***A Note On The Profile Of The Manager Of This Blog-"Tales From Old North Quincy"

Click on the headline link to my profile page and from there to the Class of 1964 home page and on to the school homepage at Classmates.

Note: I write for several blogs, public and private, under the blog name Markin. I will use that pen name here, as well. I use that pen name in honor of a man, and even more so his father, who set me straight about a lot of things in life long ago. Since this site is specific to North Quincy my profile information elsewhere would not be helpful so I have placed some pertinent information here in this lead blog. For those who are not familiar with blogs you can set the date for the entry in advance. That is why the date is set so far in advance in order to keep this as the lead blog, it is not your old eyes deceiving you.


Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:
Here are the background facts of my life that are important to understanding the why of the creation of this blog and the reason that I can speak with some authority about the old pre- 1964 North Quincy, at least to tell some tales about it. My maternal grandparents, Anna (nee O’Brien) and Daniel Radley lived on Young Street over across from the Welcome Young Field almost all their lives, and various members of this branch of the Radley family have lived in North Quincy up until very recently. My grandfather was actually born in that house on Young Street and my grandmother elsewhere in Quincy. As far as I have been able to trace back one or the other families goes back the Irish “famine ship” times in the late 1840s, although that information in pre-"green card" times is sketchy at best. Needless to say my late mother, Doris, NQHS Class of 1943 and her siblings were born in Quincy as well. My mother, during World War II, fell in love with and married a Marine, the late Preston, who had been based at the Hingham Depot, and who hailed from coal country down in Hazard, Kentucky. They had three boys, Preston, the late Kenneth and me, all born in Quincy right after the war.

We three boys all went through the Quincy school system, although I will just give my own public school resume here. I went to the Snug Harbor Elementary School down in the Germantown housing project, a place that we wound up at after some time on Young Street. I started from the first grade there and then is where I came of age, graduating in 1958. After a brief period at the Broad Meadows Junior High (now Middle School) we moved back to North Quincy over to Walnut Street near the old Duggan Brothers Garage. I went to, and graduated from, the Atlantic Junior High (now Middle School) in 1960. I spent all four years of high school at North, graduating in 1964. That last date is important to the sense of purposes of this blog as well. Events, places, and people described since that time mentioned in my various writings are a result of current reflections, hearsay, a few trips back, or some other form of indirect recollection because after that year I, effectively, no longer could be described as a North Quincyite. Oh, except, of course, that tiny little nagging problem of some forty years later finding that I am fiercely driven by some “inner demons” deep in my soul to feverishly write some tales of old North Quincy, my old hometown.

***On The Nature Of Love-For Karen Richardson (and her bicycle boy), Quincy High School Class of 1964

On The Nature Of Love-For Karen Richardson (and her bicycle boy), Quincy High School Class of 1964 (Ya, I know, cross-town rivalries, and never the twain shall meet and all of that, but we will call a truce, an armed truce, for this one, okay).

I want to speak of love. No, not the coquettish, coy, cream puff, arch, Shakespearean wordplay, rhymed couplet, sonnet love (or whoever really wrote the things, I suspect Kit Marlowe, but we will leave that little academic pursuit for another time). Mere pretty words. Neither shall I speak of rarified, sense and sensibility-driven, ethereal Robert Browning bon mots to one Ms. (formerly Miss) Elizabeth Barrett. Mere Victorian claptrap. Nor will I utter one word of the mock-heroic, blood-drenched deeds done in the name of love, the love of the face that launched a thousand ships, Helen of Troy. Humankind has had more than its fair share of such epic, red earth-bleeding battles, although not always done to satisfy lust for a woman. And you should blush, you really should, if you expect me to hype roses sent, candies ordered, and fine dinners (with wines even) purchased as tokens of love.

