FromThe Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-Adamsville South Monday, Summer 1957

Adamsville South Monday, Summer 1957

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCGW58DTE4

 

[Click on the headline to this sketch to link to a YouTube film clip of Danny and The Juniors performing their classic  At The Hop to give a little flavor of the time of this entry-JLB].

 

Setting The Mood- Peter Paul Markin In His Own Words

 

I, once a while back, was asked, in earnest, what I meant by the “blue-pink western skies” that has formed the backdrop for several of Josh’s sketches. Or rather the way I would prefer to formulate it, and have taken some pains to emphasize it this way, “the search for the blue-pink great American West night.” Well, of course, 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 the hitchhike road meant heading west.

 

So that night is clearly not in the vicinity of the local Blues Hills or of the Berkshires since early childhood ocean-fronted Massachusetts, those are too confined and short-distanced to even produce blues skies much less that west-glanced sweet shade just before heaven, if there was a heaven shade, blue-pink. And certainly not hog-butcher-to-the-world, sinewy Midwest Chicago night, Christ no, nor rarefied, deep-breathed, rockymountainhigh Denver night, although jaded sojourner-writer not known for breathe-taking, awe-bewilderment could have stopped there for choice of great western night. Second place, okay.

 

But no, onward, beyond, beyond pioneer, genetically-embedded pioneer America, past false god neon blue-pink glitter Las Vegas in the Nevada desert night to the place where, about fifty miles away from sanctified west coast, near some now nameless abandoned ghost town, nameless here for it is a mere speck on the map and you would not know the name, you begin, ocean man that you are, if you are, and organically ocean-bred says you are, to smell the dank, incense-like, seaweed-driven, ocean-seized air as it comes in from the Japanese stream, or out there somewhere in the unknown, some Hawaii or Guam or Tahiti of the mind, before the gates of holy city, city of a thousand, thousand land’s end dreams, San Francisco. That is where the blue-pink sky devours the sun just before the be-bop, the bop-bop, the do wang-doodle night, the great American Western star-spangled (small case) night I keep reaching for, like it was some physical thing and not the stuff of dreams. And it started early.

*******

<b>The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search.

 

Scene One: The Prequel- Adamsville South Monday, Summer 1957

</b>

I wake up early, with a sudden start like something hit me but it kind of missed, kind of just glanced off me, something that felt like a pebble, maybe thinner and a little lighter, but I don’t see anything out of my watery, half-closed eyes. And I don’t feel anything around me in this feeble excuse for a bed that my father lashed together out of old blankets when my previous mattress fell apart, something like you see down at the Plymouth Plantation when the Pilgrims, a few hundred years ago, made beds for their kids except not with the corn husking filler they used. See, Ma and Pa couldn’t see their way clear to getting me a new one since my younger brother, Kevin, really needed one for his “problem”. A “problem” that I don’t understand about, and that nobody ever talks about, even Grandma, and she talks about everything and will tell me anything, anything but that, at least when I am around they don’t talk about it, okay.

 

Maybe, I wouldn’t understand it even if they blabbed about it all day, but here I am with this low-rent sleeping bag, our lord in the manger kind of a bed. And Kevin’s sleeping like a king in the room across the hall all by himself away from this midget-sized room that they must have thought of when kids were smaller than they are these days, what with us drinking more milk with “Big Brother” Bob Emery every school day when we go home at lunchtime. Ma says I should be thankful (including to the Lord, as she always says, without fail) that I have any bed at all as some kids in India don’t even have that. The reasons for that, I guess, are ‘cause those people don’t thank the Lord, or at least thank our “the Lord.”

 

Darn it, I now suddenly remember, whatever it was that hit me, maybe something from outer space, broke up a nice half-formed dream that was just starting to get somewhere and that was about being on some television show and winning something like a thousand dollars and me getting to buy stuff for me and my friends like serious bicycles or a big record player, and getting girls stuff too, like a box of candy from the Rexall drugstore up in Adamsville Square, and just like that its gone, gone, now long gone. Just like shutting off the television before the end and the good guys, or whoever has the right to be on the right side of the law like Maverick, wins; just like missing American Bandstand before Dick Clark gets to the big dance off thing at the end where everybody’s jumping and grooving and having a good time, the band is rocking, and the guys, especially the guys that get the cute girls and not the left-over ones that they must just put on to be nice, or something are smiling, smiling the smile of the just. Double darn it.

 

Ya, something’s out of whack, something’s definitely out of whack, or it’s gonna be. Every time I have one of these broken-up dreams something goes awry pretty soon only not today please, and I am scared, no, really scared about it this time. Wouldn’t you be? I suddenly notice something in a split-second that confirms this bad omen coming-Oh no, not again, for the hundredth hundredth time this ratty old summer, this boring never-ending summer that I wish would end so bad I am praying, and praying hard, that it will be over and we can go back to the cool air in Adamsville South Elementary School that we left the last part of last month. I told you it was bad, bad as all that. I’m all sweaty, I feel under my arms, underarms sticky, underwear, all cottony, sticking to me like it’s part of my skin forever, eyes sticky and half shut from a nighttime’s worth of perspiration, and maybe more than a night at that. I don’t think I took a bath yesterday, did I? I sniff, no. Sticky, that me, that’s gonna be my middle name before long if this mind-numbing weather keeps up.

 

Heck, I’m tired, tired to hell and back, no, farther than that, of these half-sleep, restless nights; god awful humid, sultry, breathless summer’s nights, no relief and no air conditioning in sight. No air, no wind coming from the channel across the parking lot from our house, or I should say apartment. No air, less than no air, coming from Adamsville Bay, so still that throwing a rock on it would make ripples all the way to Merrymount. And certainly no air coming from god forsaken Hough’s Neck. I know that for sure, ‘cause I went over there, walked all the way up to Rock Island and down that dusty dirt road all the way to Nut Island almost before I realized that the air had died, or gone on vacation.

 

Ma, making fun of me and my sweating every second of every minute of every day for about a week now, the other day told me that this was my own personal preview of what it is gonna be like for me in hell, if I don’t change my ways. Yes, ma. But that is just her con, she’s always conning me and my brothers, trying make us do good by bringing God, his son, his holy ghost, his mother, his father, his sisters and brothers and whoever else she can conjure up using to make us do good, to do as she’s says every chance she gets in order to do God’s work, but that’s impossible using her tried and true method. She must have learned that “method” from some priest over at Saint Boniface, or something. She sure didn’t learn it from that cool doctor, Doctor Spock, I think was his name, that I saw on TV the other day on that Mike Dowling, or one of them talk shows. He knows a lot about kids, they say, at least that’s what someone said. I wouldn’t know, I ‘m stuck with Ma, and that ain’t no nice to kids lady, nor does she want to be. 

 

Saying all that ain’t doing me any good, lying here in a pool of sweat, thinking about getting up. But I’m getting mad, even though I know getting mad today is tempting fate, I guess I was born mad, or got that way early because even though I know it’s gonna get me in trouble , I’m mad . You would think that in the year 1957, in a year when everybody else seems to have money and is spending it, that even in this woe begotten tiny airless apartment filled to the brim with three growing boys and two grown, overgrown if you ask me, adults; in this woe begotten tiny airless room filled to the brim with two growing boys, one sleeping like a log, sleeping the sleep of the just, I guess, across from me right now; in this woe begotten no account housing project where you can’t get anything fixed without about twenty forms and a six month wait and even then you have to wait, nothing less. Even for a light fixture it takes a civil war. Christ, how long, in this woe begotten town before we could have this “necessity,” air- conditioning.  Ma says we can’t afford it, or whatever her excuse of the week is. “How about a fan, Ma?” Nope, can’t afford the extra electricity ‘cause Dad just got laid off, whatever that means. He’s always getting laid off so I can’t tell what is so different about this time so that we can’t get air conditioning. Johnny Jakes has it, and his father hasn’t ever worked. Can’t, for some reason.

