Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night-When “Stewball” Stu Ruled The Highways

Click on to the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Danny and The Juniors performing Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay to set the mood for this sketch.

The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; The Follow-Up Hits, various artists, Ace Records, 1991

Scene: Brought to mind by the be-bop cover photograph of a “boss” two-toned 1950s Oldsmobile sitting in front of a car dealership just waiting to be driven off in the “golden age of the automobile” night.

“Stewball” Stu loved cars, loved 1950s classic “boss” cars, period. And on the very top of that heap was his cherry red ’57 Chevy. The flamed-out king hell dragon of the Mainiac highways, especially those back roads around his, our, hometown, Olde Saco, close by the sea. Not for him the new stuff, the new “boss” Mustang, Mustang Sally ride I am crazy for, or would be crazy for if, (1) I was older than my current no-driver, no legal driver fifteen, and (2) I had any kind of dough except the few bucks I grab doing this and that, mainly that.

And how do I know about Stewball’s preferences, prejudices if you want to put it that way? Well I, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, have been riding “shot-gun” to Stewball’s driver for the past several months, ever since I proved my metal, my Stu-worthy metal, when I “scrammed” a while back when Stu moved in on me and a hot date I had with a local Lolita and three was a crowd.

Ya, Stu and me are tight, tight as a nineteen year guy who is the king of the roads around here can be with a fifteen year old guy with no dough, no drivers’ license, no sister for him to drool over, and zero, maybe minus zero, mechanical skills to back him up. So you see me flaking out on that Lolita thing meant a lot to Stewball, although he is not a guy that you can figure something on, not easy figuring anyhow. [Hey, by the way, by the very big way, that Stewball moniker is strictly between you and me. Some of the guys that hung around his garage (really his bent out of shape trailer home rigged up with all kinds of automobile-fixing stuff all over the place) started to call him Stewball among ourselves after we observed, observed for the sixty-fifth time, Stu loaded before noon on some rotgut Southern Comfort that he swore kept him sober, unlike whiskey. Like I say don’t spread that around because Stu in one tough hombre. I once saw him chain-whip a guy just for kind of eyeing a Lolita (not the one I butted out on) that was sitting next to him in that cherry red Chevy at Jimmy Joe’s Diner, the one down on Route One, not the one over on Atlantic Avenue. Enough said, okay.]

Let me tell you about one time a few months back when Stu proved, for the umpteenth time (although my first time, first really seeing him in action glory time), why no one can come close to him as king of these roads around here, and maybe any. It was a Friday night, an October Friday night, just starting to get to be defroster or car heater time so it had to be then. Stu, who lives over on Tobacco Road (I won’t tell you his real address because, like he says, what people don’t know is just fine with him and the girls all know where he is anyway. Ya, that’s a real Stu-ism) picked me up at my house on Albemarle Street (got that girls, Albemarle) like he always does, sometime between seven and eight, also as usual.

We then make the loop. First down Atlantic passed the Colonial Donut Shoppe (they serve other stuff there too) to see if there was a stray clover (A Stu-ism for a girl, origin unknown) or two looking to erase the gloomy, lonely night coming on. (I hoped two, two girls that is, because while I am glad, glad as hell, that I did right by Stu with that "hot" Lolita (and she was hot, maybe too hot for me then, not now) I don’t want to make a habit of it, being Stu’s “shot-gun,” or not. No dice. So off to Lanny’s Bowl-World over on Sea Street. Guess it is kind of early because no dice there either. Well, it’s off to “headquarters,” Jimmy Joe’s Diner on Main Street (really Route One but everybody local calls it Main).

Now Jimmy Joe’s has been Stu’s headquarters for so long that he has a “reserved” spot there. Yes, right in front just to the left on the entrance so that he can “scope” (Stu-ism) the scene (read: girls, Josh-ism). Jimmy Joe, the owner, felt that Stu was so good for business, Friday night hot teenage girls crowding the place looking for fast-driving guys and fast, or slow, driving guys, ready to, well you know I don’t have to draw you a diagram, business so he had no problem with the arrangement. Except this Friday night, this October Friday night, Stu’s reserved spot is occupied, occupied by a two-toned, low-riding 1956 Oldsmobile that even I can see had been worked on, worked hard on to create maximum horse-power in the minimum time. And inside that Oldsmobile sat one Duke McKay, a guy some of us had heard of, from down in Kittery near the New Hampshire border. So maybe Duke, not knowing the local rules, parked in that spot by accident. Ya that seems like the right answer.

No way though. Why? Because sitting right next old Duke, actually almost on top of him is that Lolita that I made way for to help Stu. Said Lolita (not her real name because she was, and is, as I write, uh, not “of age” so Lolita is a good enough moniker) looking very fine, very fine indeed, as Stu goes over to the Oldsmobile to give Duke the what for. I can almost hear the chains coming out.

But Stu must have had some kind of jinx on him, or Lolita put one on him, because all he did was make Duke a proposition. Beat Stu in a “chicken run” and the parking spot, Lolita, and the unofficial king of the road title were his. Lose, and he was gone (without chain-whipping I hoped) from Olde Saco, permanently, minus Lolita. Now I can see where this Lolita is worth getting a little steamed up about. But take it from me Stu, until just this minute, was strictly a love them or leave them guy (leave them to me, please). Duke, with eight million pounds of bravado, answered quickly like any true road-warrior does when challenged and just uttered, “On.” And we are off, although not before Lolita gives Stu some madness femme fatale look. A look, a pout really, which you couldn’t tell if she was in Stu’s corner or wanted to see him in hell. Girls, damn.

A chicken race, for the squares, is nothing but a race between two cars (usually two), two fast teenager-driven cars, done late at night or early in the morning out on some desolate road, sometimes straight, sometimes not. The idea is to get a fast start and keep the accelerator on the floor as long as possible before some flame-out. For Olde Saco runs they use the beach down at the Squaw Rock end since it is long, flat, and wide even at high tide, and the loser either winds up in the dunes or the ocean, usually the latter, ruining a perfectly good car but that is the way it is. Most importantly it is out of sight of the cops until too late.

So about two in the morning one could see a ’57 cherry red Chevy lining up, with me as a “second,” against a ’56 Oldsmobile, with Lolita as Duke’s “second.” Jimmy Joe’s son, Billy, acted as starter as usual. And they are off. Duke got an extremely fast start and was maybe thirty yards ahead of us and it looked like we done for when Stu opened up from somewhere and flat out “smoked” the side of Duke Olds sending his vehicle off into the ocean, soon to sputter in the roaring waves, and oblivion. Stu stopped the Chevy, backed up the several hundred yards to the vicinity of the distressed Oldsmobile, opened up the passenger side door and escorted Lolita, as nice as you please, to his king hell Chevy. And she was smiling, smiling very, well let’s put it this way, Stu’s got a big treat coming. And Josh? Well, Stu yells over “Hey, Josh, hope you find a ride home tonight.” But do you see what I mean about Stewball Stu being the king of the roads around here. What a guy.

Daydream Visions Of Adamsville Beach, Circa 1964-In Honor Of Elsa Alva (nee Daley), Class Of 1964

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Howard Johnson's Ice Cream Shop, a fixture on old-time Adamsville Beach for many years, to set the mood for this commentary.

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

I have been dedicating some of my sketches to various people. When I first wrote this one in 2008 I had not one in particular in mind but when I recently rewrote it I did have Elsa in mind. I did not know her well at North Adamsville, and do not know her now much better now, but I felt her presence very strongly when I was rewriting this thing. So here it is.>
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Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, and the Adamsville Old Sailor’s Home (and cemetery about a quarter of a mile away, closed now but the final resting place for many a sea-faring man, known and unknown). Yes, those names and places from the old housing project down in South Adamsville where I came of age surely evoke imagines of the sea, of long ago sailing ships, and of desperate, high stakes battles fought off shrouded, mist-covered coasts by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And agile enough to keep it. Almost from my first wobbly, halting first baby steps down at “the projects” I have been physically drawn to the sea, a seductive, foam-flecked siren call that has never left me. Moreover, ever since this writer was a toddler his imagination has been driven by the sea as well. Not so much of pirates and prizes but of the power of nature, for good or evil.

Of course, anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville has to have an almost instinctual love of the sea; and a 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. If being determines consciousness, and if you love the ocean, then it does not hurt to have been brought up in Adamsville with its ready access to the bay and water on three sides. That said, the focal point for any experience with the ocean in Adamsville centers, naturally, around its longest stretch of beach, aptly, if not ingeniously, named Adamsville Beach.

For those of us of a certain age, including this writer, one cannot discuss Adamsville Beach properly without reference to such spots such as Howard Johnson's famous landmark ice cream stand (now a woe-begotten clam shack of no repute). For those who are clueless as to what I speak of, or have only heard about it in mythological terms from older relatives, or worst, have written it off as just another ice cream joint I have provided a link to a Wikipedia entry for the establishment. That should impress you of the younger set, I am sure. Know this: many a hot, muggy, sultry, sweaty summer evening was spent in line impatiently, and perhaps, on occasion, beyond impatience, waiting for one of those 27 (or was it 28?) flavors to cool off with. In those days the prize went to cherry vanilla in a sugar cone (backup: frozen pudding). I will not bore the reader with superlative terms and the “they don’t make them like they use to” riff, especially for those who only know “HoJo’s” from the later, pale imitation franchise days out on some forsaken great American West-searching highway, but at that moment I was in very heaven.

