold War atomic-bomb-is-going-to-get-us-we-are-all-going-to-be-dead-next-week or “better dead than red” kind of madness although there was plenty of that, but a madness for the automobile, the sleeker, the more airplane-like, and more powerfully-engined the better. And, it wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight T-shirt wearing, rolled sleeve cigarette-packed, greased Pompadour-haired, long side-burned, dangling-combed , engineer-booted, chain-wielding, side of the mouth butt-puffing , didn’t care if school kept or not types bent over the hood of some souped-up ’57 Chevy working, sweating pools of sweat, sweating to get even more power out of that ferocious V-8 engine for the Saturday night “ chicken" run.
And it wasn’t even those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys either. And it was always guys, who you swore you would beat down if they ever even looked at your sister, if you had a sister, and if you liked her enough to beat a guy down to defend her honor, or whatever drove your sense of right. And, of course she, your sister no less, is looking for all she is worth at this “James Dean” soda jerk (hey, what else could he be) because this guy is “cute”. Go figure.
No, and forget all those stereotypes that they like to roll out when they want to bring a little “color” to the desperately color-craving 1950s. This car madness was driven, and driven hard, by your very own stay-at-home-and watch the television, water the lawn, if you have a lawn and it needed watering and sometimes when it didn’t just to get out of the house, have couple of beers and take a nap on Saturday afternoon father (or grandfather, I have to remember who might be in my audience now) who always said “ask your mother” to blow you off. You know him. I know you know him he just has a different name than mine did. And maybe even your very own mother (or grandmother) got caught up in the car thing too, your mother the one who always would say “ask your father. You know her too, don’t say no. I hope by now you knew they were working a team scam on you even if you didn’t have the kind of proof that you could take to court and get a little justice on.
Hell, on this car thing they were just doing a little strutting of their stuff in showcase, show-off, “see what I got and you don’t” time. Come on now, don’t pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about, at least if you too grew up in the 1950s, or heard about it, or even think you heard about it. Hey, it was about dreams of car ownership for the Great Depression-ed , World War II-ed survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, has arrived in the great American dream, and all on easy monthly payments, no money down, and the bigger, the sleeker the better and I’ll take the heavy- chromed, aerodynamically-designed, two-toned one, thank you. That was how you knew who counted, and who didn’t. You know what I mean.
Heck, that 50s big old fluffy pure white cloud of a dream even seeped all the way down into “the projects” in Adamsville, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” in Boston too that you could see on a clear day from Adamsville beach, although I don’t know for sure on that, and maybe in the thousand and one other displaced person hole-in-the-walls “projects” they built as an afterthought back then for those families like mine caught on the slow track in “go-go” America. Except down there, down there on the edge of respectability, and maybe even mixed in with a little disrespectability, you didn’t want to have too good of a car, even if you could get that easy credit, because what we you doing with that nice sleek, fin-tailed thing with four doors and plenty of room for the kids in the back in a place like “the projects” and maybe there was something the “authorities” should know about, yes. Better to move on with that old cranky 1940s-style un-hip, un-mourned, un-cool jalopy than face the wrath and clucking of that crowd, the venom-filled, green-eyed neighbors.
Yes, that little intro is all well and good and a truth you can take my word for but this tale is about, if I ever get around to it, those who had the car madness deep in their psyche, but not the wherewithal- this is a cry, if you can believe it today, from the no car families. Jesus, how could you not get the car madness then though, facing it every night stark-naked in front of you on the television set, small as the black and white picture was, of Buicks, and Chevys and Pontiacs and whatever other kind of car they had to sell to you. But what about us Eastern Mass bus dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least here it didn’t matter. Down South they got kind of funny about it.
As you might have figured out by now, and if you didn’t I will tell you, that was our family’s fate, more often than not. It was not that we never had a car back then, but there were plenty of times when we didn’t and I have the crooked heels, peek-a-boo-soles, and worn out shoe leather from walking rather than waiting on that never-coming bus to prove it. And not only that but I got so had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to Grandma’s Young Street, “up-town” North Adamsville if I had to. That was easy stuff thinking back on it. I‘ll tell you about walking those later long, lonesome roads out West in places like just before the mountains in Winnemucca, Nevada and 129 degree desert- hot Needles, California switching into 130 degree desert-hot Blythe, Arizona some other time, because it just doesn’t seem right to talk about mere walking, long or short, when the great American automobile is present and rolling by.
It’s kind of funny now but the thing was, when there was enough money to get one, that the cars my poor old, kind of city ways naïve, but fighting Marine-proud father would get, from wherever in this god forsaken earth he got them from would be, to be polite, clunkers and nothing but old time jalopies that even those “hot rod” James Dean guys mentioned above would sneer, and sneer big time, at. It would always be a 1947 something, like a Hudson or Nash Rambler, or who knows the misty, musty names of these long forgotten brands. The long and short it was, and this is what’s really important when you think about it, that they would inevitably break down, and breakdown in just the wrong place, at least the wrong place if you had a wife who couldn’t drive or help in that department and three screaming, bawling tow-headed boys who wanted to get wherever it was we were going, and get there-now.
I swear on those old battered crooked-heeled, peek-a-boo soled shoes that I told you about that this must have happened just about every time we were going on a trip, or getting ready to go on a trip, or thinking about going on a trip. So now you know what I was up against when I was a kid. Like I already told you before, in some other dream fragment, I was an easy target to be “pieced off” with a couple of spoonfuls of Kennedy's potato salad when things like that happened. Or some other easy “bought off” when the “car” joke of the month died again and there wasn’t any money to get it fixed right away and we couldn’t go more than a few miles. I blew my stack plenty and righteously so, don't you think?
So let me tell you about this one time, this one summer time, August I think, maybe in 1956, when we did have a car, some kind of grey Plymouth sedan from about 1947, that year seems to always come up when car year numbers come to mind, like I said before. Or maybe it was a converted tank from the war for all I know, it kind of felt like that sitting in the back seat because as the middle boy I never got to ride “shot gun” up front with Dad so I bore the brunt of the bumps, shakes, blimps, and slips in the back seat. I do know I never felt anything better than being nothing but always queasy back there.
This one, this beauty of a grey Plymouth sedan, I can remember very well, always had some major internal engine-type problem, or telltale oil- spilling on the ground in the morning, or a clutch-not-working right, when real cars had clutches not this automatic stuff, making a grinding sound that you could hear about half way around the world, but you will have to ask some who knows a lot more about cars about than I do for the real mechanical problems. Anyway this is the chariot that is going to get us out of “the projects” and away from that fiery, no breathe “projects” sun for a few hours as we started off on one of our family-famous outings to old Treasure Island down at the Merymount end of Adamsville Beach, about four or five miles from “the projects”, no more. It was hot as blazes that day that’s for sure, with no wind, no air, and it was one of those days, always one of those days, you could smell the sickly sweet fragrant coming from over the Proctor & Gamble soap factory across the channel on the Fore River side.
We got the old heap loaded with all the known supplies necessary for a “poor man’s” barbecue in those days. You know those cheap plastic lawn chairs from Grossman’s or Raymond’s or one of those discount stores before they had real discount stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart, a few old worn-out blankets fresh from night duty on our beds, some resurrected threadbare towels that were already faded in about 1837 from the six thousand washings that kids put even the most resilient towel through in a short time, the obligatory King’s charcoal briquettes, including that fear-provoking, smelly lighter fluid you needed to light them with in those barbaric days before gas-saturated instant-lite charcoal. For food: hot dogs, blanched white-dough rolls, assorted condiments, a cooler with various kinds of tonic (a.k.a. soda, for the younger reader) and ice cream. Ya, and some beach toys, including a pail and shovel because today, of all days, I am bound and determined to harvest some clams across the way from the park on Adamsville Beach at low tide just like I’d seen all kinds of guys doing every time we went there so that we can have a real outing. I can see and hear them boiling in that percolating, turbulent, swirling grey-white water in the big steaming aluminum kettle already.
All of this stuff, of course, is packed helter-skelter in our “designer” Elm Farms grocery store paper shopping bags that we made due with to carry stuff around in, near or far. Hey, don’t laugh you did too, didn’t you? And what about hamburgers you say, right? No, no way, that cut of meat was too pricey. It wasn’t until much later when I was a teenager and invited to someone else’s family-famous barbecue that I knew that those too were a staple, I swear. I already told you I was the “official” procurer of the Kennedy’s potato salad in another dream fragment so I don’t need to tell you about that delicacy again, okay?
And we are off, amazingly, this time for one of the few time in family-recorded history without the inevitable- “who knows where it started or who started it” -incident, one of a whole universe of possible incidents that almost always delayed our start every time our little clan moved from point A to point B. Even a small point A to point B like this venture. So everything was okay, just fine all the way up that single way out of “the projects,” Palmer Street, until we got going on Sea Street, a couple of miles out, then the heap started choking, crackling, burping, sneezing, hiccupping, smoking and croaking and I don’t know what else. We tumbled out of the car, with me already getting ready to do my, by now, finely-tuned “fume act” that like I told you got a work-out ever time one of these misadventures rolled around, and pulled out every thing we could with us.
Ma, then knowingly, said we would have to go back home because even she knew the car was finished. I, revolutionary that I was back then, put my foot down and said no we could walk to Treasure Island, it wasn’t far. I don’t know if I can convey, or if I should convey to you, the holy hell that I raised to get my way that day. And I did a united front with my two brothers, who, usually, ignored me and I ignored them at this point in our family careers. Democracy, of a sort, ruled. Or maybe poor Ma just got worn out from our caterwauling. In any case, we abandoned a few things with my father, including that pail and shovel that was going to provide us with a gourmet’s delight of boiled clams fresh from the now mythical sea, and started our trek with the well-known basics-food and utensils and toys and chairs and, and…
Let me cut to the chase here a little. Of course I have to tell you about our route and about how your humble tour director got the bright idea that we could take a short cut down Chickatawbut Street. (This is a real street, look it up. I used to use it every time I wanted to ride my bike over to Grandma’s on Young Street in North Adamsville.) The idea of said "smart guy" tour director was to get a breeze, a little breeze while we are walking with our now heavy loads by cutting onto Shore Avenue near the Merrymount Yacht Club. The problem is that, in search of breeze or of no breeze, this way is longer, much longer for three young boys and a dragged-out mama. Well, the long and short of it was, have you ever heard of the “Bataan Death March” during World War II? If you haven’t, look it up on “Wikipedia.” Those poor, bedeviled guys had nothing on us by the time, late afternoon, we got to our destination. We were beat, beat up, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday, beat every way a human being can be beat. Did I say beat? Oh ya, I did. But Ma, sensing our three murderous hearts by then, got the charcoals burning in one of the fireplaces they provided back then, and maybe they still do. And we were off to the races.
