Notes Of A Street Corner Agitator- In Six-Part Harmony

Markin comment:

I have spent the better portion of my life fighting for one progressive cause or another, sometimes one issue, sometimes several issues in tandem. Mainly those fights have been with small crowds about, but not always. The always part is that throughout it all I have been ready, mostly ready anyway, to get up on the street corner soapbox, literally or figuratively as the case called for, and shout out, shout out until I was hoarse at times, the glad tidings of the new more equitable society a-bornin’. The following sketches are representative of those efforts although, except for the last sketch, they are not the actual words used but reflect the moments with a certain literary and political license.
*******
At the Parkman Bandstand on the Tremont Street side of the Boston Common or anyplace in between that location and the Park Street subway station on any one of several early weekday evenings in the summer of 1961. In those days time and space was reserved for anyone to speak from the ever present soapbox (literally a sturdy wooden box that one stood on to be hear above the crowd although the box used may, or may not, have started out life as a container for soap) about any subject that came to mind. Said speeches were, as now, directed to a small lingering audience and a larger indifference (or, occasionally hostile) audience glancing by as they quickly headed home, or went about their shopping business.

As we hone in on the scene the previous speaker, an elderly lady, small, very dignified, very well dressed, and very morally correct, had just finished up her remark sweetly railing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the name of her grandchildren’s future. The next speaker, a ragamuffin of a boy of fifteen, me, Peter Paul Markin, red-faced, Irish red-faced from over- exposure at the Adamsville Beach gotten a few days before, was ready to speak. His hands were sweaty, his bedraggled odd-ball Bargain Center purple shirt was wet with the summer humidity moisture that usually kept him indoors on such days, his pants, his de rigueur black chinos without cuffs were clinging to his off-shaped body as he leaped forward to the unknown on his maiden public speech on any subject. He starts a little timidly, weakly, and lowly and is asked to speak up by the few people who have stopped by that moment to listen up to what a mere boy had to say about anything:

“There is an evil in America, a terrible wrong going on right this minute down South, down in places like Alabama and Mississippi and we have to do something about it right now. Most of you have read the news, the news that kids, kids, just like me, except they are black are going up against the police so they do not have to be treated as second-class citizens, or really just to get out of slavery days. And older people too, people who work like slaves on the farms for no money, who can’t vote, can’t pay the money to vote, and can’t get out from under the racists who control their lives. They are fighting too, fighting as best they can under the great leadership of Doctor Martin Luther King who seems to know what he is doing. [From a passer-by: “Nigger-lover, go back to Africa with them, for chrissakes”]. No, no that man has it all wrong we were all born here and this is where the fight is. But you can see what we are up against and not just down South but here on the Common and over in my own hometown, North Adamsville.

Let me continue, although I am a little rattled by what that guy said. See he doesn’t know we are really fighting for him too. What I was trying to say was that we can do something here, here right now. You might have heard last winter that a bunch of college students down in North Carolina, a bunch of black kids and a few white ones too, tried to go eat lunch at Woolworth’s, a place just like the one over on Washington Street. A place where you probably have gone to eat just like me and had one of their great grilled cheese sandwiches, or something. Shouldn’t people be able to do that without being bothered? I want you to help us out by standing with us and do not eat at Woolworths’s okay. [Another voice, this time from the edge of the audience- “Commie, go back to Russia and take your kind with you.”] No, I ain’t no commie, no way, but you don’t have to be a commie to see that it just isn’t right that people can’t eat where they want, or go to school where want or vote just like us.

Let me finish up though so the next speaker can get his turn. What we really need to do is write to our beloved president, our own beloved Irish Jack Kennedy, who last fall when he was running for President I roamed the streets of North Adamsville for putting his literature in doorways and stuff, and tell him to sent his Justice Department people, his brother Bobby, down to Mississippi right now and straighten things out. Straighten things out so that Negros can have the same kind of dreams as he talked about in his inauguration speech in January. Will you do that? Thanks. [Sight applause and a few yeses] “

As I turned to get off the platform to give time to the next speaker from the back of the audience I heard a distinct voice, distinct black southern voice say in a low tone, “Praise be, brother, praise be.”
*******
I have put on my “soapbox” street corner agitation in many corners of this country since that first day going over the summer heated North Adamsville Bridge to Boston and my first Common speech in the summer of 1961. Just now on this May Day 1971 I am standing this Monday morning, wearily standing after very little sleep this past weekend, near the Washington Monument Mall haranguing a crowd of anti-Vietnam War protestors to keep pushing on although we have suffered a grievous defeat this day, a day when we had proclaimed with much bravado that if the government (the Nixon government just then) did not close down the war then we would close down the government. All we have received for our efforts is tears, tear-gas, and massive arrests after being picked off like fleas by the massive police and military presence and not even a close approximation of shutting down this evil government. But tomorrow, literally tomorrow, is another day, and the anti-warriors need some assurance that their efforts will be more fruitful the next day, and the next day, and next until we meet our goal. End that damn war, and end it fast.