Nor can one forget those stumbling, fumbling, fierce childish efforts, bare-footed against all motherly caution about the dreaded jellyfish, pail and shovel in hand, to dig for seemingly non-existent clams down toward the Merrymount end of the beach at the, in those days, just slightly oil-slicked, sulfuric low tide. Or the smell of charcoal-flavored hot dogs on those occasional family barbecues (when one in a series of old jalopies that my father drove worked well enough to get us there) at the then just recently constructed old barren old Treasure Island (now named after some fallen Marine, and fully-forested, such is time) that were some of the too few times when my family acted as a family. Or the memory of roasted, really burnt, sticky marshmallows sticking to the roof of my mouth. Ouch!

But those thoughts and smells are not the only ones that interest me today. No trip down memory lane would be complete without at least a passing reference to high school Adamsville Beach. The sea brings out many emotions: humankind's struggle against nature, some Zen notions of oneness with the universe, the calming effect of the thundering waves, thoughts of immortality, and so on. But it also brings out the primordial longings for companionship. And no one longs for companionship more than teenagers. So the draw of the ocean is not just in its cosmic appeal but hormonal, as well. Mind you, however, we are not discussing here the nighttime Adamsville Beach, the time of "parking" and the "submarine races." [For the heathens, or those from Kansas or some such place, going to watch the submarine races was a localism meaning going, via car, down to the beach at night, hopefully on a very dark night, with a, for a guy, girl and, well, start groping each other, and usually more, a lot more, if you were lucky and the girl was hot, while occasionally coming up for air and looking for that mythical submarine race. Many guys (and gals) had there first encounter with oral sex that way, if the Monday morning before school boys’ lav talk, and maybe girls’ lav talk too, was anything but hot air.] Our thoughts are now pure as the driven snow. We will save that discussion for another time when kids and grand-kids are not around. Here we will confine ourselves to the day-time beach.

Virtually from the day school we got out of school for summer vacation I headed for the beach. And not just any section of that beach but the section directly between the Squaw Rock and Adamsville Heights Yacht Clubs. Now was situating myself in that spot done so that I could watch all the fine boats at anchor? Or was this the best swimming location on the beach? Hell no, this is where we heard (and here I include my old running pal and classmate, Bill Bailey) all the "babes" were. We were, apparently, under the influence of Beach Blanket Bingo or some such early 1960s Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicillo (sic) teenage beach film. (For those who are again clueless this was a “boy meets girl” saga like Avatar, except on the beach...and on Earth.)

Well, for those who expected a movie-like happy ending to this piece, you know, where I meet a youthful "Ms. Right" to the strains of Sea of Love, forget it. (That is the original Sea of Love, by the way, not the one used in the movie of the same name sung by Tom Waits at the end, and an incredible cover that you should listen to on YouTube.) I will keep the gory details short, though. As fate would have it there may have been "babes" aplenty down there but not for this lad. I don't know about you but I was just too socially awkward (read: tongue-tied) to get up the nerve to talk to girls (female readers substitute boys here). And on reflection, if the truth were to be known, I would not have known what to do about it in any case. No job, no money and, most importantly, no car for a date to watch one of those legendary "submarine races" that we have all agreed that we will not discuss here. But we can hardly fault the sea for that, right?
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The above piece came about as a result of a response to some correspondence, via, a manically hard-working and determined North Adamsville High School class reunion committee member who shall remain nameless (except for gender, she) concerning old-time memories of Adamsville Beach which formed one of the backdrops to our high school experiences. In the wake of my commentary everybody and their brother (or sister) who ever came within fifty miles of smelling the sulfuric-flecked sea air at that beach has felt some kind of ‘civic duty’ to bring out his or her own salt-encrusted memories of the place. Below, mainly unedited (who could edit someone’s civic duty), is the traffic in response to the above piece. No one is required to wade through all the blather but to make a New York Times-like offical record seems appropriate under the circumstances.
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Betty Gilroy 1985 (view profile)
Posted: Jul 22 2008 11:00pm PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin 1964

I grew up close to Adamsville Beach...I used to ride my bike there, runaway there... was a great bike path, I loved it as a kid. I used to hang out with friends from school, had some great jelly fish fights there. Ahhh, my friend and her boy fell asleep on the beach divider {Markin: sea-wall]with his hand on her stomach. How was she going to explain that one to mom and dad? (And, no, you dirty old man, they were not having oral sex or anything like that, although I learned later from my own experience that this was a “hot” spot for such things being so secluded and all. She, maybe they, didn’t know anything about sex then according to her, although later she told me about a couple of things, nasty-sounding things then but nice now, to do with guys. I am blushing now, and getting a little funny-feeling too, when I think about it now but the sound of the ocean in the background was a great place to do those things, those so-called nasty things. I know it got me going.)

I lived in Adamsville Central in the ‘70s to the early 80s and then moved to North Adamsville. I love the views, and the clam shack, the ice cream, all the clam diggers... the pond on the way from Marlboro Street, jumping the fence trying to catch the bull frogs going to the swamp cemetery swinging from the willow tree I think... I live in California and have a son that’s 7 (I hope he doesn't read what I wrote above, about that sex stuff I mean, but the ocean did turn me on, a lot) around the age that I would ride my bike the freedom, the safeness I had skate boarding around losing track of time, I haven't been back since my 10 year reunion I miss it, my friends, but then again I'm older with responsibilities maybe some day again I will take my son and show him Adamsville Beach and throw a few jelly fish his way??

Betty
North Adamsville High 85
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Memories Of Adamsville Beach

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Jul 26 2008 05:31am PST
In reply to Betty Gilroy, 1985

Betty- Thanks for the reply. The glint of silver off the Treasure Island Bridge when the sun hit it at a certain time. The early morning winter sun coming up over the horizon on the bay. The Boston skyline at dusk (pre-Marina Bay times when there was an unimpeded view). Well, we could go on and on with our memories but the one thing that caught my eye in your reply was the word “escape.” In one sense I was using Adamsville Beach as a metaphor for that idea in my story. I do not know about you and your family but, to be kind, I had a very rocky time growing up and certainly by the time I got to high school I was in desperate need of a sanctuary. It is no accident that I (and my old running mate, Bill Bailey) spent a fair amount of time there.

I went back to Adamsville last year (2007) while they were doing some reconstruction and cleaning the place up. I wrote about that in a sketch entitled Do You Know Adamsville Beach? that I posted here but then deleted. My original idea was to draw a comparison between the old hazy, happy memories of Adamsville in our youth and looking at it with today's older eyes. Somehow it just didn't fit right as a discussion item with the things I was trying to write then. If you would kindly reply to this message I will place it as a reply to some of what you have mentioned in your message about 'coming home.' By the way the jellyfish are still there in all their glory and please, take mother's advice, do not step on them, they might be poisonous.

Finally, I will not let you off the hook. I won’t comment on the "dirty old man" remark as I will take it as just a cute “fresh,” maybe flirty remark on your part. Yes, and I know as well as you that this is a family-friendly site but how did your friend explain away her 'sleeping' on the old wall to mom and dad? That bit about how she (they) didn’t know anything about sex, oral or otherwise, just doesn’t wash. Everybody “knew,” including parents who probably invented the spot, you only went to that particular spot with one thing in mind. You can send me a private e-mail with the real details if you like and then you can see if I am really a dirty old man or not. Regards, Peter Paul Markin

[Markin: Betty, by the way did send me an e-mail, several in fact, and I am still blushing, blushing profusely over some of her information old and ‘mature’ as I am. Let's put it this way my temperature was rising not a little. Frankly, some of the stuff (various sexual positions) she spoke of have to defy the laws of nature, but so be it. We were young and flexible (in more that one way) then. Forward.]
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Craig Wallace, North Adamsville High,1957 (view profile)
Posted: Jul 23 2008 10:34am PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin,1964

Peter Paul: I heard from a younger friend, a woman friend (of my ex-wife’s actually) who knew you back in the day Professor Joan Murphy from over at MIT, who used to call you P.P., and that you liked it. [Markin: Tolerated it from her only because she was Frankie Riley’s ever-loving girlfriend. You remember the Riley family, the one with all the great North Adamsville raider red football players, Frankie was my corner boy chieftain up in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor. And she was, well, let's leave it as Frankie's ever-loving girlfriend.]

I don't have an awful lot to say about the beach, since I lived in a few other places while growing up. I do remember walking along the old sea wall and jumping across the openings trying to grab the rail to avoid falling. I once caught the rail, but hit the edge of the concrete wall with my shin. It hurt, but I didn't think it was broken.

Once a friend ran into a guy at the beach, and for some reason began to "exchange words." They were about to go at each other, but the lifeguard told them to take their dispute elsewhere. They went across the street to the grass in front of a stand where clams and other goodies were sold. The friend proceeded to tear the other guy apart. It didn't last that long. The friend was 5'-7" tall and the other guy 6'-3". I heard that some years later they ran into each other again and had a big laugh about the whole thing. Kids do grow up.

