Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night-Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing

An Encore Presentation-Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night-Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing


[Recently in cleaning out one of my file cabinets in my law office in preparation for handing over the day to day operations to my younger partner so that I can pursue some other things I found some old stories that the late lamented Peter Markin had written and which had been published in the early 1970s in the East Bay Other, an alternative newspaper published out in the Bay Area now long defunct, from the days when all things were possible coming out of the 1960s. Markin was the corner boy supreme in our old neighborhood, was the guy who got us headed out to the West Coast when all hell and heaven was breaking out there. He didn't make the long haul, maybe couldn't when the deal went down but here he is day-dreaming about his youth. Hope you want to read the piece and think about your own family histories-Sam Lowell.]   



By the late Peter Paul Markin 



Do you need to know about all the little trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Merrymount end of Wollaston Beach, that I have threatened to talk about in previous entries? 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 brothers) 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, no 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 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 Germantown, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” too, although I don’t know for sure, and 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 unhip, unmourned, uncool 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, North Quincy 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 is, 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 say that 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. 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 Wollaston 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 and 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 (aka 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 Wollaston 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 steaming 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 teenage 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, hiccuping, 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 Quincy.) 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 is 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.

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- A Dream Fragment On Looking For A Few Good…Mystics -In The Matter Of Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”

An Encore-Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- On Looking For A Few Good…Mystics -In The Matter Of Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”


By Josh Breslin




Okay, blame this foam-flecked entry totally on old wanna-be “gonzo” journalist/novelist Tom Wolfe and his infernal 1960s classic countercultural expose The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I’ll explain the ‘wanna-be’ part in some book review, or in some of other place where talking about and discussing the "new journalism (1960s-style, including the likes of Hunter Thompson and Joan Didion) is called for. But, at least for now, I want to explain the why of that ‘where the blame should be placed’.



And why does Brother Wolfe (or is it really Brother Wolf?) earn this blame? Well, frankly, merely by telling this acid-etched (literally) story about the late author Ken Kesey (most famous for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion), his California-gathered (naturally, right?) tribe of Merry Pranksters, their then rural California coastal communal arrangements (or non-arrangements, or dis-arrangements, as the case may be), and their antics, including a collectively produced and massively-filmed cross-country “bus” ride that cemented their zany experiences. No kidding- you were truly either on the “bus” or off the “bus” if you got entangled with this crowd.



Oh, did I mention, as well, their deep-end “edge city” drug experiences, especially the then little known acid (LSD) trips? Those drug experiments, important as they were to the story line of the book, are, however, not what have me up in arms though. Hey, experimenting with drugs, or experimenting with sometime (sex, the karma sutra, Zen, zen, sex, abstract primitivist painting, free-form verse, sex, hitchhiking the universe, sex, etc.) was de rigueur in those halcyon days. I wouldn’t waste my breathe, and your time, recounting those kinds of stories. Everybody did drugs back then, or was….unhip. And almost no one, hip, unhip, cloven-footed devil, or haloed angel wanted to be thought of as unhip.

The others, those who today claim memory loses on the subject, or some story along those lines, just lie. Or were cloistered somewhere, and such circumstances are better left untold. Or, and here is my favorite, didn’t inhale. The number of guys (and gals) who NOW say that they didn’t inhale exceeds the total youth tribe members of the 1960s. Unless, of course, my numbers are off, slightly. I, in any case, need not go through that scene again. Read Wolfe’s book or watch Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, or ask your parents or…ouch, grandparents.



Today, however, I am excised on another point. Wolfe mentioned, repeatedly, the quasi-religious, mystical nature of the Kesey-gathered Merry Prankster tribal experience. And central to that, as to all such mystical communal experiences, is the emergence of some kind of “messiah” figure, or at least a chief mystic who guides the group’s actions, including the inevitable breakout into the real wide world when that time comes. Then, the breakout time, is when the power struggle really begins as the increased number of acolytes gather round and begin the long process of the selection of the “ins” and “outs”. To speak nothing of the very serious question of who is to “guard” the wisdom tablet (maybe, literally, a tablet in this case). Or who conducts the ceremonials to adhere the devotees. This is well-trodden ground, in any case.