Hey, do you really need to know about mustard and relish crammed char-broiled hot dogs or my brother’s strange ketchup-filled one on white-breaded, nasty-tasting hot dog rolls that we got cheap from Elm Farms or maybe it was First National, or my beloved Kennedy’s potato salad that kind of got mashed up in the mess up or "Hires" root beer, or "Nehi" grape, or "Nehi" orange or store–bought boxed ice cream, maybe, "Sealtest" harlequin (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all together, see), except melted. Or those ever- present roasted marshmallow that stuck to the roof of my mouth. You’ve been down that road yourselves so you don’t need me for a guide. And besides I’m starting to get sleepy after a long day. But as tired, dusty, and dirty as I am just telling this story… Ah, Treasure Island.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick Learns His Trade-“Killer’s Kiss”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the early Stanley Kubrick crime noir, Killer’s Kiss.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Face (book) Photo That Launched A Thousand Clicks- Or “Foul-Mouth” Phil Hits Pay-Dirt-Finally
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Facebook for those three or four people who have not gotten the word about this new form of "social-networking" yet.
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).
Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.
But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.
Phil Larkin comment:
Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.
You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.
Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.
Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?
Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.
Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.
Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:
“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”
The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.
Markin comment:
Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).
Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.
But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.
Phil Larkin comment:
Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.
You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.
Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.
Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?
Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.
Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.
Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:
“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”
The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.
Markin comment:
Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
The "Projects" Boys... And Girls-For Denny And All The Other Adamsville Housing Authority Survivors From The Class Of 1964-With Tom Waits In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing Jersey Girl
"Ain't Got No Time For The Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise"- The first line from Tom Waits classic working class love song, Jersey Girl. The best version of the song by Tom Waits is the one that you can link to on YouTube above.
***********
Peter Paul Markin, Adamsville Housing Authority Alumnus and North Adamsville, Class Of 1964, (although most AHA alumni graduated from cross-town rival, Adamsville High) comment:
Funny how some stories get their start. A few years back one of my old Adamsville South Elementary corner boys, Denny Romano, he of the squeaky burgeoning tenor in our impromptu 1950s back end of the school-yard summer nights doo wop group (and I of the squeaky bass, low, very low bass) “connected” with me again. He did so not through this site but through one of those looking for old high school graduate-based Internet sites that relentlessly track you down just as, in your dotage; you think you have finally gotten out from under that last remnant speck of fighting off the last forty years of your teen alienation and teen angst.
Denny asked me to speak of the old “corner boy” days down at “the projects,” the Adamsville Housing Authority low-rent housing where the desperately poor, temporarily so or not, were warehoused in our town in the post-World War II good night when some returning veteran fathers needed a helping hand to get them going back into civilian life. Corner boys, in case you were clueless (or too young to know of anything but mall rat-dom), were guys, mainly, who “hung out” together. Poor boy, no money, no other place to go, or with no transportation to get some place, hung out in front of a million mom and pop variety corner variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner bowling alleys, corner fast food joints, hell, even corner gas stations in some real small towns from what some guys have told me when I asked them. Here is the odd part though. Ya, we were corner boys even that young, although we had no corner, no official corner like a corner mom and pop variety store, or a pizza parlor like I did later at Doc’s Drugstore in middle school and then as the king hell king’s scribe to Frankie Riley in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor but just the back end of the elementary school, as long as we were quiet and nobody cried murder and mayhem to the cops. The following, in any case, a little revised, represents my “homage” to Denny and the gang from those by-gone days and even the girls that ninety-three point four percent of the time I was scared to death of/ fascinated by. Well, some things haven’t changed anyway.
*******
Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, the Old Sailor’s Home, the Shipyard (abandoned now) and Sea Street. Yes, those streets and places from the old public housing project down in the Germantown section of Adamsville surely evoke imagines of the near-by sea that touched its edges, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And with the wherewithal to hold on to their booty (no, not that booty, dough, prizes, stuff like that) But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville had to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.
Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind, the human kind . No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.
Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor & Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs.
The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route to greater Adamsville. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street but police take notice off limits to corners boys young or old, another lifeline. Many a time I reached in Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small hoodlum wanna-be larcenies, in order to hike down that long road and get my sugar-drenched stash (candy bars, soda, a.k.a. tonic but that word is long gone, Twinkles, Moon Pies, and so on, sugar-drenched all)
And the kids. Well, the idea in those “golden” post-war days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turn-over of friends but there was a core of kids, kids like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Or get beaten down by guys just a little hungrier, a little stronger, or with just a little bigger chip on their shoulder. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and "thems were the rules." Rules that seemed to come out of eternity’s time, and like eternity never challenged.
I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With old elementary school classmate Rickie B., Denny knows who I am talking about, who, later, served twenty years, maybe more for all know, for a series of armed robberies, I worked my first "clip" in some downtown Adamsville Square jewelry store, Sid’s I think, the one with all the onyx rings on display in the front and the twelve signs about how you could have anything in the place on very easy terms, only a million installments (with interest piling up, of course). No, thanks. The clip, again for the clueless, is nothing but kids’ stuff, strictly for amateurs because no professional thief would risk his or her good name for such a low-rent payoff. The deal was one guy went in and got the salesperson’s attention while the other guy ripped off whatever was “hanging low on the tree.” In that arrangement I was usually the “tree” guy not because I had quick hands, although come to think of it I did (and big eyes, big greedy eyes for all the booty, and you know what booty means here now since I told you before), but because I didn’t have the knack of talking gibberish to adults. Hell, you probably did the clip yourself, maybe for kicks. And then forgot about it for some other less screwy kick. Not me.
Okay, so at that point maybe every kid, every curious kid ready in whatever manner to challenge authority and I (and most of my then corner boys, although not Denny if I recall correctly) are even. Here is the tie-breaker though. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting, a lonely gringo deal down in Mexico, went south on him). See George was a true artist, a true sneak thief who was able to get into any house by stealth and sheer determination. Mainly houses up in Adams Shore where people actually had stuff worth stealing unlike in the projects where the stuff was so much Bargain Center specials (the local Wal-Mart-like operation of its day). He needed me for two, no three, things. First, I was the “look-out” and even the clueless know what that means. Secondly, I actually held and carried some of the loot that he passed to me out of the window or door, and one time out a backyard bulkhead (the good stuff, televisions, silverware, a stamp collection, a coin collection, and some other stuff that I have forgotten about, was in the basement family room). Lastly, as George started to draw school and police attention I actually “held” the stuff in a safe location (which I will not disclose here just in case the various statutes of limitations have not run out). That went on for a while but George got busted for something else, some unruly child baloney rap thing, and that was that.
That was just a kid’s gangster moment, right? It was not all larcenies and kid dreams of some “big score” to get himself, and his family, out from under though. It couldn’t be for a kid, or the whole world, poor as it was, would have just collapsed over my head, and I would not be here to honor Denny’s request.
Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires on New Year’s Eve where we scurried like rats just as soon as neighbors put their trees out to be taken away in order to assemble them on the beach ready to be fired up and welcome in the new year. Or annual Halloween hooliganism where we, in a sugar frenzy, worked the neighborhood trick or treat racket hitting every house like the 82nd Airborne Division, or some such elite unit running amok in Baghdad or some Iraqi town ...
Hey, wait a minute, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in my memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening." Girls. Girls turning from sticks to shapes just around the time that I started to notice the difference, and being interested in that different if not always sure about what it meant. You don’t need a book to figure that out, although maybe it would have helped. And being fascinated and ill at ease at the same time around them, and being a moonstruck kid on every girl that gave me a passing glance, or what I thought was a passing glance, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you. And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Remind me to tell you some time, and here is where Denny comes in, how we put together, a bunch of corner-less corner boys, a ragtag doo wop group one summer for the express, the sole, the only purpose of, well, luring girls to the back of the school where we hung out. And it worked.
Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects." And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I was seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle, that “holding” stuff with my corner boy comrade George, I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Adamsville South Elementary School (now further up the street toward Adamsville Square). And one summer I just started to read every biography or other interesting book they had in the Children's Section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult Section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale. Is that good enough for you, Denny?
Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics
Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.
'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And i'll take you all on the rides.
Down the shore everything's alright,
You're with your baby on a saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When i'm walkin' down the street with you,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.
You know she thrills me with all her charms,
When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,
My little angel gives me everything,
I know someday that she'll wear my ring.
So don't bother me cause i got no time,
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,
Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,
When you're in love with a jersey girl,
Sing sha la la la la la la.
And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,
Sha la la la la la la.
"Ain't Got No Time For The Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise"- The first line from Tom Waits classic working class love song, Jersey Girl. The best version of the song by Tom Waits is the one that you can link to on YouTube above.
***********
Peter Paul Markin, Adamsville Housing Authority Alumnus and North Adamsville, Class Of 1964, (although most AHA alumni graduated from cross-town rival, Adamsville High) comment:
Funny how some stories get their start. A few years back one of my old Adamsville South Elementary corner boys, Denny Romano, he of the squeaky burgeoning tenor in our impromptu 1950s back end of the school-yard summer nights doo wop group (and I of the squeaky bass, low, very low bass) “connected” with me again. He did so not through this site but through one of those looking for old high school graduate-based Internet sites that relentlessly track you down just as, in your dotage; you think you have finally gotten out from under that last remnant speck of fighting off the last forty years of your teen alienation and teen angst.
