***A 50th Anniversary Of
Sorts -Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- For A
Brother Who Did Not Make It, Jimmy J., North Adamsville Class Of 1966
Peter
Paul Markin North Adamsville High School- Class of 1964 comment:
Make
no mistake, despite the lightly- dusted change of names and places to protect
the innocent, and the guilty too now that I think about the matter, this honor
sketch is about our old town, no question.
Go to this link for the sketch since
this site only allows 5000 character messages.
http://talesfromoldnorthquincy.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-50-th-anniversary-of-sorts-out-in.html
***A
50th Anniversary Of Sorts -Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night-
Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- For A Brother Who Did Not Make It, Jimmy J.,
North Adamsville Class Of 1966
Peter Paul Markin North Adamsville
High School- Class of 1964 comment:
Make no mistake, despite the lightly-
dusted change of names and places to protect the innocent, and the guilty too
now that I think about the matter, this honor sketch is about our old town, no
question.
Scene: Around and inside the old North
Adamsville High School gym entrance on the Hunt Street side the night before
the big Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross- town arch-rival
Adamsville High in 1963. For those who are not familiar with North Adamsville
or who through the ravages of time, too much booze, too many drugs, or too
many, well just too many Hunt Street is the street that had the Merit gas
station, now Hess, on the corner. A place where we filled up, we who owned such
treasures, that dream 1957 Chevy that had everybody turning their heads, every
girl, or more likely our father’s Plymouth on pretty please loan, just be
careful with the damn thing and, yes, fill ‘em up before you bring it home,
home by midnight, no later and no arguments.
The street itself is
fairly non-descript, filled, like most streets in the Atlantic section with
double and triple-decker houses, mostly two unlike kindred, Irish kindred,
Dorchester (Dot, okay) and South Boston (Jesus, Southie, okay) and small lot
single family houses, cottages really all packed closely together against the
unimproved land behind the street. Houses representing, those small lot
cottages too closely packed together representing, that nagging hunger of our
parents to have a small piece of the American pie after the turmoils of the
want-filled Great Depression 1930s. And after slogging through World War II
during the heart of the 1940s, short-cutting their youth, carrying a rifle on
the shoulder, or home fires waiting, waiting for Johnny and Jimmy to come back,
come back in one piece, please. And their broods, their spawn (nice word, huh),
like their brethren on Billings Road , Faxon Road, Hancock Street, East
Squantum Street, Young Street, Newbury Street, the seven tree-named streets,
the five ocean- signified streets, fill, over-fill, the four grades of the high
school that the baby-boomer explosion, their explosions, has created. That
motley will be well-represented this pre-game rally night. No question.
[By the way thinking
about that Atlantic section of the old townevery grandmother, every second or
third generation resident grandmother, calling, no, cursing, under their
breathe cursing the place, cursing “one-horse Atlantic” from the days when one
needed to “go up the Downs” to get family provisions and services, or go
without.]
Of course the time of
which I speak is a time before they built what is apparently, that apparently
due to many years away from the old school and not up on changes until
recently, a significant addition to the school on that side of the building
modeled on the office buildings across the street behind the MBTA stop and a
tribute to “high” concrete construction, and lowest bidder imagination. Then
though only a recently constructed new gym, an American Standard gym, also
reflecting concrete construction and lowest bidder imagination, anchored that
part of the building.
This night the spawn
(still nice, huh) I spoke of, a generous proportion of them seniors taking one
last memory home before the deluge of a candid world hits them come June.
Others too are present some at some ghostly sufferance from lowly and despised
frosh, barely passable sophomores, and presentable juniors, some of their
parents taking a minute out from festive next day preparations. More, a gentle
sprinkling of teachers, mostly teachers who had half a heart and maybe tossed a
kind word once. the hard-assed don’t mix with the rabble that sit before them
day after day, a motley of alumni recent and ancient, ancient seemingly from founder
Adams’ time. More still a selection of the town waywards looking for warmth
before a warm furnace-fueled gym for a couple of hours usually closed against
the night, and some boosters, alumni or not, who have for their own reasons
decided to cast their fates and bleed red and black like true Red Raiders
whatever high school they might have graduated from before landing in old North
Adamsville. All are milling in the front door of the gym waiting to purchase
booster tickets, pompoms, red and black naturally to be waved, endlessly waved
that evening at the slightest prompting, three for a dollar raffle tickets to
support some senior class project, most likely that trip to Mexico that Miss
Pratt was trying to put together, in the foyer inside making stealthy
preliminary observations about who and who was not present, and with whom if
present, or the forlorn, the luckless or just plain woe-begotten are already in
the bleachers trying to put on a brave front against the hard fact, the hard
school social fact that they do not fit in.
