***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.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night-In The Time Of The Time Of Classic Rock ‘n’ Roll-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Beatles covering Doctor Feelgood and the Interns classic, Mr. Moonlight.

CD Review

Rock Classics: The Originals, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era, Time-Life, 1991

As I have noted in reviewing The ‘60s: Last Dance and the 1957 parts of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.

Hey, I have already filled this space with enough prattle about the old time school dances, middle school and high school, so I need not repeat that stuff here. Moreover, whatever physical description I could conger up would be just so much eye wash anyway. Those dances could have been held in an airplane hangar and we all could have been wearing paper bags for all we really cared. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless, small, meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground. And that was the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcast-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation), the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven that it was a slow one.

Ah, memory. So what is the demographic that this CD compilation is being pitched to, aside from the obvious usual suspects, the AARP crowd. Well that’s simple. Any one who has been wounded in love’s young battles; any one who has longed for that he or she to come through the door, even if late; anyone that has been on a date that did not work out, been stranded on a date that has not worked out; anyone who has had to submit to being pieced off with car hop drive-in food; anyone who has gotten a “Dear John” letter or its equivalent; anyone who has been jilted by that certain he or she; anyone who has been turned down for that last school dance from that certain he or she that you counted on to make your lame evening; anyone who has waited endlessly for the telephone (now iphone, etc., okay for the younger set who may read this) to ring to hear that certain voice; and, especially those hes and she who has shed those midnight tears for youth’s lost love. In short, everybody except those few “most popular “types who the rest of us will not shed one tear over, or the nerds who didn’t count (or care) anyway.

Stick outs on this one that include both 50s and 60s material include: Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby by the underrated Carl Perkins who had all the making to be a big time rockabilly cross-over except Elvis got in the way; You’re No Good by Betty Everett who bopped the bop; I’m Leaving It All Up To You, by the one-hit wonders Don and Dewey, Time Is On My Side by the legendary blues rocker, Irma Thomas (a song, by the way, covered by the Stones; I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You, a country-type cross-over y Don Gibson. Needless to say John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom rates as well but I take that as a blues classic rather than a rock classic. And for that last dance, that one that you hoped for, prayed against all odds for, and sweated blood for, Doctor Feelgood and the Interns on Mr. Moonlight. Natch, a slow one. You’re on your own now for the after dance arrangements.

***Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The Middle School Dance—Teen Angst, And That Ain’t No Lie

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the legendary Lavern Baker performing her classic, Jim Dandy.
CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1957, Time-Life, 1987

As I have noted in reviewing The ‘60s: Last Dance part of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance. The following is one such episode in that old time, eternal saga.

As part of the review of the dance sequel that I mentioned above I noted that there were two phases to the old school days dance scene, the high school one when we had all learned, or should have learned, the ropes enough not to be too foolish or too out of line on that social occasion, not if we expected to get a tussle from that certain she or he and the middle school one (formerly known as junior high school but we will use the current usage here on the off chance that someone who only knows the term middle school is reading this). I also noted that one could draw a sharp distinction between the two based on such factors as age, the more convoluted nature of social relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (and, nowadays, same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or a little off-hand nuzzling (or mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the middle school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were “hot” in those years.

In a sense the middle school scene is just an earlier version of the high school dance. No, stop, what am I talking about, hell, there is no question that the high school dance was a picnic to detail in comparison. We were light years ahead by then. At the middle school dance we were just wet-behind-the ears (boy and girls alike, although I think the girls were a little ahead of us, or at least we liked the idea that they were). Here though is what I gathered from a fellow middle schooler, Francis J. Murphy, “Frankie”, my best friend in those tormented years, when he heard that the big school dance was coming up in the spring. He merely went into denial, denial that he could care about such a “bourgeois” event (not his word but the idea is there), such a “square” event (his word, although he was probably clueless about what was square and hip in those days) and that he planned to be “out of town” that day. Ya, like he was the President on important business of state.

But here is the funny thing, a few weeks before the big event, as most of his classmates started to get lined up for, and behind the spirit of, this thing he started making noises about being free, maybe, or that he might be able to free up time that day to fit the dance into his schedule. Probably just a snafu of some sort with his appointment secretary previously, I assume. See, here is what he, and every not-nerd, non-dweeb, heck, just breathing young male and female knew, this event would permanently solidify, solidify like stone, the social order of the school, in or out, no questions asked, no prisoners taken. So he too “knew” that signing that world peace treaty that he seemed to be on the verge of signing rather than attend the dance was nothing compared to being in the fight, the furious fight, to gain leverage in the upper echelons of the school pecking order.

All fair enough, all true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations leading up to the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that included getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually included in the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here.

Damn, whatever physical description I could conger up would be just so much eye wash anyway. The thing could have been held in an airplane hangar and we all could have been wearing paper bags for all we really cared. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless, small, meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground. And that is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation), the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven, that it was a slow one.

Ah, memory. So what is the demographic that this CD compilation is being pitched to, aside from the obvious usual suspects, the AARP crowd. Well that’s simple. Any one who has been wounded in love’s young battles; any one who has longed for that he or she to come through the door; anyone that has been on a date that did not work out, been stranded on a date that has not worked out; anyone who has had to submit to being pieced off with car hop drive-in food; anyone who has gotten a “Dear John” letter or its equivalent; anyone who has been jilted by that certain he or she; anyone who has been turned down for that last school dance from that certain he or she that you counted on to make your lame evening; anyone who has waited endlessly for the telephone (now iphone, etc., okay for the younger set who may read this) to ring to hear that certain voice; and, especially those hes and she who has shed those midnight tears for youth's lost love. In short, everybody except those few “most popular “types who the rest of us will not shed one tear over, or the nerds who didn’t count (or care) anyway.

Stick outs here include on this exceptional compilation from this exception year: legendary rocker Jerry Lee Lewis on Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On and Great Balls Of Fire; The Dell-Vikings' Come Go With Me; a surprise classic with The Tune Weavers on Happy, Happy Birthday Baby (that I played about twenty times today never mind fifty years ago); The Everly Brothers on Wake Up Little Susie (yes, they are definitely in trouble); Chuck Willis’ up tempo C.C.Rider: legendary singer and the much underrated LaVern Baker on her classic Jim Dandy; Dale Hawkins on the sultry Susie-Q: The Bobbettes on the snappy, hip-hoppy Mr Lee: Buddy Knox on Party Doll: and, The Dubs on the slow classic (and the one you prayed for to be that last dance) Could This Be Magic. I would not have wanted to have been the dee-jay working off this list at those dances. You would have been hounded, and rightly so, out the back door with requests.

***Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- For Jimmy, Class Of 1966

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American football on Thanksgiving. I knew when I Googled this search old Wikipedia would not let me down.

Al Johnson, Class of 1964, comment:

Scene: Around and inside the old high school gym entrance on the Hunt street side the night before the big Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross town arch-rival Quincy High in 1963. (Yes, that is the street with the Merit gas station, now Hess, on the corner.) And this is at a time before they built what is apparently an addition modeled on the office buildings across the street behind the MBTA stop and a tribute to “high” concrete construction, and lowest bidder imagination). But it could have been a scene from any one of a number of years in those days. And I am willing to bet six-two-and-even with cold hard cash gathered from my local ATM against all takers that this story “speaks”, except the names, to 2010 as well:

Sure the air is cold, you can see your breath making curls before your eyes no problem, and the night feels cold, cold as one would expect from a late November New England night. It is also starless, as the weather report is projecting rain for the big game. Damn, not, damn, because I am worried about, or care about a little rain. I’ve seen and done many things in a late November New England winter rain, and December and January rains too, for that matter. No, this damn, is for the possibility that the muddy Veterans Stadium field will slow up our vaunted offensive attack. And good as it is a little rain, and a little mud, can be the great equalizer.

This after all is class struggle. No, not the kind that you might have heard old Karl Marx and his boys talk about, although now that I think of it there might be something to that here as well. I’ll have to check that out sometime but right now I am worried, worried to perdition, about the battle of the titans on the gridiron, rain-soaked granite grey day or not. See, this particular class struggle is Class A Quincy against Class B North and we need every advantage against this bigger school. (Yes, I know for those younger readers that today’s Massachusetts high schools are gathered in a bewildering number of divisions and sub-divisions for some purpose that escapes me but when football was played for keeps and honor simpler designations worked just find.)

Do I have to describe the physical aspects of the gym? Come on now this thing is any high school gym, any pubic high school gym, anywhere. Foldaway bleachers, foldaway divider (to separate boys for girls in gym class, if you can believe that), waxed and polished floors made of sturdy wood, don’t ask me what kind (oak, maybe) with various sets of lines for its other uses as a basketball or volleyball court. But enough. The important thing is that guys and gals, old and young, students and alumni and just plan townies are milling about waiting for the annual gathering of the Red Raider clan, those who have bled, bleed or want to bleed Raider red and even those oddballs that don't. This one stirs the blood of even the most detached denizen of the old town.