Denny asked me to speak of the old “corner boy” days down at “the projects,” the Adamsville Housing Authority low-rent housing where the desperately poor, temporarily so or not, were warehoused in our town in the post-World War II good night when some returning veteran fathers needed a helping hand to get them going back into civilian life. Corner boys, in case you were clueless (or too young to know of anything but mall rat-dom), were guys, mainly, who “hung out” together. Poor boy, no money, no other place to go, or with no transportation to get some place, hung out in front of a million mom and pop variety corner variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner bowling alleys, corner fast food joints, hell, even corner gas stations in some real small towns from what some guys have told me when I asked them. Here is the odd part though. Ya, we were corner boys even that young, although we had no corner, no official corner like a corner mom and pop variety store, or a pizza parlor like I did later at Doc’s Drugstore in middle school and then as the king hell king’s scribe to Frankie Riley in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor but just the back end of the elementary school, as long as we were quiet and nobody cried murder and mayhem to the cops. The following, in any case, a little revised, represents my “homage” to Denny and the gang from those by-gone days and even the girls that ninety-three point four percent of the time I was scared to death of/ fascinated by. Well, some things haven’t changed anyway.
*******
Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, the Old Sailor’s Home, the Shipyard (abandoned now) and Sea Street. Yes, those streets and places from the old public housing project down in the Germantown section of Adamsville surely evoke imagines of the near-by sea that touched its edges, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And with the wherewithal to hold on to their booty (no, not that booty, dough, prizes, stuff like that) But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville had to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.
Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind, the human kind . No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.
Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor & Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs.
The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route to greater Adamsville. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street but police take notice off limits to corners boys young or old, another lifeline. Many a time I reached in Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small hoodlum wanna-be larcenies, in order to hike down that long road and get my sugar-drenched stash (candy bars, soda, a.k.a. tonic but that word is long gone, Twinkles, Moon Pies, and so on, sugar-drenched all)
And the kids. Well, the idea in those “golden” post-war days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turn-over of friends but there was a core of kids, kids like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Or get beaten down by guys just a little hungrier, a little stronger, or with just a little bigger chip on their shoulder. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and "thems were the rules." Rules that seemed to come out of eternity’s time, and like eternity never challenged.
I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With old elementary school classmate Rickie B., Denny knows who I am talking about, who, later, served twenty years, maybe more for all know, for a series of armed robberies, I worked my first "clip" in some downtown Adamsville Square jewelry store, Sid’s I think, the one with all the onyx rings on display in the front and the twelve signs about how you could have anything in the place on very easy terms, only a million installments (with interest piling up, of course). No, thanks. The clip, again for the clueless, is nothing but kids’ stuff, strictly for amateurs because no professional thief would risk his or her good name for such a low-rent payoff. The deal was one guy went in and got the salesperson’s attention while the other guy ripped off whatever was “hanging low on the tree.” In that arrangement I was usually the “tree” guy not because I had quick hands, although come to think of it I did (and big eyes, big greedy eyes for all the booty, and you know what booty means here now since I told you before), but because I didn’t have the knack of talking gibberish to adults. Hell, you probably did the clip yourself, maybe for kicks. And then forgot about it for some other less screwy kick. Not me.
Okay, so at that point maybe every kid, every curious kid ready in whatever manner to challenge authority and I (and most of my then corner boys, although not Denny if I recall correctly) are even. Here is the tie-breaker though. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting, a lonely gringo deal down in Mexico, went south on him). See George was a true artist, a true sneak thief who was able to get into any house by stealth and sheer determination. Mainly houses up in Adams Shore where people actually had stuff worth stealing unlike in the projects where the stuff was so much Bargain Center specials (the local Wal-Mart-like operation of its day). He needed me for two, no three, things. First, I was the “look-out” and even the clueless know what that means. Secondly, I actually held and carried some of the loot that he passed to me out of the window or door, and one time out a backyard bulkhead (the good stuff, televisions, silverware, a stamp collection, a coin collection, and some other stuff that I have forgotten about, was in the basement family room). Lastly, as George started to draw school and police attention I actually “held” the stuff in a safe location (which I will not disclose here just in case the various statutes of limitations have not run out). That went on for a while but George got busted for something else, some unruly child baloney rap thing, and that was that.
That was just a kid’s gangster moment, right? It was not all larcenies and kid dreams of some “big score” to get himself, and his family, out from under though. It couldn’t be for a kid, or the whole world, poor as it was, would have just collapsed over my head, and I would not be here to honor Denny’s request.
Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires on New Year’s Eve where we scurried like rats just as soon as neighbors put their trees out to be taken away in order to assemble them on the beach ready to be fired up and welcome in the new year. Or annual Halloween hooliganism where we, in a sugar frenzy, worked the neighborhood trick or treat racket hitting every house like the 82nd Airborne Division, or some such elite unit running amok in Baghdad or some Iraqi town ...
Hey, wait a minute, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in my memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening." Girls. Girls turning from sticks to shapes just around the time that I started to notice the difference, and being interested in that different if not always sure about what it meant. You don’t need a book to figure that out, although maybe it would have helped. And being fascinated and ill at ease at the same time around them, and being a moonstruck kid on every girl that gave me a passing glance, or what I thought was a passing glance, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you. And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Remind me to tell you some time, and here is where Denny comes in, how we put together, a bunch of corner-less corner boys, a ragtag doo wop group one summer for the express, the sole, the only purpose of, well, luring girls to the back of the school where we hung out. And it worked.
Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects." And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I was seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle, that “holding” stuff with my corner boy comrade George, I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Adamsville South Elementary School (now further up the street toward Adamsville Square). And one summer I just started to read every biography or other interesting book they had in the Children's Section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult Section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale. Is that good enough for you, Denny?
Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics
Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.
'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And i'll take you all on the rides.
Down the shore everything's alright,
You're with your baby on a saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When i'm walkin' down the street with you,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.
You know she thrills me with all her charms,
When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,
My little angel gives me everything,
I know someday that she'll wear my ring.
So don't bother me cause i got no time,
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,
Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,
When you're in love with a jersey girl,
Sing sha la la la la la la.
And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,
Sha la la la la la la.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1960-61, Take Two- In The Time Of Donna Blanchard’s Time- With Elvis Presley In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing his 1960s teen angst classic, Teen Angel
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61-Take Two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series. Doc’s Drugstore and Soda Foundation (not shown), located in the heart of the North Adamsville shopping streets, and most importantly, just a few minutes walk from North Adamsville High School. The soda fountain counter area is complete with a dozen single stools, a speckled faux-marble formica countertop with assorted pastry trays, candy boxes, pie cabinets and various condiment combinations for Doc’s ‘greasy spoon” hamburgers and hot dogs. Said single stools are strictly for losers, girl friend-less guys (or once in a great while a girl just trying catch a quick soda on the way home) or old people waiting for Doc to fill their ancient medicines prescriptions. They are no factor, no factor at all in this teen-worthy world. No, less than no factor. Every once in a while, however, one of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys takes his foot off the wall in front of Doc’s and enters to get a take out Cherry Coke, the de riguer drink of Fritz’s boyos.
But the fountain is strictly for food and drink, food and drink that is also strictly secondary to why Doc’s is a teen-worthy heaven. The real draw is the quiet booths that line both corner walls and are only for after school boy-girl couples, four-some girls looking for guys to dance with, and at night, mainly school year weekend and summer every nights, Fritz’s Cullen’s corner boys when they tire of holding up Doc’s wall out front (or more realistically when the hour is late and the girl prospects have dimmed). But the booths mean nothing by themselves except as “resting” areas after some fast dance coming from Doc’s super-charged juke box, complete with the very latest records straight from Pete’ Platters Record Shop so you know the are hot.
Right now, just this very teen ear minute, one can hear the sassy sound of The Drifters This Magic Moment in the background as we fix on a boy and girl taking a break from deep conversation (deep conversation related in teen world to either sex, setting up dates, analyzing the state of their eternal relationship, or some combination of all three) and taking a straw sip from their shared Cherry Coke. The Cherry Coke automatically means that rank and file Doc’s corner boy Harry “Red” Radley is present on one of the straws. On the other Donna Blanchard, one of the hottest sixteen year old sophomore girls at North Adamsville High, with a nice shape, a sweet smile, and a “come hither” look that has had more than one boy moony-eyed for her affections. But no dice, no dice at all. In this autumn of the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty Miss Donna Blanchard only has eyes, and whatever else she has to give, for one Red Radley. Let’s listen in as the eminently forgettable Booby Vee is droning on in the background about some lost love (and rightfully so, if the truth be known) on Take Good Care Of My Baby.
*********
“What the matter, honey, don’t you want me like that, “ murmered Donna Blanchard after being told for the fifth or sixth time by our corner boy Red Radley that, if you can believe this, no he was not ready for heavy sex (meaning of course, in the language of the young, some variety of “going all the way”). It seems that last Saturday night down at Adamsville Beach, the local “parking” heaven where one and all went to see the ”submarine races” in the local teen code parlance Donna, making no bones that she was ready, more than ready, to go all the way with Red got turned down. Turned down flat. Fortunately for Red Donna, embarrassed by such a fool for a boy friend, had “neglected” to mention this hard fact of life when the obligatory Monday morning Girls’ “Lav” talk got around to the subject of the weekend scorecard. In short, who did, and didn’t do it. Right now Red and Donna are trying to sort things out as a strangely ironic song by Cathy Jean and the Roommates, Please Love Me Forever, spins on the juke box.
What? A member in good standing of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys, corner boys who have, publicly anyway, notched up (went all they way with) more North Adamsville girls than maybe there were girls in North Adamsville turned down a chance at paradise. And turned down a certified fox like Donna Blanchard. No way. Moreover, Red, displaying he not uncommon teen male bravado had lied to his fellow corner boys and said that he had had already “gone all the way” with Donna. Jesus. Did our Red have a medical problem? No. Did he have some religious scruples about pre-martial sex? Hell, no. Our Red, as it turns out was a virgin and was terrified when Donna, a virgin herself but ready for the time of her time, came on so strong. Especially when she went wild on Saturday night when the local 24/7 rock and roll station, WMEX, played a medley of Elvis tunes including his latest, Surrender.