 

Enough of this, I‘m getting up, if only to splash some water on my face and get my eyes unstuck, or get a cool drink of water to bring down what has got be about a 110 degrees of temperature running through my body, maybe 115. Nah, that can’t be right, we learned about body temperatures in class. I would have to be some alien from outer space maybe. But I’m feverish, that’s for sure. Just then I am stopped short by a sound, a familiar sound. A sound that if I had just one sound to hear in the whole universe of sounds that I have heard in my long eleven year old life it would be that one. The sound of fleeing this hellish, airless place for parts unknown, any unknown. Ya, that old, sweet, lonesome, high whistle sound that cuts me to the bone, that sweet old fog horn sound when the air is like pea soup down the channel ‘cause that means a big old firemen’s red, rubber tire-draped tugboat, or maybe two, is bringing a low-riding, rusty old tanker, or some ship to port across the channel to the Proctor & Gamble factory, the place of a thousand perfume smells, as we call it when the wind is up and all the world here smells like a bar of soap.

 

If I live to be a hundred, if I live to be a thousand, I’m always gonna watch, even if only in my mind, when some old tanker comes down the line, dragging or getting dragged by that old tug, whistling away, to keep river traffic away, and like it just as much then I bet. I know what I will be doing this morning, or the first part of the morning, heat or no heat, air- conditioning or no air- conditioning. I will be perched on my very own private, for invited guests only which means nobody, viewing stand at the little point along the shoreline that is my real home, or the home that I wish was my home except maybe in winter, just across from where the big boy boat will settle in.

 

“Hey, a boat’s coming in, I’m off,” I yell to no one in particular. And from not one of those no one in particulars do I get an answer. My brothers don’t suffer the sweats like I do, they have their own problems which I already sense will be their undoing later, but it ain’t the sweats and so they just sleep away. I rush, and I mean rush, to the bathroom, use the toilet, splash that life-saving water on my face, it always feels good, brush my teeth perfunctorily, and run down the stairs. “Ma, a ship’s coming in,” I say excitedly, even though it’s about the hundredth time I’ve seen one come in, to my mother who is distracted by something, as usual, especially when my father is out of work, and especially today, Monday, when he goes off in search of new work with a lot of hope about getting some job that will keep the wolves from the doors, that is the constant phrase that he uses to deal with the situation. I’ll tell you about him sometime but today I ain’t got any time for nothing but my ship coming in, and that ain’t no lie either.

 

“Well, it is not our ship that is coming in so don’t worry about it and just eat your breakfast,” she, dear old Ma, blurred out, and then I know she is in a fit and even if my ship wasn’t coming in I know the ropes enough to know to keep low, very low and out of the range of fire that I know is coming from her direction. I go to the cabinet, grab a cracked, slightly cracked bowl, get a spoon and go over to the stove, take the cover off the pot, steam escaping, and without even looking start dishing out my Quaker Oats oatmeal. Rain, shine, sleet or snow, summer, winter, spring or fall that is my nectar of the gods. With a little milk, when we have it, and even if we don’t a little Karo syrup, I am fortified for the day. Ma, can be a pain, Ma and I have a thousand battles a week over two thousand different things, and I know that already things are never gonna be right between us, even if at times we have an armed truce but, mark this down I always got my oatmeal, and always when I wanted it. I guess that put her on the right side of the angels, a little.

 

A few gulps later, washed down with about a half glass of milk, I am out the door. Hell, even my blessed oatmeal gets short shrift when the tankers blow in. Now going out the door most places that you know about means just going out the door straight.  Bu in this urban planner’s nightmarish hangover not at 666 Taffrail Road. First you have the obstacle course of getting around the ten million poles and fences that are plucked right in the “courtyard” when my mother and the other housewives in the other three units that make up our mega-plex hang out their daily washing, or dry their curtains or whatever people like my mother do to keep places like this from reverting back to caveman times. Then I have to cross the parking lot, a lot filled with all kinds of cars, for those that have them. These days we don’t have one, in case I didn’t tell you before, because Dad is out of work so we are all reduced to waiting for an eternity for that slow-rolling, seems never to be here when you need it, Eastern Mass. bus that ambles on to Adamsville Square, making so many stops that I usually just walk it, if I am in a hurry to get something, even on a hot, sweltering summer day like this.

 

As I hit the already hot asphalt of the lot I look around longingly at the vast array of cars; Plymouths with fins that look like a fish; Chevies, my favorite, sleek and so, Timmy McDevitt tells me, go real fast when you get onto Route 128 and let her rip; Fords that look like something they want to use to go up into space with, and I don’t know what else, but there are plenty. Finally I get to the lower parking lot that’s for guests or people who don’t get a parking spot in front of their house, or maybe just run out of steam before making the turn into hell-bent Taffrail Road. I don’t know and I am now passed that spot on the move along the fence anyhow to get to the little opening that will take me to my grand viewing area. I’m okay though, I still hear the old tug whistle coming up the line so I have some time to wait.

 

I get to my little sliver of land, just a little jut out of the shoreline, covered with old, oil-slicked quarry rock probably from the ground around here about a million years ago, ‘cause this town is known for its granite rock, cause it’s a granite city, even though the real work done around here is over at the Five Rivers Shipyard that is just across the bridge from the Proctor & Gamble factory, and where even on this hot, god forsaken morning I can faintly hear the sounds of metal being banged by hammers or whatever they use to put the ship together, and the flashes of welders’ torches as they put that banged metal in seamless water-tight condition.

 

I also notice some empty beer cans, cigarette butts, chip bags left haphazardly all over my viewing stand, somebody last night, or the night before, must have said the hell with it and got out one of the sweltering houses and came over here to get whatever little, little breeze that could be eked out of the windless night. I rule the day here in this spot, especially when the boats come in, no question about that, but what others do at night I have no control over. I just wish they wouldn’t leave a mess on my sacred site.

 

But that is all so much made-up irritation, probably ‘cause I am so hot, for now I can see the first glimmer of the smokestack of a ship coming up the line. I wonder whose oil it is, Esso? Texaco? Shell? Esso has been in the lead this year, and they are bigger ships and ride real low in the water coming in, and real high going out. I can start to see specks on the bridge, human specks that are busy doing the work of preparing the ship for the dock.

 

I wonder, wonder a lot, about these guys and the work they do and whether they like it and like being on the sea and whether they ever have any trouble like in stories that I read down at the Thomas Crane Library attached to the school, and where they have been and what adventures they have had, and where, and with whom. Maybe that’s the life for me. And I wonder about the girls they know from all over and whether they are nicer than the girls in the "projects" who are beginning to get on my nerves, for some reason. At least I don’t know what to do or what to say around them, or what they want me to do, or want me to say. I hope this is just being a boy kid and that it goes away, and I hope it a lot.

 

Oh, there she is, an Esso. The tugs are in position, gently nudging her and getting her ready to go dockside, tie up and unload. Wonder how long she will stay? Usually its takes a couple of days and then they are gone, sometimes in the middle of the night and they are not there in the morning depending on the tides and the traffic on the roads, oh, ocean roads, that is.

 

Hey, it’s almost lunchtime, guess I’ll go home and eat and go down the cellar, maybe to try to cool off. I know one thing now though that kind of had me worried and kind of bothered me for a while 'cause I am just a kid. I now know I will always take time to watch the boats as they blow in, and dream about catching a boat out, wherever I am. Maybe, that is an omen, a good omen, about my future. I'll let you know.

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin -When Be-Bop Bopped In The Doo Wop Night- “Street Corner Serenade”- Olde Saco Style

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film (From American Bandstand) of The Classics performing the old time classic (I think originally from The Mills Brothers) , Till Then.

Sure I have plenty to say about early rock ‘n’ roll, now called the classic rock period in the musicology hall of fame. Heck, I lived it and so did a lot of other people who now have time on their hands and are just becoming “wise” enough to write a few things about those times since they are safely behind us. Well, maybe safely behind us as you never know about certain social and musical trends. Here is what is important though whether you have, in your dotage, just seen Elvis walking, well, walking like a walking daddy down your Main Street or like a million others just wishing that you could get together enough quarters to wear that old jukebox down at Jimmy Jakes Diner out (or wherever that beauty was located) like in those lazy hazy school day afternoons. With that said I have in the past spent a little time, not enough, considering its effect on us on the doo-wop branch of the rock genre and want to expand on that here.

