From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Mimi’s Glance, Circa 1963

 

Mimi Murphy knew two things, she needed to keep moving, and she was tired, tired as hell of moving, of the need, of the self-impose need, to keep moving ever since that incident five years before, back in 1958, with her seems like an eternity ago sweet long gone motorcycle boy, Pretty James Preston. I knew this information, knew this information practically first hand because the usually polite but loner Mimi Murphy had told me her thoughts and the story that went with it one night after she had finished a tough on the feet night working as a cashier at the Olde Saco Drive-In Theater out on Route One in Olde Saco, Maine.

That night she had passed me with a bottle of high-end Scotch, maybe Haig &Haig, showing its label from a brown bag in her hand while I was going down the stairs in the rooming house we lived in on Water Street in Ocean City, a few miles from Olde Saco. A number of people, including Mimi and me, were camped out there in temporary room quarters after the last of the summer touristas had decamped and headed back to New York, or wherever they came from.  The cheap off-season rent and the short stay until the next summer crowd showed up requiring no lease drew us there. Most residents, mostly young and seemingly unattached to any family or work life kept to themselves, private drinkers or druggies, a couple of low profile hustling girls who didn’t bring their work home, guys maybe just out of the service, or between jobs, and so on. I had seen a couple of guys making passes at Mimi but thought nothing of it since they also targeted the hustling girls too.    

Since I had never bothered Mimi, meaning made a pass at her (slender, no skinny, Irish red-heads with faraway looks and no, no apparent warm bed desires, that year and in those days not being my type after tumbledown broken-hearted youthful years of trying to coax their favors to no avail over in the old Little Dublin neighborhood around the Acre in Olde Saco), she must have sensed that being contemporaries, she was twenty-one then and I twenty-two, that maybe she could unburden her travails on a fellow wayward traveler. And she was right, and she did as she invited me up into her room with no come hither look but no fear, no apparent fear, anyway. After a couple of drinks, maybe three, of that dreamboat scotch that died easy going down (I had been down on my uppers for a while and was drinking strictly rotgut low shelf liquor store wines and barroom half empty glass left-overs but that is my story and not Mimi’s so I will move on) she loosened up, taking her shoes off before sitting down on the couch across from me. Here is the gist of what she had to say as I remember it that night:            

She started out giving her facts of life facts like that she had grown up around this Podunk town outside of Boston, Adamsville Junction, and had come from a pretty pious Roman Catholic Irish family that had hopes that she (or one of her three sisters, but mainly she) might “have the vocation,” meaning be willing, for the Lord, to prison cloister herself up in some nunnery to ease the family’s way into heaven, or some such idea. And she had bought into the idea from about age seven to about fourteen by being the best student, boy or girl, in catechism class on Sunday, queen of the novenas, and pure stuff like that in church and the smartest girl in, successively, Adamsville South Elementary School, Adamsville Central Junior High, and the sophomore class at Adamsville Junction High School.

As she unwound this part of her story I could see where that part was not all that different from what I had encountered in my French-Canadian (mother, nee LeBlanc) Roman Catholic neighborhood over in the Acre in Olde Saco. I could also see, as she loosened up further with an addition drink, that, although she wasn’t beautiful, certain kinds of guys would find her very attractive and would want to get close to her, if she let them. Just the kind of gal I used to go for before I took the pledge.     

About age fourteen thought after she had gotten her “friend” (her period for those who may be befuddled by this old time term) and started thinking, thinking hard about boys, or rather seeing that they, some of them, were thinking about her and not novenas and textbooks her either she started to get “the itch.” That itch that is the right of passage for every guy on his way to manhood. And girl on her way to womanhood as it turned out but which in the Irish Roman Catholic Adamsville Junction Murphy family neighborhood was kept as a big, dark secret from boys and girls alike.

Around that time, to the consternation of her nun blessed family, she starting dating Jimmy Clancy, a son of the neighborhood and a guy who was attracted to her because she was, well, pure and smart. She never said whether Jimmy had the itch, or if he did how bad, because what she made a point out of was that being Jimmy’s girl while nice, especially when they would go over Adamsville Beach and do a little off-hand petting and watching the ocean,  did not cure her itch, not even close. This went on for a couple of years until she was sixteen and really frustrated, not by Jimmy so much as by the taboos and restrictions that had been placed on her life in her  straight jacket household, school and town. No question she was ready to break out, she just didn’t know how.     

