He, Peter Paul Markin, had returned in 2007, while on some unrelated business in the area, to the neighborhood where he grew up, old time North Adamsville just outside of Boston. The neighborhood was (is) one of those old working-class neighborhoods, the old inner suburbs long gone to seed, long past its industrial- centered usefulness in its losing battle (ship-building) to the “race to the bottom” global economy. Also filled with every kind of cheap jack strip mall and excess fast food joint, and where the houses are small, cramped and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless back in the day reflected, and still reflected a certain shabby gentility, humbly displaying the desire of the working poor in the 1950s, his parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off to decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. The hellish fate of those cross-town denizens of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (“the projects”) that his family had, just barely, escaped from as he came of age.
While there in the old neighborhood he happened upon an old neighbor who recognized him despite the fact that he had not seen her, Maude Brady to give her a proper name, for at least thirty years. Since she had grown up and had lived there continuously, marrying and raising three children , then taking over sole ownership of the family house upon the death of her parents , he inquired about the fate of various people that he had grown up with. She, as is usually the case in such circumstances, had a wealth of information about how Billy, a boy she had prudently turned down for a date, was serving a twenty strength for armed robbery, about how Lannie, a girl that he, Peter Paul, had more than a passing interest in, had had a couple of kids out of wedlock with a married man who would not divorce his wife. A couple of good reports as well about how her Johnny had made the grade and was now on the Adamsville Police Department and how her Susan worked nights at the Adamsville Medical Center as a nurse-practitioner. The usual proud parent stuff, harmless,
But one story in particular cut him to the quick. Peter Paul had asked about a boy named Kenny, Kenny Callahan, who was a couple of years younger than him was but who he was very close to until his teenage years. Kenny, who lived down at the bottom of Glover Street kitty-corner from his own street, used to tag along with his crowd until, as teenagers will do, he made it clear that Kenny was no longer welcome being ‘too young’ to hang around with the older boys, the corner boys, led by one pinball wizard Frankie Larkin, the king hell king of the North Adamsville High School night. And “owner” of the coveted Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner spot all through high school. But the details of that story are for another day as this is Kenny’s story, not Frankie’s.
The long and the short of it was that Kenny found other friends of his own age to hang with, one in particular from down my street, Maple Street, named Jimmy. He had only a nodding acquaintance with both thereafter. As happened more often than not during the 1960’s in working class neighborhoods all over the country, especially with kids who were not academically inclined, when Jimmy came of age he faced the draft or the alternative of ‘volunteering’ for military service. He enlisted. Kenny, for a number of valid medical reasons, was 4-F (unqualified for military service). Of course, you know what is coming. Jimmy was sent to Vietnam where he was killed in 1968 at the age of 20. His name is one of the 58,000 plus that are etched on that Vietnam Memorial Wall down in Washington. His story ends there. Unfortunately, Kenny’s just begins.
Kenny took Jimmy’s death hard. Harder, as Maude related some of the more public details, than one can possibly imagine. The early details are rather sketchy but they may have involved illegal drug use. Hell, they, including Peter Paul, all knew about drugs, had at the least experienced and experimented with some of them, along with almost all the other member of “youth nation,” circa the 1960s. But Kenny went overboard apparently, way overboard.
Kenny’s overt manifestations were reflected in a flare –up of acts of petty crime and then anti-social acts like pulling fire alarms and walking naked down the street. At some point he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Peter Paul, when he later checked up on that particular mental illness and its causes, said he made no pretense of having adequate knowledge about the causes of mental illnesses but someone he trusted has told him that such a traumatic event as Jimmy’s death could trigger the condition in young adults.
In any case, the institutionalizations inevitably began. And later the halfway houses, and all the other forms of social control for those who cannot survive on the mean streets of this wicked old world on their own. Apparently, with drugs and therapy, there were periods of calm but for over three decades poor Kenny struggled with his inner demons. In the end the demons won and he died a few years ago while in a mental hospital.