Part of the reason for not highlighting doo wop separately, obviously, is that back in those mid-1950s jail-breakout days with six millions flash songs running through my head and Elvis stealing all the girls, directly or indirectly, I did not (and I do not believe that any other eleven and twelve year olds did either), distinguish between let’s say eraly Elvis, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran rockabilly-back-beat drive rock, Bo Diddley-Chuck Berry black-based rock centered on a heavy rhythm and blues backdrop, and the almost instrument-less (or maybe a soft piano or guitar backdrop) group harmonics that drove Frankie Lymon, The Drifters, The Platters doo-wop. All I knew was that it was not my parents’ music, praise be, not close, and that moreover they got nervous, very nervous, ditto on the praise be, anytime it was played out loud in their presence. Fortunately, some sainted, sanctified, techno-guru developed the iPod of that primitive era, the battery-driven transistor radio. No big deal, technology-wise by today’s standards, but get this, you could place it near your ear and have your own private out loud music without parental scuffling in the background. Yes, sainted, sanctified techno-guru. No question.

What doo-wop did though down in our old-time working class housing projects neighborhood, the heavily French-Canadian quarters around Atlantic Avenue in Olde Saco up in oceanside Maine, and again it was not so much by revelation as by trial and error, was allow us to be in tune with the music of our generation without having to spend a lot of money on instruments or a studio or any such. Where the hell would we have gotten the dough for such things when papas were out of work, or were one step away as the textile mills that have produced steady work heading south in search of cheaper labor, and there was trouble just keeping the wolves from the door. Sure, some kids, some kids like my home boy elementary school, Olde Saco South, boyhood friend Billie, William James Riley (mother, nee Dubois), were crazy to put together cover bands with electric guitars (rented occasionally), and dreams. Or maybe go wild with a school piano a la Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, or Fats Domino but those were maniac aficionados. Even Billie though, when the deal went down, especially after hearing Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers was mad to do the do of doo-wop and make his fame and fortune.

I remember much later, maybe the early 1980s, being in a New York City record shop, somewhere near Times Square, where they had a bin full of doo-wop records and the cover art of one of the albums showed a group of young black kids, black guys, who looked like they were doing their doo wop on some big city street corner. And that makes sense reflecting the New York City-derived birth of doo-wop and that the majority of doo-wop groups that we heard on that battery-drive transistor AM radio were black. But the city, the poor sections of the city, white or black, was not the only place where moneyless guys and gals were harmonizing, hoping, hoping maybe beyond hope, to be discovered and make more than just a 1950s musical jail-breakout of their lives. Moreover, this cover art also showed, and shows vividly, what a lot of us guys were trying to do-impress girls (and maybe visa versa for girl doo-woppers but they can tell their own stories).

Yes, truth to tell, it was about impressing girls that drove many of us, Billie included, christ maybe Billie most of all, to mix and match harmonies. And you know you did too ( remember girls just switch around what I just said). Yah, four or five guys just hanging around the back door of the that summer vacation vacant elementary school on hot summer nights, nothing better to do, no dough to do things, maybe a little feisty because of that, and start up a few tunes. Billie, who actually did have some vocal musical talent, usually sang lead, and the rest of us, well, doo-wopped. We knew nothing of keys and pauses, of time, notes, or reading music we just improvised. (And I kept my changing to teen-ager, slightly off-key voice on the low, on the very low.)

Whether we did it well or poorly, guess what, as the hot sun day turned into humid night, and the old sun went down just over the hills, first a couple of girls, then a couple more, and then a whole bevy (nice word, right?) of them came and got kind of swoony and moony. Most of them were sticks (local term of art, pre-teen, just teen boy-man term of art signifying, ah, signifying that mysterious transformation from boyish girl shape to womanly shape occurring right before our eyes) And swoony and moony was just fine. Especially when one stick turning to shape Rosamund, Rosamund Genet, came around one night toward the end of summer and I got sore eyes just looking in her direction (and I think she peeked in my direction that night too). And we all innocent, innocent dream, innocent when we dreamed, make our virginal moves. But, mainly, we doo-wopped in the be-bop mid-1950s night. And a few of the songs from that Time Square- seen album could be heard in that airless night. Songs like Deserie, The Charts; Baby Blue, The Echoes; Till Then, The Classics; and, Tonight (Could Be The Night), The Velvets. Yes, long live doo wop out in the be-bop night.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin - Out In The North Adamsville Jukebox Saturday Night

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube Film clip of Ben E. King performing Spanish Harlem.

A while back I was on a tear hunting down every old but goodie, 1950s and 1960s versions if you please, rock and roll compilation, set, 45 RPM record (look that up if you don’t know, look it up on Wikipedia if you are in a hurry) that was not nailed down to some musty, dusty attic floor. Reason? Who knows the reason except this: I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots. Maybe the earliest that I could call my own, be-bop rock and roll (not that Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, Inkspots stuff, jesus no, that got my parents’ generation through the Great Depression [1930s variety] and World War II although that was endlessly heard wafting through the teenage house). While time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes (who, for example, really wants to remember Gene Pitney’s Town Without Pity, that I played endlessly on girl-less Saturday nights) it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-62, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked elsewhere about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, naturally, “coffin nail” ready, usually Luckies but on occasion Camels) hanging from the lips, Coke, big-sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor juke box coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, please. And, finally, the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, with the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.

Whee! That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days, bowling alleys, drugstores, pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and maybe at the daytime beach, if you lived near a beach. I remember on such beach place called, surprise, surprise the Surf Club that catered to summer vacation teens during the day and doubled as a no teens, no goddamn teens allowed, hot spot nightclub for be-bop hipsters (really faux hipster by then), motorcycle daddies with their mamas (or somebody’s mama) on back, and your average just that moment at large hood. But all this jukebox seeking by pimply teen or chain-wielding biker was done while boy or girl watching. So juke heaven was basically any place where kids (and those oldsters just mentioned as well) were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.

Funny, a lot of hanging around the jukes was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was that these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention after you had sized them up as they came in the door. I remember one time at this all the kids in town after school afternoon hang-out diner waiting for Cokes and burgers this dreamy girl waiting for her platters (records, okay, again check Wikipedia if you are lost) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. And this tee-shirted sullen guy, me (could have been you though, right?), just hanging around the machine waiting for just such a well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) to show up, maybe chatting idly for what might be worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Okay, I got the number that time but get this. Don’t call after nine at night though or before eight because those were times when she was talking to her boyfriend. Scratch that one. Lucky guy he, maybe.

But here is where the real jukes skill came in, and where that white-tee-shirted guy just mentioned seemed to be in his element, although a million guys have stories about how they worked this one. You started out just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working- class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking, usually to girlfriends, as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next.

Then you made your move-“Have you heard Spanish Harlem?. NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up. Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to... for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. Sometimes it actually worked. Beautiful.

Now that I am at a great remove from jukes I can give you my basic spiel playlist well worked out during those periods when things were slow and I really was killing time. Here’s the list and there are some stick outs that might work today and others, well remember the fate of Gene Pitney and his damn town without pity because you know it’s tough out there on those mean streets.

I have added a few that worked some of that “magic” just mentioned above on tough nights too: 1) My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels (in honor of the shapely brunette above with the boyfriend with the telephone ear); 2) Nadine (Is It You?) (only use if the “target” looks like a little rock and roller and if you have a strong enough heart to stand the rejection when she turns you over in a week or so for the next best thing) - Chuck Berry; 3)Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King (only if you can do the “sensitive” guy thing otherwise save this one for the last dance for that girl you have been getting sore eyes over all night) ; 4)Come & Get These Memories (strictly for known Motown heads) - Martha & the Vandellas; 5)Perfidia (for smart girls who might even know what this word means) - The Ventures; 6)Lover's Island (figure this one out yourselves but think beach and starlight nights)- The Blue Jays; 7)Playboy (not for the “girl next door” types, please) - The Marvelettes; 8)Little Latin Lupe Lu (strictly for be-bop girls, girls with many quarters) - The Righteous Brothers; 9)It's Gonna Work Out Fine (backseat Saturday night, okay) - Ike & Tina Turner; 10)When We Get Married ( for dreamy girls-without boyfriends)- The Dreamlovers; 11)The One Who Really Loves You ( ditto the “sensitive guy” thing)- Mary Wells; 12)Little Diane ( for the “girl next door”) - Dion; 13)Dear Lady Twist ( strictly friends, except…)- Gary "U.S." Bonds; 14); Heartaches (“recovering” girls) - The Marcels; 15)Feel So Fine (Feel So Good)( back to Mr. Sensitive, you had better learn that approach)- Johnny Preston; 16) If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody (please, please, James Brown, please) - James Ray; 17)All in My Mind (for girly girls)- Maxine Brown; 18)Maybe I Know ( strictly for telephone number givers)- Lesley Gore; 19)Heart & Soul (you have it, Mr. Sensitive, don you see a pattern here) - The Cleftones; 20)Peanut Butter (goofy tough night girls)- The Marathons; 21)I Count the Tears (Mr. Sen…need I say more) - The Drifters; 22)Everybody Loves a Lover (for the girls with telephone boyfriends)- The Shirelles. There it is all laid out for you- Good luck.