I, Peter Paul Markin, this day only a few months out of an army stockade for my military service anti-war work, am again “courting” arrest on the streets of Washington. It is hot in Washington this day, made hotter by the constant running to avoid the cop traps that seem to be everywhere but I made it to the Mall which is something of a “safe haven” from the madness of the tear-gassed streets and baton-wielding cops. Appearance and attire: youth nation de rigueur army jacket (no, not the GI issue one that I was discharged from the service with but a “real” World War II Army-Navy Store purchase, two dollar purchase), bell-bottomed jeans, army boots (boots that I did leave said service with), a flannel shirt against cold nights, and a trusty green knapsack (not Army issue) with all my
possessions. Hair getting longer uncut from Army times and the wisp of a beard growing to manly length, slowly. My mother’s comment: “You dressed better, much better when you were in high school.” Ya Ma, but now it is cool to be unkempt-don’t you get it. But enough let’s listen to this harangue of the maybe hundred plus crowd seeking verbal shelter from the storm:

“Although I was in the military I do not know much about military strategy and tactics since I spent most of my time fighting against the war-machine including time in the stockade. [Audience; light applause] I do know this though we have suffered a defeat, a military-like defeat today in trying to shut down this evil government, this evil Nixon government which has no legitimacy, none at all and wouldn’t even be here if Bobby Kennedy was alive [Audience: a couple of deep boos] Don’t worry out there I am not going to go on about that. We have more pressing business. We still have to shut this evil government down. We have to stand with the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese people who are today, and every day, facing much more than tear-gas, much more than unlawful assembly arrest, facing everything that the American military monster can throw against them, and maybe more that we don’t even know about. Like that Agent-Orange stuff that we keep hearing about that is destroying everything in sight for years in a country that depends on agriculture. [Audience: Right on, brother].

When we take that kind of beating then we will be able to complain, complain a little, but not until then. [Right on!]. Now I know a lot of people have been talking about leaving D.C. because of what happened today but we said yesterday, a lot of us said we were in this for the long haul, right? [Yes, brother from a few voices] Hey I am afraid too. I don’t want to go back to jail, hell no, but if that is my fate then so be it. Like Che said we have to fight here “in the belly of the beast,” and we have to fight proudly since the fate of the earth depends on it. [“Viva, Che!” from several voices]. Now maybe not everybody can be a street fighter, I know that, but stay and support our efforts okay. Steve Sloan will now come up and tell us about tomorrow’s actions. Down with American imperialism! Down with the American war-machine! Long live the people’s struggles!”
*******
A warm California October 1981 day, a warm San Francisco day, not always the same thing despite the travel brochures, as I walk up to the small, jerry-rigged “podium” in a corner of City Hall Plaza to make my one hundred and first, or so it seems speech against the unfolding Reagan “doctrine” in Central America, primarily to blast the Soviet-aided Sandinista government to smithereens (and, incidentally the same to the pesky Salvadoran rebels). Overtly, or covertly, blast to smithereens it does not seem to matter to this rabidly anti-communist cabal who have nightmare visions of Cuba 1959 redux.
I am showing just the slightest sights of age, or rather of losing a certain youthful innocence about our capacity, our left-wing capacity, to build a more equitable society in my lifetime and so my demeanor is a little less the “shout to the rafters” jubilee certainty of ten years ago or so. Showing the age part does enter a little though but the few flecks of grey showing up unwanted in my beard, and in my now shortened hair, shortened against the work-a-day world, the nine-to-five grind that requires certain personal compromises. I still retain, fiercely retain, my working-class casual garb; denim jacket, black chino pants worn since de rigueur high school days, busted-blue work shirt (to show I am one with the companeros perhaps), and stolid black shoes better for walking these protest miles these days than the old Chuck Taylor's of old. Let’s listen up as the last speaker, a very eloquent young women speaking on behalf of the emerging sanctuary movement, a movement responding to the very real fears of some illegal political immigrants from all over Central and South America to be deported back to the “black hole” that awaits them if they have to go back, walks back to her chair:

“Hola, Que Tal, Hermanos and Hermanas, Hello, What’s Up, Brothers and Sisters, there is a madness in the land, in this Norte American land and it has a name. Ronald Reagan. And it has an address. Washington, D.C. And the madness? These cowboys, and you who lived here in California in the 1960s under the cowboy-in-chief know this better than I do, are hell-bent on turning back the clock on any social progress here, or anywhere. And just this minute that anywhere is Central America where we have just gained a victory, a tenuous victory against reaction in Nicaragua, and we are fighting like hell to get one in El Salvador. Long live the Sandinista struggle! Long live the FMLN! [Cheers and chanting of those two slogans]

But as long as American imperialism exists, as long as the greatest military machine in history exists, those steps forward are always in danger. And that is why the help that the Soviet Union is providing, and in my opinion not providing enough of, is important. I have my differences with the Soviets, no question, but on this one they are right, right as rain. [A couple of boos and a “Down with Soviet imperialism” are heard.] To keep the American monster from bringing back the banana republic days, the Somoza dictatorship days.

And that is why we need to keep clear who are friends are here in this proxy war, this proxy Cold War just like in Angola a while back. That is why we must call for stepped up Soviet aid and that is why we here in the “belly of the beast,” as Che used to say, need to take concrete steps to help by providing funds for the Sandinista cause. Their struggle is our struggle. If they lose, we lose. It is that simple. Long live the national liberation struggles. Fight for a Workers Republic in Nicaragua!”
*********
A christ cold day in January, an early January christ cold Park Street subway station on Boston Common 1991 day, the sun going down over the John Hancock building making it even more christ cold as we make a last ditch effort to stop the impending American imperial army (and so-called coalition forces but you know who is running the show) invasion of Iraq over “poor little Kuwait,” jesus. The few hundred people present are forming a circle, a circle of life according to those who insist on such antics, which I assume was meant to ward off the evil spirits and bring peace. Me, I prefer, greatly prefer some labor action, some longshoremen refusing to ship military goods but that is music for the future, maybe. What is not music for the future, and really music from the past, a certain then growing pains past, is that circles, squares, hexagons or whatever geometric shape you are now touting are now replacing the urgency of hard anti-imperialist actions against the American war machine. It is as if this “peace” movement has regressed to those 1961 days when I stood on this very ground and held hands with my line neighbor and spoke of “soft” peace in the world. But that was just youthful ignorance on my part. This christ cold night studied ignorance rules.