And what in hell am I mad about that little quirky business for? Kesey was hardly the first guy or gal, and will hardly be the last either, to come down off the mountain to spread the “good news”, if only among the elect-at first. Hear me out though. I am sick and tired, utterly sick and tired, after a life time of listening, or really, half-listening to the latest screeds of the “god-seekers”, secular or religious. And of the side show carnival guys claiming for the umpteenth time they have the “new message” about human redemption. And of the about the 287th, or so, rendition of the story line of those who succumbed to some “conversion” religious experience. Enough, right? Well, perhaps, but what I want to blurt out is that, damn, I think Wolfe, and through him, Kesey were basically right that this was a time, the 1960s that is , when we, and I include myself in this as well, were looking for the “new messiah.”



For starters though, just in case the reader is caught short on the term “new messiah”, forget all the rough and tumble organized traditional religious stuff. That was a non-contender, then anyway. Hell, that was what we were running away from, and running as hard as our wobbly, drug-filled heads would force our legs to take us. (The three of us who have "confessed" to such activity in those days, excuse me. I don’t know in what condition the others were in during their runs.) No, any “church” had to be in some freshly-mown meadow, or among the squirrel-infested pines, or at the edge of the earth on some place where ‘our homeland’ the ocean, the sand and our sense of the vastness of space met. And any “preacher”, of the “good book” or, for that matter, of the virtues of demonology had to wear multi-colored, flowing home-spun robes, or some discarded army& navy store uniform, or some sheepskin vest, or maybe nothing. But, please, no collars around your neck, or ours. There were plenty of candidates looking for the job, looking to be heard, looking to be listened to and looking for those who were looking, for awhile anyway, until they ran out of steam, ran off with their sweeties, or with the cash box.



What we were looking for, at least what I think we were looking for was someone, once the traditional politicians proved to have feet of clay, or were mired in mud and blood up to their necks, or were blown away, to lead us to the “Promised Land.” That’s right the “Promised Land”, not some old quirky, queasy, hard scrabble, no air place that we all knew, or all of us that were “hip” knew, was not where we were at then. You know sometimes it was as simple as finding someone who had an answer or two. If they had a plan, or had the whole thing mapped out, so much the better. Mainly they just didn’t have to shout about it to the whole square world and bring the squares in to corner it, corral it, organize it, and make it a thing that not even your square, square parents could love.

And that, my friends, is where someone like Ken Kesey got some play, got his edge. His simple Western- bred (American Western-bred) ways, his obvious literary talents that acted as a magnet for those who saw no real difference between mad scientist Kesey and ‘mad scientist’ McMurphy (in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), and his strong branding personality held the Prankster commune together. For a while. Until he too proved to have feet of clay, and fled. But here is the main point in the end it required just too much of a leap of faith to sail into the mystic with the mystics. For those like me, and there were many others like me, we had our mystical moment but when the deal went down we had to look elsewhere to other names to “seek the newer world.” World historic names no one, except, maybe, those now professed non-inhalers and vanguard neo-con cultural dead-enders, would confuse with mysticism.

An Encore -Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #1, Circa 1955

An Encore -Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #1, Circa 1955


Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Paragon Park down at Nantasket Beach. Once again, thanks Internet.



Markin comment:



It’s funny how working now, on one thing or another, will bring back those childhood hurts, those feelings sealed, or is it seared, so deep in memory that one does not expect them to resurface for love or money, although this little piece did not start out that way and probably won’t finish up that way either. This “dream” started off from seeing, a few months ago, an unexpected and fairly unusual surname of a fellow female elementary school classmate innocently listed in an off-hand, indirect North Quincy Internet connection. The very sight of that name triggered a full-blown elementary school “romantic” daydream, from my days down at the old Germantown “projects” where I came of age, that blossomed into a pining prose sonnet that would have made Shakespeare blush. I’ll tell you about that one sometime, but not now.