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Songs To Sit At The Soda Fountain By- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Angels performing Cry Baby Cry.

Every “teenage nation” generation since they started to place teenage-hood as a distinct phase of life between childhood and young adulthood over a century ago has developed its own tribal rituals and institutions. Today’s teens seem to have cornered food courts at the mall, video arcades, and the ubiquitous Internet screen text mad connections through various look-at techno-gadgets although, frankly, I am not fully current on all their mores, customs and tribal language. No way. Old geezers form a line to the rear, way in the rear.

What I am familiar with, very familiar with, is the teen institutions of my generation, the generation of ’68, that came of teen age in the early 1960s. Our places of rendezvous were the corners in front of mom and pop variety stores in the days before franchise 7/11 came to dominate the quick stop one item shopping market; the ever present pizza parlor with its jump jukebox where we deposited more than a few nickels, dimes and quarters; for some of the dweebs (or if you wanted to get away with a “cheap” date, but only as a last resort ) the bowling alley; the open air drive-in restaurants complete with car hops for more “expensive” dates; and, for serious business, meaning serious girl and boy watching, the soda fountain. And not, in my case, just any soda fountain but the soda fountain at the local individually- owned drug store , Doc’s (no CVS, Osco madness with quick pitch in and out), that used the fountain to draw people (read, kids: what would we need prescription drugs for, those are for old people, we were invincible) into the store.

That last scene is what will drive this sketch, and for a simple reason. My mind just now has an illustration before it of just such a classic soda fountain, complete with whimsical teen-age frills (read girls, if you are not from my old working class neighborhood) all sipping their straws out of one, can you believe it, one paper cup while a faux beat -type looks on. Ah, be still my heart.

Needless to say this scene, complete with its own jukebox setup (although not every drug store had them, ours didn’t), the booths with the red vinyl-covered seats and Formica top tables (with paper place settings, condiments, etc., right), the soda fountain granite (maybe faux granite) counter, complete with swivel around stools that gave the odd boy or two (read: me and my boys) a better vantage point to watch the traffic come in the store (read: girls). Said counter also complete with glassed-encased pie (or donut) cases; the various utensils for making frappes (that a New England thing, look it up on “Wikipedia”), milkshakes, and cherry-flavored Cokes; a small grille for hamburgers, hot dogs and fries (or the odd boy grilled cheese sandwich with bacon); and, well a soda jerk (usually a guy) to whip up the orders. Oh, did I say girl and boy watching? Ya, I did. Still, what do you think we were all there for? The ice cream and soda? Come on. Does it really take an hour or an hour and a half to drink a Pepsi even in slo-mo 1960s (or now) teen-land?

Enough said about the décor because the mere mention of the term “soda jerk” brings to mind a Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood story, Frankie of a thousand stories and Frankie who was the king hill skirt-chaser (read: girl), and my best friend in middle school (a.k.a. junior high) and high school. Ya, that Frankie, or rather this time Frankie’s sister. Now when we were juniors in high school we mainly held court at the local pizza parlor which in the pecking order was way above the soda fountain. That was for kids, unless, of course, things were tough at the pizza joint (meaning girl-free) and we meandered up the street to Doc’s drug store soda fountain to check out the action there.

Of course, before we graduated to the “bigs” the old soda fountain was just fine. And it did no harm, no harm at all, to strike up friendships , or at least stay on the good side of the soda jerks so you could get an extra scoop of ice cream or a free refill on your Coke. Whatever. See, the soda jerk was usually the guy (and like I said before it was always guys, girls would probably be too distracted by every high energy teen guy, including dweeb-types, trying to be “cool”). But the thing is that the soda jerk also had some cache with the girls, I guess it must have been the uniform. Wow! Personally I wouldn’t have been caught dead wit that flap- cap they wore.

So one night we were dried up (read: no girls) at the pizza parlor and decided, as usual, to meander up the street to Doc’s. We had heard earlier in the day that Doc had a new jerk on and we wanted to check him out anyway. As we entered who do we see but Frankie’s sister, Lorrie, Frankie’s fourteen year old sister, talking up a storm all dewy-eyed over this new jerk, who must have been about eighteen. And this “cradle-robber” had his arm around, or kind of around, Lorrie. Old Frankie saw red, no double red, if not more.

See, Frankie was a guy who had more girls lined up that he could ever meet and be able to keep himself in one piece, although he has only one serious frail (read: girl again okay) that kept his interest over time (Joanne that I told you about before). So Frankie was no stranger to the old male double standard of the age, especially in regard to his sister. Not that he was really protective of her as much as he was insulted (so he told me later) by some new “jerk” trying to make moves to become king of the hill by “courting” Frankie’s sister.

And Frankie, old wiry, slender, quick-fisted Frankie was tough. Tougher than he looked. So naturally new boy “jerk” takes umbrage (nice word, right?) when Frankie starts to move “sis” away with him. Well the long and short of it was that Frankie and “jerk” started to beef a little but it is all over quickly and here is why. Frankie took an ice cream cone, a triple scoop, triple-flavored ice cream cone no less, that was sitting in a cup in front of a young girl customer ( a cute girl who I wound up checking out seriously later) and bopped, no be-bopped, no be-bop bopped one soda jerk, new or not, with it. Now if you have ever seen an eighteen year old guy, in uniform, with hat on, I don’t care if it is only a soda jerk’s uniform wearing about three kinds of ice cream on that uniform you know, you have to know that this guy’s persona non grata with the girls and “cool” guys in town forevermore.

Or so you would think. Frankie went out of town for a few days to do something on family business after this incident and one night near the edge of town as I was walking with that young girl customer whose ice cream Frankie scooped (I bought her another one, thank god I had a little cash on me, and that is why I was walking with her just then, thank you) when I saw one Lorrie sitting, sitting like the Queen of Sheba, in Mr. Soda Jerk’s 1959 boss cherry red Chevy listening to Cry Baby Cry by The Angels as “mood” music on the background car radio that I could faintly hear. Just don’t tell Frankie, okay.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- Saturday Night With “Roy The Boy”- Roy Orbison

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Roy Orbison performing Running Scared.

DVD Review

Roy Orbison: Black and White Nights, Roy Orbison, various all-star musicians and backup singers including Bruce Springsteen and T-Bone Burnett, 1987

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis come easily to mind when thinking about classic rock ‘n’ roll (ya, the early 1950s stuff not the my 1960s coming of age stuff, although that is good too, mostly). And about where you were, and who you were with, and what you were doing when you heard those voices on the radio, on the television, or when you were spinning platters (records, for the younger set, okay, nice expression, right?). The artist under review, Roy Orbison, although clearly a rock legend, and rightly so, does not evoke that same kind of memory for me. Oh sure, I listened to Blue Bayou, Pretty Woman, Running Scared, Sweet Dreams, Baby and many of the other songs that are performed on this great black and white concert footage. And backed up by the likes of T-Bone Burnett, who may be the top rhythm guitarist of the age (and who has also gotten well-deserved kudos for his work on Jeff Bridges’ Crazy Hearts), Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Bruce Springsteen. With vocal backups by k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt. All who gave energized performances and all who were deeply influenced by Roy’s music. That alone makes this worth viewing.

Still, I had this gnawing feeling about Roy’s voice after viewing this documentary and why it never really “spoke” to me like the others. Then it came to me, the part I mentioned above about where I was, and who I was with, and what I was doing when I heard Roy. Enter one mad monk teenage friend, Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood. Frankie of a thousand stories, Frankie of a thousand treacheries, and, oh ya, Frankie, my bosom friend in high school.

See, when Roy was big, big in our beat down around the edges, some days it seemed beat six ways to Sunday, working class neighborhood in the early 1960s, we all used to hang around the town pizza parlor, or one of them anyway that was also conveniently near our high school too. Maybe this place was not the best one to sit down and have a family-sized pizza with salad and all the fixings in, complete with family, or if you were fussy about décor but the best tasting pizza, especially if you let it sit for a while and no eat it when it was piping hot right out of the oven. (People who know such things told me later that kind of cold is the way you are supposed to eat pizza anyway, and as an appetizer not as a meal.)