And that is our scene
in those long last moments before the annual rally is to begin. But, frankly,
it could have been a scene from any one of a number of years in those days. A
time when the social cohesion of the whole North Adamsville village glued the
community around a common ritual, a rite of passage if you like. A time when
the denizens of the Dublin Grille over on Sagamore Street (or the Irish Pub on
Billings Road, Guido’s on Atlantic Avenue, Patty’s Pub on Wollaston Boulevard,
I know, I know Adamsville Shore Drive, Bruno’s on East Squantum it was all the
same except the locations), mostly working-class Irishmen and a scattering of
Italians abandoned their cherished bar stools and cozy booths, including my
father and other kindred, and hiked the five blocks to the high school to root
the latest edition of the gridiron's goliaths on. A time too when such
endeavors as football (and fast cars, “watching the submarine races” with your
honey down at Adamsville Beach, HoJo’s ice cream, Fourth of July celebrations,
your first drink of alcohol) were cultural ornaments of that second or third
generation of immigrants, European immigrants. And I am willing to bet
six-two-and-even with cold hard cash gathered from my local ATM against all takers
that this story “speaks”, except for the names, to those who dwell in the town
today as well. Listen up:
Sure the air was
cold, you could see your breath making curls before your eyes no problem, and
the night felt cold, cold as one would expect from a late November New England
night. I could too as I joined the mob trying to run the gauntlet in the foyer
and see what is what, see what they evening may bring, stealthy observation
bring. A mass of humanity was moving, bundled up against the weathers, toward
that gym entrance front door quickly from automobiles parked helter-skelter on
the several streets adjacent to the high school. Others have short- haul walked
from the tree-named streets, maybe the ocean-named streets too probably quicker
that night than driving except for those who will meander down toward frosty
Adamsville Beach after the rally to join the other fogged-windowed cars to do,
well to do in case there are grandkids around, okay. Still others took that old
fume -filled Eastern Mass bus that never seemed to show on time, never when you
were in a hurry or it was cold, cold like that night and waiting in some
half-baked lean-too for shelter froze the toes.
It was also starless,
as the weather report was projecting rain, maybe freezing rain if the
temperature dipped for the big game. Damn, not, damn, because I was worried
about, or cared about a little rain. I’ve seen and done many things in a late
November New England winter rain, and December and January rains too, for that
matter. Faced gales coming out of hell Bay of Fundy around Maine shorelines,
watched, watched in horror, and candidly fear, as double-seawalls could not
hold Mother Nature back when a big blow came through Marblehead Neck one time,
got drowned, soaked to the bone, in pelting rain Newport, really Block Island
so a little sleet would not have bothered me then. No, this damn, was for the
possibility that the muddy Veterans Stadium field would slow up our vaunted
offensive attack. And good as that attack was guided by Tim Riley and rambling
wreck Bullwinkle (no further name need be given for that moniker says it all
about the rambling wreck who thrilled us with his dogged forward, ever forward
slashes and thrusts against mere mortals and who is rightly immortalized in the
old school’s hall of fame), a little rain, and a little mud, can be the great
equalizer.
This after all is
class struggle. No, not the kind that you might have heard old Karl Marx and
his boys talk about, you know the workers who produce whatever needs to be produced
and the bosses grabbing a big share, a big wad of dough, from that production,
although now that I think of it there might be something to that theory here as
well. I’ll have to check that out sometime but just then I was worried, worried
to perdition, about the battle of the titans on the gridiron, rain-soaked
granite grey day or not. See, this particular class struggle was Class A (more
boys) Adamsville against Class B (fewer boys) North and we needed every
advantage against this bigger school. (Yes, I know for those younger readers
that today’s Massachusetts high schools are gathered in a bewildering number of
divisions and sub-divisions for some purpose that escapes me but when football
was played for keeps and honor simpler designations like A and B worked just
fine.)