This night of nights, moreover, every unattached red-blooded boy student, in addition, is looking around, and looking around frantically in some cases, to see if that certain she has come for the festivities, and every unattached red-blooded girl student for that certain he. Don’t tell you didn’t take a peek, or at least a stealthy glance. Among this throng are a couple of fervent quasi-jock male students, one of them who is writing this entry the other, great track man Bill Cadger., who is busy getting in his glances in, both members of the Class of 1964, with a vested interest in seeing their football-playing fellow classmates pummel the cross town rival, and also, in the interest of full disclosure, in the hunt for those elusive shes. I do not see the certain she that I am looking for but, as was my style then, I have taken a couple of stealthy glances at some alternate prospects.

This is the final football game of our final football-watching season, as students anyway, as well so we have brought extra energy to the night’s performance. We are on the prowl and ready to do everything in our power to bring home victory. ....Well, almost everything except donning a football uniform to face the monstrous goliaths of the gridiron. We fancy ourselves built for more "refined" pursuits like those just mentioned stealthy glances, and the like.

Finally, after much hubbub (and more coy and meaningful looks all around the place that one could reasonably shake a stick at) the rally begins, at first somewhat subdued due to the very recent trauma of the Kennedy assassination, the dastardly murder of one of our own, for the many green-tinged Irish partisans among the crowd, as well as the president. But everyone, seemingly, has tacitly agreed for this little window of time that the outside world and its horrors will not intrude. A few obligatory (and forgettable) speeches by somber and lackluster school administrators, headed by Principal Walsh, and their lackeys in student government and among the faculty stressing good sportsmanship and that old chestnut about it not mattering about victory but how you play the game drone away.

Of course, no self-respecting “true” Red Raider has anything but thoughts of mayhem and casting the cross-town rivals to the gates of hell in his or her heart so this speechifying is so much wasted wind. This “bummer”, obligatory or not, is followed with a little of this and that, mainly side show antics. People, amateurishly, twirling red and black things in the air, and the like. Boosters or Tri-Hi-Yi types for all I know. Certainly not the majorettes, who I will not hear a word against, and who certainly know how to twirl the right way. See, I am saving one of my sly, coy glances for one of them right now.

What every red-blooded senior boy, moreover, and probably others as well, is looking forward to is the cheer-leading to get things moving, led by the senior girls like the vivacious Roxanne Goward, the spunky Josie Weinfield, and the plucky Linda Pratt. They do not fail us with their flips, dips, and rah-rahs. Strangely, the band and its bevy of majorettes when it is their turn, with one exception, do not inspire that same kind of devotion, although no one can deny that some of those girls can twirl.

But all this spectacle is so much, too much, introduction. For what is wanted, what is demanded of the situation, up close and personal, is a view of the Goliaths that will run over the cross town arch-rival the next day. A chance to yell ourselves silly. The season has been excellent, marred only by a bitter lost to a bigger area team on their home field, and our team is highly regarded by lukewarm fans and sports nuts alike. Naturally, in the spirit, if not the letter of high school athletic ethos, the back-ups and non-seniors are introduced by Coach L.. Then come the drum roll of the senior starters, some of whom have been playing for an eternity it seems. Names like Tom Kiley, Walt Simmons, Lee Munson, Paul Duchamp, Joe Zona, Don McNally, Jim Fallon, Charlie McDonald, Stevie Chase, "Woj" (Jesus, don’t forget him. I don't need that kind of madness coming down on my face, even now.) and on and on.

Oh, yes and “Bullwinkle”, Bill Curran, a behemoth of a run-over fullback , even by today’s standards. Yes, let him loose on that arch-rival's defense. Whoa. But something is missing. A sullen collective pout fills the room. After the intros are over the restless crowd needs an oral reassurance from their warriors that the enemy is done for. And as he ambles up to the microphone and says just a couple of words we get just that reassurance from “Bullwinkle” himself. That is all we need. Boys and girls, this one is in the bag. And as we head for the exits to dream our second-hand dreams of glory the band plays the school fight song to the tune of On Wisconsin. Yes, those were the days when boys and girls, young and old, wise or ignorance bled Raider red in the old town. Do they still do so today? And do they still make those furtive glances? I hope so.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- Scenes From Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-Hayes Bickford Breakout 1962

Click on the headline to link to a photograph of a Hayes-Bickford on Huntington Avenue in Boston (no Cambridge one available)to add a little flavor to this entry.

The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search mentioned in the headline.

Scene Two: Got The Urge For Going In Search Of The Blue- Pink Great American West Night- Hayes-Bickford  Breakout 1962

Here I am again sitting, 3 o’clock in the morning sitting, bleary-eyed, slightly distracted after mulling over the back and forth of the twelve hundredth run-in (nice way to put it, right?) with Ma that has driven me out into this chilly October 1962 early morning. And where do I find myself sitting at this time of morning? Tired, but excitedly expectant, on an uncomfortable, unpadded bench seat on this rolling old clickity-clack monster of a Red Line subway car as it now waggles its way out past Kendall Station on its way to Central Square and then to the end of the line, Harvard Square. My hangout, my muse home, my night home, at least my weekend night home, my place to make sense of the world in a world that doesn’t make much sense, at least not enough much sense. Sanctuary, Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford sanctuary, misbegotten teenage boy sanctuary, recognized by international law, recognized by canon law, or not.

That beef with Ma, that really unnumbered beef, forget about the 1200 I said before, that was just a guess, has driven me to take an “all-nighter” trip away from the travails of the old home town across Boston to the never-closed Hayes-Bickford cafeteria that beckons just as you get up the stairs from the Harvard subway tunnel. Damn, let me just get this off my chest and then I can tell the rest of the story. Ma said X, I pleaded for Y (hell this homestead civil war lent itself righteously to a nice algebraic formulation. You can use it too, no charge). Unbeknownst to me Y did not exist in Ma’s universe. Ever. Sound familiar? Sure, but I had to get it off my chest.

After putting on my uniform, my Harvard Square “cool” uniform: over-sized flannel brownish plaid shirt, belt-less black cuff-less chino pants, black Chuck Taylor logo-ed Converse sneakers, a now ratty old windbreaker won in a Fourth of July distance race a few years back when I really was nothing but a wet-behind-the ears kid to ward off the chill, and, and the absolutely required midnight sunglasses to hide those bleary eyes from a peeking world I was ready to go. To face the unlighted night, and fight against the dawn’s rising for another day. Oh ya, I forgot, I had to sneak out of the house stealthily, run like some crazed broken field football player down the back of the property, and, after catching my breathe, walk a couple of miles over bridge and nasty, hostile (hostile if anyone was out, and anyone was sniping for a misbegotten teenage boy, for any purpose good or evil) Dorchester streets to get to the Fields Corner subway stop. The local Eastern Mass. bus had stopped its always erratic service hours ago, and, any way, I usually would rather walk, in any case, than wait, wait my youth away for those buses to amble along our way with their byzantine schedules.

Right now though I am thinking, as those subway car wheels rattle beneath my feet, who knows, really, how or why it starts, that wanderlust start, that strange feeling in the pit of your stomach that you have to move on, or out, or up or you will explode, except you also know, or you damn well come to know that it eats away at a man, or a woman for matter, in different ways. Maybe way back, way back in the cradle it was that first sense that there was more to the world that the four corners of that baby world existence and that if you could just, could just get over that little, little side board there might be something better, much better over the horizon. But, frankly that just seems like too much of a literary stretch even for me, moody teenage boy that I am, to swallow so let’s just say that it started once I knew that the ocean was a way to get away, if you needed to get away. But see I didn’t figure than one out for myself even, old Kenny from the old neighborhood in third grade is the one who got me hip to that, and then Johnny James and his brother filled in the rest of the blanks and so then I was sea-worthy, dream sea-worthy anyway.

But, honestly, that sea dream stuff can only be music for the future because right now I am stuck, although I do not always feel stuck about it, trying to figure my way out of high school world, or at least figure out the raging things that I want to do after high school that fill up my daydream time (study hall time, if you really want to know). Of course, as well, that part about the ocean just mentioned, well there was a literal part to the proposition since ocean-at-my-back (sometimes right at my back) New England homestead meant unless I wanted to take an ill-advised turn at piracy or high-seas hijacking or some such thing east that meant I had to head west. Right now west though is Harvard Square, its doings and not doings, it trumpet call to words, and sounds, and actions in the October Friday night all-night storm brewing.

The train now rounds the squeaky-sounding bend out of Central Square and stops at the station. So now I leave my pensive seat and stand waiting, waiting for the driver to release the pressure to let the sliding train door open, getting ready to jump off the old subway, two-step-at-a-time my way up the two flights of stairs and head for mecca to see if things jump for me tonight. The doors open at last. Up the two-stepped stairs I go, get to the surface and confront the old double-glassed Hayes door entrance and survey the vast table-filled room that at this hour has a few night owl stranglers spotted throughout the place.