Moreover, this was the one where the teen-friendly owner, a big old balding Italian guy, at least he said he was Italian and there were plenty of Italians in our town in those days so I believed him but he really looked Greek or Armenian to me, let us stay in the booths if it wasn’t busy, and we behaved like, well, like respectable teenagers. And this guy, this old Italian guy, could make us all laugh, even me, when he started to prepare a new pizza and he flour-powdered and rolled the dough out and flipped that sucker in the air about twelve times and about fifteen different ways to stretch it out. Sometimes people would just stand outside in front of the big picture window and watch his handiwork in utter fascination. Jesus, he could flip that thing.

One time, and you know this is true because you probably have your own pizza on the ceiling stories, he flipped the sucker so high it stuck to the ceiling and it might still be there for all I know (the place still is, although not him). But this is how he was cool; he just started up another without making a fuss. Let me tell you about him, Tonio I think his name was, sometime but right now our business to get on with Frankie and the Roy question, alright.

So there nothing unusual, and I don’t pretend there, in just hanging out having a slice of pizza (no onions, please, in case I get might lucky tonight and that certain she comes in, the one that I have been eying in school until my eyes have become sore), some soft drink (which we called tonic in New England in those days but which you call, uh, soda), usually a locally bottled root beer, and, incessantly (and that incessantly allowed us to stay since we were “paying “ customers with all the rights and dignities that entailed, unless they needed our seats), dropping nickels, dimes and quarters in the jukebox.

Here is the part that might really explain things, though. Frankie has this girl friend (he always had a string of them, which what was cool about him, but this was his main squeeze, his main honey, his main twist, his main flame and about sixty-seven other names he had for them). The divine Joanne (his description, I could take or leave her, and I questioned the divine part, questioned it thoroughly, on more than one occasion). See though Frankie, old double standard, maybe triple standard Frankie, was crazy about her but was always worried, worried to perdition, that she was “seeing” someone else (she wasn’t). You know guys like that, guys that have all the angles, have some things going their way but need, desperately need, that always one more thing to “complete” them.


But sweet old clever “divine” Joanne used that Frankie fear as a wedge. She would always talk (and talk while I was there, just to kind of add to the trauma drama, Frankie’s drama) about all the guys that called up bothering her (personally I didn’t see it, she was cute, for sure, and with a nice figure but I wouldn’t jump off a bridge if she turned me down, others in those days yes, and gladly, but not her). This would get Frankie steaming, steaming so he couldn’t see straight. Once he actually couldn’t eat his pizza slice he was so upset and Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood, ALWAYS ate his pizza. Even fatherly Tonio took notice.

Worst, was when old doll, old sweetheart, Joanne would drop coins in the jukebox to play… Roy Orbison’s Running Scared over and over. And make Frankie give her good coin, his good coin to boot. It got so bad that old Frankie, when Joanne wasn’t around, would play it on his own. With his own money, no less. So, I guess, I just got so sick of hearing that song and that trembling rising crescendo voice to increase the lyrical power that I couldn’t see straight. But, really, you can’t blame Roy for that, or shouldn’t. Watch this DVD. I did and just turned the old volume on the remote down when that song came on. And think of poor old lovesick Frankie and his divine Ms. Joanne. That’s the ticket.
**********
Running Scared- Roy Orbison, Joe Melson

Just running scared, each place we go
So afraid that he might show
Yeah, running scared, what would I do
If he came back and wanted you

Just running scared, feeling low
Running scared, you love him so
Yeah, running scared, afraid to lose
If he came back which one would you choose

Then all at once he was standing there
So sure of himself, his head in the air
And my heart was breaking, which one would it be
You turned around and walked away with me

***Ancient dreams, dreamed-Last Chance To Glance- Magical Realism 101

Main street walked, a brand new just off the assembly line wild dream 1964 Mustang just passed by (dark green, complete with sally, sassy blonde-haired sally from down the street, with big breasts and no brains, according to shawlie grapevine lore, but still with that green devil of a mustang paid for by some smitten man out for her midnight romp of local manhood, or men-hood according to Frankie Larkin school boy corner boy lore, and he should know). Cursed no car night shade walked, no dough for car walked, no dough for nothing walked, poor Pa out of work again. Out of work as the ships that keep North Adamsville afloat are now being built in more exotic locales, foreign places like Taiwan and Malta, wherever that is, and so he, unskilled, last hired, first fired, and built for hills and hollows coalmine childhoods and no waterlogged ocean belts, has no dough to spare. Nada.

So I walked, and only dreamed of cars, not some big deal car like Sally’s Mustang or the “boss” ’57 Chevy of my dreams (nothing but a girl magnet car, and choices too, take a number, girls), and the stuff of hard corner boy chieftain Billy Bradley’s reality but just something to get around in, something to make the girls raise their heads when I pass by, and not keep them pavement-bound while I flannel-shirted in all climes, black chinos un-cuffed in all climes, Chuck Taylor sneakers in all weathers, and midnight faux- beatnik sunglasses at all hours pass them walking by (by my lonesome, except when Frankie decides he has had enough of main squeeze Joann, or corners).

And not something, some car not girl, too complicated, mechanically complicated, either so that I would have to spent my time and no dough down the street at Stewball Stu’s homegrown garage waiting on his lordship to fix some silly thing in about one second like tightening something loose with the flick of a wrench, endlessly talk about his latest conquests (plural is correct, girl conquests, of course, what else could Stu talk about, and for real, I know because they, the girls, and not dogs either, talk about it at school, and giggle, giggle that giggle that means more than tender smooches, jesus), smell his stinking whiskey breathe (rotgut Johnny Walker something but not top shelf but more live Adams River streaked water, and his oil stained, oil-stained everything (clothes, tee-shirt, kitchen table, Christ, how can a guy live like that. Some girl magnet, who knows how or why but they take numbers to ride the curve with Stu, but that is just me being jealous because a couple of times I got his “left-overs.” So thanks, Stu, for the favors.

But see Pa out of work means no telephone, and no dough to put in a telephone or keep it at the ready that is how close to the vest we have to play it when Pa gets his slip, not even a cheapjack two-party line that they, AT&T, practically give away. So this night I am not just walking, Main Street walking for the hell of it, but to rub a few dimes together and find the nearest public telephone to do my talking into. What it’s about, the talking, I will get to in a minute but let me tell you that this nearest phone is located right next to the Minute Motel. Come on, don’t you get it, that is not the real name of the place but do I have to draw you a picture? This is strictly for the “high society” crowd that does their business by the hour, or less. Day and night it seems, there are always cars pulling in and out. Not ‘57 Chevies, those and their Billy Bradley corner boy owners are down at Adamsville Beach or a t Squaw Rock down across from the far end of the beach watching the “submarine races” at midnight for free but more old guy cars. Buicks and Pontiacs. And seeing the traffic going and out of that joint, and why, what goes on, only makes my “job” for this evening that much harder.

See I have been walking this night for a while, a couple of hours, trying to get up enough courage to call this Diana, a girl classmate for a date. Diana, a greek goddess wholesale (although I don’t think she is greek or wholesale but I have her headed that way, that pedestal way), on this atlantic ocean strictly from hunger working class town means streets is who has me walking (and truth to tell kind of muttering to myself, she was that kind of girl). Naturally, Diana is not her real name just like that hotel, motel, no tell was not really called the Minute Motel, I don’t want any trouble okay, and I will tell you why as I get along with what I want to talk to her about. Don’t worry it won’t be long.

This Diana and I have been talking, hard and kind of deep talking in school about world issues, music, poets, crazed poets like mad monk Allen Ginsburg and not so crazed T.S. Eliot (we read Wasteland together in class, wow). Hard talking about the big break-out we know is coming, about how things are going to be totally different for us when our time comes with no Pa out of work and always no dough, or not enough, and we want to be part of it. (See, she told me in confidence, her Pa was on the chopping block down at the shipyards too so she knows about no dough, and sniffed dreams too.) So I take her seriously, and she, I think, takes me seriously although she never has had anything good to say about Frankie, Frankie Larkin, my corner boy, but that is because he tried to give her a tumble, I think, and she knew he was always ball and chain to Joann, or corners. That part isn’t important anyway. What is important is that I dream of her, no, I’d better say she disturbs my sleep and be closer to the truth.