That flashback, in turn, got me into a fierce sea-faring dreaming, rolling-logged, oil-slicked, ocean water on three sides, stone-throwing Germantown mood that turned into a screed on the trials and tribulations of growing to manhood in the shadows of tepid old Wollaston Beach. And that, naturally enough, triggered a quick remembrance of too infrequent family barbecue outings as the old Treasure Island (now named after a fallen Marine, Cady, if I recall correctly). At least I think that was the name in those days. That’s what we called it anyway, down at the Merrymount end of the beach. You know where I mean, you probably had your family memory barbecue outings there too, as least some of them. But enough of that background let me tell you what I really want to talk about, the tricks that parents used to use, and still do, to get their way. The story isn’t pretty or for the faint of heart.

I swear I knew, and I am pretty sure that I knew for certain early on when I was just a half-pint kid myself, that kids, especially younger kids, could be “bought off” by their parents and easily steered away from what they really wanted to do, or really wanted to have, by a mere trifle. Probably you got wise to the routine early too. Still, it’s ridiculous how easily we were “pieced off”, wise as we were, and I firmly believe that there should have been, and there should be now, something like the rules of engagement that govern civilized behavior in war time written out in the Geneva Conventions against that form of behavior by mothers and fathers. After all what is childhood, then or now, except one long, very long, battle between two very unevenly matched sides with kids, then and now, just trying to do the best they can in a world that they didn’t create, and that they didn’t get a say in creating.

I learned this little nugget of “wisdom” from battle-tested, many times losing, keep- in-there-swinging, never-say-die, first-hand experience, although I guess I might have been a little too thin-skinned and have been too quick to feel slighted about it at the time to really focus in on its meaning. I know that you learned this home truth this way as well whether you got onto the scam early on or no. Sure, I could be bought off, I am not any better than the rest of you on that score, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t nurse many a grievance to right those wrongs(and, incidentally, plotted many a feverish revenge, in my head at least, some of them, if impractical, pretty exquisitely drawn).

Sometimes it was just a word, sometimes literally just one word, usually a curt, cutting, razor-edged one from Ma that sent you reeling for cover ready to put up the white flag, if you ever even got that chance. Sometimes it was a certain look, a look that said “don’t go there”. And, maybe, depending how you were feeling, you did and maybe you didn’t, go there that is. Hell, sometimes it could even be a mere inside-the family-meaningful side-long glance, a glance from Ma, a thing from her eye, her left one usually, brow slightly arched, that said "case closed", and forget about the pretense behind the “don’t go there” look, which at least gave you the dignity of having the opportunity to put up a little fight no manner the predetermined ending. Sometimes though, and this is hard to “confess” fifty years later and ten thousand, thousand other experiences later, that lady switched up on us and "pieced" us off with some honey-coated little thing. That damn honey-coated thing, that “good” thing standing right in front of full-blown evil, or what passed for that brand of evil in those days, is what this dream fragment is all about.

Now don’t tell me you don’t know what I am talking about in the Ma wars, and don’t even try to tell me it wasn’t usually Ma who ran point on the “no” department when you went on the offensive for some thing you wanted to have, or some place you wanted to go, especially when “desperately” was attached to the "have" or to the "go" part. No, just don’t do it. Dad, Pa, Father, whatever you called him, was held in ready-reserve for when the action got hot and heavy. Maybe, in your family, your father was the point man but from what I have learned over the last couple of years about our parents from information that I have gathered from some of you that was a wasted strategy. We were that easy. No need for the big guns, because our ever-lovin’, hard-working, although maybe distant, fathers were doing what fathers do. Provide, or go to the depths in that struggle to provide. Ma was for mothering and running interference. That was that. Thems were the rules then, if not now. The main thing was the cards were stacked against us because what we really didn't know was they were really working as a team, one way or another. In any case, I don’t have time to dilly-dally over their strategies as I have got to move on here.