You know the old Hayes-Bickford, or one of them if you live in Boston, or New York City, or a few other places on the East Coast, don’t you? Put your tray on the metal slider (hey, I don’t know what you call that slider thing, okay) and cruise down the line from item to item behind the glass-enclosed bins of, mostly, steamy food, if you are looking for fast service, for a quick between doing things, pressing things, meal. Steamed and breaded everything from breakfast to lunch to dinner anytime topped off by dishwater quality coffee (refills on demand, if you feel lucky). But this is not the place to bring your date, certainly not your first date, except maybe for a quick cup of that coffee before going to some event, or home. What this is, really, is a place where you can hang out, and hang out with comfort, because nobody, nobody at all, is going to ask you to leave, at least if you act half-way human. And that is what this place is really about, the humans in all their human conditions doing human things, alien to you or not, that you see floating by you, as you take a seat at one of the one-size-fits all wooden tables with those red vinyl seat covered chairs replete with paper place settings, a few off-hand eating utensils and the usual obligatory array of condiments to help get down the food and drink offered here.

Let me describe who is here at this hour on an early Saturday morning in October 1962. I will not vouch for other times, or other days, but I know Friday and Saturday nights a little so I can say something about them. Of course there is the last drink at the last open barroom crowd, said bar already well-closed in bluelaw Massachusetts, trying to get sober enough by eating a little food to traverse the road home. Good luck. Needless to say eating food in an all-night cafeteria, any all-night cafeteria, means only one thing-the person is so caught up in a booze frenzy that he (mainly) or she (very occasionally) is desperate for anything to hang the name food on to. Frankly, except for the obligatory hard-dollar coffee-steamed to its essence, then through some mystical alchemic process re-beaned, and served in heavy ceramic mugs that keep in the warmth to keep the eyes open the food here is strictly for the, well, the desperate, drunk or sober.

I might mention a little more about the food as I go along but it is strictly to add color to this little story. Maybe, maybe it will add color to the story but this is mainly about the “literary” life at the old Hayes and the quest for the blue-pink night not the cuisine so don’t hold me to it. Here is the kicker though; there are a few, mercifully few this night, old winos, habitual drunks, and street vagabonds (I am being polite here) who are nuzzling their food, for real. This is the way that you can tell the "last drink" boys, the hail fellows well met, who are just out on the town and who probably go to one of the ten zillion colleges in the area and are drawn like moths (and like wayward high schools kids, including this writer) to the magic name, Harvard Square. They just pick at their food. Those other guys (again, mainly, guys) those habituals and professional waywards work at it like it is their last chance for salvation.

Harvard Square, bright lights, dead of nights, see the sights. That vision is nothing but a commercial, a commercial magnet for every young (and old) hustler within fifty miles of the place to come and display their “acumen”. Their hustle. Three card Monte, quick-change artistry, bait and hook, a little jack-rolling, fake dope-plying, lifting an off-hand wallet, the whole gamut of hustler con lore. On any given Harvard Square weekend night there have got to be more young, naïve, starry-eyed kids hanging out trying to be cool, but really, like me, just learning the ropes of life than you could shake a stick at to set a hustler’s heart, if he (mainly) or she (sometimes) had a heart.

I’ll tell you about a quick con that got me easy in a second but right now let me tell you that at this hour I can see a few con artists just now resting up after a hard night’s work around a couple of tables, comparing notes (or, more likely, trying to con each other, there is no honor among thieves in this little night world. Go to it boys). As to the con that got me, hey it was simple, a guy, an older guy, a twenty-five year old or something like that guy, came up to me while I was talking to a friend and said did I (we) want to get some booze. Sober, sixteen years old, and thrill-seeking I said sure (drinking booze is the coin of the realm for thrills these days, among high school kids that I know, maybe the older set, those college guys, are, I hear, experimenting with drugs but if so it is very on the QT).

He said name your poison, I did, and then he “suggested” a little something for himself. Sure, whatever is right. I gave him the money and he returned a few minutes later with a small bag with the top of a liquor bottle hanging out. He split. We went off to a private area around Harvard Yard (Phillips Brook House, I think) and got ready to have our first serious taste of booze, and maybe get rum brave enough to pick up some girls. Naturally, the bottle is a booze bottle alright but it had been opened (how long before is anyone’s guess) and filled with water. Sucker, right. Now the only reason that I am mentioning this story right now is that the guy who pulled this con is sitting, sitting like the King of Siam, just a few tables away from where I am sitting. The lesson learned for the road, for the future road that beckons: don’t accept packages from strangers without inspecting them and watch out for cons, right? No, hell no. The lesson is this: sure don’t fall for wise guy tricks but the big thing is to shake it off, forget about it if you see the con artist again. You are way to cool to let him (or occasionally her) think that they have conned you. Out loud, anyway.

But wait, I am not here at almost four o’clock in the Hayes-Bickford morning, the Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford morning, to talk about the decor, the food if that is what it is, about the clientele, humble, slick, or otherwise. I am here looking for “talent”, literary talent that is. See, I have been here enough, and have heard enough about the ”beats” (or rather pseudo-beats, or “late phase” beats at this time) and the “folkies” (music people breaking out of the Pop 40 music scene and going back to the roots of America music, way back) to know that a bunch of them, about six in all, right this minute are sitting in a far corner with a light drum tapping the beat listening to a guy in black pants(always de rigueur black), sneakers and a flannel shirt just like me reciting his latest poem. That possibility is what drove me here this night, and other nights as well. See the Hayes is known as the place where someone like Norman Mailer has his buttered toast after one of his “last drink” bouts. Or that Bob Dylan sat at that table, that table right over there, writing something on a napkin. Or some parallel poet to the one now wrapping up his seventy-seven verse imitation Allen Ginsberg's Howl master work went out to San Francisco and blew the lid off the town, the City Lights town, the literary town.

But I better, now that the six-ish dawn light is hovering, trying to break through the night wars, get my droopy body down those subway stairs pretty soon and back across town before anyone at home notices that I am missing. Still I will take the hard-bitten coffee, re-beaned and all, I will take the sleepy eyes that are starting to weigh down my face, I will even take the con artists and feisty drunks just so that I can be here when somebody’s search for the blue-pink great American West night, farther west than Harvard Square night, gets launched.

***The Old "Beat" Town, Circa 2010-For Barbara, Class Of 1964

Click on the headline to link to a "WBZ" Website report on an up-coming construction project on the Neponset Bridge. This is merely for background on the old town bridge, the 'real' pre-1970 one mentioned below.

Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:

Crossing the Neponset River Bridge from the Boston side these days, walking-sore-footed, ankle-ached, worn-out, scuffed leather shoes, rounded-heel shoes, soles thinned-out shoes walking-just as was almost always my mode of transportation, and maybe yours, in the old days, and sometimes for me in the not so old days-ain’t like it used to be. That new (1970s new, anyway), higher-standing , pot-holed patched, unevenly asphalt-paved even on good days, uninviting, if not just plain dangerous, walk-way, ugly slab-concreted, built by the lowest bidder, bridge that routes traffic, hither and yon, is not like the old one, “ walking to think things over friendly."

Not today, anyway, as I brace myself for a serious look see at our beat-up, beat-down, beaten-back, back-seat-taking, smudged-up, blood and sweat-stained, bitter-teared (very bitter-teared), life-drained, seen better days (although I do not, personally, remember having seen those better days, but people keep saying, even now, there was a such a time so let’s leave it at that), almost genetically memory embedded , character-building (yes, that old chestnut, as well), beautiful (yes, beautiful too, oddly, eerily beautiful, or as mad, shamanic poet Yeats, he of that that fine Anglo-Irish word edge, would put it, "terrible beauty a-borning" beautiful ), old working class home town.

It’s silly, I know, to get misty-eyed over it but I miss the old archaic pre-1970s drawbridge bridge with its ghastly-green gates to stop car traffic (how else could you describe that institutional color that no artist would have on his or her palette, and no serious professional business painter would stoop to brush on anything much less a gate) and the lonely stony-eyed concrete medieval fortress of a tower (and its poor, bored, had to be bored, keeper, or tender or whatever you call that “look out for the big boats coming and going” guy, and it was always some old guy who looked like he could swap stories, buddy to buddy, with King Neptune, and probably did) to let the bigger boats, courtesy of the law of the seas, make their way to dock.

Or, better, I hope, I fervently hope, for the boats to get clearance from that old codger, old Neptune’s brother, to race, to crawl, to put-put, to hoist sail or whatever such boats do to get to the open sea, the wide open blue-grey, swirling, mad, rushing, whirling dervish of a sea, out to beyond the breakwaters, out to beyond the harbor islands, to the land becoming mere speck, and then mere vanish, and more adventure than I could even dream of, or think of dreaming of. At least I hope those oil-stained, diesel-fuelled (including those awful faint-producing fumes), powerfully-engined, deep-drafted, fully–stocked boats that drove river traffic and stopped car traffic came back or went out in search of those adventures away from the placid wooden-lumbered doldrums docks up along the Quincy side of the river.