Some times things end right in the teen universe, sometimes they don’t. This time they didn’t. Well, at least for Red. After their little conversation at Doc’s Red and Donna agreed, but mostly Donna agreed, that they should see other people. That’s teen code, and maybe universal code, for “breaking up.” So now one sees the fetching Donna Blanchard riding around in Jimmy Jakes '59 cherry Chevy, and sitting very close indeed. Moreover she has that look, that certain look like she now knows a thing or two about ways of the world. Well, after all it was the time of her time, wasn’t it? As for Red, well, Red is seen more and more occupying one of those single stools at Doc’s counter sipping a Cherry Coke and endlessly throwing nickels, dimes and quarters in the juke box playing Elvis’ It’s Now or Never. Enough said.
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61-Take Two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series. Doc’s Drugstore and Soda Foundation (not shown), located in the heart of the North Adamsville shopping streets, and most importantly, just a few minutes walk from North Adamsville High School. The soda fountain counter area is complete with a dozen single stools, a speckled faux-marble formica countertop with assorted pastry trays, candy boxes, pie cabinets and various condiment combinations for Doc’s ‘greasy spoon” hamburgers and hot dogs. Said single stools are strictly for losers, girl friend-less guys (or once in a great while a girl just trying catch a quick soda on the way home) or old people waiting for Doc to fill their ancient medicines prescriptions. They are no factor, no factor at all in this teen-worthy world. No, less than no factor. Every once in a while, however, one of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys takes his foot off the wall in front of Doc’s and enters to get a take out Cherry Coke, the de riguer drink of Fritz’s boyos.
But the fountain is strictly for food and drink, food and drink that is also strictly secondary to why Doc’s is a teen-worthy heaven. The real draw is the quiet booths that line both corner walls and are only for after school boy-girl couples, four-some girls looking for guys to dance with, and at night, mainly school year weekend and summer every nights, Fritz’s Cullen’s corner boys when they tire of holding up Doc’s wall out front (or more realistically when the hour is late and the girl prospects have dimmed). But the booths mean nothing by themselves except as “resting” areas after some fast dance coming from Doc’s super-charged juke box, complete with the very latest records straight from Pete’ Platters Record Shop so you know the are hot.
Right now, just this very teen ear minute, one can hear the sassy sound of The Drifters This Magic Moment in the background as we fix on a boy and girl taking a break from deep conversation (deep conversation related in teen world to either sex, setting up dates, analyzing the state of their eternal relationship, or some combination of all three) and taking a straw sip from their shared Cherry Coke. The Cherry Coke automatically means that rank and file Doc’s corner boy Harry “Red” Radley is present on one of the straws. On the other Donna Blanchard, one of the hottest sixteen year old sophomore girls at North Adamsville High, with a nice shape, a sweet smile, and a “come hither” look that has had more than one boy moony-eyed for her affections. But no dice, no dice at all. In this autumn of the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty Miss Donna Blanchard only has eyes, and whatever else she has to give, for one Red Radley. Let’s listen in as the eminently forgettable Booby Vee is droning on in the background about some lost love (and rightfully so, if the truth be known) on Take Good Care Of My Baby.
*********
“What the matter, honey, don’t you want me like that, “ murmered Donna Blanchard after being told for the fifth or sixth time by our corner boy Red Radley that, if you can believe this, no he was not ready for heavy sex (meaning of course, in the language of the young, some variety of “going all the way”). It seems that last Saturday night down at Adamsville Beach, the local “parking” heaven where one and all went to see the ”submarine races” in the local teen code parlance Donna, making no bones that she was ready, more than ready, to go all the way with Red got turned down. Turned down flat. Fortunately for Red Donna, embarrassed by such a fool for a boy friend, had “neglected” to mention this hard fact of life when the obligatory Monday morning Girls’ “Lav” talk got around to the subject of the weekend scorecard. In short, who did, and didn’t do it. Right now Red and Donna are trying to sort things out as a strangely ironic song by Cathy Jean and the Roommates, Please Love Me Forever, spins on the juke box.
What? A member in good standing of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys, corner boys who have, publicly anyway, notched up (went all they way with) more North Adamsville girls than maybe there were girls in North Adamsville turned down a chance at paradise. And turned down a certified fox like Donna Blanchard. No way. Moreover, Red, displaying he not uncommon teen male bravado had lied to his fellow corner boys and said that he had had already “gone all the way” with Donna. Jesus. Did our Red have a medical problem? No. Did he have some religious scruples about pre-martial sex? Hell, no. Our Red, as it turns out was a virgin and was terrified when Donna, a virgin herself but ready for the time of her time, came on so strong. Especially when she went wild on Saturday night when the local 24/7 rock and roll station, WMEX, played a medley of Elvis tunes including his latest, Surrender.
Some times things end right in the teen universe, sometimes they don’t. This time they didn’t. Well, at least for Red. After their little conversation at Doc’s Red and Donna agreed, but mostly Donna agreed, that they should see other people. That’s teen code, and maybe universal code, for “breaking up.” So now one sees the fetching Donna Blanchard riding around in Jimmy Jakes '59 cherry Chevy, and sitting very close indeed. Moreover she has that look, that certain look like she now knows a thing or two about ways of the world. Well, after all it was the time of her time, wasn’t it? As for Red, well, Red is seen more and more occupying one of those single stools at Doc’s counter sipping a Cherry Coke and endlessly throwing nickels, dimes and quarters in the juke box playing Elvis’ It’s Now or Never. Enough said.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
“Ain’t Got No Time For Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise”-The Mean Streets Of Working Class Times- “The Fighter”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the sports biographical film, The Fighter.
DVD Review
The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, Paramount Pictures, 2010
I know the mean streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, although of late that geographical reference point would center on a more literary sense of the place around the figure of 1950s beat novelist/poet Jack Kerouac. I do not, by the way, mean that I know Lowell from actually growing up in that old-time textile mill town that has seen better days, mainly. I mean I know Lowell because I know the double-deckers, the triple-deckers, the seedy bowling alleys, the back lot gyms, the mom and pop variety stores, the ethnically-tinged bars, biker hang-outs, and flop houses that dot that working class town and form the backdrop to the cultural life of that place. I grew up on the southern side of Boston in North Adamsville. That past its prime working class town (formerly a shipbuilding center rather than Lowell's textile but they shared the same ethos) had its full compliment of tight housing, rundown stores, sparse entertainment possibilities and cramped view of life’s prospects just like Lowell.
I know Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) and, more importantly, I know Dickie Eklund (Bale) and their mother Alice (Leo). I do not mean that I know any of them personally but I know their ilk. See North Adamsville also had its fair share of club fighters (or other sports king wanna-bes), working out of some third floor back door gym that smelled of tiger’s balm and other liniments, looking to make it out of the dead-end town and on to the big tent, whether they actually left North Adamsville or not. And most didn’t and most did not even get a shot at hitting someone like Sugar Ray Leonard down on some matted ring floor like Dickie did. Frankly, I spent most of my time as a youth being attracted too but ultimately trying to run, run very hard, away from the Dickie guys, the street-wise corner boys who fall sort of catching the brass ring. While they may be street-wise corner boys, unlike in this film, they are strictly bad-ass cut your throat for a dime characters best left behind. That was hard lesson to learn back in the day, and as the film makes clear, now too.
That said about the social realities of working class life what is there not to like about a film that highlights, Mickey Ward, one of our own getting out from under by sheer perseverance, wit, and his own sense of street smarts, mainly on his own terms. And to be a bloody stubborn Irishman to boot. Some of the stuff concerning his family connections, his eight million family connections, the “us against the world (you do not air your dirty linen in public, period)” while hard to take at points rang true. As did many of the confrontation scenes with Mickey’s high-flying girlfriend Charlene, when she tried to break her man out of the family’s grip. Finally, the acting from Wahlberg’s conflicted (between family and career, between being a “stepping stone” and a champ) boxer, to Bale’s mad monk ex-boxer who had gone a long way down from those Sugar Ray days (a not uncommon fate for those who are just not good enough to wear the crown, whatever the crown might be) to Leo’s (Alice)one-dimensional family worldview (with nine kids, seven of them girls, that might have been the beginning of wisdom in her case) was uniformly fine. Still, I am glad, glad as hell that I made a left turn away from those corner boys down in the streets making all that noise. But it was a close thing, no question.
DVD Review
The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, Paramount Pictures, 2010
I know the mean streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, although of late that geographical reference point would center on a more literary sense of the place around the figure of 1950s beat novelist/poet Jack Kerouac. I do not, by the way, mean that I know Lowell from actually growing up in that old-time textile mill town that has seen better days, mainly. I mean I know Lowell because I know the double-deckers, the triple-deckers, the seedy bowling alleys, the back lot gyms, the mom and pop variety stores, the ethnically-tinged bars, biker hang-outs, and flop houses that dot that working class town and form the backdrop to the cultural life of that place. I grew up on the southern side of Boston in North Adamsville. That past its prime working class town (formerly a shipbuilding center rather than Lowell's textile but they shared the same ethos) had its full compliment of tight housing, rundown stores, sparse entertainment possibilities and cramped view of life’s prospects just like Lowell.
I know Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) and, more importantly, I know Dickie Eklund (Bale) and their mother Alice (Leo). I do not mean that I know any of them personally but I know their ilk. See North Adamsville also had its fair share of club fighters (or other sports king wanna-bes), working out of some third floor back door gym that smelled of tiger’s balm and other liniments, looking to make it out of the dead-end town and on to the big tent, whether they actually left North Adamsville or not. And most didn’t and most did not even get a shot at hitting someone like Sugar Ray Leonard down on some matted ring floor like Dickie did. Frankly, I spent most of my time as a youth being attracted too but ultimately trying to run, run very hard, away from the Dickie guys, the street-wise corner boys who fall sort of catching the brass ring. While they may be street-wise corner boys, unlike in this film, they are strictly bad-ass cut your throat for a dime characters best left behind. That was hard lesson to learn back in the day, and as the film makes clear, now too.