Then in late 1957 Pretty James Preston came roaring into town. Pretty James, who despite the name, was a tough motorcycle wild boy, man really about twenty-one, who had all, okay most all, of the girls, good girls and bad, wishing and dreaming, maybe having more than a few restless nights, about riding on back of that strange motorcycle he rode (a Vincent Black Lightning stolen, not by Pretty James, from some English guy and transported to America where he got it somehow, the details were very vague) and being Pretty James’ girl. One day, as he passed by on his chopper going full-throttle up Hancock Street, Mimi too got the Pretty James itch.

But see it was not like you could just and throw yourself at Pretty James that was not the way he worked, no way. One girl, one girl from a good family who had her sent away after the episode, tried that and was left about thirty miles away, half-naked, after she thought she had made the right moves and was laughed at by Pretty James as he took off with her expensive blouse and skirt flying off his handle-bars as left her there unmolested but unhinged. That episode went like wildfire through the town, through the Monday morning before school girls’ lav what happened, or didn’t happen, over the weekend talkfest first of all.

No Pretty James’ way was to take, take what he saw, once he saw something worth taking and that was that. Mimi figured she was no dice. Then one night when she and Jimmy Clancy were sitting by the seawall down at the Seal Rock end of the beach starting to do their little “light petting” routine Pretty James came roaring up on his hellish machine and just sat there in front of the pair, saying nothing. But saying everything. Mimi didn’t say a word to Jimmy but just started walking over to the cycle, straddled her legs over back seat saddle and off they went into the night. Later that night her itch was cured, or rather cured for the first time. 

Pouring another drink Mimi sighed poor Pretty James and his needs, no his obsessions with that silly motorcycle, that English devil’s machine, that Vincent Black Lightning that caused him more anguish than she did. And she had given him plenty to think about as well before the end. How she tried to get him to settle down a little, just a little, but what was a sixteen old girl, pretty new to the love game, totally new, but not complaining to the sex game, and his little tricks to get her in the mood, and make her forget the settle down thing. Until the next time she thought about it and brought it up.

Maybe, if you were from around Adamsville way, or maybe just Boston, you had heard about Pretty James, Pretty James Preston and his daring exploits back in about 1957 and 1958. Those got a lot of play in the newspapers for months before the end. Before that bank job, the one where as Mimi said Pretty James used to say all the time, he cashed his check. Yes, the big Granite City National Bank branch in Braintree heist that he tried to pull all by himself, with Mimi as stooge look-out. She had set him up for that heist, or so she thought. No, she didn’t ask him to do it but she got him thinking, thinking about settling down just a little and if that was to happen he needed a big score, not the penny ante gas station and mom and pop variety store robberies that kept them in, as he also used to say, coffee and cakes but a big payday and then off to Mexico, maybe down Sonora way, and a buy into the respectable and growing drug trade.

And he almost, almost, got away clean that fatal day, that day when she stood  across the street, an extra  forty-five in her purse just in case he needed it for a final getaway. But he never made it out the bank door. Some rum brave security guard tried to uphold the honor of his profession and started shooting nicking Pretty James in the shoulder. Pretty James responded with a few quick blasts and felled the copper. That action though slowed down the escape enough for the real coppers to respond and blow Pretty James away. Dead, DOA, done. Her, with a tear, sweet boy Pretty James.

According to the newspapers a tall, slender red-headed girl about sixteen had been seen across the street from the bank just waiting, waiting according to the witness, nervously. The witness had turned her head when she heard the shots from the bank and when she looked back the red-headed girl was gone. And Mimi was gone, maybe an accessory to felony murder or worst charge hanging over her young head, and long gone before the day was out. She grabbed the first bus out of Braintree headed to Boston where eventually she wound up holed up in a high-end whorehouse doing tricks to make some moving on dough. (She mentioned some funny things about that stay, which was not so bad at the time when she needed dough bad, and about strange things guys, young and old, wanted her to do but I will leave that stuff out here.)

And she had been moving ever since, moving and eternally hate moving. Now, for the past few months, she had been working nights as a cashier in the refreshment stand at Olde Saco Drive-In to get another stake to keep moving. She had been tempted, a couple of times, to do a little moon-lighting in a Portland whorehouse that a woman she had worked with at her last job, Fenner’s Department Store where she modeled clothes for the rich ladies, had told her about to get a quick stake but she was almost as eternally tired at that prospect as in moving once again.            