When I visited Massachusetts with my wife and two kids in 1983, my brother took us through some of the "old haunts," and we roamed the beach a bit. They got a kick out of a pair of horseshoe crabs skittering along the edge of the low tide line. I also went back there in 2007 and took a few walks along the beach. I did miss the old candle pin bowling alley, which appears to have been replaced by condos as was the old Adamsville Grammar School where I went through 1st grade (Miss Gray) and most of 2nd grade (Miss Lindberg).

Oh, yeah. I believe the Adamsville East Elementary School on Huckins Avenue is still in operation. I read that there's a boundary somewhere in North Adamsville and that kids who live east of the line go to Adamsville East School and those west of that line go to Parker Elementary on Billings Road. What is now North Adamsville High School included grades 7 through 12 till 1958 or 1959. So, even though I lived in 3 or 4 places, I was able to attend all 6 years at the same school.

Overall, most memories of Adamsville Beach are pretty good.

Craig S. Warren, 1957
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Peter Paul Markin reply:

Craig

Nobody has to stay on the subject at hand, all information about the old times in North Adamsville is welcome, but did you ever go to the beach? From the way you described it I thought maybe you knew about it from some picture postcard, of any beach, anywhere. Were you one of those, and there were not a few if I recall, who "rode," hot-rod rode the Adamsville Shore Boulevard and never touched down on the sand, or caught a fresh sea breeze on a hot summer day. Just kept cruising, eyes forward or left honed in on the ice cream, bowling alley, clam shack side, looking for the be-bop night, girls, or something. Like old Adamsville was Kansas or some sod town.

Peter Paul Markin,1964
Posted: Jul 23 2008 12:51pm PST
In reply to Craig Wallace, 1957

This entry started as a short sketch in this space but I deleted it because it did not fit in with what I was trying to evoke in these pages then. Now the sketch does serve as a decent reply though for Betty Gilroy's,(1985) and Craig Wallace's (1957) comments above. I, moreover, actually am writing about the old-time beach here and not everything else under the sun like hot sex spots and Adamsville school locations. Christ. Peter Paul Markin

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Okay, in the sketch above(Daydream Visions Of Adamsville Beach, Circa 1964) this writer got all misty-eyed about the old days at Adamsville Beach. I went on and on about things like the various flavors of ice cream at HoJo's, the local king-of-the-hill ice cream stand, the vagaries of clam-digging in the oil-soaked flats and about the smell of charcoal- broiled hot dogs at Treasure Island. And I did not fail to mention the obligatory teenage longings for companionship and romantic adventure associated with the sea. But enough of magical realism. Today, as we are older and wiser, we will junk that memory lane business and take a look at old Adamsville in the clear bright light of day.

Last year, as part of the trip down the memory lane that I have been endlessly writing about in this space, I walked the length of Adamsville Beach from the Squaw Rock Causeway to the bridge at Adamsville Shore. At that time the beach area was in the last stages of some reconstruction work. You know, repave the road, redo the sidewalks, and put in some new streetlights. Fair enough-even the edges of Mother Nature can use a make-over once in a while. The long and short of this little trip though was to make me wonder why I was so enthralled by the lure of Adamsville Beach in my youth.

Oh sure, most of the natural landmarks are still there, as well as some of the structural ones. Those poor, weather-beaten yacht clubs that I spend many a summer gazing on in my fruitless search for teenage companionship (read: girls). And, of course, the tattered Beachcomber gin mill in much the same condition is still there as are the inevitable clam shacks with their cholesterol-laden goods. That is not what I mean-what I noticed were things like the odd smell of low-tide when the sea is calm, the tepidness of the water as it splashed, barely, to the shore-when a man craved the roar of the ocean-and the annoying gear-grinding noise caused by the constant vehicular traffic on the near-by boulevard. Things that I was, frankly, oblivious to back in the days.

There is thus something of a disconnect between the dreaminess and careless abandon of youthful Adamsville Beach and the Adamsville of purposeful old age-the different between eyes and ears observing when the world was young and there were things to conquer and now. The lesson to be learned- beware the perils of memory lane. But don't blame the sea for that, please.

.....and the tin can bended, and the story ended (title from the late folksinger/folk historian Dave Van Ronk's last album). That seems about right.
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On Our 'Code Of Honor'

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Jul 26 2008 05:42am PST
In reply to Craig Wallace, 1957

Craig- I am very interested in having you fill out this story about the fight between your friend and the other guy down at Adamsville Beach that you mentioned before (see above). I do not need to know the gory details nor what happened years later. What I am looking for is your take on what the whole incident meant at the time. This was hardly an unusual event at then(or now for that matter), right?

I am trying to put together an entry based on our working class “code of honor”- male version- at the time before women's liberation and other social phenomena helped us to expand our sense of the world and how we should act in it. Even “loner” types like me would not back down on certain 'turf' issues (girls, giving way while walking on the street, who you "hung" with, where your locker was, which “lav” you used, etc.) and took a beating rather than concede the point. Enough for now but give this some thought.

Regards, Peter Paul
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Fight . . . ?

Craig Wallace,1957 (view profile)
Posted: Jul 28 2008 09:09am PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin,1964

Peter Paul (I won’t call you P.P., okay). [Markin: Watch it old man. The days of the bogus 'code of honor' may be long gone but every working-class corner boy still has a slight edge on, even fifty years later, okay.]

The scuffle between a friend of mine and a much bigger guy at Adamsville Beach was not really "earth shaking." It started a couple days before when the friend and I were walking along one of the streets leading to the beach, Bayfield Road, perhaps. The "other guy" passed by in a car with some of his friends, including a couple girls. That guy yelled some insult at my friend in reference to his "eye-wear." He probably was trying to impress the girls by showing them he could insult anyone and all could get a good laugh out of it. Of course, my friend yelled something equally offensive at those in the passing car, which kept going. The "incident" appeared to have terminated.

A few days later the friend and I crossed the road to the beach near one of the yacht clubs and there was the guy who had yelled the insulting remarks. Apparently, he thought he could continue the verbal abuse without suffering the consequences, because he yelled something similar again. My friend went after the kid, but was informed by the lifeguard that they better take their "dispute" elsewhere. They went across the road to a grassy area and, encouraged by a small crowd that was gathering around them, proceeded to "get it on." My friend was usually a fairly pacific person, but when "pushed," he was like a cornered wolverine that would take on anybody or anything. The scuffle didn't last long, and the bigger kid got the worst of it. That time was the end of the dispute. Apparently nobody was seriously hurt, but maybe some had a bit more respect for the smaller kids after that. Some years later the two met, and remembering the incident, shared a good laugh over the whole thing.

Then, as now, I saw no esoteric meaning to the "battle." It didn't seem like the medieval days when one would "defend his honor" or that of a "damsel in distress." It was just an exchange of words that developed into a short round of what may be referred to these days as "ultimate fighting" where no rules are observed. I had a couple scuffles in elementary school and my son did in middle school, but we more-or-less outgrew such things. Sadly, nowadays those "scuffles" can become more deadly and end with somebody paying the "ultimate price." Are we reverting to the "Dark Ages." I hope not.

Anyway, enough said of a "juvenile incident."

Craig, 1957
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The "Code of Honor"

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 03 2008 11:31am PST
In reply to Craig Wallace, 1957

Craig, thanks for story. It gives me an angle for a story that I will write about on our youthful sense of “honor.” This story that you related, especially the part about impressing the girls, etc. really says something about that code.

Regards, Peter Paul
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Day and Night At Adamsville Beach

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 02 2008 06:21am PST
In reply to Betty Gilroy, 1985

I mentioned in my original story that all of us would talk about daytime Adamsville Beach (although once the kids are out of sight-the nighttime is the right time- can come into play). I hope that at some point Betty Gilroy will expand on her comment about her girlfriend down at the day time beach and the incident alluded in her comment about her falling asleep. Ms. Gilroy is more than capable of telling her own version of the story. [Markin: She did via e-mail, private e-mail, and it would take a civil war to get the information out of me, or a few bucks. Let me put it this way. I was blushing for days, maybe now even, as I mentioned above]. The only point I want to make here is that some of these day time remembrances are as funny as what might have happened at night. Funny now, that is.

Regards, Peter Paul
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Anyone Remember Adamsville Beach?

Robina Moore, 1978 (view profile)
Posted: Aug 15 2008 04:35pm PST
In reply to Peter Paul Markin, 1964

Totally agree that growing up on Adamsville Beach was an experience. So natural at the time, but looking back I now see how fortunate I was. I don’t remember the HoJo’s but I do remember the 19 cent hotdogs sold on the beach that was a few blocks from my house. What a treat for the neighborhood kids to get together and go get a dog.

As far the beach was concerned as kids, we followed the tides. Some parent would parade a group us kids and watch over us. Generally for two hours before high tide, and two hours after, and they always had snacks and drinks in tow…just gotta love the moms for that! Swim, dig in the sand, play catch in the water and when finally tired, lay on a towel and listen to WRKO or WMEX on the transistor radio.

Once I hit teenage years, I choose not to venture near the beach. I think my parents knew about the cosmic and hormonal appeal as well as primordial longings going on there. I was taught at a young age, the beach is not a good place at night. I totally thank them for instilling this and letting Adamsville Beach be filled with wonderful childhood memories. With that said, I am thrilled at the revitalization, and hope this generation of children will have a chance to create memories that they can cherished forever.
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Back In The Days

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 18 2008 02:49pm PST
In reply to Robina Moore, 1978

Robina-Very nicely told memories. That is the thing that I was trying to evoke in writing this particular commentary. A few points.