That said about the social realities of working class life what is there not to like about a film that highlights, Mickey Ward, one of our own getting out from under by sheer perseverance, wit, and his own sense of street smarts, mainly on his own terms. And to be a bloody stubborn Irishman to boot. Some of the stuff concerning his family connections, his eight million family connections, the “us against the world (you do not air your dirty linen in public, period)” while hard to take at points rang true. As did many of the confrontation scenes with Mickey’s high-flying girlfriend Charlene, when she tried to break her man out of the family’s grip. Finally, the acting from Wahlberg’s conflicted (between family and career, between being a “stepping stone” and a champ) boxer, to Bale’s mad monk ex-boxer who had gone a long way down from those Sugar Ray days (a not uncommon fate for those who are just not good enough to wear the crown, whatever the crown might be) to Leo’s (Alice)one-dimensional family worldview (with nine kids, seven of them girls, that might have been the beginning of wisdom in her case) was uniformly fine. Still, I am glad, glad as hell that I made a left turn away from those corner boys down in the streets making all that noise. But it was a close thing, no question.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1960-61- When Love Blossomed In The Clintondale Memorial Park Night
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Shirelles performing their classic Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1996
Scene: Brought to mind by the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series. Clintondale Memorial Park, early 1960s, a traditional city-maintained park with the usual kiddies playgrounds, various sports fields, picnic and barbecue facilities, rest rooms and, most importantly, teenage most importantly, many off-the- beaten path secluded spots for teen night sports. Although by the 1960s it was suffering from some neglect since it has been at least a generation since it had been a “hot” spot for teenage love in the night. Those “hot” spots in this car-driven age are now down at Adamsville Beach a few towns over by the bay, and more recently the new rage at the Gloversville Amusement Park a few towns over going inland out toward farm country.
*******
Let me tell you about Clintondale Memorial park first, although that might seem funny for a guy who usually starts out describing all the gossip around town, or at least the North Clintondale part of town, about who at North Clintondale High is, or isn’t, trying to get some girl’s (or more rarely some guy’s) attention. Or about who broke up, or didn’t break up and I wish she would, with what overreaching guy after what he tried to do down at Adamsville Beach. Or about some other lovelorn bits of trivia that really, now with big issues like war and peace and black civil rights stuff down south staring us in the face, should take a back seat. But what are you going to do when you are stuck, stuck forever it seems, in the backwater of Squaresville, oops, Clintondale, the same thing.
I will get to the people part, the Jeannie Curran and Walter Pitts part, which fills out this saga as soon as I tell you about the park. See, for one thing, I actually had to go to the park in order to able to tell you about it. That may seem odd in a small town, a backwater square town like Clintondale, but I hadn’t personally been there since I was a kid, maybe seven or eight years ago. And ever since the Gloversville Amusement Park opened up around that same time there has been absolutely no reason to go there. Period. And when I got older, old enough to ride in a car cruising for girls and other stuff down at Adamsville Beach, which became even truer. This park, whatever it meant for my parents who kept going on and on about how much fun they had there as kids, was strictly nowhere. Or at least I thought so and my opinion didn’t change when I took the two mile walk across town to get over there.
Funny when I was a kid the place seemed like a huge primeval forest that a kid could get lost in pretty easily and we were reminded of that hard fact constantly when we played in the woods there. Now it seemed pretty small since I could walk around the whole thing in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Sure the old swings, seesaws and slides from childhood were still there, although they seemed to have a little rust on them and didn’t look like they had been repaired in a while. And the picnic tables, now a little weather-beaten and standing in serious need of some paint, were still tableau-like in the same places they were back then as were the barbecue pits. The rest rooms had seen better days, could have used a very thorough fumigation, and appeared to have become the “property” of the town’s increasing population of winos. For that matter the whole layout could have used some serious landscaping or at least something more than a quick summer job student mow and permanent city worker grim reaper swathing. But back in some corners, near the old granite rocks, and a couple of other places off the bridle paths I could see where there might be some very cozy places to bring a date for some serious workouts in the old days. So what my parents, although they neglected to mention that part of the old time teenage “fun” night, and Benny Rosen’s older brother, David, told us about when the place was a “hot” spot might have been true after all. Still this place ain’t coming back anytime soon as a serious teenage scene. No way.
Like I say this Clintondale Memorial Park was strictly from hunger. Except, and here you will have to take my word for it, maybe, just maybe, as a meeting place for those who could not meet in public any other place. And that is where Jeanie Curran and Walter Pitts finally get to enter this story. No, hell, no they didn’t do any wrong. Anything legally, morally, politically, economically, culturally, or socially wrong. Well, maybe they did on the last one come to think of it. Clintondale, now that people have started moving here from Boston in droves, has gotten over the past several years too big to have just one high school. So now there are two. Jeanie’s Clintondale High (the old high school) in the older part of town and Walter (and my) North Clintondale High in the newer section where the housing developments have sprung up. And that is where Jeanie and Walter’s “problem” takes center stage. See in Clintondale it is taboo, wrong, evil, or whatever you want to call it, but just don’t do it, for a student from one high school to date, hell maybe even to talk to, a student from the other high school. Oh sure they can ride on the same buses and stuff like that. It’s not like down South with one school riding in the back of the bus or anything like that but no dating. Not done, okay.
But Jeannie and Walter, are dating, definitely dating, as I will tell you about later. Now the reason I know this is that Walter is none other than a corner boy with me over at Doc Sprague’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain. So he kind of confided his story to me. Now every one in town, well in North Adamsville, well, okay at the high school, knows that once I get a story it is going to be around in nothing flat. So I think Walter’s idea was to tell it to me and then I would spread it around and then people (read: fellow teenage high school students) might learn to accept his (and Jeanie’s) status. And if that was his idea he was right because I am holding you to no vow of silence. Not only that but I half agree that Walter and Jeanie, although they attend those two antagonistic high schools, should have the right to date if they want to and let the town be damned. But I only half agree so far because I can see where these “mixed” relationships are hard on everybody and then again, as well, where do you draw the line.
Now this Jeannie Curran, if you know Walter as I do and his tastes in girls, is nothing but a fox. A sandy blonde, nice shape in all the right places, nice face and, so Walter tells me, someone you would never tire of talking to (a big plus, for sure). In other words someone the gods created on one of their good days. Thanks, gods. And Walter is a good-looking guy although not too bright if he both confided in me seriously and was bold enough to go against convention. How they met though will give you an idea as to their problem.
Pete’s Platters record Shop is the only place in town where kids can go to get rock ‘n’ roll music, the latest stuff anyway. So it is kind of “neutral” territory in the high school wars since every kid recognizes, like some Geneva Convention Accords protocol, that teenagers NEED their 45s and LPs and quick, quick as they come out sometimes. So one day, after school Walter was downtown at Pete’s looking for Ben E. King’s boss sound Spanish Harlem and Roy Orbison’s great crescendo-wave Running Scared when he spotted Jeannie. Like some primordial force he was “driven” to go over and ask her what she was looking for in records and she answered Patsy Cline’s I Fall To Pieces and, almost like it was the power of suggestion, Elvis’ dreamy and sad Are You Lonesome Tonight? And that was that. Click. For one thing Walter has just recently broken up with Susie Riley and for another, well, like I said Jeannie was a fox. A fox who, by the way, was wearing front and center her Clintondale High School cheerleader sweater so Walter should have backed off immediately. But such is smitten-ness.
Well one thing led to another after Walter got Jeannie phone number at that first meeting. And as a symbol of friendship he bought her The Drifters’ Please Stay right there and then. But things for teenage romance, especially Clintondale never the twain shall meet teenage romance, are never easy. Part of the problem was that Walter did not then have a car and even if he used his father’s he couldn’t take Jeanie to the Adamsville Beach although she expressed extreme interest in “watching the submarine races.” With him. Nor could they go the Gloversville Amusement Park. Nobody from either high school would have stood for that. So Jeannie (like I said Walter is not too bright in the idea department) said why not meet at her house and walk over to the Clintondale Memorial Park and find some quiet spot to “make out.” Well, where there is a will there is a way. And so one fine early October night before it got too cold one Jeannie Curran of Clintondale High and one Walter Pitts of North Clintondale High found a nice spot near the old granite rocks and “did it.” Here is the funny thing; funny to Walter anyway, while they were “doing it” the ubiquitous WMEX rock ‘n’ roll station was playing The Shirelles Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. They both laughed about that one.
Now that I think of it I could see where “cruising” old Adamsville Beach is finally played out. And how many kewpie dolls, rabbits' feet, and leis can you win for your favorite girl over at the amusement park? Those granite rocks over at the memorial park sure were a quiet spot. Now if I could only find a Clintondale High girl to go there with me. And maybe, just maybe WMEX will be playing Brenda Lee’s I Want To Be Wanted and we can laugh over that.
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1996
Scene: Brought to mind by the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series. Clintondale Memorial Park, early 1960s, a traditional city-maintained park with the usual kiddies playgrounds, various sports fields, picnic and barbecue facilities, rest rooms and, most importantly, teenage most importantly, many off-the- beaten path secluded spots for teen night sports. Although by the 1960s it was suffering from some neglect since it has been at least a generation since it had been a “hot” spot for teenage love in the night. Those “hot” spots in this car-driven age are now down at Adamsville Beach a few towns over by the bay, and more recently the new rage at the Gloversville Amusement Park a few towns over going inland out toward farm country.