But, one thing is for sure, whatever happened to the boats, or on them, that old bridge, that old green-gate painted monster of a drawbridge, gave you a chance to pause mid-bridge, fright-free, not-having-to-watch-your-back-for-fast-cars-caroming-by free even, to look up and down midstream; to dream, perhaps, of tidal drifts and fair winds to the far reaches of this good, green planet, as far as you could carry yourself and your backpacked, bed-rolled belongings, or as long as the money held out; to bestir yourself afresh to think of oneness with the seventy-eight trillion life forms (hey, I didn’t count them, alright, this is just an estimate, a very rough estimate) that flow in the murky, and on some days very murky, depths right before your eyes down to our homeland, the sea; to dream vista dreams of far away picture postcard cooling ports-of-call in the sweaty, sultry summer day airs or churn madly with the flow of wild summer night airs that led from the old home town west, north, south, somewhere, anywhere; to dream the dream of dreams of misspent (no way, no way misspent), suggestive, very suggestive, radio-blared Lets Spend The Night Together or The Night Time Is The Right Time, whiskey-bottle in hand (or, maybe, beer-canned if dough was tight, or way back when and you were underage if your wino buyer didn't show that night), best-gal swinging (quaint, okay, but we are all adults and you know what I mean) Saturday nights; and, to think that one thought, that one midstream on the bridge-driven thought that would spring you from the woes of woe begotten, troubled-filled (for me, and, maybe, you) dear, (now dear, anyway) beat, ancient-ached, old timey, presidential graveyard of a growing-up home town.

This new one, this new bridge, as I stand mid-bridge and peek back to my left routes, if you can even call it that, traffic via a Daytona race track-worthy, curvy-swurvy ramp to the beach, Wollaston Beach, down the now, in places anyway, three lane-wide, freshly-paved and white-lined Quincy Shore Drive. That’s our old Wollaston Boulevard, down by shore everything’s alright, of sacred ashy memory. And as I watch the traffic flow, the car traffic I think not of vanilla, too bright, too light, too slight day time beach, for now, because I am flooded with visions of the “real” beach of my manic dreams- “the night time is the right time" beach. Enough of daytime, kiddish, bucket and shovel whines and childish butterfly daydreams, enough. Alright?

I just now, and you can follow along too, float dream of teenaged Saturday nights, or maybe even Friday nights, or both, cruising, nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, to the pink- blue, cloud-swollen, sun-devouring, Western nightdream skies, always just beyond our reach. Of you riding "shotgun" in your buddy’s car, a be-bop car, or, I hope, at least bop, late 1950s, and pray hard for a ’57 Chevy or something “cool” like that, borrowed from his old man, stopped at close by high school (remember), Merit gas station and filled, two-dollars-worth-of-gas-check the oil-please-filled. Or his own car, your buddy's, the old man's, leavings, given gratis, when that self-same old man stepped up to a new, bigger-finned, power-steered, rumble-engined, airplane of a car, a new sign that he had “made it” in hard dollar America. Of stolen sickly-sweet wines or breathe-soured whiskeys to ward off the night-forebodings, made sweeter or more sour by the stealing from that same old man’s, or maybe your old man's, liquor cabinet, if they had such an upscale thing, or else just from some dusty high cupboard shelf so the kids can’t get at it place. And, and, oh boy, visions of those moon-beamy, dreamy, seamy, steamy Saturday night beach parking, car-fogged, car-wrestled, “submarine races” watchings that were the subject of Monday morning boys’ rest room (okay, “lav”) roll call, recital and retailing (or, hell, probably in the girls’ room too, I bet, but the now women can tell their own tales). Whoa!

Beatified night-dreamed beach Quincy Shore Drive also routes, now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, to daydream summer sunbathing, or maybe even before summer sunbathing for early tans to drive away the fierce, ghost-like New England winter pales, in the real sun daytime down by the weather-beaten yacht clubs (tumbleweedy, seedy, paint-needy Wollaston and Squantum). Away, well a little away, from the early encountered mephitic sea grass marshes near the Causeway (you know where, right?-the old First National supermarket, now CVS drugs-for all occasions-store location), away from the deadened, fetid, scattered sea grasses and the muck, and in plain kid talk, away from the “stinks”, away from the tepid waves apologetically splashing on the ocean smooth-stoned dunes, away too from the jelly-fish (are they poisonous, or not?) spawning and spattered along the edges of the low tide line, and, most fervently, away, away from the oil-slicked mud flats of childish shovel and pail clam-digging adventures, clams squirting and screaming from their sand hovels that need not detain us here, that story has been told elsewhere by me, and often.

Once you have passed the fetid swamps, the mephitic marshes…, but wait a minute, who knows such un-childlike, or un-teenager-like, for that matter, words like fetid and mephitic and where, as a child, even if you knew the words, would you connect those words with pail and shovel digging to China, or some faraway place, beach; with tide-melting, furtive but fevered, sand castle-making, beach; with coolly and focused looking for treasure, somebody’s leavings, some body’s rich leavings so you think, beach; with learning about the fury of Mother Nature and the pull and push of tides first hand when old Mother (like womb mother) turns her fury on, beach; with later finger (or stick) sand-tracing of your name defying the tides to erase your brand as you fight, and fight hard, for your place in the sun (and maybe linking up your sweetie’s name, just for good measure, in that struggle with eternity), beach; with fellaheen digging for clams for fun or profit (or food for table, who knows) down at the Merrymount end, beach; with family barbecue outings, hot dogs and hamburgers, extra ketchup, please, beach. With, well, beach, beach. No, fetid and mephitic will not do, I like my dreams, my child remembrance dreams, cloud puffy and silky.

This bridge, this too far bridge, this man-standing memory bridge, or however you named it, or whatever you thought of it, or wherever you were heading, destiny-heading, heading to your growing-up-like-a-weed town, heading just like a-lemming-to-the-sea town pushes the brain in a couple of directions. Heading south anyway, shore drive south, south to the rivieras, south to the old time kid’s Paragon Park. Rickety, always needed, desperately needed, fresh paint coat, landlocked, off-limits showboat bar-entranced (gay place, before gay word existed as a social category, but what did we know then, or care, just quarters for skeets, please, ah, please), ocean-aired, between-the toes-sanded, sun glass-visioned against the furious midday sun Paragon Park. Roller coaster Paragon Park (hey, maybe sick, before you got the hang of it, right), wild mouse (kid's stuff, ya I know) Paragon Park, cheap, colorful skeet ball points trinket prize, sugar high, lips smacked cotton-candy, stuck to the roof of your mouth, roof of the world, salt water taffy-twisted, hot-dogged (hold the mustard, no onions), pin ball wizard’d, take your baby to the carnival feel the tunnel of love, Paragon Park.(Or later, coming of another age, the Surf, and a whole other memory bridge of dreams, not for now though.) Or south of that south to some old time, unnamed, misty adventure, some ancient Pilgrim-etched mayflower rocky shored adventure, some ancient forebear's praise Jehovah plainsong heard whistling through some weed-filled granite slate graveyards, not mine; mine is of shanty Irish "famine" ships and old kicked out of England convict labor, hell-hole, "hillbilly" Appalachia work the coal mines, boats. Down along that old slow as molasses, take your time, wait at every just barely red stoplight, watch out for side-glanced cop cars, two-laned, white stripped, no passing (hardly), ocean-touched (in places) road. Memory-washed, memory-etched, memory south youth road, ah.

Yes, that cotton-candy dream is enough to stir even a hardened soul, but as I shift, stiffly shift, weight on my tired old high-soled, age-qualified, age-necessary, bop-bop shoes(no more of "young" fashionista statement, skinny-soled, fire engine red Chuck Taylor’s, now of sturdy, new age, aero-flow, aero-glow, aero-know, aero-whatever, for this heavy work, this airy memory work, bop-bop shoes), I stand straight up in mid-bridge balance and veer my head to the right. That move makes me focus my mind’s eye to the heart, the soul, the guts of the old growing-up town via a narrow, straight and narrow, slit in the road, a road constructed in such a way as if to say no cuts-ups, fops (quaint, again), or oddballs wanted here, as it swerves to the edgings, the bare edgings, amidst the gathering flotsam and jetsam as it piles up on riverside old Hancock Street and as it meanders along like some far-removed river of its own, river of its own sorrows, river of its own pent-up angers, toward the Square.

But more than sorrows, ancient sorrows, more than angers, angers of whatever age, I am attacked, and not just in my mind’s eye either, by the myriad mirror-glassed buildings, mostly office buildings, maybe some apartments or condos but I hope not, that reflect off each other in some secret Bauhaus bright light, dead of night pact, post-post-modern architecture I am sure, functional I am sure, although when future, future generations dig up the artifacts I am also sure they will be as puzzled by the idea of such forms of shelter and commerce as I am. And beyond those future subjects of artifact a picture, a picture to feed the hungry buildings, of tactless, thoughtless pizza shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, donut shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, hamburger shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, Applebee’s family-friendly food named, now you-name-it-for-me, please, fast-food shop, mini-mart shop, fill-up gas-station of many names, Hess named, that dot, no, deluge strip mall-heavy Hancock Street up pass our sanctified raider red-bled high school. And beyond to dowdy, drowsy, dusty–windowed (really, I actually touched one once, not a white glove inspection but it, the window that is, didn’t pass muster even by my liberal standards), how do they stay in business against the pull of the major chains (or their chains), small-stored, small-dreamed business ownership, Norfolk Downs.