Today I wish to speak of love. Simple, coming-of-age-love, plebeian love, but love that will now transcend all the noisy clamor of the above sentiments. Hear me out, it will not take long. Actually, the details are minimal. Snug Harbor Elementary School down in Germantown classmate, Karen Richardson, related in this space that in the old days she had a boyfriend, unnamed, but let’s call him bicycle boy because a bicycle figures into the story. This lad lived in Braintree. Fair enough. Somehow, and the details really don’t matter, there was a conflict, a mother conflict I presume, and it was necessary for the pair to meet clandestinely. And here is where the thing turns epic. In order to see his beloved he biked from Braintree to Weymouth. Not just any part of Weymouth though but the part directly across from Germantown by the Fore River Bridge. And from there he swam, swam through the tide shifts and eddies, swam through the freighter-brought fetid, oil-slicked waves, swam as if his very life depended on it, to meet his love on the other side beach. More importantly, after their rendezvous he had to swim back across that treacherous channel.

Know this. When someone speaks pretty sonnet love words dismiss him or her out of hand. When someone speaks of heavenly love cast a jaded eye his or her way. When someone offers to die, and gladly, for battle love laugh in his or her face. And if someone tries to piece you off with some tasty tidbits or fragrant smells start walking the other way. For now, and for cyberspace eternity, you have heard the siren song of real love

***Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing- For Alan G., Class Of 1964

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Wollaston Beach. The photo in the entry appears to have been taken from a point not far from Treasure Island (Cady Park).

Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:

Do you need to know about all the little trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Merrymount end of Wollaston Beach, that I have threatened to talk about in previous entries? Trips that kind of formed the bookends of my childhood. Jesus, no. A thousand time no, and I say that having lived through them. My childhood memories overall can be best summed up in the words of the now long-departed black rapper extraordinaire, Biggie Smalls. He expressed it best and spoke a truth greater than he might have known, although he was closer to “hip-hop nation” than I ever could be, or could be capable of – “Christmas kind of missed us, birthdays were the worst days.” Ya, that’s the big truth, no question, but not the little Treasure Island truth, wobbly as it might come out. One such episode will give you an idea of what we (meaning me and my brothers) were up against but also, in the end, why although there were precious few wonderful childhood memories that are now worth the ink to tell you about, this one serves pretty well. Let me have my say.

******

There was a madness in this country in the 1950s. No, not the Cold War atomic-bomb-is-going-to-get-us-we-are-all-going-to-be-dead-next-week or “better dead than red” kind of madness although there was plenty of that, but a madness for the automobile, the sleeker, the more airplane-like, and more powerfully-engined the better. And, it wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight T-shirt wearing, rolled sleeve cigarette-packed, greased Pompadour-haired, long side-burned, dangling-combed , engineer-booted, chain-wielding, side of the mouth butt-puffing , didn’t care if school kept or not types bent over the hood of some souped-up ’57 Chevy working, no sweating pools of sweat, sweating to get even more power out of that ferocious V-8 engine for the Saturday night “ chicken" run.

And it wasn’t even those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys either. And it was always guys, who you swore you would beat down if they ever even looked at your sister, if you had a sister, and if you liked her enough to beat a guy down to defend her honor, or whatever drove your sense of right. And, of course she, your sister no less, is looking for all she is worth at this “James Dean” soda jerk (hey, what else could he be) because this guy is “cute”. Go figure.

No, and forget all those stereotypes that they like to roll out when they want to bring a little “color” to the desperately color-craving 1950s. This car madness was driven, and driven hard, by your very own stay-at-home-and watch the television, water the lawn, if you have a lawn and it needed watering and sometimes when it didn’t just to get out of the house, have couple of beers and take a nap on Saturday afternoon father (or grandfather, I have to remember who might be in my audience now) who always said “ask your mother” to blow you off. You know him. I know you know him he just has a different name than mine did. And maybe even your very own mother (or grandmother) got caught up in the car thing too, your mother, the one who always say “ask your father”. You know her too, don’t say no. I hope by now you knew they were working a team scam on you even if you didn’t have the kind of proof that you could take to court and get a little justice on.