Those flecks of grey in beard and hair of ten years ago have marched on, marched on in triumph, although the garments are no longer aged (except of course those chinos, oops, Dockers now, a little larger, a little more room) as I take my turn “in the circle” to have my say after the last dozen speakers have cried to the heavens for peace, like that mantra would solve everything. Listen up to this crowd-pleaser:

“Nobody here should have anything but contempt for Saddam Hussein and what he has done in Kuwait. Let me make that clear, especially clear, since old Saddam used to be American imperialism’s “boy” back in the day when we all loved him, well almost all, okay. Now he is the devil incarnate since his has turned rogue and fouled up the American government’s cozy deals in the oil-rich Middle East.

But this impending war is not about Saddam or what he did or didn’t do to upset the apple cart in the “new world order” that Bush want to put in place. This is about the exercise of American military power, the vaunted war death machine and about American hubris. Now most of the previous speakers, in fact maybe all of them, have chimed in on the need for peace. And, of course, we all want peace, even George H.W. Bush, except his is the peace of the graveyard for the Iraqi people. So here in an America, here in what the great Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara called the “belly of the beast” have a special obligation to oppose the actions of this government. We are duty-bound to defend Iraq against American attack, no question. No question at all. Otherwise we cannot build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement worthy of the name. The struggle starts here against this government. Down with American imperialism! Defend Iraq Against American Attack!” [Silence, utter silence]
**********
A late September 2001 Boston day, a day before the leaves begin to turn, before the whitened winter sets in but some time after the hellish 9/11 has fully taken its tool on whatever is left of American democracy. A small clot of anti-imperialist fighters is meeting this day in the courtyard quadrangle at Northeastern University to ward off the impending invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 and the search for scapegoats, Taliban/Al Qaeda scapegoats. Meeting at the traditional site of protest in Boston, the Common, is out of the question just now with the fury over the World Trade Center still not abated, no even close. Even this spot, this campus location, is shaky, very shaky, as all thoughts of anti-war, anti-imperialism by students and others have gone out the door. Revenge, revenge is the order of the day for all but this clot, this very small clot of activists standing with me.

Although, perhaps, on this occasion it does not matter, in the interest of literary completeness, the writer’s hair and beard are now completely grey and his garb not significantly different from that of ten years ago. What is different, significantly different from ten years ago is that, for one of the few times in his political career, he is afraid, afraid that he will be pummeled for what he has to say in this deeply hostile post 9/11 environment. That every “commie,” “go back to Russia,” get a job,” “Traitor,” remark of the past pales in the anger he can sense and not just from the usual yahoo sources but from “soccer moms” and others who think about politics about once every ten years. Cup your ear and listen up, listen up hard, because he has a catch in his voice this day:

“No one, not one self-respecting human on this planet can do anything but condemn, condemn in no uncertain terms, the criminal acts that took place in New York at the World Trade Center. That should be clear to all the few who hear me today. But there are larger questions posed, posed long ago by the American imperial state when their government decided, decided consciously to rip up and rule this planet for the few. None here, who were old enough, did anything but condemn the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, and the continuing imperialist-driven economic and military sanctions against that state.

Now we are here confronting another American imperial adventure, the revenge invasion of Afghanistan for the acts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Organizations that we have no truck with, no truck at all. Over the years I have, and others whom I have worked with have, very easily condemned every act of American imperialist from Vietnam to Serbia, and done so forthrightly. On Afghanistan, and the military invasion this time, we have lost some of those former supporters. Revenge for innocent victims, even by an imperial monster, is hard to resist. But it must be said now if it to be said at all. Down with American imperialism! Hands Off Afghanistan!

To finish up. I have, over the years fought for many unpopular causes, from black civil rights down South facing off against hardened racists, to being called a “communist dupe (and worst)” for the whole range of anti-imperialist actions from Vietnam to Serbia. And I have done so, mainly, out on the streets of this country. Today though I am afraid, afraid for the first time in my long political career, to be out on these protest streets. Not of the hardened racists, not of the know-nothing red-baiters, but of ordinary citizens, friends, neighbors, and in some cases long-time political associates who look at me with hatred or distain. For the first time I thought about taking a political dive on this question of the American invasion of Afghanistan. No, no can do. Down with American imperialism, wherever it rears its ugly head. [Slight applause.]
*******
A fairly warm, fairly warm for mid-December 2011 Boston day turning into night at 4:00 PM standing once again somewhere between the Boston City Hall (now replete with huge circus tent for the latest carnival attraction, Peter Pan) and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, named ironically, ironically for probably the first big time political figure that I could get my head around back in the day. Today, like many days past since youth I am standing here in opposition to some vile act that so-called “friends of the people” Democrats have done. Here the recent police occupation of the Occupy Boston space at Dewey Square in the name of, in the name of what, order I guess, their order. But I am also here to pass the torch, the torch of a revitalized labor movement that is beginning to stir with this day’s actions out in the West Coast of activists trying to shut down the ports. That is the glad tiding I bring today.