*******
Let me tell you about Clintondale Memorial park first, although that might seem funny for a guy who usually starts out describing all the gossip around town, or at least the North Clintondale part of town, about who at North Clintondale High is, or isn’t, trying to get some girl’s (or more rarely some guy’s) attention. Or about who broke up, or didn’t break up and I wish she would, with what overreaching guy after what he tried to do down at Adamsville Beach. Or about some other lovelorn bits of trivia that really, now with big issues like war and peace and black civil rights stuff down south staring us in the face, should take a back seat. But what are you going to do when you are stuck, stuck forever it seems, in the backwater of Squaresville, oops, Clintondale, the same thing.
I will get to the people part, the Jeannie Curran and Walter Pitts part, which fills out this saga as soon as I tell you about the park. See, for one thing, I actually had to go to the park in order to able to tell you about it. That may seem odd in a small town, a backwater square town like Clintondale, but I hadn’t personally been there since I was a kid, maybe seven or eight years ago. And ever since the Gloversville Amusement Park opened up around that same time there has been absolutely no reason to go there. Period. And when I got older, old enough to ride in a car cruising for girls and other stuff down at Adamsville Beach, which became even truer. This park, whatever it meant for my parents who kept going on and on about how much fun they had there as kids, was strictly nowhere. Or at least I thought so and my opinion didn’t change when I took the two mile walk across town to get over there.
Funny when I was a kid the place seemed like a huge primeval forest that a kid could get lost in pretty easily and we were reminded of that hard fact constantly when we played in the woods there. Now it seemed pretty small since I could walk around the whole thing in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Sure the old swings, seesaws and slides from childhood were still there, although they seemed to have a little rust on them and didn’t look like they had been repaired in a while. And the picnic tables, now a little weather-beaten and standing in serious need of some paint, were still tableau-like in the same places they were back then as were the barbecue pits. The rest rooms had seen better days, could have used a very thorough fumigation, and appeared to have become the “property” of the town’s increasing population of winos. For that matter the whole layout could have used some serious landscaping or at least something more than a quick summer job student mow and permanent city worker grim reaper swathing. But back in some corners, near the old granite rocks, and a couple of other places off the bridle paths I could see where there might be some very cozy places to bring a date for some serious workouts in the old days. So what my parents, although they neglected to mention that part of the old time teenage “fun” night, and Benny Rosen’s older brother, David, told us about when the place was a “hot” spot might have been true after all. Still this place ain’t coming back anytime soon as a serious teenage scene. No way.
Like I say this Clintondale Memorial Park was strictly from hunger. Except, and here you will have to take my word for it, maybe, just maybe, as a meeting place for those who could not meet in public any other place. And that is where Jeanie Curran and Walter Pitts finally get to enter this story. No, hell, no they didn’t do any wrong. Anything legally, morally, politically, economically, culturally, or socially wrong. Well, maybe they did on the last one come to think of it. Clintondale, now that people have started moving here from Boston in droves, has gotten over the past several years too big to have just one high school. So now there are two. Jeanie’s Clintondale High (the old high school) in the older part of town and Walter (and my) North Clintondale High in the newer section where the housing developments have sprung up. And that is where Jeanie and Walter’s “problem” takes center stage. See in Clintondale it is taboo, wrong, evil, or whatever you want to call it, but just don’t do it, for a student from one high school to date, hell maybe even to talk to, a student from the other high school. Oh sure they can ride on the same buses and stuff like that. It’s not like down South with one school riding in the back of the bus or anything like that but no dating. Not done, okay.
But Jeannie and Walter, are dating, definitely dating, as I will tell you about later. Now the reason I know this is that Walter is none other than a corner boy with me over at Doc Sprague’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain. So he kind of confided his story to me. Now every one in town, well in North Adamsville, well, okay at the high school, knows that once I get a story it is going to be around in nothing flat. So I think Walter’s idea was to tell it to me and then I would spread it around and then people (read: fellow teenage high school students) might learn to accept his (and Jeanie’s) status. And if that was his idea he was right because I am holding you to no vow of silence. Not only that but I half agree that Walter and Jeanie, although they attend those two antagonistic high schools, should have the right to date if they want to and let the town be damned. But I only half agree so far because I can see where these “mixed” relationships are hard on everybody and then again, as well, where do you draw the line.
Now this Jeannie Curran, if you know Walter as I do and his tastes in girls, is nothing but a fox. A sandy blonde, nice shape in all the right places, nice face and, so Walter tells me, someone you would never tire of talking to (a big plus, for sure). In other words someone the gods created on one of their good days. Thanks, gods. And Walter is a good-looking guy although not too bright if he both confided in me seriously and was bold enough to go against convention. How they met though will give you an idea as to their problem.
Pete’s Platters record Shop is the only place in town where kids can go to get rock ‘n’ roll music, the latest stuff anyway. So it is kind of “neutral” territory in the high school wars since every kid recognizes, like some Geneva Convention Accords protocol, that teenagers NEED their 45s and LPs and quick, quick as they come out sometimes. So one day, after school Walter was downtown at Pete’s looking for Ben E. King’s boss sound Spanish Harlem and Roy Orbison’s great crescendo-wave Running Scared when he spotted Jeannie. Like some primordial force he was “driven” to go over and ask her what she was looking for in records and she answered Patsy Cline’s I Fall To Pieces and, almost like it was the power of suggestion, Elvis’ dreamy and sad Are You Lonesome Tonight? And that was that. Click. For one thing Walter has just recently broken up with Susie Riley and for another, well, like I said Jeannie was a fox. A fox who, by the way, was wearing front and center her Clintondale High School cheerleader sweater so Walter should have backed off immediately. But such is smitten-ness.
Well one thing led to another after Walter got Jeannie phone number at that first meeting. And as a symbol of friendship he bought her The Drifters’ Please Stay right there and then. But things for teenage romance, especially Clintondale never the twain shall meet teenage romance, are never easy. Part of the problem was that Walter did not then have a car and even if he used his father’s he couldn’t take Jeanie to the Adamsville Beach although she expressed extreme interest in “watching the submarine races.” With him. Nor could they go the Gloversville Amusement Park. Nobody from either high school would have stood for that. So Jeannie (like I said Walter is not too bright in the idea department) said why not meet at her house and walk over to the Clintondale Memorial Park and find some quiet spot to “make out.” Well, where there is a will there is a way. And so one fine early October night before it got too cold one Jeannie Curran of Clintondale High and one Walter Pitts of North Clintondale High found a nice spot near the old granite rocks and “did it.” Here is the funny thing; funny to Walter anyway, while they were “doing it” the ubiquitous WMEX rock ‘n’ roll station was playing The Shirelles Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. They both laughed about that one.
Now that I think of it I could see where “cruising” old Adamsville Beach is finally played out. And how many kewpie dolls, rabbits' feet, and leis can you win for your favorite girl over at the amusement park? Those granite rocks over at the memorial park sure were a quiet spot. Now if I could only find a Clintondale High girl to go there with me. And maybe, just maybe WMEX will be playing Brenda Lee’s I Want To Be Wanted and we can laugh over that.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Gas Wars, Circa 1964-When The Souped-Up Car Ruled The North Adamsville Night-With The “Boss Man’s” ’57 Chevy In Mind
Click on the headline, but only after you have read this entry and after you have made your guess, to link to a 1960s Flashback Website for the answer. For those who graduated in other decades and wish to know the price of gas at the pump in your misbegotten youth you can link from there. Thanks, Internet.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1964, comment and question:
How much did it cost for a gallon of gasoline in 1964? In the interest of "speaking" to the wider North Adamsville Graduate audience that might pick this comment up on Facebook just pick your year of graduation and guess from there. Then click on headline to seek the answer
Oil at $100 a barrel. Gasoline over three dollars per gallon at the pump (remember this is being written in September, 2011 in case you pick this up later). No, do not worry, this is not intended to be the start of a political screed about the need to bring the “Seven Sisters” oil monopolists to heel or to break up the international oil cartels, although those are very good ideas. At the beginning of this series of commentaries about the old days in North Adamsville I promised that I would not be political, at least not overtly so. So that is political aspect is no help here. All I want to ask today is whether, through the mist of time, you remember how much gasoline cost when you went to "fill 'er up" in high school.
Now this question requires some honesty on your part. Please, no Googling the Quincy Patriot Ledger or The Boston Globe to search their archives of the time. Nor should you use a graphic calculator to factor back the effect of the rate of inflation on oil since 1964 to come up with an answer. Dear readers, this is not some torturous calculus problem. What you basically need to do is to remember some numbers from when you were daydreaming out the window in study hall at old North Adamsville High. Maybe in between thinking away the hours about that certain she (or he) a couple of rows over and how, well, how you would like to get acquainted with her (or him) or what was up for Saturday when your true corner boy “boss man,” Sid Hemmings, came by to pick you up in his “boss” (hence the Boss Man nickname) ’57 Chevy and you went “cruising” into the great teenage Adamsville Beach night. Or maybe you spotted those numbers when you went out the door, assuming you survived opening that fortress-like door while still thinking about that certain she (or he) whom you almost had enough courage to talk to after class today but only got to a meaningful look, onto Hancock Street after school.
What is this guy talking about with all these study hall and looking out the window references? Just this. Unless you were a total grind and always had your nose in a book then the answer merely requires that you had looked out the window. Directly across the street, Hancock Street, from the school were two gas stations (I believe somewhere near the mass transportation depot parking lot and the MacDonald's are now if you have been in the old town recently) that were always in competition with each other. They, and I am not making this up for I do not have such a vivid imagination, actually were having very public price wars to bring in customers by REDUCING the price of their gas. But enough hints. Your answers, please?
No comment on the 1964 North Adamsville gas wars night would be complete without reference to the manner in which we got the dough to pay for said gas. A lot of kids then got it from mom or pop reflecting the more affluence post-World War II times when the old parents has enough dough to spare for a kid to own his or her own car, and have a gas money allowance to boot. Even in working class North Adamsville. Others, like me and most of my corner boys, my Salducci’s Pizza Parlor night corner boys, walked, hitchhiked or borrowed the “old man’s” car (or that of an older brother) for a be-bop Saturday night romp. That is until I met up with the “Boss Man” mentioned above. Sid Hemming’s, who lived just down the end of my dead-end street, had a ’57 Chevy that he was always working on (and when he wasn’t working on it was riding around, usually with a bevy of girls before the night was over, down that now famous Adamsville Beach night).