Hell, on this car thing they were just doing a little strutting of their stuff in showcase, show-off, “see what I got and you don’t” time. Come on now, don’t pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about, at least if you too grew up in the 1950s, or heard about it, or even think you heard about it. Hey, it was about dreams of car ownership for the Great Depression-ed , World War II-ed survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, has arrived in the great American dream, and all on easy monthly payments, no money down, and the bigger, the sleeker the better and I’ll take the heavy- chromed, aerodynamically-designed, two-toned one, thank you. That was how you knew who counted, and who didn’t. You know what I mean?

Heck, that 50s big old fluffy pure white cloud of a dream even seeped all the way down into “the projects” in Germantown, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” too, although I don’t know for sure, and in the thousand and one other displaced person hole-in-the-walls “projects” they built as an afterthought back then for those families like mine caught on the slow track in “go-go” America. Except down there, down there on the edge of respectability, and maybe even mixed in with a little disrespectability, you didn’t want to have too good of a car, even if you could get that easy credit, because what we you doing with that nice sleek, fin-tailed thing with four doors and plenty of room for the kids in the back in a place like “the projects” and maybe there was something the “authorities” should know about, yes. Better to move on with that old cranky 1940s-style unhip, unmourned, uncool jalopy than face the wrath and clucking of that crowd, the venom-filled, green-eyed neighbors.

Yes, that little intro is all well and good and a truth you can take my word for but this tale is about, if I ever get around to it, those who had the car madness deep in their psyche, but not the wherewithal- this is a cry, if you can believe it today, from the no car families. Jesus, how could you not get the car madness then though, facing it every night stark-naked in front of you on the television set, small as the black and white picture was, of Buicks, and Chevys and Pontiacs and whatever other kind of car they had to sell to you. But what about us Eastern Mass bus dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least here it didn’t matter. Down South they got kind of funny about it.

As you might have figured out by now, and if you didn’t I will tell you, that was our family’s fate, more often than not. It was not that we never had a car back then, but there were plenty of times when we didn’t and I have the crooked heels, peek-a-boo-soles and worn out shoe leather from walking rather than waiting on that never-coming bus to prove it. And not only that but I got so had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to Grandma’s Young Street, North Quincy if I had to. That was easy stuff thinking back on it. I‘ll tell you about walking those later long, lonesome roads out West in places like just before the mountains in Winnemucca, Nevada and 129 degree desert- hot Needles, California switching into 130 degree desert-hot Blythe, Arizona some other time, because it just doesn’t seem right to talk about mere walking, long or short, when the great American automobile is present and rolling by.

It’s kind of funny now but the thing was, when there was enough money to get one, that the cars my poor old, kind of city ways naïve, but fighting Marine-proud father would get, from wherever in this god forsaken earth he got them from would be, to be polite, clunkers and nothing but old time jalopies that even those “hot rod” James Dean guys mentioned above would sneer, and sneer big time at. It would always be a 1947 something, like a Hudson or Nash Rambler, or who knows the misty, musty names of these long forgotten brands. The long and short it is, and this is what’s really important when you think about it, that they would inevitably break down, and breakdown in just the wrong place, at least the wrong place if you had a wife who couldn’t drive or help in that department and three screaming, bawling tow-headed boys who wanted to get wherever it was we were going, and get there-now.

I swear on those old battered crooked-heeled, peek-a-boo soled shoes that I told you about that this must have happened just about every time we were going on a trip, or getting ready to go on a trip, or thinking about going on a trip. So now you know what I was up against when I say that when I was a kid. Like I already told you before, in some other dream fragment, I was an easy target to be “pieced off” with a couple of spoonfuls of Kennedy's potato salad when things like that happened. Or some other easy “bought off” when the “car” joke of the month died again and there wasn’t any money to get it fixed right away and we couldn’t go more than a few miles. I blew my stack plenty and righteously so, don't you think.