Do I have to describe
the physical aspects of the gym? Come on now this thing is any high school gym,
any public high school gym, anywhere. Foldaway bleachers, foldaway divider (to
separate boys for girls in gym class, if you can believe that), waxed and
polished floors made of sturdy wood, don’t ask me what kind (oak, maybe) with
various sets of lines for its other uses as a basketball or volleyball court.
If you have not been in a high school gym in a while or you want to invoke memory
lane check out the school dance scene in the baby-boomer coming -of –age- in-
the-early- 1960s classic film, American
Graffiti, where you will see what I mean. (Yeah, I know car-crazed,
souped-up hot-rod valley boys and girls Modesto was not our pristine
ocean-swell shoreline borrow your father’s car, some Nash Rambler or something,
with the usual caveats about fueling the thing up, not crashing the thing into
some wall and bring it home early but the gyms were the same, the dreams were
the same, and the awkward boy-girl-dance thing, jesus, you know that was the
same, and maybe still is.)
That should do it on
the architecture of the gym. I will not, I swear I will not, go on and on like
some latter day Marcel Proust about the decorations that festooned the walls
and rafters, except they were strewn hither and yon throughout the gym. A few
hand-make posters seemingly drawn by somebody’s younger brother or sister
before nap time urging Go Raiders, Beat Adamsville, or some team member
designated by shirt number to do those things. But mainly the place was filled
with black and red little cheap crepe throw-away banners. Not just black and
red though Red Raider black and red, black signifying who knows what but red,
blood red signifying that we bled Raider red, or we had better that night.
The most important
thing though was that guys and gals, old and young, students and alumni and
just plan townies were milling about waiting for the annual gathering of the
Red Raider clan, those who had bled, have bled, bleed or wanted to bleed Raider
red, and even those oddballs that didn’t. This upcoming battle, as always,
stirred the blood of even the most detached denizen of the old town. That night
of nights, moreover, every unattached red-blooded boy student, in addition to
performing his patriotic duty, was looking around, and looking around
frantically in some cases, to see if that certain she had come for the
festivities, and every unattached red-blooded girl student, ditto on the duty,
for that certain he. Don’t tell you didn’t take a peek, or at least give a
stealthy glance.
Among this throng are
a couple of fervent quasi-jock male students, one of them who is writing this
sketch, the other, great track man, Bill Brady, was busy getting in his
glances, both members of the Class of 1964, with a vested interest in seeing
their football-playing fellow classmates pummel the cross- town rival. And
also, in the interest of full disclosure, were both in the hunt for those
elusive shes. I did not see the certain she that I was looking for, that
classmate Dora, a girl as crazy for politics, history, modern literature, and
poetry, yes, poetry what of it, who had told me earlier in the day before the
close of school for the first long weekend of the year that she would come, if
she could, and who I often dreamed of then. But, as was my perfidious nature
then, I had also taken a couple of stealthy glances at some alternate
prospects.
This, the final
football game of our final football-watching season, as students anyway, had us
bringing extra energy to our night’s performance, including purchase of those
tacky crepe pompom shakers. Jesus, all because some girl Bill was interested in
was on the Boosters Club table as we came in. We were on the prowl and ready to
do everything in our power to bring home victory. ....Well, almost everything
except donning a football uniform to face the opposing monstrous goliaths of
the gridiron. We fancied ourselves built for more "refined" pursuits
like running around the streets of the old town in shorts in all weathers
almost getting run over by irate drivers and sidewalk walkers as trackmen,
those just mentioned stealthy glances, and that sort of thing.
Finally, after much
hubbub (and, as I observed the scene, more coy and meaningful looks all around
the place than one could reasonably shake a stick at) the rally began. At first
somewhat subdued due to the very recent trauma of the Kennedy assassination,
the dastardly murder of one of our own, Jack, down in cowboy wild west heathen
Texas, especially for the many green-tinged Irish partisans among the crowd. I
had been particularly hard-hit since I had walked the streets of the old town
putting campaign literature in every doorway and had bought, bought heavily
into the fresh green dream of a “newer world” that his election had heralded. We
all remember where we were that previous week, and although we have forgotten
much some fifty years later not that.