*The reason for the boxes in your entry [Markin:since deleted] is that when you transfer from a word processor to the message space here the apostrophes and quotation marks turn into some Serbo-Croatian dialect in the process. It happens to me all the time. You have to change them in this space to avoid that.

* Do you, or anyone else, know when HoJo's left the Adamsville Beach site?

* Did you mean 19 dollars for a hot dog? You put 19 cents but that can't be right. Nothing ever cost 19 cents.

• You realize, of course, that this is a generic North Adamsville site and therefore members of generations X, Y or Z may not be familiar with the term “transistor radio.” For their benefit, that was a little battery-powered gizmo that allowed you to listen to music, the 'devil's music,' rock 'n' roll, without your parents going nuts. And no, sorry, you could not download whatever you wanted. Yes, I know, the Stone Age.

Regards, Peter Paul Markin
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The Nighttime Is The Right Time....

Peter Paul Markin, 1964
Posted: Aug 21 2008 08:08am PST
In reply to Robina Moore, 1978

...to be with the one you love. Yes, that classic Ray Charles tune (covered by many, including a steamy tribute version by The Rolling Stones in their 2005 Fenway Park concert) is a good lead in to what I want to mention here. Most of the comments on this entry have concerned day time Adamsville Beach but I have been thinking that it is time to open up to the night time episodes. Here are my reasons:

• Hey, it is entirely possible that some of our fellow alumni never went to Adamsville Beach during the day. They might have a legitimate grip against us for that. Remember we are using this cyberspace so that everyone has their "15 minutes of fame."

• The heck with protecting the kids and grandkids. They know this stuff already. Let's face it, as well, no self-respecting member of the hip-hop/iPod/Sidekick/texting generations (or younger) would dream of reading this far down into the entry. Ugh!

• Frankly, there is only so far we can go with the day-time Adamsville Beach. While there have been some nice comments there is only so far you can go with jellyfish, 19 cent hot dogs, teenage romantic longings and getting sand kicked in your face. We need to spice this up. In short, sex, or the hint of it, sells.

These are all good and sufficient reasons but, as usual, my real reason for arguing inclusion here is personal curiosity. I have been waiting some forty-four years to ask this simple question. Why, while we were driving down Adamsville Shore Boulevard on those cold October nights, let's say, were most of the cars all fogged up? What, were their defrosters not working? Come on, please, tell me.

Out In The 1950s Be-Bop Night- Josh Breslin Comes Of Age- Kind Of

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing I Forgot To Remember To Forget.

CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1953-1955, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997

Scene: Brought to mind by the black and white family album-style photograph that graces the cover of this CD. On this one we are treated to a photograph of a well-groomed boy and girl, teenagers of course, who else would listen to rock and roll in the be-bop 1950s night. Every parent, every square parent, and they were legion, who had any sense at all was banning, confiscating, burning, or otherwise destroying every record, 45 RPM or long-playing, that came through the front door with junior and missy. Reason? Said rock ‘n’ roll led to communistic thoughts, youth tribal hanging together (to the exclusion, no, to the denials of the existence of, parents), bad teeth, acne, brain-death, or most dreaded the “s” word, s-x.

But let’s leave the world of parents and concentrate on the couple in the photo, Josh Breslin, and his date, his first date, his first date ever, Julie Dubois, who are just now shuffling the records looking to see if Earth Angel by the Penquins is in the stack to chase away the awkwardness both are feeling on this first date. It turns out that both are crazy about that platter so they are reaching way back in their respective minds' recesses to come up with every arcane fact they know about the song, the group, how it was produced, anything to get through that next few moment until the next dance started.

Now Josh always thought he was cool, at least cool when he was dealing with his boy gang boys. But this girl thing was a lot harder than it looked, once he had exhausted every possible fact about Earth Angel and then had to reach way back in the mind’s recesses again when he tried to do the same for The Clover’s version of Blue Velvet. No sale, Julie didn’t like that one; she smirked, not dreamy enough. Then ditto when, Julie, seriously trying to hold up her end went on and on about Elvis’ Blue Moon cover. No sale, no way, no dice said Josh to himself and then to Julie since they had vowed, like some mystical rite of passage passed down from eternal teenager-ness, be candid with each other. Finally, Julie’s shuffling through the platters produced The Turban’s When You Dance and things got better. Yes, this was one tough night, on tough first date, first date ever night.

Maybe the whole thing was ill-fated from the beginning. Josh’s friend, maybe best friend, at Olde Saco Junior High, Rene Leblanc, was having his fourteenth birthday party, a party that his mother, as mothers will, insisted on being a big deal. Big deal being Rene inviting boys and girls, nice boys and girls, dressed in suits, or a least jackets and ties (boys), and party dresses (girls) and matched-up (one boy, one girl). Mrs. Leblanc was clueless that such square get-ups and social arrangements in the be-bop teen night would “cramp” every rocking boy and girl that Rene (or Josh) knew. But the hardest part was that Josh, truth, had never had a boy-girl date and so therefore had no girl to bring to Rene’s party. And that is where Julie, Rene’s cousin from over in Ocean City, came in. She, as it turned out, had never had a girl-boy date. And since when Mrs. Leblanc picked Josh up on party night and then went over to Ocean City for Julie, introduced then, and there was no love at first sight clang, Josh figured that this was to be one long, long night.

So the couple, the nervous couple, nervous now because the end of the stack was being reached when mercifully Marvin and Johnny’s Cherry Pie came up, both declared thumbs, both let out a simultaneous spontaneous laugh. And the reason for that spontaneous laugh, as they were both eager to explain in order to have no hurt feelings, was that Josh had asked Julie if she was having a good time and she said, well, yes just before they hit Cherry Pie pay-dirt. Just then Rene came over and shouted over the song being played on the record player, TheMoonglow’s Sincerely, “Why don’t you two dance instead of just standing there looking goofy?” And they both laughed again, as they hit the dance floor, this time with no explanations necessary.

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.
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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.

When Prince Love Loved In The 1967 San Francisco Summer Of Love

“Jesus, I never thought I would get here and here I am in San Francisco all in one piece standing at the foot of Russian Hill where all the “hippies” were hanging out before they went over to Golden Gate Park and “blew” their minds,” Joshua Breslin (a.k.a. Prince Love or Prince, and hereafter so identified), late of Olde (very old to hear him tell it) Saco (Maine) High School Class of 1967, but just now of youth nation, youth nation descending on friendly, friend-sized, go West young man (and woman), go West, heaven said to his boon companion of three days, Benny Buzz (real name Lawrence Stein, Brooklyn High School of Science, Class of 1967), also currently of youth nation. It was Benny Buzz who, having the vast experience of having been in ‘Frisco for a week now, and having “been up the hill,” who guided Prince Love to the foot of Russian Hill in preparation for, well, for his first summer of love experience. No, not the eternal teen summer of love at some beach, camp or vacationland amusement park where boys ogle girls (and they back, maybe) but the long expected jail break-out from the squares, from the cradle to grave plan-every-step world, and from the hassles, man, just the hassles.

Yes, Prince Love, could write the book on hassles, hassles followed by man, or not. Just a few week before he, having just graduated from Olde Saco High, had a “job offer,” a job working as a janitor in Shepard’s Textile Mill, ya, the ones who make those “boss” sweaters the girls are all crazy for these days. Crazy for in winter anyway because right now warm suns, California, Denver, hell even Maine suns, require nothing more than some skimpy top, shoulders showing, and a pair of shorts, short shorts depending on the legs or vanity. His father, Prescott, a long time employee of the mills, the lifeblood of Olde Saco just then, “pulled a few wires” to get him the job for the summer before he went off to State U in the fall. Last year, last year when he was nothing but a raw hang-out in front of the Colonial Doughnut Shoppe on Main Street (officially U.S. Route 1) with his boys (and occasionally girls, but only for a few moments while they picked up their orders) he would have jumped with both feet, maybe with both hands and feet, at the job to get some money for college.

But that was then and this is now, as they say. Now, or rather the now just a few weeks or so before he got to the foot of Russian Hill, he had received word through that mysterious youth nation grapevine that parents, squares, cops, and authority guys were frantic to figure out, but who, in the end, were clueless about, of a “great awakening” that was going on in ‘Frisco and that news fed, fed deep, into the wells of the discontent he was feeling, about his own desire to break-out from the squares, from the cradle to grave plan-every-step world, and from the hassles, man, just the hassles mentioned before. The grapevine, by the way, was not all that mysterious. Some young, long-haired, wild-looking guy dressed in a blotted multi-colored shirt (later he found out such things were called tie-dyed) from the West Coast had come east to see his grandparents who lived on Olde Saco Beach a few miles down the road and had run into Prince Love at the doughnut shop when he was looking for some joe and cakes to tide him over before a walk on the beach and told him about what was happening on the West Coast. Simple as that, okay.