Certainly this is not a happy story, and Maude rather steely in talking about Billy and some other local desperadoes, was always on the edge of tears in relating this story. Perhaps, Peter Paul thought later, aside from the specific details, this was not even an unusual one in modern times. Nevertheless he now counted Kenny as one of the uncounted casualties of war. Along with those physically wounded soldiers who can back from Vietnam service unable to cope with their own demons and sought solace in drugs and alcohol. And those, who for other reasons, could no adjust and found themselves on the streets, in the half way shelters or the V. A. hospitals. And also those grieving parents and other loved ones whose lives were shattered and broken by the loss of their children. There is no wall in Washington for Kenny or them. But, maybe there should be. As for poor childhood Kenny, Kenny Callahan, from the old neighborhood- Rest in Peace.
#2-The Old Neighborhood Buries One of Its Own
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
As a matter of historical record for much of the first half of the 20th century January was traditionally the month to honor fallen working class leaders like Lenin, Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. That tradition still goes on, however, more in the European working class movement than here in America. January, however, can and should also be a time to honor other working class people, those down at the base, as well. Here in its proper place is another about a fallen daughter of the working-class who died in January 2008.
In early 2007 Peter Paul Markin went searching for his roots in his old North Adamsville working class neighborhood where he grew up, grew up to manhood. One of the stories he had related to him after some inquiries to an old-time resident still struggling to get by there was about Kenny, Kenny Callahan, an old childhood friend who got caught up in a bad situation. The gist of that story has been told in the previous sketch. But there were more, more stories.
Maybe it was age, maybe it was memory, maybe it was the need at that late date to gain a sense of roots but that return back in time and place haunted Peter Paul for a long afterwards. (I know he would return to the subject, sometimes out of the blue, on many subsequent talking occasions.) He, moreover, had gone back gone back a couple of times after that to hear more of what had happened to those in the old neighborhood from a woman who continued to live there and had related the above-mentioned story to him. This one is about the fate of his childhood friend Kenny's mother Margaret. Read it and weep.
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Peter Paul had, as mentioned, lost track of Kenny who as he reached maturity took the death of a friend, Jimmy Jackman, who died in Vietnam in 1968 very hard. Harder than one could have even imagined. The early details were rather sketchy but they may have involved drug use. The overt manifestations were acts of petty crime and then anti-social acts like pulling fire alarms and walking naked down the street. At some point Kenny was diagnosed as schizophrenic. The institutionalizations inevitably began. And subsequently, almost naturally, the halfway houses and all the other forms of control for those who cannot survive on the mean streets of the world on their own kicked in. Apparently, with drugs and therapy, there were periods of calm but for over three decades poor Kenny struggled with his inner demons. In the end the demons won and he died a few years ago while in a mental hospital.
Needless to say Kenny’s problems were well beyond his mother and father’s ability to comprehend or control. His father, like Peter Paul’s, had had a limited education and meager work prospects. In short, there were no private resources for Kenny so he, and they, were thus consigned to endure public institutionalization schemes. The shame of this inability to provide for one’s own, among other things, led to his father’s early death many, many years ago. His mother, strong Irish Catholic working- class woman that she was, thereafter shouldered the burden by herself until Kenny’s death. The private and public horrors and humiliations that such care entailed must have taken a toll on her most of us could not stand. Apparently in the end it got to her as well as she let her physical appearance go downhill, she became more reclusive, and she turned in on herself reverting in conversation to dwelling on happier times as a young married woman in the mid-1940s.
Kenny’s woes, however, as Peter Paul later found out were only part of this sad story. Kenny had two older brothers whom he did not really know well because they were not around. Part of that reason was they were in and out of trouble or one sort or another. Trouble with a big “T,” that spelled some prison time, or times. Peter Paul’s neighborhood historian Maude Brady related to him that at some point both sons had dropped out of sight and had not been seen by their mother for over thirty years. They were presumed to be dead or that is the story Margaret told Maude. In any case, after Kenny’s death Margaret’s health, or really her will to live, went downhill fairly rapidly. Unable, or unwilling, to care for herself she was finally placed in a nursing home where she died in January 2008. Only a very few attended her funeral (and no sons) and her memory is probably forgotten by all except Peter Paul and his historian friend.