Of course the world has moved on since 2001. Now the populace, in a general and vague way, has repudiated the war in Afghanistan, although no the revenge motive that drove that original support. Economic strife rules the land and a new generation, or the best parts of it, are beginning to stake their claims in the political struggle through the
Occupy movement. A movement that exploded onto the political scene with the advent of Occupy Wall Street in mid-September.

Of course also, as I never tire of saying of late, each new generation must find its own forms of struggle, its own forms of organization, and its own voice. This Occupy movement, unlike other earlier ones, does not depend on trusty bullhorns to get the message out but the “people’s mic” and the very present “mic check” when one wants to speak to the general audience. This form centers on a loud voice and refrain from the crowd to get the speaker’s message to the outer fringes of the audience. Today I prefer the proffered “old-fashioned” bullhorn but after some fumbling I can see the benefits of the “new way” a little better for future reference. Here goes. Oh, just for the record the hair and beard are whiter, much whiter now. And the garb is replete with a pair of New Balance running shoes for easier walking since my knee operation. Farewell, Chuck Taylor’s, sandals and soft shoes. But listen up:

“I will read from prepared notes. Let me explain why. In the old days, my old street corner agitator days, I could whip up a speech off the top of my head. But of late, before the fresh breeze of the Occupy movement blew across the Boston waterfront, I was more used to sitting at tables in small, over-heated rooms. Or participating in small marches, rallies, and vigils where such oratorical skills were not in much demand. But let me get to my main point.

Sisters and brothers, brothers and sisters, no question, no question at all that the recent police occupation at Dewey Square was a big defeat, a big if temporary defeat, for our struggle for freedom of expression and assembly in the public square. In response, over the past few days not a few younger or newer activists, not used to the ebb and flow of the political struggle, the class struggle, have been disheartened and expressed a sense of defeat.

Today though I bring you glad tidings. The sleeping giant of the labor movement has begun to stir. The long night of despair and disorientation is beginning to lift. At the beginning of this year when the struggle of the public workers unions in Wisconsin heated up I, among others, proposed a general strike and solidarity rallies in order to beat back the anti-labor attacks. We were written off as mad men and women, old-time leftists gone off their rockers. General strike, shut down, no, that was okay for those Greek workers who seemed to strike every other day, or those French workers who struck every day. In America, never. And then came the mass actions in Wisconsin, the shut down of the Port Of Oakland on November 2nd, and today’s actions. Now we can quibble over whether such events are real general strikes or not but now the language of general strike and shutdown is firmly etched on labor’s political agenda.

The old Polish socialist scholar, Isaac Deutscher, once remarked back in the 1960s heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement that he would give up all the endless marches, rallies and vigils for one dock strike against the war. He was right. We have to hit the war-mongers, the capitalists where it hurts-their profits and power. And today’s West Coast actions are proof of that proposition. If the age of the Occupy encampment has passed so too has the age of endless marches, rallies and vigils. They certainly have their place but now we must take the offensive. Now every action must be thought out to measure the effect on breaking the power of the one percent.

I had, several weeks ago, proposed to various people that we shut down the Port of Boston today in solidarity with the West Coast. That proposal was premature considering the situation in the Boston movement. But someday, someday soon, we too will be marching to shut down the port. To shut down GE in Lynn. To shut down the Bank of America. To shut down this government. And maybe not to just shut them down for a day either. I will leave you with this thought. We created the wealth-let’s take it back. Working people and their allies must rule!”

Looking For A Few Good Men…And Women For Peace- A Stroll In The Boston Common On Veterans Day, Circa 2011- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Hands Off The World!

Click on the headline to link to the Veterans For Peace website for the latest news.

Looking For A Few Good Men…And Women For Peace- A Stroll In The Boston Common On Veterans Day, Circa 2011- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Hands Off The World!

Markin comment:

Last year when I wrote what amounted to a paean to the Veterans For Peace and their Boston Common anti-war activities on Veterans Day 2010 in the entry, A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day, where I said the following:

“Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.

Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.”

And this year I expected to say roughly the same thing, except now that I have worked with them in some actions here in Boston, down in Washington D.C. in front of the Winter Palace (oops, the White House) in some civil disobedience actions, and in front of the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia in defense of the heroic Army private, Bradley Manning, that copy-cat approach doesn’t seem adequate. And here is why.

For an anti-war war veteran there are two kinds of ways to call oneself a veteran. The obvious one is to have “gone into the service,” as my grandmother (and probably many, too many, other grandmothers as well) used to say. The other is to be a veteran of the kind of anti-war actions described above. And, in the old days (the VVAW days) we used to say that kind of veteran service with a certain knowing snicker. A snicker like it was good to know, know finally, that you were on the side of the angels. And so to put paid to this piece let me finish with a story, a story about how a few god men and women kept on the right side of those angels just recently here in Boston.