And so Mimi Murphy, a few drinks of high-shelf scotch to fortify her told her story, told it true I think, mostly. A couple of days later I saw her through my room’s window with a suitcase in hand looking for all the world like someone getting ready to move on, move on to be a loner again after maybe an indiscrete airing of her linen in public. Thinking back on it now I wish, I truly wish, that I had been more into slender, no skinny, red-headed Irish girls with faraway looks that season and maybe she would not have had to keep moving, eternally moving.     

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Motorcycle Days, Circa 1958

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jody Reynolds performing his teen angst classic Endless Sleep.

CD Review

The Rock and Roll Era: 1958, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987

Yes, 1958 was a good time to be a motorcycle boy, a de facto, de jure wild boy according to the chattering, clueless, disapproving parents of the time, especially the parents of impressionable teenage girls (and not just teenage girls either if they had a clue what was going on over at State U with the twenty somethings, including their Janie, when the music and liquor got going and the wild boys showed up to get it on). Of course parents didn’t count, count for much anyway, when trends, moods, and what was cool got discussed in front of night time mom and pop variety stores where corner boys of all descriptions and attitudes held forth. Or at after school, high school of course lesser grade need not bother to show up except maybe in early morning to get some candy bar or other sweet to get them through until growing time lunch, Doc’s Drugstore where all manner of high school boy and girl went for a soda and snack but mainly to hear some latest tune, maybe some hot Jerry Lee wild boy mad man thing, seventeen times in Doc’s amped up super juke box. In those quarters motorcycle wild boys were cool, if maybe just a little dangerous.

And maybe just slightly illegal too as their parents’ cops (as part of that parent-police-teacher-priest-politician-hell-maybe even mom and pop variety store owner authority continuum) frowned, no more than frowned, when some local detachment of the Devils’ Disciples’ roared through the Adamsville Beach. The sight of flashing blue lights on the boulevard meant usually one thing. Some wild boy had his motor too loud, or he wasn’t wearing a helmet, or he switched lanes without signaling, or maybe for just being ugly, cop’s eyes ugly, or some lame thing like that. Those small civic sins only added to the mystique though. Especially on sultry summer nights when the colors passed turning every guy’s eyes, even mine, to listen to that power and to set every girl, impressionable or not, to thinking, thinking Wild Boy Marlon Brando thinking about what was behind that power.

See before Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson put everybody straight about the seamy side of motorcycle life, life-style motorcycle life with its felonies and mayhem, Marlon and his wild boys (and maybe throw in James Dean and his “chicken run” cars although they were a little too tame to be as revered as the motorcycle boys were) had cleaned up the wild boy scene, made it okay to an easy rider, made it sexy. Not the weekend warrior flip turns and wheelies and then Monday morning back to the bank stuff but real alienated Johnnies just like you and me. Old Marlon had made alienated wild boys cool. Old sexy white tee-shirt, maybe a pack of Luckies rolled up one sleeve, a cap rakishly turn at a n angle on his head, but mainly an attitude, an attitude of distain, hell, maybe hatred, toward that ever present authority that told every kid, every boy and girl that you had better take what you can when you can because it won’t be there long. And that slight snarl that accompanied every word. Yah, cool, cool daddy cool.

And the girls, wells, they were doing that wondering, wondering about what was behind that power thrust, as those leather jackets and engineer boots roared by. To the detriment of their date while sitting in the front seat of his father’s borrowed plain vanilla box tail fin car that he had to almost declare a civil war to get for the evening and promise to mow some future lawn as compensation. Jesus. Or worst, infinitely worst, having, her date car-less, just been walked over to the beach to sit on that cold seawall. Her eyes flamed red, as she almost flagged down some local easy rider as he passed.

And the music befit the time of end of time times, the times when it seemed every little mishap in some godforsaken corner of this wicked old world turned into a major crisis causing everybody at some invisible authority’s urging to head for the air raid shelters and keep their heads down. And their butts up. Jerry Lee wild man piano stuff, always ready to break out, jail break out ever since he popped the question in high school confidential, Chuck leering at sweet little sixteens and you know what I mean, Eddie Cochran giving us a summer time blues anthem to hang our hopes on, and all kinds of one hit wonders trying to put a dent in our angst, our special teen angst that was ready to boil over, to break out and be free. Free from that invisible hand authority.