Peter Paul Markin, after relating this story to me, tried to draw, as is his wont, some “lessons” from its telling. He is a proudly a working- class political person. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. He asked -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, came his rather quick answer, but he swore that when we build the new society that this country and this world needs we will not let the Kennys of the world be shunted off to the side. And we will not let the Margarets of the world, our working- class mothers, die alone and forgotten. As for Kenny and Margaret may they rest in peace.
#3 -History and Class Consciousness
Despite the highly theoretical sounding title of this sketch it is really a part of the very prosaic working class story that Peter Paul had described to me in several conversations concerning a visit to his old coming of age North Adamsville working class neighborhood. They detailed the fate of a working class family, his boyhood friend Kenny and the Callahan family, from his old neighborhood. Let me continue the tale.
Kenny’s woes, as Peter Paul found out a few years back, were only part of this sad story about the fate of Margaret and James's sons. Kenny had two older brothers, James, Jr. and Francis, whom he did not really know well because they were not around. Part of the reason for that was they were in and out of trouble or one sort or another and were not around the neighborhood much. The neighborhood historian mentioned that at some point both sons had dropped out of sight and had not been seen by their mother for over thirty years. They were (are) presumed to be dead or that was the story Margaret had told the historian. Peter Paul told Maude that if he had time at some point he would try to track down what happened to them and then we would have a five-part story. At that point I will surely need the literary resources of someone like James T. Farrell in his Studs Lonigan trilogy for guidance.
For now, however, let me continue with Kenny’s father James’s fate. His historian friend told him that James and Peter Paul’s father when they were young married men were very, very close buddies, something that he was totally unaware of. Thick as thieves as the old neighborhood adage went. Apparently they liked to go drinking together, when they could afford it. Nothing startling there. He did find it odd though that a South Boston-raised Irishman and his father, a Kentucky-raised hillbilly, hit it off. However, as James lost control over the behavior of his sons he became more morose and more introverted. At this point their long friendship faded away.
James, apparently, was like many another Irish father. His sons, good or bad, were his world. Hell, they were his sons and that was all that mattered. They were to be forgiven virtually anything except the bringing of shame on the household. Peter Paul knew the intricacies and absurdities of that shame culture from his own Irish mother. The boys in their various ways nevertheless did bring shame to the household. Kenny we know about. It is hard to tell but from what the Maude the historian related to him for James, Jr. and Francis there were bouts of petty and latter grand thievery and other troubles with the law. She was vague in her recollections here although crimes, great and small, were not uncommon in the neighborhood. The old ironic saying in the neighborhood that a man’s son was destined to be either a thief or a priest ran truer here than one might have thought.
Well, the long and short of it is that James started to have severe physical problems, particularly heart problems and had trouble holding a steady job. In the end the shock of his sons' disappearances without a word literally broke his heart. Anything, but not abandonment. His end, as the Maude related the details, was not pretty and he suffered greatly.
As I related in an earlier sketch Peter Paul is a working- class politician. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. As he has asked previously at this point in relating the other parts of the story -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, he did not think so but this family’s saga of turning in on itself in the absence of some greater purpose and solution goes a long way to explaining why down at the base of society we have never had as much as nibble of independent working class political consciousness expressed in this country. That, my friends, is why this saga can aptly be entitled history and class-consciousness, but let us put them in small letters. As for Kenny, Margaret and James may they rest in peace.
#4- Markin Takes A Turn As Neighborhood Historian
Despite the somewhat academic- sounding title of this commentary this is really a part of the very prosaic working class story that I have written about previously in several earlier sketches about Peter Paul Markin’s old working class neighborhood. commentaries. in this space. This is the fourth part of what, as I will explain in the next paragraph, now has now turned into a five part saga of the fate of a family from the old working class neighborhood that he grew up in. Let me continue that tale.
In the previous sketch about the fate of Peter Paul’s childhood friend Kenny’s father I mentioned that if Peter Paul had time he would try to find out the fates of Kenny’s two long missing older brothers, James, Jr. and Francis, who had not been heard from by the family in over thirty years. His invaluable neighborhood historian Maude had related to him that Kenny’s recently deceased mother, Margaret, had assumed they were dead, or that is what she told Maude. Peter Paul had become so intrigued by this family’s story that he had made time to dig deeper into it. Now he knows about both of their fates. They, in any case, were not dead.