And here is why. Diana, blonde, naturally blonde, Diana, fills out a cashmere-sweater nicely thank you, white tennis –shoed like every other girl in town but showing off some very nice, well-turned legs, thank you. So you can see where she might disturb my sleep because usually I go for girls who want to be part of the great breakout, just like me, but who well, since I am trying to keep my emotions in check before I make this call are only “cute,” at best. Although they too wear those white tennis shoes while reading their James Joyce or Albert Camus (ya, it’s that kind of crowd I run with over in Harvard Square when I have had my fill of North Adamsville squares, excepting Diana). See I am making this call, this midnight big time call to ask Diana to go on over to the Square with me, just as friends, see.

Right now as you can sense I bet I am only talking to stall, stall having to do this call, cold call really, because I don’t know that much about her personally and my intelligence network (Sunday night corner boy guys hanging around the boys’ lav on Monday morning speaking of conquests, and other lies) has run cold to the ground. All I really know about her is that she wants to break-out and that is good enough for me, and good enough to disturb my sleep lately until I play my hand out.

So I am seeking this public telephone, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when due to no fault of my own (or Pa’s really when I thought about it) home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on high school senior errands. Diana

I drop the dime in ring, ring, ring. Hi, Diana, hi spiel, and then, and then nothingness. No way, no way, damn intelligence no way, see she has a boyfriend, a college guy, probably all done up in plaid shirts, slacks, be serious, slack, and pennied loafers, and that is where her dream break-out was running. And then dead of night red-face right away, sorry, I didn’t know, alas, red-faced the next day, red faced until parted june freedom fly-out.

And red-faced even forty years later. Wow.

Main street walked, a brand new just off the assembly line wild dream 1964 Mustang just passed by (dark green, complete with sally, sassy blonde-haired sally from down the street, with big breasts and no brains, according to shawlie grapevine lore, but still with that green devil of a mustang paid for by some smitten man out for her midnight romp of local manhood, or men-hood according to Frankie Larkin school boy corner boy lore, and he should know). Cursed no car night shade walked, no dough for car walked, no dough for nothing walked, poor Pa out of work again. Out of work as the ships that keep North Adamsville afloat are now being built in more exotic locales, foreign places like Taiwan and Malta, wherever that is, and so he, unskilled, last hired, first fired, and built for hills and hollows coalmine childhoods and no waterlogged ocean belts, has no dough to spare. Nada.

So I walked, and only dreamed of cars, not some big deal car like Sally’s Mustang or the “boss” ’57 Chevy of my dreams (nothing but a girl magnet car, and choices too, take a number, girls), and the stuff of hard corner boy chieftain Billy Bradley’s reality but just something to get around in, something to make the girls raise their heads when I pass by, and not keep them pavement-bound while I flannel-shirted in all climes, black chinos un-cuffed in all climes, Chuck Taylor sneakers in all weathers, and midnight faux- beatnik sunglasses at all hours pass them walking by (by my lonesome, except when Frankie decides he has had enough of main squeeze Joann, or corners).

And not something, some car not girl, too complicated, mechanically complicated, either so that I would have to spent my time and no dough down the street at Stewball Stu’s homegrown garage waiting on his lordship to fix some silly thing in about one second like tightening something loose with the flick of a wrench, endlessly talk about his latest conquests (plural is correct, girl conquests, of course, what else could Stu talk about, and for real, I know because they, the girls, and not dogs either, talk about it at school, and giggle, giggle that giggle that means more than tender smooches, jesus), smell his stinking whiskey breathe (rotgut Johnny Walker something but not top shelf but more live Adams River streaked water, and his oil stained, oil-stained everything (clothes, tee-shirt, kitchen table, Christ, how can a guy live like that. Some girl magnet, who knows how or why but they take numbers to ride the curve with Stu, but that is just me being jealous because a couple of times I got his “left-overs.” So thanks, Stu, for the favors.

But see Pa out of work means no telephone, and no dough to put in a telephone or keep it at the ready that is how close to the vest we have to play it when Pa gets his slip, not even a cheapjack two-party line that they, AT&T, practically give away. So this night I am not just walking, Main Street walking for the hell of it, but to rub a few dimes together and find the nearest public telephone to do my talking into. What it’s about, the talking, I will get to in a minute but let me tell you that this nearest phone is located right next to the Minute Motel. Come on, don’t you get it, that is not the real name of the place but do I have to draw you a picture? This is strictly for the “high society” crowd that does their business by the hour, or less. Day and night it seems, there are always cars pulling in and out. Not ‘57 Chevies, those and their Billy Bradley corner boy owners are down at Adamsville Beach or a t Squaw Rock down across from the far end of the beach watching the “submarine races” at midnight for free but more old guy cars. Buicks and Pontiacs. And seeing the traffic going and out of that joint, and why, what goes on, only makes my “job” for this evening that much harder.

See I have been walking this night for a while, a couple of hours, trying to get up enough courage to call this Diana, a girl classmate for a date. Diana, a greek goddess wholesale (although I don’t think she is greek or wholesale but I have her headed that way, that pedestal way), on this atlantic ocean strictly from hunger working class town means streets is who has me walking (and truth to tell kind of muttering to myself, she was that kind of girl). Naturally, Diana is not her real name just like that hotel, motel, no tell was not really called the Minute Motel, I don’t want any trouble okay, and I will tell you why as I get along with what I want to talk to her about. Don’t worry it won’t be long.

This Diana and I have been talking, hard and kind of deep talking in school about world issues, music, poets, crazed poets like mad monk Allen Ginsburg and not so crazed T.S. Eliot (we read Wasteland together in class, wow). Hard talking about the big break-out we know is coming, about how things are going to be totally different for us when our time comes with no Pa out of work and always no dough, or not enough, and we want to be part of it. (See, she told me in confidence, her Pa was on the chopping block down at the shipyards too so she knows about no dough, and sniffed dreams too.) So I take her seriously, and she, I think, takes me seriously although she never has had anything good to say about Frankie, Frankie Larkin, my corner boy, but that is because he tried to give her a tumble, I think, and she knew he was always ball and chain to Joann, or corners. That part isn’t important anyway. What is important is that I dream of her, no, I’d better say she disturbs my sleep and be closer to the truth.

And here is why. Diana, blonde, naturally blonde, Diana, fills out a cashmere-sweater nicely thank you, white tennis –shoed like every other girl in town but showing off some very nice, well-turned legs, thank you. So you can see where she might disturb my sleep because usually I go for girls who want to be part of the great breakout, just like me, but who well, since I am trying to keep my emotions in check before I make this call are only “cute,” at best. Although they too wear those white tennis shoes while reading their James Joyce or Albert Camus (ya, it’s that kind of crowd I run with over in Harvard Square when I have had my fill of North Adamsville squares, excepting Diana). See I am making this call, this midnight big time call to ask Diana to go on over to the Square with me, just as friends, see.

Right now as you can sense I bet I am only talking to stall, stall having to do this call, cold call really, because I don’t know that much about her personally and my intelligence network (Sunday night corner boy guys hanging around the boys’ lav on Monday morning speaking of conquests, and other lies) has run cold to the ground. All I really know about her is that she wants to break-out and that is good enough for me, and good enough to disturb my sleep lately until I play my hand out.

So I am seeking this public telephone, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when due to no fault of my own (or Pa’s really when I thought about it) home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on high school senior errands. Diana

I drop the dime in ring, ring, ring. Hi, Diana, hi spiel, and then, and then nothingness. No way, no way, damn intelligence no way, see she has a boyfriend, a college guy, probably all done up in plaid shirts, slacks, be serious, slack, and pennied loafers, and that is where her dream break-out was running. And then dead of night red-face right away, sorry, I didn’t know, alas, red-faced the next day, red faced until parted june freedom fly-out.

And red-faced even forty years later. Wow.