No wonder the wild boys had a field day. Those impressionable girls worried they would never get to “do it” but were fearful to “do it” nevertheless in that Pill-less world. And guys hoping that the girls were worrying about not “doing it” before the world exploded egged them on although not with as much concern as necessary about consequences. The wild boys, those easy riders, though said “take no prisoners” and that was attractive, that and that promise of power that had many a girl restless late at night.

So no wonder as well some young thing in the Jody Reynolds’ song Endless Sleep , maybe worried about getting pregnant after she let lover boy go further than she (and he) expected decided to go down to that sunless beach and let old Neptune have his way with her. And he, lover boy, maybe with a wild boy sensibility on the surface but more the weekend warrior when the deal went down, went looking for the dizzy dame, his dizzy dame and left old Neptune in the lurch. And many years later, maybe in some dream remembrance, they would throw the old records on the turntable, amp up the teen angst, the teen alienation, then sit back and listen to maybe the last minute in the 1950s when free-wheeling rock and roll blasted the night away. And the motorcycle boys held forth in the thundering night.

***As The 2012 Anti-War Season Gets Under Way- A Vietnam War Flashback Moment- Private First Class, United States Army, Jimmy Jacks, (1944-1965) R.I.P. - U.S. Troops Out Everywhere!

Markin comment:

Private First Class, United States Army (RA), Jimmy Jacks would have been sixty-seven, or perhaps, sixty-eight years old this fall. You do not see the point of bringing up this unknown stranger’s name? Well, here is another clue Jimmy J. (his local moniker), a few years older than I am, was the first kid from my growing-up working class neighborhood to see service in Vietnam. Still not enough? Then take a little trip down to Washington, D.C. and you will find his “fame” listed on that surreally and serenely beautiful black stone work dedicated to the fallen of that war. Yes, I thought that might get your attention. This is Jimmy J’s story, but is also my story around the edges, and come to think of it, yours too, if you want end these damn imperial military adventures that the American state insists on dragging its youth, and in disproportionate numbers its working-class and minority youth, into.

My first dozen years or so of life were spend in a public housing project (“the projects” that every self-respecting mother warned their sons and daughters drifting down into if they didn’t shape up like a previous generation spoke of “the county farm,” the place of dreamless dreams), a place where the desperately poor of the day, or the otherwise displaced and forgotten of the go-go American economy of the 1950s were shunted off to. So you can say I knew Jimmy Jacks all my life, really, although I did not physically meet him until we moved across town to my coming-of-age working class neighborhood, a neighborhood whose ethos was in no way superior to “the projects” except that, unlike the four to a box project, the tiny houses were, for the most part, single dwellings. And I really only knew Jimmy through my older brother, Prescott (street name, The Gat Kid, ya real original I know) which is to say not very well at all as I was, okay, just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. And Jimmy was the king hellion of the neighborhood and dragged my brother, and the brothers of others, in tow. So this ain’t going to be a story of moral uplift, which is for sure.

See Jimmy, when he was around the old neighborhood, was the very large target, that is to say the number one target, of the “shawlies.” Shawlies? In our mainly Irish working-class neighborhood, although I confess I only heard it used by more recent immigrants just off the boat (or plane) from the old country or older ones who refused to become vanilla Americans, it signified that circle, council if you will, unofficial of course, of mothers, young and old, who set the moral tone, at least the public moral tone, of the place. In short, the gossips, old hags, and rumor-mongers (I am being polite here) who had their own devious grapevine, and more importantly, were a constant source of information about you to your own mother. Usually nothing good either.

And what conduct of Jimmy’s would bring him to the notice of that august body, other than the obvious one of corrupting the morals of the youth? Hey, as you will see this guy was no Socrates. Jimmy, it seems, or it seems to me now, was spoon-fed on old time gangster movies (and The Gat Kid too). No, not the George Raft-Jimmy Cagney-Edward G. Robinson vehicles of the 1930s in which the bad guy pepper-sprayed every one with his trusty machine-gun, everyone except dear old Ma (whom he would not touch a hair of the head of, and you better not either if you know what’s good for you). No, Jimmy was into being a proto-typical "wild one" a la Marlon Brando or the bad guys in Rebel Without A Cause. The ones who tried to cut James Dean up, cut him up bad. Without putting too fine a spin on it, he played out some kind of existential anti-hero. Something Jean Genet might have worked out character sketch on for one of his sullen plays.