Everybody with a pulse knows that there is a populist movement that has swept part of America (and the world) this fall looking for a little social justice and an end to the 1% takes all system we have lived under all our lives, the Occupy movement. An attentive news reader also knows that part of the publicity generated around the movement centers on establishing encampments in cities, large and small, in order to dramatize the pressing needs of the great majority of people. Here in Boston that started on September 31, 2011 with successful occupation of a section of the Rose Kennedy Greenway at Dewey Square near South Station. On October 10th elements within the movement attempted to expand the encampment another block and pitched tents accordingly. This “affrontery” set Boston Mayor Thomas Menino into spasms and he ordered out his Cossacks (a. k. a. cops) to disband the rabble, forthwith. At a General Assembly (the decision-making body that drives the camp and the political perspectives) that evening the overwhelming majority of those present and voting voted to defend the second site. As result in the dead of night (about 2:00 AM) the Mayor’s horde descended on the campsite in full combat regalia to arrest the peaceful assembly waiting to defend the site. Some one hundred and forty people were arrested that early morning.

That is the back story, and is more or less widely known by now. What is less well known is that a contingent of veterans, almost all veterans of previous civil disobediences actions, had determined one more time to defend something. This time not the mythical home and country but “family,” a family of mainly younger people who were not as well- versed in cop madness, or the niceties of the nightstick as these veterans. And so as is called for when an encampment is set up in enemy territory that contingent set up a perimeter on the pathway in front of the camp in the direction from which the attack was expected. And it came. The veterans, some of who were arrested and others who were merely pushed aside, or to the ground, “defended” the camp, honorably . And you now know why anything I expected to say about this years Veterans Day anti-war gathering on November 11th pales in comparison. A few good women and men, indeed. And I say that without a snicker today.

Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-Hands Off The World!

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-In Honor Of The Frontline Fighters Standing In Solidarity Today, November 2, 2011, With The Oakland General Strike-We Take the Offensive- The International Working Class Anthem “The Internationale”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of a performance of the classic international working class song of struggle, The Internationale.

Markin comment:

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
*****
Markin comment November 1, 2011:

Whether we can successfully close down Oakland on November 2, 2011 we have taken the offensive, maybe a long- term offensive, but an offensive reflecting our new-found understanding that the actions of the past few weeks have shown us that unless we are willing to fight, and fight hard, we will get nothing from the bourgeoisie, or their hangers-on. Call November 2nd Liberation Day One and that will put things proper prospective. Many of we older leftist militants did not think we would live long enough to hear the words- General Strike-uttered in more than some old-time historical sense. And yet here we are. Stay calm and steady-All out November 2, 2011 in solidarity with the Oakland General Strike! This is our John Brown moment! Light the spark! Forward!
***********
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]

Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.




________________________________________

L'Internationale

Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout

C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud

L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits

Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.

Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux

Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.


________________________________________

Die Internationale

Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!

Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht

Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!

In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!


________________________________________

(The English version most commonly sung in South Africa. )
The Internationale

Arise ye prisoners of starvation
Arise ye toilers of the earth
For reason thunders new creation
`Tis a better world in birth.

Never more traditions' chains shall bind us
Arise ye toilers no more in thrall
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We are naught but we shall be all.

Then comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race.


________________________________________

(Zulu) i-Internationale

n'zigqila zezwe lonke
Vukan'ejokwen'lobugqili
Sizokwakh'umhlaba kabusha
Siqed'indlala nobumpofu.

lamasik'okusibopha
Asilwise yonk'incindezelo
Manj'umhlab'unesakhiw'esisha
Asisodwa Kulomkhankaso

Maqaban'wozan'sihlanganeni
Sibhekene nempi yamanqamu
I-Internationale
Ibumb'uluntu lonke

Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Wollaston Beach (called Adamsville Beach in the story). The photo in the entry appears to have been taken from a point not far from Treasure Island (Cady Park).

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

Do you need to know about all the little family trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Merrymount end of Adamsville Beach that I have threatened to talk about when I mentioned how I “sold out” to my mother for a little Kennedy’s Deli home-style potato salad? Trips, that kind of formed the bookends of my childhood. Jesus, no. A thousand time no, and I say that having lived through them. My childhood memories overall can be best summed up in the words of the now long-departed black rapper extraordinaire, Biggie Smalls. He expressed it best and spoke a truth greater than he might have known, although he was closer to “hip-hop nation” than I ever could be, or could be capable of – “Christmas kind of missed us, birthdays were the worst days.” Ya, that’s the big truth, no question, but not the little Treasure Island truth, wobbly as it might come out. One such episode will give you an idea of what we (meaning me and my two brothers, one a little younger the other a little older than me) were up against but also, in the end, why although there were precious few wonderful childhood memories that are now worth the ink to tell you about, this one serves pretty well. Let me have my say.

******
There was a madness in this country in the 1950s. No, not the Cold War atomic-bomb-is-going-to-get-us-we-are-all-going-to-be-dead-next-week or “better dead than red” kind of madness although there was plenty of that, but a madness for the automobile, the sleeker, the more airplane-like, and more powerfully-engined the better. And, it wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight T-shirt wearing, rolled sleeve cigarette-packed, greased Pompadour-haired, long side-burned, dangling-combed , engineer-booted, chain-wielding, side of the mouth butt-puffing , didn’t care if school kept or not types bent over the hood of some souped-up ’57 Chevy working, sweating pools of sweat, sweating to get even more power out of that ferocious V-8 engine for the Saturday night “ chicken" run.

And it wasn’t even those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys either. And it was always guys, who you swore you would beat down if they ever even looked at your sister, if you had a sister, and if you liked her enough to beat a guy down to defend her honor, or whatever drove your sense of right. And, of course she, your sister no less, is looking for all she is worth at this “James Dean” soda jerk (hey, what else could he be) because this guy is “cute”. Go figure.