Norfolk Downs, the good old “Downs” (although we just called it plain, old, ordinary, vanilla-flavored, one-horse Norfolk Downs back in the day) anchored still by named pizza shop, Balducci’s. Balducci’s of after school pizza slices or after nightime across the street hang-around underground bowling alley hungers. Plain, please, no one hundred and one choice toppings, thank you, and coke (bluish-green bottled Coca-Cola, okay, for the evil-minded): of nickels and dimes dropped in one-armed-bandit jukebox to hear the latest Stones (or Beatles) tune, or whatever struck a chord in those jumping-jack times, maybe some mopey thing if girl desire was high; yes, but also of weary, so weary, lonely, so lonely night time standings up against the front door wall, waiting, waiting for...(and, maybe, someone, some guy, some long side-burned, engineer-booted guy, cigarette pack, unfiltered, rolled in tee-shirt guy, some time machine guy, is still waiting, still holding up that wall today. Nobody told him the world, the world that counts, the teen world, had moved to the malls). And beyond Norfolk Downs, up that asphalt river, on to the fate of a million small city centers, ghost-towned, derelict, seen better days, for sure, no question, no question, Quincy Center.

But I find myself , just now, as a stream of cooling air, finally, finally crosses my bridge-stuck, bridge-dreamed path, not in thoughts of jumbled mist of time high school-hood Saturdays nights (nor Friday nights either) in Norfolk Downs pizza parlors or bowling alleys, but of whirling past anciently walked, shoe leather-beaten (always leather-beaten, crooked-heeled, thinning-soled shoes that could be the subject of their own separate bridge-like dream thoughts), oceaned-breezed (just like the breeze crossing over me now , ‘cause that is where it is coming from, it has to be), sharp-angled memories: some of hurt, some of high-hatted hurt, worse, a few, too few, of funny kiddish, ding-dong dumb done things (ever when too old to hide under that womb-like kiddish umbrella), the memories that is, of Atlantic streets, of breezing Quincy bays, of oceans-abutted streets etched deep, almost DNA deep.

Name names. Okay. Well-trodden Appleton Street sidewalks, drawn like a moth to flame to some now-forgotten she, by flickering, heart-quickening, unrequited, just barely teenage, but self-consciously teenage anyhow, romantic trance longings, doggedly working up non-courage, yes non-courage a very common thing in those days, to speak, or better, to write that one word, that one word still now not easily come by, that would spark interest (her interest), as I turned from boy to the buddings of manhood; of the close-quartered, no space, no space for anything but small pinched, tightly pinched, dreams , no room to breathe, no room to breathe anything but small breathe, hacked up, asphalted-up, lawn-free yards to quench driveway car thirsting, two and three-decked Atlantic Street houses passed on quick high school cross country practice runs; of family relative-burdened, just getting-started in adult life, small, cramped five room and tiny bath apartment dotted Walker and Webster Streets; of the closely-cornered, well-kept small manicured-lawn’d, busily repair-worked, no beach parking on the street in summertime, working class cottage-mansions of Bayfield Road (I always forget which is North and which is South, but no matter the description fits both as they feed to the endless sea stopped by that infernal stop light that keeps you waiting, waiting beyond impatience, to cross to the much repaired and replaced seawall and view of seaward homeland.); of Atlantic Junior High School’d (ya, I know, Middle School) teen angst (under either junior or middle school names), mad, hormonally mad, teen-brokered years, world wised-up with some twists, but also world sorry, straight-up, Hollis Avenue; and on and on, through to the beach-drained, tree-named streets. Sanctified beyond name streets all; beat, beatified streets all; mist-filled dream streets all; memory-soaked streets all; be-bop, then real gone daddy, now hip-hop, big old pie-in-the-sky looking for the universe somewhere, streets all.

But enough of old dog-eared memories let me get moving, after all with this bridge, this “new” bridge, one has to cross with purpose, serious purpose, and maybe a wing and a pray that one can get back to the old home town in one piece or, at least, be able to think that one precious thought that drove me, lemming-like, here in the first place. I walk down the broken hand-railed, dirt-piled , drift winds-sent littered steps to get off the bridge and immediately stretched before me ; one million water-logged, stubbed cigarette-butts; one thousand stray, crushed, empty, cellophaned cigarette-packages blown around seeking their rightful owners; one hundred infinite brand-named (ice cold something pictured Bud Lite seems like the winner), crushed (or at least dented) beer cans; assorted, unnumbered, brown whiskey(or were they gin) bottles, mainly cheap from the look of them, a drunkard’s feast at one time; high gloss advertisement mailings(endless CVS drugs to take your world’s pain away, Shaw’s food to curb that incurable hunger that gnaws away at your stomach, Wal-Mart back-to-school trinkets, gadgets and throw-aways when the kids find out, and find out fast, that this crap is not “cool”, K-Mart holiday bargains, three for a dollar); yellowing, dated, newspapers (local this-and-that news, distant war drum news, more war drum news from some other earth corner, bad news badder, and celebrity relief news, Lady GaGa, or some such doings, that’s the ticket for our times) strewn every which way, discarded fast food packages of all descriptions that I have no time to describe. On to the street I step, the hard-scrabble North Quincy street. Home.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- In The Time Of The High School Hop, Circa 1960

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Cadillacs performing She's So Fine.

Recently I have been in something of 1960s high school remembrance mode, mainly as a result of evaluating the influence of the “beats” (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady and the usual suspects), on my youthful political (not much), social (a fair amount), and cultural (lots) development, but also as a result of re-watching George Lucas’ American Graffiti, a 1960s coming-of-age film that fits comfortably in my own high school mode. I have reviewed the film as a whole elsewhere in this space but I wish to make a special point about the high school dance segment of the film (The Baby-Boomer Birth Of The Search For The Blue-Pink American Western Night- “American Graffiti”-A Film Review, dated September, 8, 2010).

George Lucas’s inclusion of a local high school dance segment in this film was inspired. The segment is not central to the action, such as it is, of the film, but it certainly is calculated to evoke almost universal nostalgia for anyone (meaning almost everyone these days) who has ever had to deal, in one way or another, with the question of this time-honored (if hoary) high school tradition. Each generation probably has its own take on what this experience was like, but most of the real action was behind the scenes. And in that sense the film caught the three high points. Women can fill in own blanks in reverse, but here are some of them from a man’s perspective.

First of all stag (single no way, with the guys, or not at all, although how many and who was always up for grabs, especially on the important “shotgun” question) or on a date (double-date, somebody’s left out sister, your sister, anything to not be a wallflower, a sickly wallflower among the ‘losers’ to boot, as those dance moments ticked slowly, so slowly by). Many an ungodly hour was spent on that date question mulling over, no, not what you think, who to invite, no that was usually the easy part, but rather getting up enough nerve to make the call to make the invitation. And check this out, on more than one occasion, and I am sure the same was true for you, somehow your intelligence network had failed and it turns out that the certain she, your dreamy certain she, damn, her, had a “steady.” Christ, what a waste of time.

Secondly, grooming preparations- I will propose here, in best scientific method form (or at least quasi-scientific form for that is all this thing will hold) that there was an inverse relationship to the amount of time that one spent on this work, you know, shower, shave (in those days you had to, if you could), comb always at the ready, a little something for the underarms and some men’s fragrance to give the smell of being the least bit civilized, and the answer to the stag/date question. In this sense the inverse is the extra time spent in order to attract that certain she (remember women just reverse the gender, or today everyone fill in your own preference experience) so when the next goddam dance or mixed social event came up you were dated up with that certain she and you could just throw a little fatal after-shave on and fly out the door. Oh, by the way, I refuse, I totally refuse to go over the number of time that I cooled my heels while that occasional captured “she” made her grooming preparations, first date or any date, even if it was just to make preparations to go to the drugstore soda fountain. Mercifully, on that score I did not have a sister to scream at or else I might not be writing this screed today, at least this side of a cell block.

Thirdly, the gathering of the dough, the always short of dough problem that plagued our poor working class household and that I noticed did not seem to be any kind of problem in that California suburban valley locale of American Graffiti. Money for exotic appearing (hey, it was California, remember, even the fast food drive-ins had to be retro-fine) double-dip hamburgers (with fries), cherry cokes, for two, for two, my god, plus some gas money, plus, plus, plus, you know a guy has got expenses in this world. The real problem was whether to borrow from parents, or pick up some chattel slave job. Getting it from the parents always came with some awful terms, usually worthy of some international diplomatic accord, and more grief than it was worth, unless I was desperate, or girl-hungry. Oh ya, and you had to hear the obligatory we do this and that to keep a roof over your head along with the bucks. You know the drill, probably.