So let me tell you about this one time , this one summer time, August I think , maybe in 1956, when we did have a car, some kind of grey Plymouth sedan from about 1947, that year seems to always come up when car year numbers come to mind, like I said before. Or maybe it was a converted tank from the war for all I know, it kind of felt like that sitting in the back seat because as the middle boy I never got to ride “shot gun” up front with Dad so I bore the brunt of the bumps, shakes, blimps, and slips in the back. I do know I never felt anything better than being nothing but always queasy back there.

This one, this beauty of a grey Plymouth sedan, I can remember very well, always had some major internal engine-type problem , or telltale oil- spilling on the ground in the morning, or a clutch-not-working right, when real cars had clutches not this automatic stuff, making a grinding sound that you could hear about half way around the world, but you will have to ask some who knows a lot more about cars about than I do for the real mechanical problems. Anyway this is the chariot that is going to get us out of “the projects” and away from that fiery, no breathe “projects” sun for a few hours as we started off on one of our family-famous outings to old Treasure Island down at the Merymount end of Wollaston Beach, about four or five miles from “the projects”, no more. It was hot as blazes that day that’s for sure, with no wind, no air, and it was one of those days, always one of those days, you could smell the sickly sweet fragrant coming from over the Proctor and Gamble soap factory across the channel on the Fore River side.

We got the old heap loaded with all the known supplies necessary for a “poor man’s” barbecue in those days. You know those cheap plastic lawn chairs from Grossman’s or Raymond’s or one of those discount stores before they had real discount stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart, a few old worn-out blankets fresh from night duty on our beds, some resurrected threadbare towels that were already faded in about 1837 from the six thousand washings that kids put even the most resilient towel through in a short time, the obligatory King’s charcoal briquettes, including that fear-provoking, smelly lighter fluid you needed to light them with in those barbaric days before gas-saturated instant-lite charcoal. For food: hot dogs, blanched white-dough rolls, assorted condiments, a cooler with various kinds of tonic (aka soda, for the younger reader) and ice cream. Ya, and some beach toys, including a pail and shovel because today, of all days, I am bound and determined to harvest some clams across the way from the park on Wollaston beach at low tide just like I’d seen all kinds of guys doing every time we went there so that we can have a real outing. I can see and hear them boiling in that percolating, turbulent, swirling grey-white water in the steaming kettle already.

All of this stuff, of course, is packed helter-skelter in our “designer” Elm Farms grocery store paper shopping bags that we made due with to carry stuff around in, near or far. Hey, don’t laugh you did too, didn’t you? And what about hamburgers you say, right? No, no way, that cut of meat was too pricey. It wasn’t until much later when I was a teenage and invited to someone else’s family-famous barbecue that I knew that those too were a staple, I swear. I already told you I was the “official” procurer of the Kennedy’s potato salad in another dream fragment so I don’t need to tell you about that delicacy again, okay?

And we are off, amazingly, this time for one of the few time in family-recorded history without the inevitable- “who knows where it started or who started it” -incident, one of a whole universe of possible incidents that almost always delayed our start every time our little clan moved from point A to point B. Even a small point A to point B like this venture. So everything was okay, just fine all the way up that single way out of “the projects”, Palmer Street, until we got going on Sea Street, a couple of miles out, then the heap started choking, crackling, burping, sneezing, hiccuping, smoking and croaking and I don’t know what else. We tumbled out of the car, with me already getting ready to do my, by now, finely tuned “fume act” that like I told you got a work-out ever time one of these misadventures rolled around, and pulled out every thing we could with us.