For a couple of years he took me in tow. The price, well the price was that I was “in charge” of filling up his tank when it was empty. In short, paying for gas to be “cool.” Since I was poorer than a church mouse and never heard of such a thing as an allowance until somebody told me about them that meant taking my hard-earned money from caddying up at the local private golf course to fill the damn thing. And those golfer guys whether they had dough or not, and they usually did, were cheap when it came caddie pay-off time. A primer in capitalist economics, I guess. So you know, roughly, that gas could not have cost too much. Still, you are duty-bound to guess.
Of course, buying the gas got me nothing when it came to the girls the filled the other seats of Sid’s souped-up car. Well usually got me nothing, that is. See they, most of them prime A-one foxes, only had eyes for Sid, or more correctly Sid’s ’57 Chevy. Hell they were one in the same. Now Sid, whatever his mechanical wizard abilities with an automobile motor were, and I will be kind here, had nothing for looks. Even “cute” was a stretch. And even more of a stretch was that “cute” when Sid was seriously into his auto repair work and smelled of oils, cigarettes and whiskey. Still the girls (read: young women) actually came up to him looking for a ride and, well, just leave it as and. The way it worked is that once the car filled up with girls I was out the door. No problem, well no problem on those few occasions when he left me down at the beach (Adamsville Beach, if you didn’t know), with one of his “cast-offs”. A cast-off being something like some older girl’s sister whom she was kind stuck baby-sitting for and wanted to ditch to have a minute’s passion with Sid, or so that is what I heard they were doing. All I know is that I could hear that old Chevy roaring down the end of the street with Sid at the wheel and one last “pick of the evening” sitting tight next to him. Ya, that was Sid’s way, always Sid’s way.
P.S. For later, post-North Adamsville MBTA station graduates, you are left to your own resources about finding the gas prices.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1964, comment and question:
How much did it cost for a gallon of gasoline in 1964? In the interest of "speaking" to the wider North Adamsville Graduate audience that might pick this comment up on Facebook just pick your year of graduation and guess from there. Then click on headline to seek the answer
Oil at $100 a barrel. Gasoline over three dollars per gallon at the pump (remember this is being written in September, 2011 in case you pick this up later). No, do not worry, this is not intended to be the start of a political screed about the need to bring the “Seven Sisters” oil monopolists to heel or to break up the international oil cartels, although those are very good ideas. At the beginning of this series of commentaries about the old days in North Adamsville I promised that I would not be political, at least not overtly so. So that is political aspect is no help here. All I want to ask today is whether, through the mist of time, you remember how much gasoline cost when you went to "fill 'er up" in high school.
Now this question requires some honesty on your part. Please, no Googling the Quincy Patriot Ledger or The Boston Globe to search their archives of the time. Nor should you use a graphic calculator to factor back the effect of the rate of inflation on oil since 1964 to come up with an answer. Dear readers, this is not some torturous calculus problem. What you basically need to do is to remember some numbers from when you were daydreaming out the window in study hall at old North Adamsville High. Maybe in between thinking away the hours about that certain she (or he) a couple of rows over and how, well, how you would like to get acquainted with her (or him) or what was up for Saturday when your true corner boy “boss man,” Sid Hemmings, came by to pick you up in his “boss” (hence the Boss Man nickname) ’57 Chevy and you went “cruising” into the great teenage Adamsville Beach night. Or maybe you spotted those numbers when you went out the door, assuming you survived opening that fortress-like door while still thinking about that certain she (or he) whom you almost had enough courage to talk to after class today but only got to a meaningful look, onto Hancock Street after school.
What is this guy talking about with all these study hall and looking out the window references? Just this. Unless you were a total grind and always had your nose in a book then the answer merely requires that you had looked out the window. Directly across the street, Hancock Street, from the school were two gas stations (I believe somewhere near the mass transportation depot parking lot and the MacDonald's are now if you have been in the old town recently) that were always in competition with each other. They, and I am not making this up for I do not have such a vivid imagination, actually were having very public price wars to bring in customers by REDUCING the price of their gas. But enough hints. Your answers, please?
No comment on the 1964 North Adamsville gas wars night would be complete without reference to the manner in which we got the dough to pay for said gas. A lot of kids then got it from mom or pop reflecting the more affluence post-World War II times when the old parents has enough dough to spare for a kid to own his or her own car, and have a gas money allowance to boot. Even in working class North Adamsville. Others, like me and most of my corner boys, my Salducci’s Pizza Parlor night corner boys, walked, hitchhiked or borrowed the “old man’s” car (or that of an older brother) for a be-bop Saturday night romp. That is until I met up with the “Boss Man” mentioned above. Sid Hemming’s, who lived just down the end of my dead-end street, had a ’57 Chevy that he was always working on (and when he wasn’t working on it was riding around, usually with a bevy of girls before the night was over, down that now famous Adamsville Beach night).
For a couple of years he took me in tow. The price, well the price was that I was “in charge” of filling up his tank when it was empty. In short, paying for gas to be “cool.” Since I was poorer than a church mouse and never heard of such a thing as an allowance until somebody told me about them that meant taking my hard-earned money from caddying up at the local private golf course to fill the damn thing. And those golfer guys whether they had dough or not, and they usually did, were cheap when it came caddie pay-off time. A primer in capitalist economics, I guess. So you know, roughly, that gas could not have cost too much. Still, you are duty-bound to guess.
Of course, buying the gas got me nothing when it came to the girls the filled the other seats of Sid’s souped-up car. Well usually got me nothing, that is. See they, most of them prime A-one foxes, only had eyes for Sid, or more correctly Sid’s ’57 Chevy. Hell they were one in the same. Now Sid, whatever his mechanical wizard abilities with an automobile motor were, and I will be kind here, had nothing for looks. Even “cute” was a stretch. And even more of a stretch was that “cute” when Sid was seriously into his auto repair work and smelled of oils, cigarettes and whiskey. Still the girls (read: young women) actually came up to him looking for a ride and, well, just leave it as and. The way it worked is that once the car filled up with girls I was out the door. No problem, well no problem on those few occasions when he left me down at the beach (Adamsville Beach, if you didn’t know), with one of his “cast-offs”. A cast-off being something like some older girl’s sister whom she was kind stuck baby-sitting for and wanted to ditch to have a minute’s passion with Sid, or so that is what I heard they were doing. All I know is that I could hear that old Chevy roaring down the end of the street with Sid at the wheel and one last “pick of the evening” sitting tight next to him. Ya, that was Sid’s way, always Sid’s way.
P.S. For later, post-North Adamsville MBTA station graduates, you are left to your own resources about finding the gas prices.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
For Oratorian Brother Ronald Callahan- North Adamsville High School Class of 1974- Another Way To Seek A Newer World
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Oratorian Brothers. I think this is the right religious order.
Peter Paul Markin, Class of 1974, comment:
Usually when I have had an occasion to use the word “brother” it is to ask for something like –“Say brother, can you spare a dime?” And has cursed, under my breathe of course, when I have not received recognition of and, more importantly, dough for my down and out status which required the use of that statement. Or I have used it as a solidarity word when I have addressed one of the male members of the eight million political causes that I have worked on in my life-“Brother Jones has made very good point. We should, of course, storm heaven to get this government to stop this damn war (fill in whatever war is going on at the time and you will not be far off).” Here, in speaking of one of my fellow North Adamsville High School classmates, Brother Ronald Callahan, I am using the term as a sincere honorific. For those of you who do not know Brother Ronald is a member of the Oratorian Brothers, a Catholic order somewhere down on the hierarchical ladder of the Roman Catholic Church. Wherever that rung is, he, as my devout Irish Catholic grandmother, the one who lived over on Young Street and was regarded by one and all as a “saint” (if only for having put up with cranky, I am being kind here, grandfather), would say (secretly hoping, hoping against hope, that it would apply to me), had the “calling” to serve the Church.
Now Brother Ronald and I, except for a few sporadic e-mails over the last couple of years, have neither seen nor heard from each other since our school days. So this is something of an unsolicited testimonial on my part (although my intention is to draw him out into the public spotlight to write about his life and work of which I have a glimmer of long time ago recognition). Moreover, except for a shared youthful adherence to the Roman Catholic Church which I long ago placed on the back burner of my life there are no religious connections that bind us together now. At one time, I swear, that I did delight in arguing, through the dark North Adamsville beach night, about the actual number of angels that could dance on the head of a needle, and the like, but that is long past. I do not want to comment on such matters, in any case, but rather on the fact of Brother Ronald’s doing good in this world.
We, from an early age, are told, no, ordered by parents, preachers, and Sunday school teachers that while we are about the business of ‘making and doing’ in the world to do good, or at least to do no evil. Most of us got that ‘making and doing’ part, and have paid stumbling, fumbling, mumbling lip service to the last part. Brother Ronald, as his profession, and as a profession of his faith, and that is important here, choose a different path. Maybe not my path, and maybe not yours, but certainly in Brother Ronald’s case, as old Abe Lincoln said, the “better angels of our nature” prevailed over the grimy struggle for this world’s good. Most times I have to fidget around to find the right endings to my commentaries, but not on this one. You did good, real good, Brother. And from the ragtag remnant of the Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boys in the old North Adamsville hang-out good night- All honor to Brother Ronald Callahan.
Peter Paul Markin, Class of 1974, comment:
Usually when I have had an occasion to use the word “brother” it is to ask for something like –“Say brother, can you spare a dime?” And has cursed, under my breathe of course, when I have not received recognition of and, more importantly, dough for my down and out status which required the use of that statement. Or I have used it as a solidarity word when I have addressed one of the male members of the eight million political causes that I have worked on in my life-“Brother Jones has made very good point. We should, of course, storm heaven to get this government to stop this damn war (fill in whatever war is going on at the time and you will not be far off).” Here, in speaking of one of my fellow North Adamsville High School classmates, Brother Ronald Callahan, I am using the term as a sincere honorific. For those of you who do not know Brother Ronald is a member of the Oratorian Brothers, a Catholic order somewhere down on the hierarchical ladder of the Roman Catholic Church. Wherever that rung is, he, as my devout Irish Catholic grandmother, the one who lived over on Young Street and was regarded by one and all as a “saint” (if only for having put up with cranky, I am being kind here, grandfather), would say (secretly hoping, hoping against hope, that it would apply to me), had the “calling” to serve the Church.