And while we are on the subject of parents the inevitable question comes up about what time one should be home by. They say X, and make that loan, that hard-scrabble hideous loan that has more conditions and enforcements than a loan shark, contingent on the observance of a “reasonable” (parent reasonable) hour. I say Y, because in the back of my mind I, if I get lucky (no further discussion necessary, right?) then I need plenty of time and can’t be worried about curfews, or reasonable times. Come to think of it, even fifty years later, come on Ma you be reasonable (and it was always Ma on this one in our old working class neighborhoods, and maybe yours too. Dad was brought in, if he was brought in at all, at this point in our lives only for the heavy artillery stuff).

Once these preparations and battles have been settled then, and here is where American Graffiti is like from a dream, the question of transportation to the dance comes into play. Here I mean a car, and if you’ve read my review of American Graffiti you know I mean a “boss” car. You would have to go to an automobile museum to see such treasures these days. By the way don’t even utter the words public transportation for this occasion or I will think that you grew up in New York City or some place like that and that you have not really been paying attention after all my paeans to the California endless highways and the search of the elusive blue-pink great American Western night.

In any case, this car-less writer, this foot-sore, shoe leather-beaten, car-less writer, depended, sometimes cynically so, on cultivating friendships with guys who had such “boss” cars, particularly the renowned ’57 Chevy that still makes me quiver at the thought of. Needless to say, in expectation at least, of the night’s successes a stop at the local gas station for a fill-up (a couple of bucks then) check the oil and water, kick the tires and so on preceded our big entrance at the dance.

Part of the charm of the American Graffiti segment on the local high school dance is, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors it could have been any place U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet any time U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance, could have taken place at my high school when I was a student in the early 1960s). From the throwaway crepe paper decorations that festooned the place to the ever-present gym bleachers to the chaperones to the platform the local band (a band that if it did not hit it big would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other important occasion) covering the top hits of the day performed on it was a perfect replica.

Also perfect replica were the classic boys’ attire for a casual dance, plaid or white sports shirt, chinos, stolid shoes, and short-trimmed hair (no beards, beads, bell-bottoms, its much to early in the decade for that) and for the girls blouses (or maybe sweaters, cashmere, if I recall being in fashion at the time, at least in the colder East), full swirling dresses, and, I think beehive hair-dos. Wow! Of course, perfect replica were the infinite variety of dances (frug, watusi, twist, stroll, etc) that blessed, no, twice blessed, rock and roll let us do in order to not to have to dance too waltz close. Mercy. And I cannot finish up this part without saying perfect replica hes looking at certain shes (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) and also perfect replica wallflowers, as well.

Not filmed in American Graffiti, although a solo slow one highlighted the tensions between Steve and Laurie (Ron Howard and Cindy Williams) but ever present and certainly the subject of some comment in this space was that end of the night dance. I’ll just repeat what I have repeated elsewhere. This last dance was always one of those slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, as I have noted before, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your sexual preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?

And after the dance? Well, I am the soul of discretion, and you should be too. Let’s put it this way. Sometimes I got home earlier than the Ma agreed time, but sometimes, not enough now that I think about it, I saw huge red suns rising up over the blue waters. Either way, my friends, worth every blessed minute of anguish, right?

***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

***Entering North, 1960-For The Atlantic Junior High School (Middle School) Class Of 1960

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing his teen tear-jerker, Teen Angel to set an "appropriate" mood for this post.

Al Johnson, Class of 1964, comment:

Entering North, 1960-For The Atlantic Junior High School (Middle School) Class Of 1960

Funny, here I am, finally, finally after what seemed like an endless heat-waved, eternal August dog day’d, book-devoured, summer, standing, nervously standing, waiting with one foot on the sturdy granite-chiseled steps, ready at a moment’s notice from any teacher’s beck and call, to climb up to the second floor main entrance of old North, an entrance flanked by huge concrete spheres on each side, that are made to order for me to think that I too have the weight of the world on my shoulders this sunny day. And those doors, by the way, as if the spheres are not portentous enough, are also flanked by two scroll-worked concrete columns, or maybe they are gargoyle-faced, my eyes are a little bleary right now, who give the place a more fearsome look than is really necessary but today, today of all days, every little omen has its evil meaning, evil for me that is.

Here I am anyway, pensive (giving myself the best of it, okay, nice wrap-around-your soul word too, okay), head hanging down, deep in thought, deep in scared, get the nurse fast, if necessary, nausea-provoking thought, standing around, a little impatiently surly as is my “style” (that “style” I picked up a few years back in elementary school down in the Germantown “projects”, after seeing James Dean or someone like that strike the pose, and it stuck). Anyway its now about 7:00 AM, maybe a little after, and like I say my eyes have been playing tricks on me all morning and I can’t seem to focus, as I wait for the first school bell to sound on this first Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960.

No big deal right, we have all done it many times by now, it should be easy. Year after year, old August dog days turn into shorter, cooler September come hither young wanna-be learner days. Nothing to get nervous about, nothing to it.(Did I say that already?)Especially the first day, a half day, a “gimme” day, really, one of the few out of one hundred and eighty, count ‘em, and mainly used for filling out the one thousand and one pieces of paper about who you are, where you live, who you live with, and who to call in case you take some nasty fall in gym trying to do a double twist-something on the gym mat or a wrestled double-hammer lock grip on some poor, equally benighted fellow student that goes awry like actually happened to me last year in eighth grade. Hey, they were still talking about that one in the Atlantic locker rooms at the end of the year, I hear. Or, more ominously, they want that information so that if you cross-up one, or more, of your mean-spirited, ill-disposed, never-could have-been-young-and-troubled, ancient, Plato or Socrates ancient from the look of some of them, teachers and your parents (embarrassed, steaming, vengeful Ma really, in our neighborhoods) need to be called in to confer about “your problem,” your problem that you will grow out of with a few days of after school “help.” Please.

Or this “gimme” day (let’s just call it that okay, it will help settle me down) will be spent reading off, battered, monotone home room teacher-reading off, the also one thousand and one rules; no lateness to school under penalty of being placed in the stocks, Pilgrim-style, no illness absences short of the plague, if you have it, not a family member, and then only if you have a (presumably sanitized) doctor’s note, no cutting classes to explore the great American day streets at some nearby corner variety store, or mercy, Norfolk Downs, one-horse Norfolk Downs also under severe penalty, no (unauthorized) talking in class (but they will mark it down if you don't authorize talk, jesus), no giving guff (ya, no guff, right) to your teachers, fellow students, staff, the resident mouse or your kid brother, if you have a kid brother, no writing on walls, in books, and only on occasion on an (authorized) writing pad, no(get this one, I couldn’t believe this one over at Atlantic) cutting in line for the school lunch (the school lunch, Christ, as poor as we are in our family we at least have the dignity not to pine, much less cut in line for, those beauties: the American chop suey done several different ways to cover the week, including a stint as baloney and cheese sandwiches, I swear), no off-hand rough-necking (or just plain, ordinary necking, either), no excessive use of the “lav” (you know what that is, enough said), and certainly no smoking, drinking or using any other illegal (for kids) substances. Oh, ya, and don’t forget to follow, unquestioningly, those mean-spirited, ill-disposed teachers that I spoke of before, if there is a fire emergency. And here’s a better one, in case of an off-hand atomic bomb attack go, quickly and quietly, to the nearest fall-out shelter down in the bowels of the old school. That’s what we practiced over at Atlantic. At least, I hope they don’t try that old gag and have us practice getting under our desks in such an emergency like in elementary school. Christ, I would rather take my chances, above desk, thank you. And… need I go on, you can listen to the rest when you get to homeroom I am just giving you the highlights, the year after year, memory highlights.

And if that isn’t enough, the reading of the rules and the gathering of more intelligence about you than the FBI or the CIA would need we then proceed to the ritualistic passing out of your books, large and small. (placing book covers on each, naturally, name, year, subject and book number safety placed in insert). All of them covered against the elements, your own sloth, and the battlefield school lunch room, that humongous science book that has every known idea from the ancient four furies of the air to nuclear fission, that math book that has some Pythagorean properties of its own, the social studies books to chart out human progress (and back-sliding) from stone-cave times on up, and, precious, precious English book (I hope we do Shakespeare this year, I heard we do, that guy knew how to write a good story, same with that Salinger book I read during the summer). Still easy stuff though, for the first day.