Most of us were in class when the announcement that the President had
been mortally wounded was made over the P.A. system. We had lost some of our
innocent, and, worse, that promise for the young heralded by his election, that
making and doing good in the world, whether you bought into the New Frontier or
not seemed an unlikely promise. But everyone, including me, seemingly, had
tacitly agreed that for that little window of time the outside world and its
horrors would not intrude.
A few obligatory (and
forgettable) speeches by somber and lackluster school administrators, headed by
Mr. Jim Walsh, and their lackeys in student government and among the faculty
uniformly stressed good sportsmanship and that old chestnut about it not
mattering about victory but how you played the game droned away. Of course, no
self-respecting “true” Red Raider had anything but thoughts of mayhem, maybe
murder too if it could have been gotten away with, and of casting the
cross-town rivals to the gates of hell in his or her heart so this speechifying
was so much wasted wind. This “bummer” prelude, obligatory or not, was followed
with a little of this and that, mainly side show antics. People, amateurishly,
taking the floor and twirling red and black things in the air, and the like.
Boosters or Tri-Hi-Yi types for all I knew. Certainly they were not in the same
league as the majorettes, who I would not hear a word against, and who
certainly know how to twirl the right way. See, I was saving one of my sly, coy
glances for one of them just then, sweet Rita Givens.
What every
red-blooded senior boy, moreover, and probably others as well, was looking
forward to by then was the cheer-leading to get things moving led by the senior
girls like the vivacious Ruth Goward, the spunky Jenny Weinfeld, and the plucky
Laura Pratt. They did not fail us with their flips, dips, double something
stuff, gymnastic stuff that I don’t remember the names of except I couldn’t do
in gym class, not even close, and hearty rah-rahs. Strangely, the band, a
motley of brass-players, drummers and clangers led by that bevy of majorettes
when it was their turn, with one exception and you know the exception, did not
inspire that same kind of devotion, although no one can deny that some of those
girls could twirl.
But all this
spectacle was so much, too much, introduction. For what was wanted, what was
demanded of the situation, up close and personal, was a view of the Goliaths
that will run over the cross- town arch-rival the next day. A chance to yell
ourselves silly. The season had been excellent, marred only by a bitter lost to
a bigger area team on their home field, and our team was highly regarded by
lukewarm fans and sports nuts alike.
Naturally, in the
spirit, if not the letter of high school athletic ethos, the back-ups and
non-seniors were introduced first by Coach Lion. Then came the drum roll of the
senior starters, some of whom had been playing for an eternity it seemed. Names
like guiding hand Tim Riley, speedy Will Simmons, husky Len Munson, beefy Peter
Duchamp, steady Jack Zona, reliable Dick McNally, redoubtable ( don’t ask him
what that means, please) Jeff Fallon, wily Carl McDonald, dingbat Stewart
Chase, mad dog "Woj" (Jesus, don’t forget him. I don't need that kind
of madness coming down on my face, even now.), and on and on.
Oh, yes and
“Bullwinkle,” a behemoth of a run-over fullback, a night train wreaking havoc
over many a solid defensive line even by today’s standards. Yes, let him loose
on that arch-rival's defense. Whoa. But something was missing. A sullen
collective pout filled the room. After the intros were over the suddenly
restless crowd needed verbal reassurances from their warriors that the enemy
was done for. And as he ambled up to the microphone and said just a couple of
words we got just that reassurance from “Bullwinkle” himself. He grunted the
words “Victory over Adamsville.” That was all we needed. Boys and girls, this
one was in the bag. And as we shortly thereafter headed for the exits to dream
our second-hand dreams of glory the band, a little less subdued then, played
the school fight song, On North
Adamsville to the well-known tune of On Wisconsin.
Yes, those were the
days when boys and girls, the young and old, the wise or ignorance bled Raider
red in the old town. Do they still do so today? And do they still make those
furtive glances at certain hes and shes? I hope so.
