***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Sammy Russo Ran The Skee Ball Lanes

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Shirelles performing their classic Tonight’s The Night

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that graced each CD compilation in a rock and roll series that I recently reviewed here. The then newly built Gloversville Amusement Park created out of farmland just west of the old home town, Clintondale. Of course it had all the latest rides, including two Ferris wheels, two different-sized roller coasters (one for the faint-hearted, the other for the brave, or fool-hearty) refreshment stands seemingly without end, and other refinements, including for our particular purposes not one by two game pavilions anchored by rows of skee lanes. Skee lanes that Sammy Russo ruled (that‘s would be the the guy eating the proffered popcorn in the photo I am referring if you could see it) and claimed kingship over and over which Patty Smith (the popcorn profferee in said photo) sought to be his queen. If she could handle the gaffe.

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“Christ, Patty how many of these damn, god awful kewpie dolls do you need anyway?,” yelled Sammy Russo, the King Of The Skee Ball night at Gloversville Amusement Park and also a 1960s king hell king of a corner boy at Doc Sweeney’s Drugstore (said store complete with soda fountain, naturally, and a juke box too else why be a corner boy there, or anything else) out in the Clintondale be-bop night to his wanna-be sweetie, Patty Smith. And it was a question that he expected an answer to, a prompt, no sass answer, newness wearing off or not, newness of their “steady” hood-ness, that is.

See, Patty got big eyes for Sammy right here at the FUNland game pavilion (no that is not a typo that is the way the name in front of the game pavilion read) at the beginning of summer, right after school let out. School, of course, being North Adamsville High in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty if anybody asks you, and they might. And, for that matter, how else would I know of the Sammy-Patty love story, I ask you, if that wasn’t so. I am one of Sammy’s Doc’s Drugstore corner boy, uh, associates.

Gloversville proper, by the way, is too new and rural raw to have its own high school so kids from Gloversville come over to North Clintondale where there is some extra room just now. But Gloversville kids, farm boys and girls mainly, are strictly squaresville. No dispute. The only reason that anybody from North Clintonville High, any corner boy (or his girl) would even set foot in Gloversville for one minute, no, one second, was to pass ever-loving Main Street (really Route 16) through to the edge of town seeking the newly built Gloversville Amusement Park. And that is the reason why Sammy and Patty were standing there in front of the FUNland skee ball lanes having their first “argument.” Well, kind of an argument.

Patty was either in some high funk, or did not hear Sammy the first time over the din of the Gene Daniel’s A Hundred Pounds Of Clay followed immediately by The Chieftains Heart And Soul, blaring over the loudspeaker. A loudspeaker that we finally figured out was used by the management to juice up the pinball/skee ball/games atmosphere so no one could think and just drop coins in steadily whatever games were being played. The noise was so loud that Sammy was forced to repeat himself. And Patty faux-demurely answered (as was her way when Sammy got this, well, this Sammy Doc’s corner boy way)-“Until I get the whole set of twelve, and not before.” [Markin: For those who are breathlessly on the edge of their seats waiting to know why there are twelve it is simple. There are twelve kewpies representing twelve different nations/major ethnic groups, naturally, they had that part of the soft sell down easy] “Christ,” said Sammy under his breathe, “We will be here all night.”

All night skee-ing when Sammy, king of the skees or not, had other things, other wrestling in some secluded spot out back by the artificial lake that formed one of the edges of the park things, on his mind. With one Patty Smith, of course. And that would not be the first time, the first wrestling time. Funny, just then the newest Shirelles' hit came over the speaker, Tonight’s The Night. But just now he knew deep in his bones, knew as if he had been married to Miss Smith for fifty years, that tonight was not going to be the night if she did not go home with not ten, not eleven, but exactly twelve f—king kewpie dolls.

Now this skee thing, on an average night is nothing but a sure thing when Sammy has his motor running. When his mind is on skees, okay. But playing enough games to “win” twelve dolls, or for that matter twelve rabbits’ feet or twelve leis (lesser prizes in the skee universe) requires a certain perseverance and good aim.

[Markin: For those who do not know skee it is like bowling, candle-pin bowling (small balls for those not from New England) in that you roll the bowl up a short lane and like darts or rifle target shooting in that you have a target. The idea is to get as many points (and hence coupons) with nine balls as possible. The points convert to coupons which are dispensed near where you place your money to start a game. Get enough coupons and you win prizes from those lame leis to kewpie dolls. Simple.]

But, like I said, Sammy’s mind had been elsewhere, especially when Patty, yes, Patty brought up the subject of wrestling down by that lake if things worked out at skee. And as if to punctuate her sentence Brenda Lee’s You Can Depend On Me came on while these “negotiations” were in progress.

But this night Sammy, king hell corner boy is whipped, just plain whipped by the task before him. It is almost closing time (11:00 PM) and Sammy has won exactly five dolls. And Sammy, while he can be as smooth as any Doc’s Drugstore corner boy, except maybe Fritz Gentry, or as cold as any hard-boiled Hell’s Angel motorcycle corner boy from the Blarney Bar &Grille in the hard-night part of Clintondale is ready to explode at Patty. Not for her foolish girl desire for the damn dolls. That is how girls are and what makes them tick. No, Sammy is fed up that his prowess at skee had to be put in play by Patty’s silly notions.

So come eleven o'clock and defeat Sammy, cold as ice, says to Patty, “Okay, we are finished, I’ll take you home now but I have had it.” So they walked, walked pretty far apart for two people on the same planet, back to Sammy’s father’s car and he did not even open Patty’s door for her. Bad news, no question. She got in and as the car radio heated up wouldn’t you know in a night filled with omens and portents that just then the local all-night rock ‘n’ roll station would be playing Connie Francis’ Breakin’ In A Brand New Broken Heart. And both Sammy and Patty were absolutely quiet while that song was being played.