That information, those pressing on the brain existential jail-break things, and well, he had just broken up with his girl, his long-time high school honey, Julie Cobb, were what drove him to seek the road west. Simple as that. Well not so simple, really, because, if the truth be known, Julie left him for another guy, an older guy who was already working in the mills (not Shepard’s but Cullen’s, the high society linen-makers), had some dough, had a boss 1964 Mustang and, most importantly, wanted to get married, and pretty soon too. That was the sticking point between the Prince and Julia, the marriage game thing that had been going on in the town since, since, well Prince didn’t know but it was pretty common. Graduate Olde Saco, work in the mills, get a couple of bucks, get married, get a tiny house on Atlantic Avenue, maybe, have two point six children, throw in a dog or two cats, and then finish up whitewashing that picket fence in front of the house with the grandchildren. No sale, not for Prince Love. He was going to college, leave the dust of that old town behind, and make a name for himself at something before he settled down in not-Olde Saco, maybe, maybe on the settle down. And from what he heard on his way west, and since he had arrived in San Fran a lot of people were feeling, wondering, groping for some answers just like him. And, ya, looking to try some dope, listen to some far-out music, grab some cool chick to shack up with, and really leave that hometown dust behind before going back east for the fall semester of school.

Now you are filled in, a little, on the what and the why of Prince (and Benny Buzz who however is right then leaving Prince to go see a man, well, go see a man about something, let’s just leave it at that) being on Russian Hill, that classic San Francisco hill mentioned a while back. A hill not previously known to first time ‘Frisco Prince Love, although maybe to some ancient Native American shaman delighted to see our homeland, the sea, out in the bay working it way to far-off Japans. Or to some Spanish conquistador, full of gold dreams but longing for the hills of Barcelona half a world away.

I just remembered, you know everything, everything except how Prince Love got here which is not a big deal since he took some dough he had originally saved up for college and used it for the Greyhound bus fare to get him here. Not for him the hitchhike road through every back road. Not for him merry prankster buses driven by mad-monk zen masters in the heated western night.

Why? Well, come on now, not everybody got every piece of news, especially in Podunk Maine, about the ways west, VW bus west, stick-out-the-thumb west and that there were people, your kind of people, ready to pick you up and take you down the road a piece. Even backing up on super-highway interstates to pick up a fellow youth nation straggler left on some desolate stretch fair game for hungry police eyes. Besides, after about a two-day bout with his parents about not taking that summer job, using the dough for college for such foolishness (to quote his everywoman mother), and other assorted arguments, family arguments started back in childhood, he had promised them to take the bus west. Let’s just say hassles, man, hassles and be done with it. And now we are done with past.

Right then though, after saying a few things in parting to Benny Buzz about catching up with each other later, as he started walking up the hill toward the entrance to the mini-“people’s park” that was about half way up Russian Hill Prince spied a tall young man, maybe a few years older than him although such things were always hard to tell with older looking beards, drug haggards, and glazed looks. He was, at second glance, tall but not as tall as Prince, lanky, maybe not as lanky as him either and from the look of him his drug stews diet had taken some additional pounds off, and some desire for pounds as well, not really normally lanky. Dressed, always worthy of description in 1967 “Frisco, male or female, in full “hippie” regalia (faded olive drab World War II army jacket, half-faded blue jeans, bright red bandanna headband to keep his head from exploding, striped checkerboard flannel shirt against the cold bay winds, against the cold bay winds even in summer, and nighttime colds too, and now that we are on the West Coast, with roman sandals on his feet). And to draw the eye more fully to the scene he is sitting with two foxy-looking young women. One, the younger one, maybe a high school student, blonde, blue-eyed, slender, short shorts belying West Coast origin, and de rigueur practical road-worthy peasant blouse. A poster child for San Francisco summer of love if he ever saw one, and of his own feverish Maine night teenage desire summer or winter of love now that Julia was past. The other women, whom he found out later called herself Lupe Matin just then although the Prince found out that she had run through several monikers previously, a college student for sure , dark-haired, dark-eyed, slightly voluptuous, seemingly a little out of place, out of figuring place, with her current male companion completed the entourage. (Her real name, Susan Sharp, Vassar College, Class of 1966, and “trying to find herself.”)

Prince cast several glances at that regal company, nodded slightly, a knowing nod, eyes fixed, as was the fashion just then, and then turned around and asked to no one in particular but kind of zeroing in on the blonde (ya, he had a thing for blondes, see Julia was just that same kind of waspy blonde, minus the tan and year-round sunshine, that he fell for, fell for hard and fast), “Got some dope, for a hungry brother?” The male, who Prince would later come to know as Far-Out Phil (Phillip Larkin, North Adamsville, Massachusetts, Class of 1964), looked at him in a bemused manner (nice touch, right). Except for shorter hair, which only meant that this traveler had either not been on the road very long or had just recently caught the “finding himself” bug he could have, thought Far-Out to himself, been Phil’s brother, biological brother.

That line, that single Prince Love line, could have been echoed a thousand, maybe ten thousand times that day along a thousand hills (well maybe not that many in San Fran), aimed at any small clot of like-minded spirits. And Phil sensing that just that one sentence spoke of kindred said, “Sure, a little Columbia Red for the head, okay?” And so started the long, well hippie long, 1960s long anyway, relationship between one Phillip Larkin and one Joshua Breslin. And, maybe, including the women too.

And, of course, as well was that sense that Far-Out had that he and Prince Love were kindred was based on the way that the Prince posed that first question. His accent spoke, spoke hard of New England, not Boston but farther north. And once the pipe had been passed a couple of times and the heat of day started getting everybody a little talkative then Prince spilled out his story. Yes, he was from Olde Saco, Maine, born and bred, a working-class kid whose family had worked the town mills for a couple of generations, maybe more, but times were getting hard, real hard in those northern mill towns now that the mill-owners had got the big idea to head south and get some cheaper labor, real cheap. So Joshua, after he graduated from high school a few weeks before decided, on a whim (not really a whim though), to head west and check out prospects here on the coast for later use after college. Josh, now fully into his Prince Love self finished up his story by saying, “And here I am a few weeks later sitting on Russian Hill smoking righteous dope and sitting with some sweet ladies.”

The Prince was just being a little off-handedly flirtatious as was his style when around women, young or old (old being thirty, tops), aiming his ammunition in general but definitely honing in on the blonde, the blonde now identified for all eternity as Butterfly Swirl (real name, Kathleen Clarke, Carlsbad High School, California, Class of 1968). (Phil, by the way, never ever said what his reaction to that last part of the Prince’s spiel, the flirtatious part, which seemed, the way it was spoken, spoken by Phil in the re-telling, filled with menace. Girl-taking menace. Well, old North Adamsville corner boy Phil would have felt that way but maybe in that hazed-out summer of love it just passed by like so much air.) Naturally Phil, a lordly road warrior now, "on the bus" now, whatever his possible misgivings, invited the Prince to stay with them, seeing as they were practically neighbors back home. Prince Love was “family” now, and Butterfly seemed gladder than the others of that fact.

And of course, family, meant home, and home for Far-Out, Butterfly Swirl, and Lupe Matin meant the now locally famous (West Coast local, okay) yellow brick road bus now known as Captain Crunch’s Crash Pad (after the owner of the bus, and “leader,” whatever that meant, of the expedition). Prince Love, from the first night, not only felt that he had found a home, a home that he never felt he had in Olde Saco but that whatever happened out here he would survive. And as more dope-filled pipes were passed that night, and as the music played louder into the sea-mist bay night, and lights gleamed from all directions the Prince grew stronger in that conviction. Especially when Far Out Phil, acting out of some old testament patriarchal script, came sauntering over to the Prince around midnight and whispered in his ear, “Butterfly Swirl wants to be with you, okay?” And that night the Prince and Butterfly Swirl were “married.”

Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night-When Diana Nelson “Touched” The North Adamsville Night Away- With Peggy Lee In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Leslie Gore performing her classic teen dream theme That’s The Way Boys Are.

CD Review

The ‘60s: Jukebox Memories, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1992

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Leslie Gore’s 1960s classic teen dream theme (girl division) song, That’s The Way Boys Are.

I, Diana Nelson, am going to be a big singing star just watch out, watch out and don’t blink because then you will miss it. Hey, it is written in the stars, my stars. Proof? I have just this spring won the 1962 edition of the annual Adamsville Female Vocalist Contest. Hands down! There was no way that any of those other girls could match (and one guy who dressed up as a girl, weird right, although he did a good job on Mary Wells’ Two Lovers and I was a little worried until they found out he was a guy and gave him the boot.) Even Emma Johns and her smoky version of old hat Peggy Lee’s Fever got left behind when I went deep, deep down almost to my soul on Brenda Lee’s I’m Sorry. See that is what the judges were looking for, not smoldering sexy stuff but act of contrition stuff. And the girls who filled up the audience seats and gave their thumbs up and down only wanted to hear stuff that they can listen too when they cry on their pillows after their Johnny doesn’t call, goes cheap on some corny date, or cheats on them, cheats on them with their best friend, usually. I’ve got it all figured out.

Sure, like I was telling my good friend, Peter Paul Markin, the other day during class I was glad to get the one thousand scholarship money that was one of the prizes offered. I can use it if I decide to go to college after we graduate next year. But the big thing for me is to get to sing, sing featured, along with the guys from the Rockin’ Ramrods to back me up, at the Falling Leaves Dance held late in September. That dance is always sponsored by the senior class and it will give me a thrill to go out to please that crowd of fellow seniors, especially Peter Paul, who shares my love of music (although he is not a very good singer, sorry if you see this P.P.) and likes to talk about politics and stuff like I do. The big, big thing though, and I haven’t even told Peter Paul about this is that a recording agent, Jerry Rice, yes, that Jerry Rice, from Ducca Records, the one that signed Connie what’s-her name, has promised to be there and if he likes what he hears, well, like I say it in my stars. Don’t blink, okay.

