From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys- The Night When Doo-Wop Swayed To And Fro-For Frankie Lyman And The Teenagers    

By Sam Lowell

Recently out of the deep recesses of my mind I have dredged up some memories of my earliest corner boy experiences from down in the mud of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments, let’s not kid each other “the projects” which strikes fear in the now, as it did then. Part of those memory jogs revolve around getting together with the still standing members of my high school corner boy gang for drinks and a little food at Jimmy Jack’s Lounge a few towns over from where we grew up, came of age. That in turn got me thinking about genesis and the guys I hung with early on doing the “best we could,” legally or legally. Here is what I had to say in the prior piece to fill in some background as to why I have decided to take the trip way back:      

“Of all the corner boys (read: juvenile delinquents in some quarters a big term, a big concern in 1950s sociologist, criminologist, school administration, court and cop circles; sullen schoolboys seriously in feeding their “wanting” habits in an age when all around them was plenty so maybe not so much sullen as angry in some; and,  misunderstood youth in others the bailiwick of concerned teachers, social workers, and library personnel- all three probably true in some senses) who hung around Tonio’s Pizza Parlor while we were going to North Adamsville High in the early 1960s I am the only one still standing who started his corner boy career at Carter’s Variety Store across town in the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (read: “the projects” and although I have already made the point a million times the unwanted fate of plenty down at the base of society, down in the mud where things and people are not pretty). That experience started when I was a student at the Snug Harbor Elementary School located just outside the projects. The school had been built to meet the needs of the burgeoning school age population of both the young families who found themselves in need of cheap housing at the recently built projects and the influx of families who were filling in the extensive 1950s-style new ranch houses up the road. That should do for background for now.

“I mentioned that I am the only Carter’s boy still standing but I was not the only one. There was one other one Peter Paul Markin who at Tonio’s was always known as the Scribe and I will use that name here rather than that pretension-filled moniker his mother laid on him. Now much ink (and many tears, many tears still) has been spilled in this publication about his latter exploits and the craziness of the Scribe when he was in high dudgeon at Tonio’s and a little later but little has been noted about the early days, the early corner boy days in elementary school when most of the Tonio’s boys were clueless about the value of desperately poor kids joining together, hanging out to do, well to do the best they could.             

“I am not quite sure how the Carter corner boys started since it was already formed when I started hanging out along with the Scribe. Let’s leave it that this store was the only one in the whole projects area (and sadly still is) where residents without cars, including my family many times, or in need of some quick item could shop. That it has penny candy (yeah, I know inflation) and other sweets galore probably added to the allure. That and Mister Carter did not mind us hanging out as long as we didn’t block anything and didn’t do anything crazy (we never did-there).        

“I met the Scribe the first day of school in fourth grade after my family had moved to the projects from another project in Riverdale west of Boston when my father’s company moved to the area and he needed the work. That was in Miss Sullivan’s class, an old biddy who trucked no nonsense and who made it her profession to keep us after school for detention-even that first day which was supposed to be easy stuff. The Scribe was looking at some book, forgotten now, and I commented that it looked interesting to start a conversation. That was all the Scribe needed as he wowed me with the contents. And didn’t wow Miss Sullivan who kept us after for the continuous talking. After that after school detention business we went to Carter’s to see what was up once he told me fourth and fifth grade guys hung out there and it was okay.

“Later and elsewhere the Scribe, and to some extent me, would be the leaders of various corner boy combinations, would plan whatever needed to be planned, legal or illegal but then we were frankly naïve and really just foot soldiers. The deal was already set for leadership with Ronnie, George, Rodger, Lenny and a little later the also legendary Billy Bradley running the operations (all would later do various stretches of time in county and state prisons I think except Lenny who laid his head down in Vietnam during that war). We had no problem with that since we were in thrall to the whole aura of the thing.”

In the first piece I mentioned how one pissed off Ronnie, Ronnie Mooney to give a last name since he is long dead from some failed armed robbery, gathered us together to seek revenge for some slight some teacher had given him, and he was going to burn down the school. Which one Sunday night, he, we tried to do grabbing wood from a nearby forest and placing the material near a darken set of doors after which Ronnie doused with gasoline and then set on fire. The school did not burn since some neighbor called in an alarm and those doors turned out to be flame-resistant. Thinking about it the other night it still is amazing that we had no problem ethical, moral, legal or anything going along with the caper just because Ronnie was a corner boy. Hell, as much as I love education and learning even today half of me thinks that the attempt was fitting under the circumstances.      

I have mentioned on a number of occasions that they say, maybe they said is better, that juvenile delinquents are born not made. Have some genetic kink missing which throws everything off. That was true of Ronnie I believe for he had a really devious and sadistic bent but that was not all of what Ronnie was about then, if more so later. He, and we did especially the Scribe and Billy Bradley, loved the emerging rock and roll that would define our generation’s main musical thrusts. Better still he had a natural feel, a natural beat for the music and a very good voice. The same was true of Billy but more on him some other time when I want to develop the bond between the Scribe and Billy. In any case Ronnie lived to play the latest tunes for us by Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and what is important here the rise of doo-wop be-bop music.

Funny, having just told the tale about our attempts to burn the school down, that the back of the school, that darkened secluded corner area near the forest after Carter’s Variety would close became our hang-out area (the cops in their cars couldn’t see that area and so no police take notice jive bothered us). We would spend our summertime nights there working out various songs that Ronnie (and Billy once Ronnie accepted that he too had musical talent) wanted to rehearse. This stuff is between fifth and sixth grade when those pesky “stick” girls from last year started some of us seeing that maybe they were interesting after all (and eventually all of us including me a late bloomer).      

As late June turned into July word got around that we were doing musical rehearsals, were singing pretty good stuff including the latest craze doo-wop learned from WMEX radio in Boston. One night one girl, no, that can’t be right there never was one girl doing anything anytime by herself then, so two girls anyway could be seen at some distance kind of swaying to the music and over the next several days were joined by several other girls who were progressively getting closer. Then one night, and this is why this piece is dedicated to Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Ronnie and Billy started their doo-wop swoon singing the now classic Why Do Fools Fall In Love (good question) and the girls joined in the inner circle clapping and tapping like the rest of us. I don’t know that night who was better Ronnie or Billy but the presence of the girls had them on fire. I am not sure that we knew that Frankie and the gang were black although maybe we did from American Bandstand but what did that matter if a group of from hunger white kids had the beat, were tapping and clapping (although it would matter a little later).

All I know is this shy Sam Lowell benefited despite my low gravelly voice since I got Billy’s “rejects” in the girl department. Enough said.    

[I should point out for future reference that the Scribe and I hung out together until he moved crosstown to his grandmother’s house after his grandfather died in seventh grade. There he joined up with the corner boys who hung around Doc’s Drugstore which I also joined when my family bought a little shack of house in the Bottoms section of the Acre, the working poor section of North Adamsville at the beginning of ninth grade.]