No, and forget all those stereotypes that they like to roll out when they want to bring a little “color” to the desperately color-craving 1950s. This car madness was driven, and driven hard, by your very own stay-at-home-and watch the television, water the lawn, if you have a lawn and it needed watering and sometimes when it didn’t just to get out of the house, have couple of beers and take a nap on Saturday afternoon father (or grandfather, I have to remember who might be in my audience now) who always said “ask your mother” to blow you off. You know him. I know you know him he just has a different name than mine did. And maybe even your very own mother (or grandmother) got caught up in the car thing too, your mother the one who always would say “ask your father. You know her too, don’t say no. I hope by now you knew they were working a team scam on you even if you didn’t have the kind of proof that you could take to court and get a little justice on.

Hell, on this car thing they were just doing a little strutting of their stuff in showcase, show-off, “see what I got and you don’t” time. Come on now, don’t pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about, at least if you too grew up in the 1950s, or heard about it, or even think you heard about it. Hey, it was about dreams of car ownership for the Great Depression-ed , World War II-ed survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, has arrived in the great American dream, and all on easy monthly payments, no money down, and the bigger, the sleeker the better and I’ll take the heavy- chromed, aerodynamically-designed, two-toned one, thank you. That was how you knew who counted, and who didn’t. You know what I mean.

Heck, that 50s big old fluffy pure white cloud of a dream even seeped all the way down into “the projects” in Adamsville, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” in Boston too that you could see on a clear day from Adamsville beach, although I don’t know for sure on that, and maybe in the thousand and one other displaced person hole-in-the-walls “projects” they built as an afterthought back then for those families like mine caught on the slow track in “go-go” America. Except down there, down there on the edge of respectability, and maybe even mixed in with a little disrespectability, you didn’t want to have too good of a car, even if you could get that easy credit, because what we you doing with that nice sleek, fin-tailed thing with four doors and plenty of room for the kids in the back in a place like “the projects” and maybe there was something the “authorities” should know about, yes. Better to move on with that old cranky 1940s-style un-hip, un-mourned, un-cool jalopy than face the wrath and clucking of that crowd, the venom-filled, green-eyed neighbors.

Yes, that little intro is all well and good and a truth you can take my word for but this tale is about, if I ever get around to it, those who had the car madness deep in their psyche, but not the wherewithal- this is a cry, if you can believe it today, from the no car families. Jesus, how could you not get the car madness then though, facing it every night stark-naked in front of you on the television set, small as the black and white picture was, of Buicks, and Chevys and Pontiacs and whatever other kind of car they had to sell to you. But what about us Eastern Mass bus dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least here it didn’t matter. Down South they got kind of funny about it.

As you might have figured out by now, and if you didn’t I will tell you, that was our family’s fate, more often than not. It was not that we never had a car back then, but there were plenty of times when we didn’t and I have the crooked heels, peek-a-boo-soles, and worn out shoe leather from walking rather than waiting on that never-coming bus to prove it. And not only that but I got so had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to Grandma’s Young Street, “up-town” North Adamsville if I had to. That was easy stuff thinking back on it. I‘ll tell you about walking those later long, lonesome roads out West in places like just before the mountains in Winnemucca, Nevada and 129 degree desert- hot Needles, California switching into 130 degree desert-hot Blythe, Arizona some other time, because it just doesn’t seem right to talk about mere walking, long or short, when the great American automobile is present and rolling by.

It’s kind of funny now but the thing was, when there was enough money to get one, that the cars my poor old, kind of city ways naïve, but fighting Marine-proud father would get, from wherever in this god forsaken earth he got them from would be, to be polite, clunkers and nothing but old time jalopies that even those “hot rod” James Dean guys mentioned above would sneer, and sneer big time, at. It would always be a 1947 something, like a Hudson or Nash Rambler, or who knows the misty, musty names of these long forgotten brands. The long and short it was, and this is what’s really important when you think about it, that they would inevitably break down, and breakdown in just the wrong place, at least the wrong place if you had a wife who couldn’t drive or help in that department and three screaming, bawling tow-headed boys who wanted to get wherever it was we were going, and get there-now.

I swear on those old battered crooked-heeled, peek-a-boo soled shoes that I told you about that this must have happened just about every time we were going on a trip, or getting ready to go on a trip, or thinking about going on a trip. So now you know what I was up against when I was a kid. Like I already told you before, in some other dream fragment, I was an easy target to be “pieced off” with a couple of spoonfuls of Kennedy's potato salad when things like that happened. Or some other easy “bought off” when the “car” joke of the month died again and there wasn’t any money to get it fixed right away and we couldn’t go more than a few miles. I blew my stack plenty and righteously so, don't you think?

So let me tell you about this one time, this one summer time, August I think, maybe in 1956, when we did have a car, some kind of grey Plymouth sedan from about 1947, that year seems to always come up when car year numbers come to mind, like I said before. Or maybe it was a converted tank from the war for all I know, it kind of felt like that sitting in the back seat because as the middle boy I never got to ride “shot gun” up front with Dad so I bore the brunt of the bumps, shakes, blimps, and slips in the back seat. I do know I never felt anything better than being nothing but always queasy back there.