Ma , then knowingly, said we would have to go back home because even she knew the car was finished. I, revolutionary that I was back then, put my foot down and said no we could walk to Treasure Island, it wasn’t far. I don’t know if I can convey, or if I should convey to you, the holy hell that I raised to get my way that day. And I did a united front with my two brothers, who, usually, ignored me and I ignored them at this point in our family careers. Democracy, of a sort , ruled. Or maybe poor Ma just got worn out from our caterwauling. In any case, we abandoned a few things with my father, including that pail and shovel that was going to provide us with a gourmet’s delight of boiled clams fresh from the now mythical sea, and started our trek with the well-known basics-food and utensils and toys and chairs and, and…

Let me cut to the chase here a little. Of course I have to tell you about our route and about how your humble tour director got the bright idea that we could take a short cut down Chickatawbut Street. (This is a real street, look it up. I used to use it every time I wanted to ride my bike over to Grandma’s on Young Street in North Quincy.) The idea of said "smart guy" tour director was to get a breeze, a little breeze while we are walking with our now heavy loads by cutting onto Shore Avenue near the Merrymount Yacht Club. The problem is that, in search of breeze or of no breeze, this way is longer, much longer for three young boys and a dragged out mama. Well,the long and short of it is have you ever heard of the “Bataan Death March” during World War II. If you haven’t, look it up on “Wikipedia.” Those poor, bedeviled guys had nothing on us by the time, late afternoon we got to our destination. We were beat, beat up, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday, beat every way a human being can be beat. Did I say beat? Oh ya, I did. But Ma, sensing our three murderous hearts by then, got the charcoals burning in one of the fireplaces they provided back then, and maybe they still do. And we were off to the races.

Hey, do you really need to know about mustard and relish crammed char-broiled hot dogs or my brother’s strange ketchup-filled one on white-breaded, nasty-tasting hot dog rolls that we got cheap from Elm Farms or maybe it was First National, or my beloved Kennedy’s potato salad that kind of got mashed up in the mess up or "Hires" root beer, or "Nehi" grape, or "Nehi" orange or store–bought boxed ice cream, maybe, "Sealtest" harlequin (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all together, see), except melted. Or those ever- present roasted marshmallow that stuck to the roof of my mouth. You’ve been down that road yourselves so you don’t need me for a guide. And besides I’m starting to get sleepy after a long day. But as tired, dusty, and dirty as I am just telling this story… Ah, Treasure Island.

***Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #1, Circa 1955

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Paragon Park down at Nantasket Beach. Once again, thanks Internet.

Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:

It’s funny how working now, on one thing or another, will bring back those childhood hurts, those feelings sealed, or is it seared, so deep in memory that one does not expect them to resurface for love or money, although this little piece did not start out that way and probably won’t finish up that way either. This “dream” started off from seeing, a few months ago, an unexpected and fairly unusual surname of a fellow female elementary school classmate innocently listed in an off-hand, indirect North Quincy Internet connection. The very sight of that name triggered a full-blown elementary school “romantic” daydream, from my days down at the old Germantown “projects” where I came of age, that blossomed into a pining prose sonnet that would have made Shakespeare blush. I’ll tell you about that one sometime, but not now.

That flashback, in turn, got me into a fierce sea-faring dreaming, rolling-logged, oil-slicked, ocean water on three sides, stone-throwing Germantown mood that turned into a screed on the trials and tribulations of growing to manhood in the shadows of tepid old Wollaston Beach. And that, naturally enough, triggered a quick remembrance of too infrequent family barbecue outings as the old Treasure Island (now named after a fallen Marine, Cady, if I recall correctly). At least I think that was the name in those days. That’s what we called it anyway, down at the Merrymount end of the beach. You know where I mean, you probably had your family memory barbecue outings there too, as least some of them. But enough of that background let me tell you what I really want to talk about, the tricks that parents used to use, and still do, to get their way. The story isn’t pretty or for the faint of heart.

I swear I knew, and I am pretty sure that I knew for certain early on when I was just a half-pint kid myself, that kids, especially younger kids, could be “bought off” by their parents and easily steered away from what they really wanted to do, or really wanted to have, by a mere trifle. Probably you got wise to the routine early too. Still, it’s ridiculous how easily we were “pieced off”, wise as we were, and I firmly believe that there should have been, and there should be now, something like the rules of engagement that govern civilized behavior in war time written out in the Geneva Conventions against that form of behavior by mothers and fathers. After all what is childhood, then or now, except one long, very long, battle between two very unevenly matched sides with kids, then and now, just trying to do the best they can in a world that they didn’t create, and that they didn’t get a say in creating.