By the way don’t get thrown off by that good friend Peter Paul thing, especially if you know my own true love boy friend Bobby Swann. There’s nothing to it (sorry again, Peter). Bobby couldn’t be at the contest because he was studying for his finals at State University. He is finishing up his freshman year and so he had to study hard. Peter Paul and I met in ninth grade and we have been good friends ever since. Oh, I suppose I can tell you now, now that I have my handsome blue-eyed Bobby, that if he wasn't such a “stup” P.P could have had his chances with me but all he ever did was stare at my ass in class, and in the corridors. If you don’t believe me ask Emma Johns, she’s the one that noticed him doing it first, although I had an idea. Better yet, ask P.P. he’ll tell you, maybe. The thing was that I couldn’t wait forever for him to get up the nerve to ask me out and then Bobby came along and swooped me up in tenth grade and then I didn’t care for younger guys anymore, except as good friends.

I guess I should tell you since I am telling you everything else that I had a dream when I was very young, maybe seven or eight, that I was going to be a singing star. Maybe it was my mother always playing women singers on the family record like that Peggy Lee when she was young and sprightly with Benny Goodman, Teresa Brewer, and Billie Holiday that got me going because I would sing along all day with the radio on. Later ma had me take singing lessons and I have been going strong ever since. Peter Paul said he went crazy when he first heard me do Brenda’s I Want To Be Wanted and Patsy Cline’s Crazy, although she, Patsy, seemed a little to ah, shucks, countrified when I first heard her. She has gotten less so since she has started turning to more a more popular style. I sure wish I could hit her high notes but Miss French, my vocals teacher, says I will get there soon enough and then I will have to, get this word, “husband” my valuable resource. See, I am a cinch.

Did I tell you that I told, no ordered (and I can do that to him, and he jumps like a puppy dog, sorry again P.P.) to be at the Falling Leaves Dance solo, so we can talk between sets. It looks like Bobby won’t be coming. According to him no big time State University sophomore would be caught dead at a high school dance and also his cross-country team is having a big meet in New York City that weekend. You know, and I hope you won’t tell Bobby, if you know him, because I do love him so, every once in a while I wish P. P. would have done more than just look at my ass in ninth grade.

Out In The Be-Bop, Be-Bop 1960s Night- The World Turned Upside Down-The Great Teenage Triangle

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece

CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1962-1963, take two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece.

Nobody said being a teenager was going to be easy now, in 1860 or whenever they invented teenagers, 1960 the time period of this piece, or, hell, 2360. Teen angst, short term or long, comes with the territory. However sometimes something, in this case a song, will sum up just exactly how hard teen life really is. I admit this one had me a little weepy for a while over the fate, a common fate, of one of the characters. That is until I realized, wait a minute this is teen stuff, next week the configuration will have totally changed, or the boys (or girl) in this teen triangle will have sworn off girls (or boys, for the girl). Ya, right.

Rather than leave the reader in any more suspense let me give the details of the heart-rending dilemma. It seems that Robert, well let’s call him Robert because Roberts always seem to be the kind of guys who draw the short end of the stick in teen life, was head over heels in love with Sherry, and had been ever since they met a couple of summers back down at the far end, the teen far end, of Olde Saco Beach up in cold climate Maine so it must have been July, no later. Needless to say they were both “enjoying” the rite of passage teen bored-to-death vacation with their ever-loving families (dogs, optional, although included here since they met while walking the respective family dogs) when the dogs met, and presto Robert and Sherry met. Things went fine for a while, as such summer romances go, and they wrote during the winter with all kinds of expectations of another high school teen romance summer, with maybe a little more than just kissing this time.

As luck would have it though Robert, studious, shoulder to the wheel if smitten Robert, had an opportunity to work at Ben’s Market in Olde Saco that next summer in order to help with his soon to be impeding college tuition. Naturally he had to “jump” at the opportunity (with a very big “friendly” push from his parents). And that is when things started to fall apart.

Nature, and teen nature is a pure scientific example of that law, abhors a vacuum. Especially a foxy Sherry on the beach alone, no Robert alone, (and no dog along for introductions this time) when Eddie, let’s call him Eddie, not Edward, not, Ed, not Eduardo, just Eddie because it is always Eddies who scoop up the foxes in teen life came swaggering up the beach, sat right beside Sherry and started, well, started in his version of fast eddie love talk. Just like that. And Sherry, well, Sherry was just in the mood to hear such talk, if not from "shoulder the wheel" Robert then Eddie, kind of hunky Eddie, would do just fine. After all a girl has to look out for herself in this wicked old world. The long and short of it was that Sherry made a date with Eddie, a happy date when she found out that Eddie had a “boss” ’57 Chevy for that date. Robert’s was working at his silly old market job anyway so he would be none the wiser. That night, it might have been the stars, it might have been the moon, it might have been Sherry mad at Robert, or it just might have been the time of her time, but Sherry let Eddie have his way with her down at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco beach. The place where only teenagers with something on their minds other than throwing pebbles in the surf go, no one else not even the cops.

So far still nothing remarkable, right. A million teens lost in the moon-beam night learning about the ways of the world, the adult sex world that they keep hush-hush about but which every teen since Socrates, maybe before, gets hip to, one way or another. But here is where it gets dicey. See Eddie already had a foxy girlfriend back home, Lula Belle, who outfoxes Sherry six ways to Sunday. And is rather possessive of her man. Switchblade-like possessive if it came to it. And Eddie, frankly, while he enjoyed Sherry was in it for kicks, for just doing it when the opportunity arose, and moving on. So that is exactly what he did. Sherry though, after the short summer tryst was over, started writing Eddie asking when he was coming back and all that kind of stuff, girl crush stuff.

Still not that remarkable though. What was though was that Eddie and Robert attended the same regional high school, Arundel High over the other side of Sanford (although they do not live in the same town) together and were both on the football team. (Robert the steady plebeian pulling guard, Fast Eddie, well, the fleet-footed halfback, natch) So one afternoon Eddie, Eddie acting as peacock, showed Robert, in the presence of his best friend, Josh Breslin and so that is how this situation became public, well, school knowledge, one of Sherry’s letters. Eddie went on a little about what he and Sherry did and what a cluck she was for writing a breeze guy like Eddie such stuff. And Eddie said right then and there that he bet Robert five dollars, five serious dollars, that he could write a couple of lines to Sherry about not having enough dough for postage stamps to write her before, or something, as his reason for not writing and he could be right back down there at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco Beach with Sherry anytime he wanted. Well, maybe not anytime because on hearing that Robert reared back and gave Eddie a punch that dropped him to the ground in nothing flat. So floor-fast Eddie and his jaw were on the bench for a while if Sherry wanted to know his whereabouts just then.



***********

Letter From Sherry lyrics-Dale War

A letter from Sherry
Oh boy, what a girl
But to the boy who really loves her
Its the end of the world.

A letter from Sherry
Brings teardrops to my eyes
A letter from Sherry
Oh why, Sherry, why?

My best friend named Eddie
Came by just yesterday
With a letter from Sherry
Heres what she had to say



Dear Eddie Dear Eddie, I love you I love you
With all my heart with all my heart
Vacation last summer
Was grand

And though you
You never write
I pray I pray
Each day and night

For Im yours
And yours alone
And dear Sherry, shes comin home


A letter from Sherry
Oh boy, what a girl
But to the boy who really loves her

From Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night -The 'Real' Scoop on "Tri-Hi-Y"- An Investigatory Report- "Inside Edition" Move On Over

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the modern doings of one school's Tri-Hi-Y Club. Hey, don't shoot the messenger on this one. I just like to provide a ‘relevant’ link with my posts

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1964, comment:

Today I have my investigative reporter's hat on. An unusual occurrence for me because my usual course is to just grab a thought, bear down on it, blast away and see what falls out, and then merrily walk away. Who, in the modern age, meaning here the age of the Internet and ‘instant’ thoughts, has the time, or wherewithal, to painstakingly separate fact, half-fact, quarter fact, mere whim, and simple caprice from fictions, lies, half-lies and your average off-hand utter duplicity. Just posing the question makes me dizzy, and provides the correct answer as well.

Of course, as we live in a litigious society, a society moreover still peopled with obsessively thin-skinned old time North Adamsville corner boys, their honeys, their wanna-be honeys, and assorted other characters best described in Runyonesque terms ready to pounce on every misspoken word, every ill-formed characterization, every far from pristine sentence, and, frankly, any published but perhaps only vaguely remembered episode then thorough investigation would seem warranted. And the beginning of wisdom.

I am still smarting, smarting more than somewhat, from the grilling, no, the raking over the coals, I got from Frankie Riley, the king hell king of the North Adamsville corner boy night in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor up in Norfolk Downs, now big-time Boston lawyer Francis X. Riley for those three people in the universe who have not seen one of his silly ads touting how he, or really some lowly subaltern in his office, will get you some justice in this wicked old world if you just call (or text)his law office. Of course, you may get your day in court, although always corner boy Frankie will take a big cut of the dough for you.