So who was this Jimmy? No a bad looking guy with slicked-back black hair, long sideburns (even after they were early 1960s fashion-faded), sh-t kicking engineer boots, dungarees (before they were fashionista), tied together by a thick leather belt (which did service for other purposes, other better left unsaid purposes), tee-shirt in season (and out). Always smoking a cigarette (or getting ready too, and always unfiltered, natch, maybe Camels or Luckies, I really don’t remember), always carrying himself with a little swagger and lot of attitude. Oh ya, he was a tenth-grade high school drop-out (not really that unusual in those days in that neighborhood, drop-outs were a dime a dozen, including my own brother). And here is the draw, the final draw that drew slightly younger guys to him (and older girls, as well) he always had wheels, great wheels, wheels to die for, and kept them up to the nth degree. Employment (in order to get and keep those wheels, jesus, don't you guys know nothing): unknown

That last point is really the start of this story about how the ethos of the working poor and the demands of the American military linked up. Jimmy (and his associates, including my drop-out brother, and for a minute my younger brother, called “Stup” by Jimmy and The Gat Kid too, as look-out) was constantly the subject of local police attention. Every known offense, real or made-up, wound up at his door. Some of it rightly so, as it turned out. I might add that the irate shawlies had plenty to do with this police activity. And also plenty to do with setting up Jimmy as the prime example of what not to emulate. Well, as anyone, including me, in own my very small-bore, short-lived criminal career can testify to when you tempt the fates long enough those damn sisters will come out and get you. Get you bad. The long and short of it is was that eventually Jimmy’s luck ran out. The year that his luck ran out was 1963, not a good year to be nineteen and have your luck run out if there ever is one.

Nowadays we talk, and rightly so, about an “economic draft” that forces many working class and minority youth to sign up for military service even in ill-fated war time because they are up against the wall in their personal lives and the military offers some security. I want to talk about this “economic draft” in a different sense although I know that the same thing probably still goes on today. I just don’t have the data or anecdotal evidence to present on the issue. Jimmy, however, was a prima facie case of what I am talking about. When Jimmy’s luck ran out (and my brother’s as well) he faced several counts of armed robbery, and other assorted minor crimes. When he went to court he thus faced many years (I don’t remember his total, my brother’s was nine, I think). The judge, in his infinite mercy offered this deal- Cedar Junction (not the name then, but the state prison nevertheless) or the Army. Jimmy, fatefully, opted for the Army (as did my brother).

Here is the part that is important to understand though. Jimmy (and to a lesser extent, my brother), the minute that he opted for military service went from being “bum-of-the-month” in shawlie circles to a fine, if misunderstood and slightly errant, boy. Even the oldest hags had twinkles in their eyes for old Jimmy. Of course, his mother also came into high regard for raising such a fine boy committed to serve his country (and his god, and just so you understand that was a very Catholic god, don’t forget that part). Once in uniform, an airborne ranger’s uniform, and more importantly, once he had orders for Vietnam, then an exotic if dangerous place and a name little understood other than the United States was committed to its defense against the atheistic communists, his stock rose even further. I was not around the old neighborhood when the news of his death was announced in 1965 but my parents told me later than his funeral was treated something like a state function. The shawlies, weeping and moaning like their own sons were lost, in any case were out in force. Jimmy J, a belated R.I.P.

***Private First Class, United States Army, Jimmy Jacks, (1944-1965) R.I.P.

Markin comment:

Private First Class, United States Army, Jimmy Jacks would have been sixty-seven, or perhaps, sixty-eight years old this fall. You do not see the point of bringing up this unknown stranger’s name? Well, here is another clue Jimmy J. (his local moniker), a few years older than I am, was the first kid from my growing-up working class neighborhood to see service in Vietnam. Still not enough? Then take a little trip down to Washington, D.C. and you will find his “fame” listed on that surreally and serenely beautiful black stone work dedicated to the fallen of that war. Yes, I thought that might get your attention. This is Jimmy J’s story, but is also my story around the edges, and come to think of it, yours too, if you want end these damn imperial military adventures that the American state insists on dragging its youth, and in disproportionate numbers its working-class and minority youth, into.

My first dozen years or so of life were spend in a public housing project, a place where the desperately poor of the day, or the otherwise displaced and forgotten of the go-go American economy of the 1950s were shunted off to. So you can say I knew Jimmy Jacks all my life, really, although I did not physically meet him until we moved across town to my coming-of-age working class neighborhood, a neighborhood whose ethos in no way was superior to “the projects” except that the tiny houses were, for the most part, single dwellings. And I really only knew Jimmy through my older brother which is to say not very well at all as I was, okay, just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. And Jimmy was the king hellion of the neighborhood and dragged my brother, and the brothers of others, in tow. So this ain’t going to be a story of moral uplift, which is for sure.