***Ancient dreams, dreamed-Save The Last Dance For Me- Magical Realism 101

AA tow-headed boy walks, endless forget waiting for erratic Eastern Mass. bus-stop non-stop walks, up named streets, Captain’s Walk (evoking New England Captain Ahab madnesses, a kindred spirit, and land-bound searches for the great blue-pink American west night drive the frenzy instead of holy death-seeking sea drifts, although that is unnamed just now), Snug Harbor Avenue (evoking, well, just evoking home, or the theory of home, or some happy black and white television version of home), and Sextant Circle (like such a useful nautical instrument could guide some lonely, lonesome boy out of the fetid bog-fed marshes and visions of pirates seeking booty, or death). On to Taffrail Road, ah, Taffrail Road evoking ship-wreaked damsels, young, waiting for swashbuckling sailor boys risen from local old tar graveyards to restore their honor, their freedom, or just to share their bed. That last is the rub and that is the heart of the matter along those endless non-stop streets where erratic buses serve as the only way out of those clinched fist streets. That tow-headed boy is enthralled, no better, enraged and engorged with his first stirring of interest in damsel time, thus the time of his time. Yes, clinch those fists very tightly and take the ride.

Unnamed streets abound too, up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-year rutted pavement streets, deeply-gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles streets impassable in winter hard glare and summer sweated heat. A Street cutting off the flow to that old tar cemetery seeking exotic writ names deep-etched in granite slab washed now by birdsong, and dung, rather than damsel sweet smell perfumes. B Street the same, C Street the same, same like some alphabet conspiracy against the boyhood night, against the boyhood dream night when he dreams of manhood, or better feelings of manhood but is clueless, utterly clueless, about what those feelings portent, ominously portent. But what knows he of ominous, or portents for that matter. He confesses, and no church confession either but etched, gravestone old tar etched, no mortal, not even hangmen evil brothers or harassing cousins, boy or girl, should ever have to face the fifth-grade night rudderless, compass-less and with the mark of cain upon his neck.

After walking, endless walking through named and unnamed streets, he heads home, not the home of home but his dream home with her, her house home. After all who in their right mind could curse and rail against the fifth grade-night, and why, if not for budding portentous romance with some green tree-coded she. He dare not speak her name for fear of jinx, or unrequitedness. The year before, that innocent last fourth-grade year, they, the shes of his enflamed imagination, were all just sticks, hardly distinguishable from boys but except perhaps a little smaller, just sticks to be avoided, or ignored, but this year a few, and she among the few, suddenly got interesting and he was stuck, struck really, by that ironic fact, or would have been if he had known what ironic travails he would go through before the end.

But here, watch him from afar, as he crosses for the fifth, or fifteenth time, or fifteen hundredth time past trees are green, coded, coded fifty years coded, endless trees are green secret-coded waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now, for one look, one look, that would elude him, elude him forever such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. She some fair Rosamund and he a mere serf, and they knew it, or he knew it although it did not stop him from wanting, or waiting for that one glance, and that dancing blue-eyed smile.

The dance of all damn things, the upcoming one-size-fits-all school dance, parent-approved, headmaster-approved, hell, bishop-approved when you came right down to it, and, hell, blessed too from what he had heard, maybe jesus, blessed, is what has him in a mental whirl. Such tow-headed fifth-grade boy whirls made an existence, a walked streets existence, possible just as well as reds under every bed scare, russkie atomic-bomb-dropping, get out of the stinking projects and get a new shirt at all costs that disturbed his other nights. But, christ, a two bit dance, some later laughable Podunk gym fiesta, crepe-hanging, some surly drafted, imprisoned teacher to “spin platters” from some RCA music box, and her with the dancing blue-eyes and rounding shape. Yes, that thing drove him crazy, or the possibility of it in the fragrant perfume-soap, some girlish bath soap for all he knew or heard from girl cousins, american bandstand night,

And dreams of private dances in dark shadow corners while that silly hung crepe begins to droop above their spot and he first, and then she, laughs about how some fourth-grader must have hung it, their private laugh. And dance too, no Fred Astaire waltz old-time fox trot (except maybe that slow one at the end of the night although that was mere planned dream echo in walked streets), but full-blossomed be-bop wild hands and ass gyrating to some Elvis good night rocking or Chuck driving some car over the cliff for love, or something, something unspoken, or ask the older kids who know, know through their well-tuned grapevine, what “it” is. If they will tell you.

All a dream, a street-walked dream until, and when, really when he got up the nerve, the endless streets walking nerve, to ask her. But no dance floor numbness would slake that footsore walking thirst not then, and no high school confidential dance either (hell elementary school was tough enough, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out blaring off some truck-bed bandstand. Too improbable for words. So Rosamund fate, young damsel sighted off the sea-side taffrail slid by, and with time the footsoreness turned into dust, or some other psychic pain whirl. But here and now when it counted, at least, no all the rage potato sack stick-turning-into-shape dance with coded name, trees are green, brunette. That will come, that will come. But when?

***In The Time Of Laura’s Time-Ms. LaVern Baker Is In The House- ACD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of LaVern Baker performing her 1950s classic Tomorrow Night.

“Tomorrow night, tomorrow night, will you still say the things you said tonight- a line from LaVern Baker’s song Tomorrow Night.

Walking down the narrow stairs leading to the admission window booth at Johnny Fleet’s in good old Harvard Square on this cold Columbus Day 1978 night, jesus 1978 is almost gone already, I was suddenly depressed by this thought-how many times lately had I walked down these very stairs looking, looking for what, looking, as Tom Waits says in his song, for the heart of Saturday night, looking recently every night from Monday to Sunday and not just Saturday. Looking, not hard looking, not right now hard looking anyway after my last nitwit affair, but looking for a man who at least has a job, doesn’t have another girlfriend or ten, and who wants to settle down a little, settle down with me a little. Yes, if you really need to know, want to know, I’ve got those late twenties getting just a touch worried old maid blues.

My parents, my straight-arrow, god-fearing, Methodist god-fearing and that is a fierce fearing, hard-working, lost in some 1950s dreamland parents, my mother really, my father just keeps his own counsel between shots of whiskey and trying to read the latest seed catalogues that keep him and his business alive through the haze, keeps badgering me about finding a nice young man. Yes, easy for you to say you don’t know the nitwits who are out there and they ain’t Rickey Nelson dream jukebox guys, Mother. And then she starts on the coming home, coming home to cranky Mechanicsville (that’s in upstate New York, near Albany, if you don’t believe me) and finding some farmer-grown boy from high school and X, Y, and Z, farmer boys all, still asks about me. No thanks, jesus, that is why I fled to Boston right after college in 1972 (and fled to a far-away, and a no living at home college too but don’t tell them that) and not just because I wanted to get my social worker master’s degree like I told them. And so here I am, a few years later, walking down these skinny stairs again, sigh, yet again.

Johnny’s (nobody calls it Johnny Fleet’s except for one-time people or tourists) isn’t a bad place to hang your hat, as my father always likes to say, when he finds that one or two places in the universe outside of the farm where he feels comfortable enough to stay more than ten minutes before getting the “I’ve got to go water the greenhouse plants” or something itch (read: drink itch). Not a bad place for a woman, a twenty–eight year old woman with college degrees and some aims in life beyond some one-night stand every now and again. Or not a bad place for a pair of women, if my friend and roommate, Priscilla, decides she is man-hungry enough to make the trip to Harvard Square from the wilds of Watertown, and can stand the heavy smoke, mainly cigarette smoke as far as I know, but after a few drinks who knows, that fills the air before the night is half over.

Tonight Priscilla is with me because she has a “crush” on Albie St John, the lead singer for the featured local rock group, The Haystraws. And the last time she was here he was giving her that look like he was game for something although he is known around the Square as strictly a “for fun” guy. And that is okay with Priscilla because she has some guy back home some guy from upstate New York where she is from near Utica, some fresh from the farm guy who she has known since about third grade, who will marry her if and when she says the word.

Here is the funny thing though alone, or like tonight with Priscilla, this funky old bar is the only place around where a woman can find a guy who is the least bit presentable to the folks back home, wherever back home is. I’ve met a couple of decent guys in here, although like I said before, things didn’t work out for some reason because they were one-night stand guys or already loaded down with girlfriends and I am in no mood to take a ticket, stuff like that. So you can see what desperate straits I am in still trying to meet that right guy, or something close, without a lot of overhead. My standards may be a little high for the times but I’m chipping away at them by the day.

Moreover, this place, this Johnny’s is the only place around that has the kind of music I like, a little country although not Grand Ole Opry country stuff like my parents go for, you know George Jones or Aunt Bee, or someone, a little bit folkie, kind of left-handed folkie, more like local favorite Eric Andersen folk rock, and a little old time let it rip 1950s rock and roll, like the Haystraws cover, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, those guys, that I never knew anything about when I was a kid since I never got past Rickey Nelson and Bobby Darin, darn him, out in the farm field sticks. Upstate New York, like I said, not far out of Albany but it might as well have been a million miles away with me picking my sting beans, tomatoes, and whatever else pa grew to keep us from hunger’s door.