But forget the now Frankie because that is not what he was hot under the collar about. Frankie was upset, litigiously upset if I hadn’t been quick thinking and undercut him, because in one of my tales, tall tales if you like, I mentioned that he was not always tried and true to his high school sweetheart (really from junior high school), Joanna Moriarty. In other words he was a lady-killer, a ladies’ man. Now most guys fifty, yes, fifty years later, would take that as a compliment and a characterization that he was a fast ball hitter, or at least just let it pass. Not Frankie, in his now quasi-paranoiac state about offending anyone under any circumstances who might be a potential client he challenged me, me, The Scribe (and no one else better use that old-timey nickname, I warn you), on my statement. Fortunately one Professor Joanna Moriarty, now teaching at one of the local universities, read the post, and confirmed my accusation in great detail, adding in a couple of ‘misunderstandings' that even I was not aware of and I thought that I had heard them all. We, the three of us, had dueling e-mails over it for a couple of days. Then Joanna lowered the boom with a definitive blow, a blow that need not detain us here, and Frankie crumbled. In the end Frankie Riley, oops, Attorney Francis X. Riley, sheepishly walked away like a beaten cur.

Now this post is intended to be a light-hearted look at an old school organization, Tri-Hi-Y, if you remember that so-called service organization. I went to great lengths to give the big-time lawyer Frankie Riley example as a cautionary tale for those who still have some thin-skinned notions that you are exempt from my pen (well, keyboard). I have still not unraveled all the details about this club but that has not stopped me from pushing on. The facts, frankly, seem to get in the way on this one. But just in case I have a lawyer in the wings. Frankie Riley? Hell no, one of those subaltern lawyers who do all the real work in his office anyway.
****
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. That was good, if unheeded, advice a few thousand years ago. Apparently it is advice that we should have also heeded back in our school days. Those half-formed, take everything as gospel unless otherwise told, or else, North Adamsville High school days hid all sorts of things that, perhaps, couldn’t bear the light of day. Or those involved, or who knew what was really going on, were too frightened to “spill the beans.” Or were in so far in that public acknowledgement would have ruined them, their reputations, and even their lives. Sure, today there are plenty of brave whistle-blowers, from those working inside the government and corporations to military guys like Iraq whistle-blower, Private Bradley Manning, and Vietnam whistle-blower, Daniel Ellsberg. But back then just wimps, yes, let’s just say wimps and leave at that although I could bring up stronger language than that.

The subject today is the mysterious, seemingly nefarious, doings of Tri Kappa Phi, colloquially known as Tri-Hi-Y. I have, as yet, been unable to untangle the relationship between these two names but I suspect the latter is merely a classic front name. For those who do not know what a front group is I will give an example that might shed a little light on this mix and match name thing. The American Communist Party, Uncle Joe’s boys and girls, in their heyday didn’t always want to show their colors openly (or wanted to hide how few adherents they had when the deal went down). So, say they wanted to do something with nuclear disarmament or war, instead of saying sponsored by the Communist Party they would think up a name like- Citizen For A Peaceful World. And then get everybody and their brother (or sister) to sign up because who doesn’t want a peaceful world. Neat trick, right? I have a gut instinct that is what was going on here.

Ostensibly this was a girls' club devoted to public service. Innocent enough, no question. Hell, even a good idea if nothing else for your resume, if you were a girl, and as it turns out a certain kind of girl, and if you were going to college or maybe looking for some kind of governmental job where such service might be a boost to your chances. Yes, if I were a girl back then (or now, if you can believe that this group is still going strong as the link that I have provided in the headline indicates) and didn’t know the ‘truth' I would have given the organizations serious consideration. But see that is the hellish thing about front groups. There is a yawning gap between what they say they stand for and what they do really stand for. The old shell game that we should have been wise to since about second grade, or whenever it was we were taken for our dough at some hokey carnival chance game. A glance at page 17 of the 1964 (or, maybe, any year if that was not the reader’s graduation year) Magnet, the North Adamsville High School yearbook belies that story.

According to their own words as etched for all eternity on page 17, and I gladly, gleefully quote from that source, this organization was committed to furthering "pure thoughts, pure words, and pure actions" among the members. And we all know what the three pures they are referring to related to in 1960s America, hell in 1860s America, or double-hell in 2000s America. Sex. This, my friends, reads, to these old eyes at least, more like the program for the vestal virgins in the temples of pagan Greece than a program for a society then on the edge of a sexual revolution. That should have been the tip-off. I sincerely wish that I had paid more attention then, I really do. Now we live in a more skeptical age and would have had our antennae out when confronted with such shameless hyperbole. Then, naive as we were, we bought the story hook, line and sinker.

Look, I am a fair person, or try to be. In order to get a hook into this unfolding scandalous story and learn more about the group I, innocently, e-mailed the president of the organization in 1964, Millie Callahan. (There was not mystery, or “magic” to my getting that e-mail address, not in the hard-boiled information-heavy Internet age. I had previously been in touch with the savagely relentless head of our class committee who sent it along posthaste although she is not responsible for any uses that I might put the information to. Unless I need a “fall girl.”)

Now I knew Millie Callahan back in the day. Not the way I wanted to know her of course but I used to sit a couple of rows in back of her at 8:00 AM Mass at Sacred Heart Church in ninth grade and stare at her ass. Yes, she was a fox then, and probably still is now. That’s not the end of my knowing her though. She was also, long story short, the girlfriend all through high school, damn, of “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, one of my Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boys. And Phil, foul-mouthed or not, was not squiring around any three pures girls, no way. They were “doing it,” just like two high school kids were suppose to, if that is what they wanted to do. Enough of that though because on the e-mail front I got nothing. Nada, a resounding no reply.

I then pursued another avenue that I thought might be more fruitful. I e-mailed the woman, Lucy Platt, who was the chaplain of the group in her junior and senior year. (said e-mail address also delivered from my previously mentioned “confidential” source). I will not now even get into why a so-called girls’ service organization needed a chaplain, an un-ordained chaplain, I assume, if all they were doing was selling candy door to door or having bake sales and stuff like that but it does give one pause. Might she not have been a conduit for other matters? Certainly another avenue for investigation, maybe on the licensing question. (Don’t chaplains, men and women of the clothe, those who, as my saintly Irish grandmother used to say, “have the calling,” have to have licenses, or certification or something to show they are authorized, in this case, to “take confessions” from wayward girls. Non-observant three pures girls.) An additional reason I wanted to get her take on these allegations was that she was not just any fellow classmate but was then currently the secretary to the headmaster at North Adamsville High. Dear readers, she had access to the records! (If she hadn’t carelessly, or carefully, ‘disposed’ of them long ago).

I, good-heartedly, offered this ex-chaplain, (or maybe she still is, if she hasn’t been defrocked by now) the opportunity to place our correspondence under a confidential attorney-client blanket. (No, one thousand times no, not Frankie Riley, but a real lawyer, a hungry young lawyer in his office. Besides, Frankie probably has a “conflict of interest” problem here since, if I recall, Lucy Platt was one of his paramours when he was being tried and true to Joanna. I’ll have to ask her, Joanna that is.) I further suggested that she might fall under the priest- penitent immunity provisions concerning her testimony. Result - Stonewalled, no reply. Apparently, this is one secretary that went to the Rosemary Woods Secretarial School. Moreover, another closer look at the Magnet told the tale. The winsome smile and twinkle in her eye of her class picture on page 137, obviously a posed put-up job, did not jibe with her Cotton Mather-like visage on page 17 when she was doing her so-called chaplain thing. I then determined that I needed to investigate this matter all-out.

Right now, I admit, there are more questions than answers. Little did this pair, Minnie and Lucy, and their accomplices know that some forty -plus years later an intrepid, truth-seeking, justice-pursuing alumnus with some time on his hands was going to fall onto their little threadbare operation. Maybe even in the school administration after all the thing was a school activity so somebody in there had to know what was going on. Maybe it went higher up. Who knows? Isn’t it so very convenient though that Lucy wound up as school secretary right next to the records that any future investigator would, of necessity, need to have access to. I will continue to try to unravel this tangled story to the bitter end.

Here are some questions that I have right now though that you, my friends, can help me with. Why did a so-called "public service" group in a democratic, secular institution need a chaplain? What deep, dark secrets were being kept from us when those probably naively innocent girls confessed, well confessed what was just normal teen sexual activity, to the chaplain? Who knows, maybe blackmail, and maybe some of them, the real naïve ones, are still paying out.
Moreover, apparently, from the lack of response to my inquiries, members are sworn to secrecy unto the grave. Some kind of awful blood oath with horrendous consequences I am sure. Why? And here is another little tidbit to feast on. Why was the turnover rate in the organization so high, especially in senior year? (Here I did, painfully, record how many years each member participated. There were plenty of 1s and 2s (sophomore and junior years)in the activities section under their yearbook photos, and then a dramatic drop-off of 3s senior year. Was it impossible to keep to the public "three purities" slogan mentioned above with a straight face or did a number of members fall afoul of the cabal at the top when they threatened to go public? I suspect some cult operation but such things are tricky to pin down as we know from later experience. Are there any whistle-blowers out there? More, later. Tri-Hi-Y, indeed!

The Big Time 1962 Teen Angst Night- Johnny Callahan’s Heartbreak Hotel

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Brenda Lee performing Break It To Me Gently. Ya, we have all been down that one-way road to perdition.