Ya, but this will put a different spin on it for you, well, a little different spin anyway. Today I start in the “bigs”, at least the bigs of the handful-countable big events of my short, sweet life. Today I am starting my freshman year at hallowed old North and I am as nervous as a kitten. Don’t tell me you weren’t just a little, little, tiny bit scared when you went from the cocoon-like warmth (or so it seemed compared to the “bigs”) of junior high over to the high school, whatever high school it was. Come on now, I’m going to call you out on it. Particularly those Atlantics who, after all, have been here before, unlike me who came out of the "projects" and moved back to North Quincy after the "long march" move to Atlantic in 1958 so I don't know the ropes here at all. They, especially those sweet girl Atlantics, including a certain she that I am severely "crushed up" on, in their cashmere sweaters and jumpers or whatever you call them, are nevertheless standing on these same steps, as we exchange nods of recognition, and are here just as early as I am, fretting their own frets, fighting their own inner demons, and just hoping and praying or whatever kids do when they are “on the ropes” to survive the day, or just to not get rolled over on day one.

And see, here is what you also don’t know, know yet anyway. I’ve caught Frank’s disease. You never heard of it, probably, and don’t bother to go look it up in some medical dictionary at the Thomas Crane Public Library, or some other library, it’s not there. What it amount to is the old time high school, any high school, version of the anxiety-driven cold sweats. Now I know some of you know Frank, and some of you don’t, but I told his story to you before, the story about his big, hot, “dog day” August mission to get picnic fixings, including special stuff, like Kennedy’s potato salad, for his grandmother. That’s the Frank I’m talking about, my best junior high friend, Frank.

Part of that story, for those who don’t know it, mentioned what Frank was thinking when he got near battle-worn North on his journey to Norfolk Downs back in August. I’m repeating; repeating at least the important parts here, for those who are clueless:

“Frank (and I) had, just a couple of months before, graduated from Atlantic Junior High School and so along with the sweat on his brow from the heat a little bit of anxiety was starting to form in Frank’s head about being a “little fish in a big pond” freshman come September as he passed by. Especially, a proto-beatnik “little fish”. See, he had cultivated a certain, well, let’s call it “style” over there at Atlantic. That "style" involved a total disdain for everything, everything except trying to impress girls with his long chino-panted, plaid flannel-shirted, thick book-carrying knowledge of every arcane fact known to mankind. Like that really was the way to impress teenage girls. In any case he was worried, worried sick at times, that in such a big school his “style” needed upgrading…”

And that is why, when the deal went down and I knew I was going to the “bigs” I spent the summer this year, reading, big time booked-devoured reading. Hey, I'll say I did, The Communist Manifesto, that one just because old Willie Westhaven over at Atlantic called me a Bolshevik when I answered one of his foolish math questions in a surly manner. I told you that was my pose, what do you want, I just wanted to see what he was talking about. In any case, I ain’t no commie, although I don’t know what the big deal is, I ain't turning anybody in, and the stuff is hard reading anyway. How about Democracy in America (by a French guy), The Age of Jackson (by a Harvard professor who knows Jack Kennedy, and is crazy for old-time guys like Jackson),and Catcher In The Rye (Holden is me, me to a tee). Okay, okay I won’t keep going on but that was just the reading on the hot days when I didn’t want to go out, test me on it, I am ready. Here's why. I intend, and I swear I intend to even on this first nothing (what did I call it before?-"gimme", ya) day of this new school year in this new school in this new decade to beat old Frankie, old book-toting, girl-chasing Frankie, who knows every arcane fact that mankind has produced and has told it to every girl who will listen for two minutes (maybe less) in that eternal struggle, the boy meets girl struggle, at his own game. Frankie, my buddy of buddies, mad monk, prince among men (well, boys, anyhow) who navigated me through the tough, murderous parts of junior high, mercifully concluded, finished and done with, praise be, and didn’t think twice about it. He, you see, despite, everything I said a minute ago was “in.”; that arcane knowledge stuff worked with the “ins” who counted, worked, at least a little, and I got dragged in his wake. Now I want to try out my new “style”

See, that’s why on this Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960, this 7:00 AM, or a little after, Wednesday after Labor Day, I have Frank’s disease. He harped on it so much before opening of school that I woke up about 5:00 AM this morning, maybe earlier, but I know it was still dark, with the cold sweats. I tossed and turned for a while about what my “style”, what my place in the sun was going to be, and I just had to get up. I’ll tell you about the opening day getting up ritual stuff later, some other time, but right now I am worried, worried as hell, about my “style”, or should I say lack of style over at Atlantic. That will tell you a lot about why I woke up this morning before the birds.

...Suddenly, a bell rings, a real bell, students, like lemmings to the sea, are on the move, especially those Atlantics that I had nodded to before as I take those steps, two at a time. Too late to worry about style, or anything else, now. We are off to the wars; I will make my place in the sun as I go along, on the fly.

********

....and a trip down memory lane.

MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

***Just When You Thought It Was Safe To…, Not Bop-Doo-Wop-For Betty, Class of 1966

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Capris performing There's A Moon Out Tonight.

CD Review

Best Of Old Town Doo Wop, Various artists, 2-CD set, Ace Records

Confused by the headline? Don’t be, all it does is refer to a previous series of Oldies But Goodies (1950s-1960s oldies but goodies, just so you know) CD reviews in this space. That gargantuan task required shifting through ten, no, fifteen volumes of material that by the end left me limping, and crying uncle. See, as I explained in the last few reviews of the series, just when I thought I was done at Volume Ten I found that it was a fifteen, fifteen count ‘em, volume series. In any case I whipped off those last five reviews in one shot to be done with it.

The reason for such haste at that point seemed self-explanatory. After all how much can we rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories, teen memories, teen high school memories mainly, from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in the reviewed compilations. How many times can one read about guys with two left feet, the social conventions of dancing close, wallflowers, the avoidance of wallflower-dom, meaningful sighs, meaningless sighs, the longings for certain obviously unattainable shes (or hes), the trials and tribulations associated with high school gymnasium crepe paper-adorned dances, moonlight-driven dream thoughts of after dance doings, and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. And there and then I threw in the towel, I thought.

Well now I have recovered enough to take a little different look at the music of this period-the doo wop sound that hovered in the background radio of every kid, every kid who had a radio, a transistor radio, to keep parental prying ears at arms length, and who was moonstruck enough to have been searching, high and low, for a sound that was not just the same old, same old that his or her parents listened to. Early rock and rock, especially that early Sun Record stuff, and plenty of rhythm and blues met that need but so did, for a time, old doo wop-the silky sounds of lead singer-driven, lyrics-driven, vocal-meshing harmony that was the stuff of teenage “petting” parties and staid old hokey school dances, mainly, in my case, elementary school dances.

As I mentioned in the oldies but goodies reviews not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to, or meant to be, playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability, slow danceabilty, to make any Jack or Jill start snapping fingers then, or now. As I asked in that previous series and is appropriate to ask here as well what about the now seeming mandatory question of the best song in the compilation? The one that stands out as the inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song? The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumbly-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar).

Here The Capris’ There’s A Moon Out Tonight fills the bill. And, yes, I know, this is one of those slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, as I have noted before, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your sexual preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?

***In Search Of Lost Time- For Diana N., Class Of 1964

Peter Paul Markin, Class Of 1964, comment:

....with apologies to the great early 20th century modernist French writer Marcel Proust whose most famous (and massive) work I am stealing the title from in my headline. Apparently I will steal any literary tidbit, from any source and from any time, just to round out an entry in this space. I had also better explain, before some besotted, hare-brained, pencil at the ever ready, school of novel deconstruction devotee, probably tragically childhood’d, post-modern literary-type jumps on me I know, and I know damn well, that an alternative translation for the title of Proust's six volume work is Remembrances Of Things Past. But isn't this In Search Of Lost Time a better title for the needs of this space? In any case I promise not to go on and on about French pastry at teatime (which, by the way, brother Proust did do, for about sixty pages in the volume Swann’s Way, so there is the trade-off. Okay?).

*********

As I, clumsily, pick up, or try to pick up some precious dirt to rub between my fingers from the oval in front of the old high school, on this bedraggled, prickly frigid, knife-like wind- gusting in my face, not fit for man nor beast, kind of a winter’s day as the shortly-setting sun begins it descent into night, I really do wonder what demons, what cast-out-of-the-inner-sanctums-of-hell demons, have driven me here, here to this worn-out patch of an oval, after so many years of statutory neglect. Moreover, picking up dirt from an oval that I have not walked on, much less picked up gravel from, in over forty-five years, although I have logged many a mile around a larger version (I believe) of this oval either practicing during track or cross country season, or, and this may jog reader memory, running the 600 yard dash as part of the old time President’s National Physical Fitness Test. Yes, I thought mention of that event might bring ring a bell, a bell of anguish for some, as they puffed and chortled their way to the finish line in their tennis shoes, or whatever knee-busting sneakers we wore in those days, in order to be cool. Hey, just like today.