I learned this little nugget of “wisdom” from battle-tested, many times losing, keep- in-there-swinging, never-say-die, first-hand experience, although I guess I might have been a little too thin-skinned and have been too quick to feel slighted about it at the time to really focus in on its meaning. I know that you learned this home truth this way as well whether you got onto the scam early on or no. Sure, I could be bought off, I am not any better than the rest of you on that score, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t nurse many a grievance to right those wrongs(and, incidentally, plotted many a feverish revenge, in my head at least, some of them, if impractical, pretty exquisitely drawn).

Sometimes it was just a word, sometimes literally just one word, usually a curt, cutting, razor-edged one from Ma that sent you reeling for cover ready to put up the white flag, if you ever even got that chance. Sometimes it was a certain look, a look that said “don’t go there”. And, maybe, depending how you were feeling, you did and maybe you didn’t, go there that is. Hell, sometimes it could even be a mere inside-the family-meaningful side-long glance, a glance from Ma, a thing from her eye, her left one usually, brow slightly arched, that said "case closed", and forget about the pretense behind the “don’t go there” look, which at least gave you the dignity of having the opportunity to put up a little fight no manner the predetermined ending. Sometimes though, and this is hard to “confess” fifty years later and ten thousand, thousand other experiences later, that lady switched up on us and "pieced" us off with some honey-coated little thing. That damn honey-coated thing, that “good” thing standing right in front of full-blown evil, or what passed for that brand of evil in those days, is what this dream fragment is all about.

Now don’t tell me you don’t know what I am talking about in the Ma wars, and don’t even try to tell me it wasn’t usually Ma who ran point on the “no” department when you went on the offensive for some thing you wanted to have, or some place you wanted to go, especially when “desperately” was attached to the "have" or to the "go" part. No, just don’t do it. Dad, Pa, Father, whatever you called him, was held in ready-reserve for when the action got hot and heavy. Maybe, in your family, your father was the point man but from what I have learned over the last couple of years about our parents from information that I have gathered from some of you that was a wasted strategy. We were that easy. No need for the big guns, because our ever-lovin’, hard-working, although maybe distant, fathers were doing what fathers do. Provide, or go to the depths in that struggle to provide. Ma was for mothering and running interference. That was that. Thems were the rules then, if not now. The main thing was the cards were stacked against us because what we really didn't know was they were really working as a team, one way or another. In any case, I don’t have time to dilly-dally over their strategies as I have got to move on here.

See, here is what you don’t know. Yet. Those family trips to old Treasure Island, whether they were taken from down in Germantown or later, in North Quincy, as they tapered off when we three boys (my two brothers, one a little younger one a little older, and me) got too big to pretend that we really wanted to go, were really the ‘booby prize’ for not going to places like Paragon Park down in Nantasket or down to Plymouth Rock or, Christ, any place that would be a change of scenery from claptrap Germantown. Of course, the excuse was always the same-dad was too tired to drive after working some killer hours at some dirty old dead-end job, or one of a succession of old, hand-me-down, barely running jalopies (and I am being kind here, believe me) wasn’t running, or running well enough to make the trip, or something else that meant we couldn’t go some place.

Ya, that was all right for public consumption but here is the real reason; no dough, plain and simple. Why Ma and Dad just didn’t tell us that their circumstances were so tight that spending a couple of dollars on the roller coaster (which I didn’t care about anyway), or playing “Skeets” (which I did care about), or getting cotton-candy stuck every which way (which I didn’t care about), or riding the Wild Mouse (cared about) would break the bank I will never know. Or the extra gas money. Or the extra expense of whatever. How do I know. All I knew is that we weren’t going. Period.