CD Review

AM Gold: 1962, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1991

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs on this CD, Brenda Lee’s Break It Too Me Gently.

Friday night, a late September Friday, I think, because it was just getting cold at night around old North Adamsville. And there was a cold political menace (soon to get hot, very hot) in the air as well from those pesky Cubans and their patrons, the Soviets. In any case a high school Friday night because the night we are talking of was the night of the Falling Leaves Dance that had been an institution (and still is) at North Adamsville High since Hector was a pup. Or at least as far back as my mother’s time, Delores Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1943, the war years, oops, the World War II war years so that you don't get mixed up on which war. Every red-blooded teen angst-ridden boy or girl with the dollar required for entry was going to show up, singly or in couples.

Now I should explain that this dance was no Johnny Jones, the local kid with the most rock and roll records and an arcane knowledge of said records, acting as D.J. at the regular free cheap jack weekly Friday night, well, let’s call it sock hop. (You all had your Johnnies so I don't have to detail his exploits, okay). No, this was a get out you best party dress girls, no tee shirts need apply guys, almost “formal” dance. And two things right away distinguished it for the low-rent sock hop. Yes, of course, it was still held in the crusty old North Adamsville gym but the place, courtesy of the North Adamsville Class of 1962 Senior Dance Committee (whee!), the senior class always sponsored this one, had the place looking, well, like a hotel ballroom. No faded banners and bunting this night. Flowers, tablecloth on the tables, glasses to drink your soda from rather than from the bottle, and so on. Ya, this one was different.

The really big difference though, Johnny Jones’s high opinion of his musicological skills notwithstanding, was that this night there was live music provided by Diana Nelson and her pick-up band, crazed local favorites, the Rockin’ Ramrods. No scratchy records over Jones’ jerry-rigged sound system this night but the real thing. Diana on vocals, and the Ramrods for some serious rock and roll covers. Now the reason that Diana Nelson was featured that night may surprise you, or maybe not. In the year 1962 everybody, boys and girls almost equally, were crazy for girl vocalists singing their hearts out, and singing mushy stuff about heartbreak, loneliness, sorrow, and other stuff than only teenagers in the be-bop 1962 night knew (or cared) about. Patsy Cline, Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, Carla Thomas, and especially of late, Brenda Lee, singers like that with big voices and some serious sadnesses to speak of.

So the town fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that such wholesome, if sorrowful, music should have its local representative and sponsored, sponsored out of town funds if you can believe this, a singing contest with a one thousand dollar scholarship prize attached for the winner. More importantly, as least to hear Diana tell it, was the chance to be the female vocalist (with those Ramrods backing her up) at the Falling Leaves Dance.

Sometime I will tell you about that competition because some things that happened there would have amused, or befuddled you. One thing that would not is the fact that Diana Nelson was, by far, the best female vocalist there with her stirring rendition of Brenda Lee'sI'm Sorry. Not a lip-sych-like imitation but in her own style. Even though I was no mushy-headed guy but a regular Salducci's Pizza Parlor corner boy, and took no notice of girlish sentiment, well, little notice anyway, I stood on my chair and applauded. Truth to tell, I had a big thing for Diana, and had been staring at her ass in classes and in the halls ever since about ninth grade so that might have added to my delight at her victory. Of course my Salducci's corner boys will try to tell you that I was one hundred percent skirt-addled and dismissed this Diana thing out of hand. Don't believe it, even though she never gave me a tumble (she was "going steady" with some college guy).

The reason I won't go into that competition thing now is because this story is really about Johnny Callahan, you know the still hallowed "tear 'em up" fullback on the 1962 championship North Adamsville Red Raiders football team. And, well, it really isn't even a story but just another one of those things that have been happening to guys since about Adam, if not before. Now that I think of it, before.

See Johnny and Chrissie McNamara had been going out for the previous couple of years since sophomore year when Chrissie, a young woman not to be messed with when she had a bee in her bonnet, set out to "capture" one Johnny Callahan. No quarter given. Well, she got her man, got him bad. Got him six ways to Sunday. I was there the night, another Friday night if I recall correctly, that Chrissie, by general agreement, general boy agreement anyway, a fox came strolling, no, zeroing in on Johnny and sat right down on his lap and practically dared him to push her off. What she didn't know (nor did we) was that Johnny was crazy for Chrissie, and had been for quite a while. Everybody laughed when Chrissie, red-faced but determined, said "Johnny, I'm going to sit here and it will take the whole football team to pull me off." Of course Johnny was holding her so tight to him that it would have taken the whole football team, maybe the junior varsity thrown in too, to get her off his lap.

But that was then. Of late the freeze had been on between them. Reason: one Lance Duncan, if you can believe that. With a fox like Chrissie, no way. Lance, despite his preppie name out of some F. Scott Fitzgerald Basil and Josephine story, was after all nothing but the local whiz kid Math guy. And just then Chrissie was on a "smart" kick. Now Johnny Callahan could carry twelve guys on his back over the goal line on a granite gray fall Saturday afternoon but, let's say, would be hard-pressed to accurately count the number of guys on his back. So Thursday night, Thursday night the day before the Falling Leaves Dance, for chrissake, Chrissie gave old Johnny the "kiss-off." Gently, nicely, with a soft landing as was Chrissie's way but still a kiss-off.

So Johnny would not be sitting at one of the those freshly laundered tableclothed tables drinking his soda from a glass instead of from the bottle waiting to be crowned king of the dance along with queen, Chrissie. I hoped, hoped to high heaven, when I heard the ugly details, that it would not affect his game that Saturday against tough arch-rival Clintondale High (it didn't). He was so pissed off he went crazy, crazy enough to count those thirteen guys he was carrying on his back when he went over the goal line for his fifth touchdown of the afternoon.

P.S. Even now, maybe especially even now these many years later, do not believe that nonsense from some unnamed corner boys about my "hitting" on Chrissie at that Saturday football game just mentioned (Math whiz Lance did not go to football games, period) now that she was "free." Utter nonsense.

I Fall To Pieces Each Time I Hear Her Sing-Pasty Cline: Live At The Opry-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Patsy Cline performing I Love You Some Much It Hurts Me.

CD Review

Pasty Cline: Live At The Opry, Patsy Cline, MCA , 1988

For those of us of a certain age (growing up in the early 1960’s) the timeless voice of Patsy Cline, whether we were aware of it or not, formed the backdrop to many a school dance or other romantic endeavor. I was not a fan of Cline’s, at least not consciously, growing up but have come to appreciate her talent and her amazing voice since then. In another earlier review in this space I have called her the ‘country torch singer’ par excellence. And she does not fail here, although this work reflects a time when she was deep into a countrified sound reflecting her background and the kind of audience that her songs would appeal to starting out. Later she would smooth out that voice to reach a more popular audience. Patsy, like many another torch singer like Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday, needs to grow on you. The best way to do that is grab this album and sit back. You won’t want to turn the damn thing off (except to wish that you could delete the intros, unavoidable, on a live album based on a radio show.)

Stand out covers here devoted to the themes of love, lost love, found love, misplaced love, and perhaps, hate if things every got that far out of hand that were Patsy ‘s stock-in-trade are Crazy; She’s Got You; I Fall To Pieces (a personal favorite): and, Lovesick Blues. But listen to the whole thing when you are in the mood.

"Crazy"

Written by willie nelson
(as performed by willie nelson)
Also performed by patsy cline and ray price*

Crazy
Crazy for feeling so lonely
Im crazy
Crazy for feeling so blue

I knew
Youd love me as long as you wanted
And then someday
Youd leave me for somebody new

Worry
Why do I let myself worry
Wondrin
What in the world did I do

Crazy
For thinking that my love could hold you
Im crazy for tryin
Crazy for cryin
And Im crazy
For lovin you

(repeat last verse)


Patsy Cline, She's Got You Lyrics

Artist: Cline Patsy
Song: She's Got You

“She's Got You”

I've got your picture that you gave to me
And it's signed "with love," just like it used to be
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got your picture, she's got you

I've got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here
The only thing different, the only thing new,
I've got the records, she's got you

I've got your memory, or has it got me?
I really don't know, but I know it won't let me be

I've got your class ring; that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's got you

Patsy Cline, Why Can't He Be You Lyrics

Artist: Cline Patsy
Song: Why Can't He Be You


“Why Can't He Be You”

He takes me to the places you and I used to go
He tells me over and over that he loves me so
He gives me love that I never got from you
He loves me too, his love is true
Why can't he be you

He never fails to call and tell me I'm on his mind
And I'm lucky to have such a guy; I hear it all the time
And he does all the things that you would never do
He loves me, too, his love is true
Why can't he be you

He's not the one who dominates my mind and soul
And I should love him so, 'cause he loves me, I know
But his kisses leave me cold

He sends me flowers, calls on the hour, just to prove his love
And my friends say when he's around, I'm all he speaks of
And he does all the things that you would never do
He loves me too, his love is true
Why can't he be you

Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams Lyrics

Artist: Cline Patsy
Song: Sweet Dreams

“Sweet Dreams”

Sweet dreams of you
Every night I go through
Why can't I forget you and start my life anew
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

You don't love me, it's plain
I should know I'll never wear your ring
I should hate you the whole night through
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

Sweet dreams of you
Things I know can't come true
Why can't I forget the past, start loving someone new
Instead of having sweet dreams about you