Not for me this trendy disco stuff, not my style at all, no way, although I love to dance and even took belly dancing lessons even though I am not voluptuous, more just left of skinny if I say it but really voluptuous Priscilla calls me just skinny. Also my kind of guy would never, never wear an open shirt and some chainy medallion around his neck. Jesus, no way. Plus, a big plus, Johnny’s has a jukebox for intermissions filled with all kinds of odd-ball songs, real country, stuff, late 1950s rock and roll (the Rickey Nelson/Bobby Vee/Bobby Darin stuff) that nobody but me probably ever heard of unless, of course, you were from Mechanicsville, or a place like that.

After going through mandatory license check and admission fee stuff, saying “hi” to the waitresses that I know now by name, and Priscilla does too, and the regular bartenders as we pass by we find our seats, kind of “reserved” seats for us where we can sit and not be hassled by guys, or be hassled if something interesting comes along. I have been in kind of a dry spell, outside the occasional minute affair if one could really call some of the “affairs” even that, for about six months now. Ever since I started to work, work doing social work, my profession, if you need to know. That’s what I am trained to do anyway although when I first came to town a few years ago I was, as one beau back then said, “serving them off the arm” in a spaghetti joint over the other side of Cambridge. Strictly a family fare menu, and plenty of college guys, including a few who I wound up dating, low on funds doing the cheap Saturday night date circuit. All in all a “no tips” situation anyway you cut it, although plenty of guff, a lot of come ons, and extra helpings of “get me this and get me that.”

Before that, out in Rochester in college, and later after a short stop at hometown Mechanicsville it was nothing but wanna-be cowboy losers, an occasionally low-rent dope dealer, some wanna-be musicians, farmer brown farmers, and married guys looking for a little something on a cold night. Ya, I know, I asked for it but a girl gets cold and lonely too. Not just guys, not these days anyway. But I am still pitching, although very low-key. That is my public style (some say, say right to my face, prim but that’s only to fend off the losers).

“Laura, what are you having, tonight honey?’ asked my “regular” waitress, Lannie, and then asked Priscilla the same. “Two Rusty Nails,” we replied. Tonight, from a quick glance around the room even though it is a Columbus Day holiday night, looks like it is going to be a hard-drinking night from the feel of it. That means on my budget and my capacity about three drinks, max. About the same for Priscilla unless she is real man-hungry. But that is just between us, okay. Lannie, as is her habit, knowing that we are good tippers (the bonds of waitress sisterhood as Priscilla has also “served them off the arm”) brought the drinks right away. And so we settled in get ready to listen to The Haystraws coming up in a while for their first set. Or rather I did the settling in. Priscilla was looking, looking hard at Albie, and he was looking right back. I guess I will be driving home alone tonight.

As I settled in I noticed that some guy was playing the jukebox like crazy. Like crazy for real. He kept playing about three old timey LaVern Baker songs, Jim Dandy of course, and See See Rider but also about six times in a row her Tomorrow Night. I was kind of glad when the band, like I said, these really good rockers, The Haystraws, began their first set. And so the evening was off, good, bad, or indifferent.

About half way through the set I noticed this jukebox guy kept kind of looking at me, kind of “checking” me out without being rude about it. You know those little half-looks and then look away kind of like kid hide-and-seek and back again. Now I have around long enough to know that I am not bad to look at even if I am a little skinny and I take time to get ready when I go out, especially lately, and although times have been tough lately I am easy to get to know but this guy kind of put me on my guard a little. He was about thirty, neatly bearded which I like and okay for looks, I have been with worst. But what I couldn’t figure out, and it bothered me a little even when I tried to avoid his peeks (as he “avoided” mine) is why he was in this place.

Johnny’s, despite its locale in the heart of Harvard Square, is kind of an oasis for country girls like me, or half-country girls like Priscilla (from upstate New York too, Utica, in case you forgot) and guys the same way although once in a while a Harvard guy from the sticks comes around (or a guy who says he goes to Harvard. I have met some who made the claim who I don’t think could spell the name of the college, I swear). This guy looked like Harvard Square was his home turf and if he found himself five feet from a well-lighted street, a library, or a bookstore he would freak out big time. He might have been an old folkie, maybe early Dylan or Dave Von Ronk that nasal hard to understand kind of stuff, he had that feel, or maybe a bluesy kind of guy, Muddy Waters maybe, but he was strictly a city boy and was just cruising this joint.

But here is where the jukebox joe story gets interesting. At intermission Priscilla had to run to the ladies’ room and on the way this guy, Allan Jackman, as I found out later when he introduced himself to me, stopped her and said that her brunette friend looked very nice in her white pants and blouse. He then said to her that he would like to meet me. Priscilla, a veteran of the Laura wars (and I of hers), had the snappy answer ready, “Go introduce yourself, yourself.” And he did start to come over but I kind of turned away to avoid him just in case he had escaped from somewhere (ya, like I said before my luck has been running a little rough lately so I am a little gun-shy). Still he worked his way over.

And this is the very first thing that Allan ever said to me. “I noticed that you kind of perked up when I played LaVern Baker’s Tomorrow Night. Have you been disappointed when things didn’t work out after that first night of promise too, like in the song?” Not an original line, but close. I answered almost automatically, “Yes.” Then he introduced himself and just kind of stood there not trying to sit down or anything like that waiting for me to make the next move. Then Priscilla came back and said she had run into Albie St. John and he wanted to “talk” to her before the band came back for a second set (she said with a certain twist like she was doing him this big favor and not like she was practically drooling at the idea. Like I said I am definitely driving home alone today.). She left and Allan was still standing there, a little ill at ease from his look. Befuddled by his soft non-threatening manner, and soft manners, I was not sure if I wanted him to sit down or not but then I said what the hell, he seems nice enough and at least he was not drunk.

So he sat down, and gently, actually very gently, shook my hand and said “thank you” for letting me let him sit at the table. In the flush of reaction to that gentle handshake, I swear no man had ever taken my hand in such a manly manner without guile or gimme something before, I relaxed a little and asked him, not an origin question but I was curious, what brought him to Johnny’s. He started to tell me about his country minute, about finding out about the wild boys of country music, about Hank Williams (I winched, that was my father’s music) about this guy Townes Van Zandt and so on.

And then he said he was looking for me. I winched again. Not another crazy. No, not me exactly, but me as a person who he sensed had been kind of beaten down in the love game lately like he had. He said he saw that look in my face, in my eyes, when he kind of half-checked (I made him laugh when I said we were kid-hide-and-seeking earlier) me out at the jukebox. I said I thought he had fully “checked me out” but he would only confess to the half. We both laughed at that one.

And after that opening, strange to say, because being a country girl, and being brought up in a Methodist-etched household to keep my thoughts to myself, or else, or else Dad would have a fit, I started to talk to him about my troubles lately. And he listened and kept asking more questions, not in your face questions, but questions like he was really interested in the answers and not as some fiendish experiment to take advantage of a simple girl. And then I asked him a few things and before we knew it the evening’s entertainment was over and Lannie kept telling us that we had to go. I still had some doubts about this guy, this city boy and his city ways, and his fierce piercing blue eyes that could be true or truly devilish.

As we got up to leave he asked, kind of sheepishly with a little stutter, asked, for my telephone number. No “my place or your place, honey,” or “let’s go down the Charles and have some fun,” or “I brought you six drinks (we had each bought our own) and so I expect something more” or any of that usual end of the night stuff that I have become somewhat inured to. He simply, softly, said he wanted it because he wanted to call me up tomorrow night. We kind of laughed at that seeing the way we met, before we met. I hesitated just a minute and he, sensing my dilemma, started to turn to leave. A guy who knows how to take no for an answer, or the possibility of no, without recrimination or fuss. Wait a minute, Laura. Before he took two steps I blurted out my number. And then put it on a cocktail napkin for him. As I passed the glass wet napkin to him he said he would call about seven if that was okay. I said yes. And then he shook my hand, shook it even more gently than when he introduced himself, if that was possible. I flushed again as he headed to the door. Something in that handshake said you had better not let this one get away. Something that said you had better be near the phone at 7:00 PM tomorrow night waiting for his call. And I will be.