See Jimmy, when he was around the old neighborhood, was the very large target, that is to say the number one target, of the “shawlies.” Shawlies? In our mainly Irish working-class neighborhood, although I confess I only heard it used by more recent immigrants just off the boat (or plane) or older ones who refused to become vanilla Americans, it signified that circle, council if you will, unofficial of course, of mothers, young and old, who set the moral tone, at least the public moral tone, of the place. In short, the gossips, old hags, and rumor-mongers (I am being polite here) who had their own devious grapevine, and more importantly, were a constant source of information about you to your own mother. Usually nothing good either.

And what conduct of Jimmy’s would bring him to the notice of that august body, other than the obvious one of corrupting the morals of the youth? Hey, as you will see this guy was no Socrates. Jimmy, it seems, or it seems to me now, was spoon-fed on old time gangster movies. No, not the George Raft-Jimmy Cagney-Edward G. Robinson vehicles of the 1930s in which the bad guy pepper-sprayed every one with his trusty machine-gun, everyone except dear old Ma (whom he would not touch a hair of the head of, and you better not either if you know what’s good for you). No, Jimmy was into being a proto-typical "wild one" a la Marlon Brando or the bad guys in Rebel Without A Cause. Without putting too fine a spin on it, some kind of existential anti-hero.

So who was this Jimmy? No a bad looking guy with slicked-back black hair, long sideburns (even after they were fashion-faded), engineer boots, dungarees (before they were fashionista), tied together by a thick leather belt (which did service for other purposes, other better left unsaid purposes), tee-shirt in season (and out). Always smoking a cigarette (or getting ready too), always carrying himself with a little swagger and lot of attitude. Oh ya, he was a tenth-grade high school drop-out (not really that unusual in those days in that neighborhood, drop-outs were a dime a dozen, including my own brother). And here is the draw, the final draw that drew slightly younger guys to him (and older girls, as well) he always had wheels, great wheels, wheels to die for, and kept them up to the nth degree. Employment (in order to get those wheels, jesus, don't you guys know nothing): unknown

That last point is really the start of this story about how the ethos of the working poor and the demands of the American military linked up. Jimmy (and his associates, including my drop-out brother) was constantly the subject of local police attention. Every known offense, real or made-up, wound up at his door. Some of it rightly so, as it turned out. I might add that the irate shawlies had plenty to do with this police activity. And also plenty to do with setting up Jimmy as the prime example of what not to emulate. Well, as anyone, including me, in own my very small-bore, short-lived criminal career can testify to when you tempt the fates long enough those damn sisters will come out and get you. The long and short of it is was that eventually Jimmy’s luck ran out. The year that his luck ran out was 1963, not a good year to have your luck run out if there ever is one.

Nowadays we talk, and rightly so, about an “economic draft” that forces many working class and minority youth to sign up for military service even in ill-fated war time because they are up against the wall in their personal lives and the military offers some security. I want to talk about this “economic draft” in a different sense although I know that the same thing probably still goes on today. I just don’t have the data or anecdotal evidence to present on the issue. Jimmy, however, was a prima facie case of what I am talking about. When Jimmy’s luck ran out he faced several counts of armed robbery, and other assorted minor crimes. When he went to court he thus faced many years (I don’t remember his total, my brother’s was nine, I think). The judge, in his infinite mercy offered this deal- Cedar Junction (not the name then, but the state prison nevertheless) or the Army. Jimmy, fatefully, opted for the Army (as did my brother).

Here is the part that is important to understand though. Jimmy (and to a lesser extent, my brother), the minute that he opted for military service went from being “bum-of-the-month” in shawlie circles to a fine, if misunderstood and slightly errant, boy. Even the oldest hags had twinkles in their eyes for old Jimmy. Of course, his mother also came into high regard for raising such a fine boy committed to serve his country (and his god, don’t forget that part). Once in uniform, an airborne ranger’s uniform, and more importantly, once he had orders for Vietnam, then an exotic if dangerous place and a name little understood other than the United States was committed to its defense against the atheistic communists, his stock rose even further. I was not around the old neighborhood when the news of his death was announced in 1965 but my parents told me later than his funeral was treated something like a state function. The shawlies, in any case where out in force. Jimmy J, a belated R.I.P.