This one, this beauty of a grey Plymouth sedan, I can remember very well, always had some major internal engine-type problem, or telltale oil- spilling on the ground in the morning, or a clutch-not-working right, when real cars had clutches not this automatic stuff, making a grinding sound that you could hear about half way around the world, but you will have to ask some who knows a lot more about cars about than I do for the real mechanical problems. Anyway this is the chariot that is going to get us out of “the projects” and away from that fiery, no breathe “projects” sun for a few hours as we started off on one of our family-famous outings to old Treasure Island down at the Merymount end of Adamsville Beach, about four or five miles from “the projects”, no more. It was hot as blazes that day that’s for sure, with no wind, no air, and it was one of those days, always one of those days, you could smell the sickly sweet fragrant coming from over the Proctor & Gamble soap factory across the channel on the Fore River side.

We got the old heap loaded with all the known supplies necessary for a “poor man’s” barbecue in those days. You know those cheap plastic lawn chairs from Grossman’s or Raymond’s or one of those discount stores before they had real discount stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart, a few old worn-out blankets fresh from night duty on our beds, some resurrected threadbare towels that were already faded in about 1837 from the six thousand washings that kids put even the most resilient towel through in a short time, the obligatory King’s charcoal briquettes, including that fear-provoking, smelly lighter fluid you needed to light them with in those barbaric days before gas-saturated instant-lite charcoal. For food: hot dogs, blanched white-dough rolls, assorted condiments, a cooler with various kinds of tonic (a.k.a. soda, for the younger reader) and ice cream. Ya, and some beach toys, including a pail and shovel because today, of all days, I am bound and determined to harvest some clams across the way from the park on Adamsville Beach at low tide just like I’d seen all kinds of guys doing every time we went there so that we can have a real outing. I can see and hear them boiling in that percolating, turbulent, swirling grey-white water in the big steaming aluminum kettle already.

All of this stuff, of course, is packed helter-skelter in our “designer” Elm Farms grocery store paper shopping bags that we made due with to carry stuff around in, near or far. Hey, don’t laugh you did too, didn’t you? And what about hamburgers you say, right? No, no way, that cut of meat was too pricey. It wasn’t until much later when I was a teenager and invited to someone else’s family-famous barbecue that I knew that those too were a staple, I swear. I already told you I was the “official” procurer of the Kennedy’s potato salad in another dream fragment so I don’t need to tell you about that delicacy again, okay?

And we are off, amazingly, this time for one of the few time in family-recorded history without the inevitable- “who knows where it started or who started it” -incident, one of a whole universe of possible incidents that almost always delayed our start every time our little clan moved from point A to point B. Even a small point A to point B like this venture. So everything was okay, just fine all the way up that single way out of “the projects,” Palmer Street, until we got going on Sea Street, a couple of miles out, then the heap started choking, crackling, burping, sneezing, hiccupping, smoking and croaking and I don’t know what else. We tumbled out of the car, with me already getting ready to do my, by now, finely-tuned “fume act” that like I told you got a work-out ever time one of these misadventures rolled around, and pulled out every thing we could with us.

Ma, then knowingly, said we would have to go back home because even she knew the car was finished. I, revolutionary that I was back then, put my foot down and said no we could walk to Treasure Island, it wasn’t far. I don’t know if I can convey, or if I should convey to you, the holy hell that I raised to get my way that day. And I did a united front with my two brothers, who, usually, ignored me and I ignored them at this point in our family careers. Democracy, of a sort, ruled. Or maybe poor Ma just got worn out from our caterwauling. In any case, we abandoned a few things with my father, including that pail and shovel that was going to provide us with a gourmet’s delight of boiled clams fresh from the now mythical sea, and started our trek with the well-known basics-food and utensils and toys and chairs and, and…

Let me cut to the chase here a little. Of course I have to tell you about our route and about how your humble tour director got the bright idea that we could take a short cut down Chickatawbut Street. (This is a real street, look it up. I used to use it every time I wanted to ride my bike over to Grandma’s on Young Street in North Adamsville.) The idea of said "smart guy" tour director was to get a breeze, a little breeze while we are walking with our now heavy loads by cutting onto Shore Avenue near the Merrymount Yacht Club. The problem is that, in search of breeze or of no breeze, this way is longer, much longer for three young boys and a dragged-out mama. Well, the long and short of it was, have you ever heard of the “Bataan Death March” during World War II? If you haven’t, look it up on “Wikipedia.” Those poor, bedeviled guys had nothing on us by the time, late afternoon, we got to our destination. We were beat, beat up, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday, beat every way a human being can be beat. Did I say beat? Oh ya, I did. But Ma, sensing our three murderous hearts by then, got the charcoals burning in one of the fireplaces they provided back then, and maybe they still do. And we were off to the races.

Hey, do you really need to know about mustard and relish crammed char-broiled hot dogs or my brother’s strange ketchup-filled one on white-breaded, nasty-tasting hot dog rolls that we got cheap from Elm Farms or maybe it was First National, or my beloved Kennedy’s potato salad that kind of got mashed up in the mess up or "Hires" root beer, or "Nehi" grape, or "Nehi" orange or store–bought boxed ice cream, maybe, "Sealtest" harlequin (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all together, see), except melted. Or those ever- present roasted marshmallow that stuck to the roof of my mouth. You’ve been down that road yourselves so you don’t need me for a guide. And besides I’m starting to get sleepy after a long day. But as tired, dusty, and dirty as I am just telling this story… Ah, Treasure Island.