In detecting information about the whereabouts of the two brothers did Peter Paul need to be a super sleuth? No. Did he need to spend hours poring over documents? No. He has, on more than one occasion, railed against the information superhighway as a substitute for political organizing. But he now admits that for finding public records that lead one to missing people it cannot be beat. That source, and using the old telephone, did yeoman’s service here. He thus found the brothers, or at first the whereabouts of the oldest one James, Jr. whom he interviewed and who had promised Peter Paul in his own cryptic way to lead him to his younger brother Francis. Francis’s story will finish this series of sketches.
Peter Paul found James, Jr. (hereafter, just James) living alone in a seedy, rundown rooming house in a transitional Boston neighborhood. Strangely, James was more than willing to talk to him about his life and family although he was only vaguely aware of Peter Paul’s family, except that he remembered that he was somewhat political. His story, in general outline, is not an unfamiliar one, at least not to me.
Early on James got into petty crime and then more serious crime. As a teenager during the early part of the Vietnam War era, after dropping out of school despite having previously been something of an honors student, he got into enough trouble that he was given a choice by the court system to ‘volunteer’ for military duty or go to jail. He took the military service, for a while. Given orders to Vietnam, he went AWOL not for any political reason but just, as he said, “because.” Later, after time in a military stockade and a civilian jail (for other, unrelated acts) James got ‘religion’-that is he figured the percentages of keeping up his then current “lifestyle” did not add up to a long and happy life.
Based on that street wisdom James became a drifter, grifter and midnight sifter (his words) but stayed on the legal side of the line. The inevitable failed marriages, lost jobs and financial problems as a result of such a lifestyle followed, in their seemingly monotonously natural course. This harsh lifestyle, moreover, ultimately wore down his psychological capacities and at some point he was diagnosed as clinically depressed, unable to hold a steady job and was put on welfare. He has subsisted at various times on day labor wages, welfare of one sort or another, and handouts ever since. That pretty much sums up the balance of his life for our purposes here.
Now, about the question that must be on the reader’s mind, as it surely was on mine. What in James’s biography warrants going underground from one’s family for over thirty years? The answer James gave-shame. James just flat out got tired of taking a psychological beating every time his mother, Margaret, berated him in his early youth for some seemingly trivial mistake. To not have to deal with that, as he started to get into real trouble, James just walked away from his family. His rationale was that if they did not know about it then he was doing them a favor. Strange reasoning, perhaps. However, I too know, and perhaps you do also, the wrath of an irate mother when she gets into the shaming ritual. I faced that more than one time myself. It is not pretty. And I consider my mother something of a saint! James may have stayed away too long and, in the end, broke his father’s heart, but I found nothing inherently absurd about his response. We all face our demons in our own particular ways.
I make no claims that James's is a typical working -class story. It is not. Nor is this a typical working- class family saga. But there are just enough of the pathologies that I have over a lifetime of observation noted about working- class existence to make the story serve my purpose. It can serve as a descriptive, if not, cautionary tale about the plight of working people in modern American society. Think about it that way, if you will.
Peter Paul commented, off-handedly, in sketch #3 that at a point where he had been successful in locating the two older brothers he would surely need the literary talents of someone like James T. Farrell in his “Studs Lonigan” trilogy for guidance. That has proven to not be necessary as this is a most ordinary story. What this story really calls for is the skills of someone like the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, or better yet a Lenin, to try to analyze and to generalize how a couple of fairly smart working -class kids like James and his brother turned the wrong way and in the end turned inward rather than become class fighters. It needs an appraisal of how the transmission belt of working class political consciousness that broke down in our fathers’ generation (the so-called “greatest generation” that survived the Great Depression and fought World War II) remained broken in the baby-boomer generation (our generation, the generation of ’68). There is thus something of a ‘lost’ political generation after ours that is not there to give guidance now that today’s youth look like they, at least some of them, are ready to “storm heaven.”
As I have noted before Peter Paul is a working class politician. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. As he has asked previously in relating the other parts of the story -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, he did not think so but this family’s saga of turning in on itself in the absence of some greater purpose and solution goes a long way to explaining why down at the base of society we have never had as much as nibble of independent working class political consciousness expressed in this country. Think about that.