But, here, finally, is where the simple “bought off” comes in, although I really should have been more resolute in my anger at not going and held out for better terms. Such is the fate of young mortals, I guess. My mother, and this was strictly between me and my mother as most things were in those days, dangled the prospect of having some of Kennedy’s potato salad in front of my face. You remember Kennedy’s, right? If you don’t then the rest of this thing is going to come as less that the “Book of Revelation”. Or ask your parents, or grandparent. There was one in Quincy Square about half way down Hancock Street on the old South Shore Bank side and there was one in Norfolk Downs almost to the corner of Hancock Street and Billings Road next to the old A&P. I am not sure, and someone can help me on this, whether it was called Kennedy’s Food Shop, or Deli, or whatever but it had the best potato salad around. And fresh ground peanut butter, and sweet fragrant coffee smells, and… But I will get to describing that that some other time. Right now I am deciding whether I can be bought off or not. Yes, shamefacedly, I can and here is the closer -I can even go to Kennedy's and get it myself. What do you think about that? From then on I became the “official” Kennedy’s boy of the family. Did I sell out too cheaply? No way.

***The "Projects" Boys... And Girls-For Dennis Volpe, Class Of 1964

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing Jersey Girl

"Ain't Got No Time For The Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise"- The first line from Bruce Springsteen's classic working class love song, Jersey Girl. Although the best version of song is Tom Waits' that you can link to on YouTube above. Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:

Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, and Snug Harbor School. Yes, those names and places from the old housing project down in Germantown surely evoke imagines of the sea, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Quincy has to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.

Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind. No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.

Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor and Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs. The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street, another lifeline. Many a time I reached in Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small larcenies, in order to hike down and get my sugar-drenched stash.

And the kids. Well, the idea in those days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turnover of friends but there was a core of kids, like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and thems were the rules. I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With classmate Rickie B. (who, later, served twenty years for a series of armed robberies) I worked my first "clip" in some downtown Quincy jewelry store. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting went south on him). But that was then, right?

Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires, and annual Halloween hooliganism... Hey, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening". Girls. And being ill at ease around them, and being a moonstruck kid, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you. And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects". And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Snug Harbor School. And one summer I just started to read every biography they had in the Children's section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale.


Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics

Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.

'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And i'll take you all on the rides.

Down the shore everything's alright,
You're with your baby on a saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When i'm walkin' down the street with you,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.

You know she thrills me with all her charms,
When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,
My little angel gives me everything,
I know someday that she'll wear my ring.

So don't bother me cause i got no time,
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,
Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,
When you're in love with a jersey girl,
Sing sha la la la la la la.

And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,
Sha la la la la la la.

***On “The Long March” From North- For Linda, Class of 1964

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing "Whole Lotta Shaking Goin' On"

Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:
No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind or our trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North those many years ago. We have been done that road before in this space and, moreover, this is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. Nor is it to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, “Red Star Over China”. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North over to Atlantic Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade.

Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the Classmates or North Quincy Alumni class lists that I could by any stretch of the imagination call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the ‘skinny’:

"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on any class-related Internet site that I could find. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 “Manet", but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.

The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. This year, as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to Atlantic Junior High (now Middle School) are marking our 50th anniversary since graduation. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from North over to Atlantic when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Quincy in the spring of 1959 so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the message boards on your own.

And what if you decide not to cooperate. Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Wollaston Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Al Johnson

Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics

Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)

Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.

Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)

Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn
Come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

(Talking break) Easy now. Shake.
Ah, shake it baby
Yeah, you can shake it one time for me

Yeah-huh-huh-ha-ha, Come along my baby,
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

(Talking break) Now let's get down real low one time now
Shake, baby, shake
All you gotta do, honey, is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit, that's what you got
Yeah, come on baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Now let's go one time
Shake it baby, shake, shake it baby, shake
Woo, shake baby, come on baby, shake it, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lot-ta sha-kin' go-in' on.

***For Margaret G.-In Lieu Of A Letter- The Class of 1964 Somewhere

Click on the headline to link to The Literature Networks online copy of Edgar Allen Poe's, Ullalume. Sorry, the Mayakovsky poem that I followed in writing the post below is not available in English on the Internet. Poe's poem gives the dreamy mood I was trying to evoke, though.

Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:

I make no claim to any literary originality. I will shamelessly ‘steal’ any idea, or half-idea that catches my fancy in order to make my point. That is the case today, as I go back in time to my elementary school days down at the old Snug Harbor Elementary School in Germantown. Part of the title for today’s entry and the central idea that I want to express is taken from a poem by the great Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky.

So what do a poet who died in 1930 and a moonstruck kid from the Germantown projects, growing up haphazardly in 1950s Quincy, have in common? We have both been thrown back, unexpectedly, to childhood romantic fantasies of the “girl who got away”. In my case, Margaret G., as the title to this entry indicates. I do not remember what triggered Mayakovsky’s memories but mine have been produced via an indirect NQHS Internet connection seeing her last name mentioned on a profile page. In this instance, damn the Internet. I do not know the fate of Margaret G., although I fervently hope that life has worked out well for her. This I do know. For the time that it will take to write this entry I return to being a smitten, unhappy boy.

Mayakovsky would, of course, now dazzle us with his intoxicating use of language, stirring deep thoughts in us about his unhappy fate. I will plod along prosaically, as is my fate. Through the dust of time, sparked by that Internet prod, I have hazy, dreamy memories of the demure Margaret G., mainly as seemed from afar through furtive glances in the old schoolyard at Snug Harbor (which is today in very much the same condition as back then) . This is a very appealing memory, to be sure, of a fresh, young girl full of hopes and dreams, and who knows what else.

But a more physical description is in order that befits the ‘real time’ of my young ‘romance’ fantasies. Margaret G. strongly evoked in me a feeling of softness, soft as the cashmere sweaters that she wore and that reflected the schoolgirl fashion of those seemingly sunnier days. And she almost always wore a slight suggestion of a smile, working its way through a full-lipped mouth. And had a voice, just turning away from girlishness to womanhood, which spoke of future conquests. I should also say that her hair… But enough of this. This is now getting all mixed up with adult dreams of childhood. Let the fact of fifty plus years remembrances speak to her charms.

Did I ‘love’ Margaret G.? That is a silly thought for a bashful, ill-at-ease, ragamuffin of a project boy and a ‘princess’ who never uttered two words, if that, to each other, ever. Did I ‘want’ Margaret G.? Come on now, that is the stuff of adult dreams. Did Margaret G. disturb my sleep? Well, yes, she was undoubtedly the subject of more than one chaste dream, although perhaps not so innocent at that. But know this. Time may bury many childhood wounds but there are not enough medicines, not enough bandages on this good, green earth to stanch some of them. So let’s just leave it at that. Or rather, as this. For the moment it takes to finish this note I am an unhappy man and… maybe, for longer.

***A Coming Of Age Story- For the Snug Harbor Elementary School Class Of 1958

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and the Comets performing Rock Around The Clock.

Al Johnson, Class of 1964, comment:

Originally posted June 2008.

I have my history hat on again today. For those who can stand to know this information the members of the Class of 1964 this year are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our graduation from elementary school. What better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane. Those days were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, but I have one that I have not forgotten to this day. I note that I graduated from Snug Harbor Elementary School in Quincy and am a product of the Germantown housing project.

At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably suppose to learn to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks- the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. In my case the dancing part turned out to be the basics of square dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy ten-year-old boy have to do the basic 'swing your partner' but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with a girl that I had a 'crush' on. That girl, moreover, was not from 'the projects' but from one of the new single-family homes that the up and coming middle class were moving into up the road. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it that her name was Rosalind. Enchanting name, right? Nothing special about the story so far, though. Just your average one of the stages of coming of age story. I wish.

Well, the long and short of it was that we were practicing this square dancing to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosalind, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square dancer look.

I thought I looked pretty good. That is until my mother saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity. Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father heard about it when he got home, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosalind.

Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Surely, not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. .......But, oh, Rosalind.


Rock Around The Clock Song Lyrics from Bill Haley

One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.

Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.