Labor’s Untold Story- A Personal View Of The Class Wars In The Kentucky Hills And Hollows-"Hard Times In Babylon"

Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Absurd in the 1950's

Markin comment:

For regular readers of this space the following first few paragraphs will constitute something of a broken record. For those who are not familiar this commentary constitutes an introduction to the politics of class struggle as it gets practiced down as the base of society-away from the headlines of the day. As I have mentioned elsewhere, and also in the purpose section of this space, I am trying to impart some lessons about how to push the struggle for working class solidarity forward so that, to put it briefly, those who labor rule.

My political grounding as I have evolved as a communist over the years speaks for itself in my commentaries. The prospective that had been lacking, and which has probably plagued my efforts over the years, since I long ago first started out on my political journey is a somewhat too strong attachment to the theoretical side of the need for socialist solutions. Oddly, perhaps, although I now proclaim proudly that I am a son of the working-class I came to an understanding of the need for the working-class to take power without taking my being part of the class into consideration. One of the tasks that I have tried to undertake in this space over the past year, as a corrective, is to make some commentary about various events in my life that reflect my evolving understanding of class society and the class struggle. I am actually well qualified to undertake that chore.

The impetus for undertaking this task, as may also now be well known to readers, was an unplanned trip back to the old working-class neighborhood of my teenage years. That led to a series of stories about the trials and tribulations of a neighborhood family and can be found in this space under the title History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga (Yes, I know, that is a rather bulky title for a prosaic story but, dear reader, that is the price for my being a ‘political junkie’. If I were a literary type I would probably have entitled it Sense and Sensibility or something like that, oops, that one is taken- but you get the point.).

I have also started another series here, one that indirectly came to life through that trip back to the old neighborhood, entitled Tales From The ‘Hood" going back to my early childhood days as a product of a housing project. However, in that effort I consider myself merely the medium, as the narrator is really a woman named Sherry whom I consider the "the projects" historian. This present series will center on my personal experiences both about the things that formed and malformed me and that contributed to my development as a conscious political activist. The closest I have ever come to articulating that idea through examination of my personal experiences was a commentary written in this space several years ago entitled Hard Times in Babylon (and hence the genesis for the current series title). Even at that, this was more an effort to understand the problems of my parents’ generation, the generation that came of age in the Great Depression and World War II. That, my friends, nevertheless, is probably a good place to take off from here.

The gist of the commentary in Hard Times in Babylon centered on the intersection of two events. One was the above-mentioned trip back to the old neighborhood and the other was a then recent re-reading of famed journalist David Halberstam’s book The Fifties, which covered that same period. His take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of my own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age’, rekindled some memories. It is no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon for the Markin family. My parents reacted to those events one way, one of their sons, this writer another. The whys of that are what I am attempting to bring before the radical public. I think the last lines from Babylon state the proposition as clearly as I can put it. “And the task for me today? To insure that future young workers, unlike my parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice.”

There are many myths about the 1950’s, to be sure. One was that the rising tide of the pre-eminent capitalist economy in the world here in America would cause all boats to rise with it. Despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide’. The experience of my parents is proof of that. I will not go through all the details of my parents’ childhoods, courtship, and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II are plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. One detail is, however, important and that is that my father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near famed "bloody" Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and by Michael Harrington in his 1960’s book The Other America. This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these "hillbillies" were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder that when World War II began my father left to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.

I have related in Tales From The ‘Hood’ some details that my "the projects" historian, Sherry, told me about her relationships with some of the girls from the wealthier part of town with whom we went to elementary school. She spend her whole time there being snubbed, insulted and, apparently, on more than one occasion physically threatened by the prissy girls from the other peninsula for her poor clothing, her poor manners, and for being from the "projects". I will spare you the details here. Moreover, she faced this barrage all the way through to high school graduation. It was painful for her to retell her story, and not without a few tears.

Moreover, it was hard for me to hear because, although I did not face that barrage then, I faced it later when my family moved to the other side of town and kids knew I was from the "projects." I faced that same kind of humiliation on a near daily basis from the boys, mainly. I will, again, spare the details. I can, however, distinctly remember being turned down for a date by an upscale girl in class because, as she made clear to all within shouting distance, although she thought I was personally okay (such nobility) my clothes were "raggedy" and, besides, I did not have a car. That is the face of the class struggle, junior varsity division.

The early years of the Kennedy Administration were filled with hopes and expectations, none more so than by me. As I have noted elsewhere in this space I came of political age with the presidential elections of 1960. This, moreover, was a time where serious social issues such as how to eradicate poverty in America were seriously being discussed by mainstream politicians. I mentioned above the widespread popularity of Michael Harrington’s The Other America and its mention of quintessential other America, including Hazard, Kentucky. But, here is the personal side. One of the most mortifying experiences of my life was when the headmaster of my high school, North Adamsville High, came over the loudspeaker to announce that our high school was going to begin a fundraising drive in earnest to help those less fortunate in Other America. And that other America in this case had a specific name-Hazard, Kentucky. I froze in my seat. Then came the taunts from a couple of guys who knew my father was from there. That is the face of the class struggle, varsity edition

As I finished up my remarks in A Tale of Two Peninsulas trying to sum up the meaning of the events that Sherry had related about her brushes with the class struggle in her youth I asked a couple of rhetorical question. After what I have described here I ask those same questions. Were the snubs and other acts of class hatred due to our personalities? Maybe. Are these mere examples of childhood’s gratuitous cruelty? Perhaps. But the next time someone tells you that there are no classes in this society remember Sherry’s story. And mine. Then remember Sherry’s tears and my red-faced shame. Damn.