Story#5-And the tin pan bended... and the story ended
The title of this sketch takes its name from what turned out to be the late folksinger and folk historian Dave Van Ronk’s last album. This seems as an appropriate last title as any for the twists and turns of this series. Despite Van Ronk’s alliterative title this is really a very prosaic working class story that I have written about in several earlier sketches above. This is the fifth and final part of what, as I will relate in the next paragraph, has now turned into a saga of the fate of a working class family from Peter Paul’s’ old neighborhood. Let me finish the tale.
In part three of this story, History and Class Consciousness (hereafter, History), about the fate of Peter Paul’s childhood friend Kenny’s father, James, he mentioned that if he had time he would try to find out the fates of Kenny’s two long missing older brothers, James and Francis, who had not been heard from by the family in over thirty years. He had become so intrigued by this family’s story that he had made time to dig deeper into it.
During Peter Paul’s interview with James he was somewhat mysterious in his agreement to get him in touch with Francis. He thus expected that Francis’s story would be similar to James’ (or even more depressing than his). That was entirely not the case. Apparently Francis is to be considered the 'success' of the family. Peter Paul mentioned in the last part that he found James to be smart, if more on the street side than academically. Well, Francis seemed to have traversed both sides. He had interviewed him in a law office in Boston, his law office.
Somewhere along the way Francis figured out faster than James and with somewhat more determination that unless your heart is totally into it a life of crime just takes too much energy. But here is the odd part. He had total recall of Peter Paul as a kid, including his politics. He even remembered something that Peter Paul had not-he was his “captain” in canvassing for John F. Kennedy for President in 1960. I have not been sworn to secrecy by Peter Paul and I checked out the information independently so that I can add that today he is a fairly influential, if not widely known, member of the Massachusetts Democratic Party establishment.
That poses two questions. The first and obvious one, that Peter Paul also posed when he interviewed James, is one that must be on the reader’s mind, as it surely was on mine. What in this biographic sketch warrants going underground from one’s family for over thirty years? Francis answered that unless he got a fresh, totally fresh, start that he would have wound up like his brother James. Fair enough. Moreover he just flat out got tired of taking a psychological beating every time his mother, Margaret, berated him in his early youth for some seemingly trivial mistake.
To not have to deal with that as Francis started to get into real trouble he just walked away from his family. His rationale, like his brother's was that if they did not know about it then he was doing them a favor. Again, strange reasoning, perhaps. However, I know, and perhaps you do also, the wrath of an Irish mother when she gets into the shaming ritual. I faced that more than one time myself. It is not pretty. Francis may have stayed away too long and, in the end, coldly broke his father’s heart, but there is nothing absurd about his response. We all face our demons in our own particular ways.
The second question is why, if he were so politically knowledgeable and alienated, did he become, from Peter Paul’s political perspective, a class traitor. As mentioned above Francis knew that Peter Paul had gone ‘commie’ so that was no big deal to him but here is where the cautionary tale for working class kids comes in- he saw his best chance of advancement for himself by working his way up the Democratic Party hierarchy. This, my friends, is ultimately the problem we have to deal with if we are ever to get our own workers party with some bite. The Francis types that clutter the American political landscape can be had but not until we have leverage.
Peter Paul commented, off-handedly, in an earlier sketch that at a point where he had been successful in locating the two older brothers that I would surely need the literary talents of someone like James T. Farrell in his Studs Lonigan trilogy for guidance. That has proven to not be necessary as this is a most ordinary story. What this story really calls for is the skills of someone like the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, or better yet a Lenin, to try to analyze and to generalize how a couple of fairly smart working class kids turned the wrong way and in the end turned inward rather than become class fighters.
It, further, needs an appraisal of how the transmission belt of working class political consciousness that broke down in our fathers’ generation (the so-called “greatest generation” that survived the Great Depression and fought World War II) remains broken in the baby-boomer generation (our generation, the generation of ’68). There is thus something of a ‘lost’ generation that is not there now that today’s youth look like they are ready to ‘storm heaven’. We better act on this question.
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