In any case, here I stand, and now you know, or have a pretty good idea where I am. What you do not know, at least do not know yet, is that I am not here, rubbing some funky old town dirt through my fingers on a cold winter’s day just for the joy of it. For raider red oneness, either. Or some such old man’s quirks. Rather, I am here, and you can start calling 911 right now if you like, to evoke, evoke mind you so there is no fooling around about it, the spirit, the long past spirit of days gone by at the high school. The spirit of the time of my time. Probably not since old Tommy Wollaston went looking for a suitable site for his maypole debaucheries, and stumbled on Merrymount has this town seen such a land grab, in a manner of speaking. See, what I am thinking is that some dirt-rubbing, a little kabala-like, or druid-like, or keltic-like, or Navajo-like, or something-like, dirt-rubbing will give me a jump start on this “voyage”.

I will confess to this much , as this seemingly is a confessional age, or, maybe just as a vestige of that hard-crusted, family history-rooted, novena-saying, stations of the cross walking, ceremonial high mass incense-driven, mortal sin-fearing, you’ll get your reward in the next life so don’t expect it here, buster, fatalistic Catholic upbringing long abandoned but etched in, no, embedded in, some far recesses of memory that my returning to North Quincy High School did not just occur by happenstance. A couple of years before my mother, Doris Margaret Johnson (nee Radley) NQHS Class of 1943, passed away.

For a good part of her life my mother lived in locations a mere stone's throw from the school. You could, for example, see the back of the school from my grandparents' house on Young Street. As part of the grieving process, I suppose, I felt a need to come back to North Quincy. To my, and her, roots. In part, at least, for the feel of roots, but also to figure out, or try to figure out for the 584th time, what went wrong in our old, broken down, couldn't catch a break, working poor, North Quincy-historied, family. As part of that attempted figuring out, as I walked up Hancock Street from Walnut Street (the old, woe begotten, seen better days, ram-shackled homestead now standing guard above part of the Newport Avenue by-pass) and swung down East Squantum I passed by, intentionally passed by, the old high school. And here I stand, oval-stuck, dirty-handed, bundled up not to well against the day’s winds, or against the fickle, shifting winds of time either, to tell my tale.

Now I will also confess, but without the long strung-out stuff that I threw in above about my Catholic upbringing, that in figuring out why ill winds blew across my family’s fate I was unsuccessful. Why, after all, should the 584th time bring some sense of enlightenment, or of inner peace, when the other five hundred, more or less, did not do so. What this sojourn did do, however, was rekindle, and rekindle strongly, memories of sitting, without number, on the steps of the high school in the old days, in the high school days, and think about the future, if there was going to be a future.

I tried to write this story, or a part of it, a couple of years ago so a little background is in order so the thing makes some sense to others. That now seemingly benighted entry, originally simply titled,A Walk Down “Dream” Street, started life by merely asking an equally simple question posed to fellow classmates in the North Quincy High School Class of 1964 about whether their high school dreams had come true or not, as least for those who had thought about the issue, on the Classmates. com website. I had “discovered” the site that year after having been pushed and pulled in ways that drove me back to memories, hard, hard-bitten, hard-aching, hard-longing, mist of time, dream memories, of North schoolboy days and of the need to search for my old high school friend and running mate (literally, in track and cross country, as well as “running” around town doing boy high school things, doing the best we could, or trying to), Bill Cadger. I posed the question this way there:

“Today I am interested in the relationship between our youthful dreams and what actually happened in our lives; our dreams of glory out in the big old world that we did not make, and were not asked about making; of success whether of the pot of gold or less tangible, but just as valuable, goods, or better, ideas; of things or conditions, of himalayas, conquered, physically or mentally; of discoveries made, of self or the whole wide world, great or small. Or, perhaps, of just getting by, just putting one foot in the front of the other two days in a row, of keeping one’s head above water under the impact of young life’s woes, of not sinking down further into the human sink; of smaller, pinched, very pinched, existential dreams but dreams nevertheless. I hope, I fervently hope, that they were the former."

Naturally, the question was posed in its particular form, or so it seemed natural at the time for me to pose it that way, because those old, “real”, august, imposing, institutionally imposing, grey granite-quarried (from the Granite City, natch) main entrance steps (in those days serious steps, two steps at a time steps, especially if you missed first bell, flanked by globular orbs and, like some medieval church, gargoyle-like columns up to the second floor, hence “real”) is a place where Bill and I spent a lot of our time, talking of this and that.

Especially in summer night time: hot, sultry, sweaty, steam-drained, no money in pockets, no car to explore the great American teenage night; the be-bop, doo-wop, do doo do doo ,ding dong daddy, real gone daddy, rockin’ daddy, max daddy, let it be me, the night time is the right time, car window-fogged, honk if you love jesus (or whatever activity produced those incessant honks in ignition-turned-off cars), love-tinged, or at least sex-tinged, endless sea, Wollaston Beach night. Do I need to draw you the big picture, I think not. Or for the faint-hearted, or the merely good, denizens of that great American teenage night a Howard Johnson’s ice cream (make mine cherry vanilla, double scoop, no jimmies, please) or a trip to American Graffiti-like fast food drive-in, hamburger, hold the onions (just in case today is the night), fries and a frappe (I refuse to describe that taste treat at this far remove, look it up on Wikipedia, or one of those info-sites) Southern Artery night. Lost, all irretrievably lost, and no thousand, thousand (thanks, Sam Coleridge), no, no million later, greater experiences can ever replace that. And, add in, non-dated-up, and no possibility of sweet-smelling, soft, bare shoulder-showing summer sun-dressed (or wintry, bundled up, soft-furred, cashmere-bloused, I would not have been choosy), big-haired (hey, do you expect me to remember the name of the hair styles, too?), ruby red-lipped (see, I got the color right), dated-up in sight. So you can see what that “running around town, doing the best we could” of ours mainly consisted.

Mostly, we spoke of dreams of the future: small, soft, fluttery, airless, flightless, high school kid-sized, working class-sized, North Quincy-sized, non-world–beater-sized, no weight dreams really, no, that’s not right, they were weighty enough but only until 18 years old , or maybe 21, weighty. A future driven though, and driven hard, by the need to get out from under, to get away from, to put many miles between us and it, crazy family life (the details of which need not detain us here at all, as I now know, and I have some stories to prove it, that condition was epidemic in the old town then, and probably still is). And also of getting out of one-horse, teen life-stealing, soul-cramping, dream-stealing (small or large take your pick on dream size), even breathe-stealing, North Quincy. Of getting out into the far reaches, as far as desire and dough would carry, of the great wild, wanderlust, cosmic, American day and night hitch-hike if you have too, shoe leather-beating walking if you must, road (or European road, or wherever, Christ, even Revere in a crunch, but mainly putting some miles between).

We spoke, as well, of other dreams then. I do not remember some of the more personal aspects of the content of Bill's dreams. If you want the “skinny” on Bill’s dreams he’s around, ask him. However, a lot of what Bill and I talked about at the time was how we were going to do in the upcoming cross country and track seasons, girls, the desperate need to get away from the family trap, girls, no money in pockets for girls, cars, no money for cars, girls. (Remember those were the days when future expectations, and anguishes, were expressed in days and months, not years.) Of course we dreamed of being world-class runners, as every runner does. Bill went on to have an outstanding high school career. I, on the other hand, was, giving myself much the best of it, a below average runner. So much for some dreams.

And, maybe, on my part, I also expressed some sketchily-drawn utopian social dreams, some fellaheen justice dreams. Oh, you don’t know that word, "fellaheen", perhaps. To have oneness justice for the "wanters" of the world; for the “no got”, not the other kind, the greed-driven kind, want; fear-driven, fear to go left or right or to put two feet in front of you want; for the misjudgment-making from having too little of this world's goods want; for all the cramp-spaced in this great big planet want; for the too many people to a room, one disheveled sink, one stinking toilet want: for the bleary-eyed pee-smelled, dawn bus station paper bag holding all your possessions want; for the two and three decker house no space, asphalted, no green between want; for the reduced to looking through rubbish barrels, or worst, want; for the K-Mart, Wal-mart, Quincy Square Bargain-Center basement outfitted out of fashion, no fashionsista, no way, want,; for the got to have some Woolworth’s five and dime trinket to make a small brightness want; for the lottery, keno, bingo, bango, mega-bongo waiting for the ship to come in pay-out want; for the whiskey soaked, wine-dabbled, or name your poison, want; for the buddy, can you spare a dime want; for the cop hey you, keeping moving you can’t stay here, want; for the cigarette butt strewn pick-up streets want; for fixing, or fixings, to die want; and, for just plain, ordinary, everyday, non-descript want, the want from whence I, and, maybe, you came.

This is the sing-song of the fellaheen, the life-cycle of the fellaheen, the red masque dance of the fellaheen; the dance of the working, or not so working, poor, the day time dance. The dance that I will dance, at least it looks that way, until I draw my last breathe. For the night time, the "takers", stealth thief, jack-roller, pimp daddy, sweet-dark covering abandoned back alley streets, watch out behind you (and in front too), sweated, be-fogged, lumpen fellaheen night, the no justice wanted or given night, you will have to look to the French writers Genet, Celine, or one of those rough boys, the takers have no need of my breathe, or my tears. I have had my say now, and it was worth standing, as the night devours the sun, at this damn wintry oval to say it, alright.