Now Brother Ronald and I, except for a few sporadic e-mails over the last couple of years, have neither seen nor heard from each other since our school days. So this is something of an unsolicited testimonial on my part (although my intention is to draw him out into the public spotlight to write about his life and work of which I have a glimmer of long time ago recognition). Moreover, except for a shared youthful adherence to the Roman Catholic Church which I long ago placed on the back burner of my life there are no religious connections that bind us together now. At one time, I swear, that I did delight in arguing, through the dark North Adamsville beach night, about the actual number of angels that could dance on the head of a needle, and the like, but that is long past. I do not want to comment on such matters, in any case, but rather on the fact of Brother Ronald’s doing good in this world.
We, from an early age, are told, no, ordered by parents, preachers, and Sunday school teachers that while we are about the business of ‘making and doing’ in the world to do good, or at least to do no evil. Most of us got that ‘making and doing’ part, and have paid stumbling, fumbling, mumbling lip service to the last part. Brother Ronald, as his profession, and as a profession of his faith, and that is important here, choose a different path. Maybe not my path, and maybe not yours, but certainly in Brother Ronald’s case, as old Abe Lincoln said, the “better angels of our nature” prevailed over the grimy struggle for this world’s good. Most times I have to fidget around to find the right endings to my commentaries, but not on this one. You did good, real good, Brother. And from the ragtag remnant of the Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boys in the old North Adamsville hang-out good night- All honor to Brother Ronald Callahan.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
On “Now” Photos For The AARP Generation- For Robert Flatley, North Adamsville Class Of 1964
Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip of Iris Dement performing Our Town. Sorry no After You're Gone by her that I could find on that site.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
“’Cause I’ve memorized each line in your face, and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me”-a line from the folksinger/songwriter Iris DeMent’s hauntingly beautiful song, After You’re Gone. (You can Google for the rest of the lyrics. Some of her music is on YouTube but I could not find this one.)
Well, of course, those hard-wire lyrics only apply to our male classmates. After all Iris is singing about her gone man. He long gone but not forgotten man. I do not, this age of sexual equality notwithstanding, want to extend their application to our sister classmates because I do not need to have every cyber-stone in the universe thrown at me. But those same lyrics do bring me to the purpose for today’s comment. As part of getting a 'feel' for writing about our days at old North Adamsville High I have perused some of the class profiles this infernal 1964 class committee that keeps badgering me for ever more information has provided me. Apparently once you answer a couple of off-hand questions about your doings (or not-doings) over the past half century you are fair game for every possible form of interrogation. Interrogations that would shame even the most hardened CIA or NSA bureaucrat. I don’t know about you but I am thinking of hiring a lawyer and putting a stop to this maddening harassment, and possible constitutional violation. But that is a subject for another day. For now, forward.
A number of you have placed your current photos on the profile pages thoughtfully provided by said committee, although a number of people, including myself, are apparently camera-shy. I admit to not being particularly camera-shy but rather to being something of a technological luddite (look that word up on Wikipedia if you do not know it) in that I do not own the digital camera required to upload a snappy photo, have no immediate intention of owning one, and would, moreover be helpless to do such a tortuous task as uploading a photo. Truth. Some, however, like the Chase brothers are not. Not camera shy or apparently luddites that is. (By the way, Jim and John, and others as well, what is up with wearing hats these days? We are Kennedy-era boys and hats most definitely were not part of our uniform.) Or like born again "muscle man" (read: huge) Bill Bailey, the star cross country runner and track man our class, whom I have has previously written about in this space as slender-strided and gracefully-gaited. That photo-readiness on the part of some classmates forms the basis for my comment. Those who are photo-less can breathe a sigh of relief-for now.
I have to admit that I have been startled by some of the photos. Many of them seem to have been taken by your grandchildren just before their naps. Or maybe by you just before your naps, or some combinations of the two especially for those who are performing grandparental (is their such a word?) duty as “babysitters” in a world where both parents are forced by hard-time circumstances to work to make ends meet these days. Isn’t the digital age supposed to have made the camera instantly user-friendly? Why all the out-of-focus, soft-focus, looking through a fish tank or a looking- glass kind of shots. And why does everyone seem to be have been photographed down the far end of some dark corridor or by someone about six miles away? Nobody expects Bachrach-quality photos but something is amiss here [ Bachrach’s was the photograph studio that took our individual class pictures for those who don’t remember or didn’t otherwise know-Markin]
In contrast, a new arrival on this class committee profile page interrogation wall (sorry), Robert Flatley, has found just the right approach. Initially, Robert placed a recent shot of himself on his profile page. Frankly, the old codger looked like he was wanted in about six states for “kiting” checks, or maybe had done a little “time” in some far-off county farm or state prison for armed robbery. More recently, however, his page has been graced with a stock photo provided by the site, a tastefully-shot, resplendent wide old oak tree. Automatically I now associate Robert with the tree of life, with oneness with the universe, with solidity, with the root of matter in him, and with bending but not breaking. Wise choice, Brother Flatley. Now, moreover, I do not have to suppress a need to dial 911, but rather can think of Robert as one who walks with kings, as a sage for the ages. And nothing can ever erase the story that tells to me.
Artist: Dement Iris
Song: After You're Gone
Album: Infamous Angel Iris Dement Sheet Music
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorised each line in your face,
And not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me.
I'll miss you.
Oh, how I'll miss you.
I'll dream of you,
And I'll cry a million tears.
But the sorrow will pass.
And the one thing that will last,
Is the love that you've given to me.
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons and I'll face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorized each line in your face,
And not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me.
************
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
“’Cause I’ve memorized each line in your face, and not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me”-a line from the folksinger/songwriter Iris DeMent’s hauntingly beautiful song, After You’re Gone. (You can Google for the rest of the lyrics. Some of her music is on YouTube but I could not find this one.)
Well, of course, those hard-wire lyrics only apply to our male classmates. After all Iris is singing about her gone man. He long gone but not forgotten man. I do not, this age of sexual equality notwithstanding, want to extend their application to our sister classmates because I do not need to have every cyber-stone in the universe thrown at me. But those same lyrics do bring me to the purpose for today’s comment. As part of getting a 'feel' for writing about our days at old North Adamsville High I have perused some of the class profiles this infernal 1964 class committee that keeps badgering me for ever more information has provided me. Apparently once you answer a couple of off-hand questions about your doings (or not-doings) over the past half century you are fair game for every possible form of interrogation. Interrogations that would shame even the most hardened CIA or NSA bureaucrat. I don’t know about you but I am thinking of hiring a lawyer and putting a stop to this maddening harassment, and possible constitutional violation. But that is a subject for another day. For now, forward.
A number of you have placed your current photos on the profile pages thoughtfully provided by said committee, although a number of people, including myself, are apparently camera-shy. I admit to not being particularly camera-shy but rather to being something of a technological luddite (look that word up on Wikipedia if you do not know it) in that I do not own the digital camera required to upload a snappy photo, have no immediate intention of owning one, and would, moreover be helpless to do such a tortuous task as uploading a photo. Truth. Some, however, like the Chase brothers are not. Not camera shy or apparently luddites that is. (By the way, Jim and John, and others as well, what is up with wearing hats these days? We are Kennedy-era boys and hats most definitely were not part of our uniform.) Or like born again "muscle man" (read: huge) Bill Bailey, the star cross country runner and track man our class, whom I have has previously written about in this space as slender-strided and gracefully-gaited. That photo-readiness on the part of some classmates forms the basis for my comment. Those who are photo-less can breathe a sigh of relief-for now.
I have to admit that I have been startled by some of the photos. Many of them seem to have been taken by your grandchildren just before their naps. Or maybe by you just before your naps, or some combinations of the two especially for those who are performing grandparental (is their such a word?) duty as “babysitters” in a world where both parents are forced by hard-time circumstances to work to make ends meet these days. Isn’t the digital age supposed to have made the camera instantly user-friendly? Why all the out-of-focus, soft-focus, looking through a fish tank or a looking- glass kind of shots. And why does everyone seem to be have been photographed down the far end of some dark corridor or by someone about six miles away? Nobody expects Bachrach-quality photos but something is amiss here [ Bachrach’s was the photograph studio that took our individual class pictures for those who don’t remember or didn’t otherwise know-Markin]
In contrast, a new arrival on this class committee profile page interrogation wall (sorry), Robert Flatley, has found just the right approach. Initially, Robert placed a recent shot of himself on his profile page. Frankly, the old codger looked like he was wanted in about six states for “kiting” checks, or maybe had done a little “time” in some far-off county farm or state prison for armed robbery. More recently, however, his page has been graced with a stock photo provided by the site, a tastefully-shot, resplendent wide old oak tree. Automatically I now associate Robert with the tree of life, with oneness with the universe, with solidity, with the root of matter in him, and with bending but not breaking. Wise choice, Brother Flatley. Now, moreover, I do not have to suppress a need to dial 911, but rather can think of Robert as one who walks with kings, as a sage for the ages. And nothing can ever erase the story that tells to me.
Artist: Dement Iris
Song: After You're Gone
Album: Infamous Angel Iris Dement Sheet Music
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons to face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorised each line in your face,
And not even death can ever erase the story they tell to me.
I'll miss you.
Oh, how I'll miss you.
I'll dream of you,
And I'll cry a million tears.
But the sorrow will pass.
And the one thing that will last,
Is the love that you've given to me.
There'll be laughter even after you're gone.
I'll find reasons and I'll face that empty dawn.
'Cause I've memorized each line in your face,
And not even death could ever erase the story they tell to me.
************
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