See, here is what you don’t know. Yet. Those family trips to old Treasure Island, whether they were taken from down in Germantown or later, in North Quincy, as they tapered off when we three boys (my two brothers, one a little younger one a little older, and me) got too big to pretend that we really wanted to go, were really the ‘booby prize’ for not going to places like Paragon Park down in Nantasket or down to Plymouth Rock or, Christ, any place that would be a change of scenery from claptrap Germantown. Of course, the excuse was always the same-dad was too tired to drive after working some killer hours at some dirty old dead-end job, or one of a succession of old, hand-me-down, barely running jalopies (and I am being kind here, believe me) wasn’t running, or running well enough to make the trip, or something else that meant we couldn’t go some place.

Ya, that was all right for public consumption but here is the real reason; no dough, plain and simple. Why Ma and Dad just didn’t tell us that their circumstances were so tight that spending a couple of dollars on the roller coaster (which I didn’t care about anyway), or playing “Skeets” (which I did care about), or getting cotton-candy stuck every which way (which I didn’t care about), or riding the Wild Mouse (cared about) would break the bank I will never know. Or the extra gas money. Or the extra expense of whatever. How do I know. All I knew is that we weren’t going. Period.

But, here, finally, is where the simple “bought off” comes in, although I really should have been more resolute in my anger at not going and held out for better terms. Such is the fate of young mortals, I guess. My mother, and this was strictly between me and my mother as most things were in those days, dangled the prospect of having some of Kennedy’s potato salad in front of my face. You remember Kennedy’s, right? If you don’t then the rest of this thing is going to come as less that the “Book of Revelation”. Or ask your parents, or grandparent. There was one in Quincy Square about half way down Hancock Street on the old South Shore Bank side and there was one in Norfolk Downs almost to the corner of Hancock Street and Billings Road next to the old A&P. I am not sure, and someone can help me on this, whether it was called Kennedy’s Food Shop, or Deli, or whatever but it had the best potato salad around. And fresh ground peanut butter, and sweet fragrant coffee smells, and… But I will get to describing that that some other time. Right now I am deciding whether I can be bought off or not. Yes, shamefacedly, I can and here is the closer -I can even go to Kennedy's and get it myself. What do you think about that? From then on I became the “official” Kennedy’s boy of the family. Did I sell out too cheaply? No way.

In The Time Of The Be-Bop Baby Boom Jail Break-Out- In The Time Of The “Boss” Car

 

I had several months ago been on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in an extensive classic rock ‘n’ roll series (now classic, then just our music). A lot of those reviews had been driven by the artwork which graced the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may, to the themes expressed in those artwork scenes. Here we have the latter, the not fit in part, for this reviewer anyway. The latter is the case here although the cover art was simplicity itself- the rear view of an aerodynamically-contoured rear fin (yes, fin) of a “boss” (yes, boss) 1950s automobile of unknown provenance (but we can guess, right?)

Yes, and that slight description is all that is needed for those of us who came of age in the “golden age of the automobile” in the speed and thrills-craving aftermath of World War II when restless Americans, young and old, more young as it turned out, went into spasms over the latest “boss” (yes, boss) vehicle coming out of Detroit, the motor capital of the world then. Of course the cars kind of sorted themselves out- you wouldn’t, if you were young, dream of driving something that your father drove. So if you got his hand-me-down after he decided that he needed, just absolutely needed, that much more power in his automobile in order to keep up with the Joneses, you would move might and main in order to transform that old clunky dad car into a respectable tool. A rocket-like tool to fit the age, to ride and to ride with some sweet honey at your side, on those hot sticky, sultry summer nights down by the seaside, or at the drive-in, movie or for food, your choice.

Yes, and this is why even a mainly a not fit in no car boy like me, from a mainly no car family, could (and maybe still could) stare his eyes out over some boss of the bosses ’57 Chevy charging down the be-bop night boulevard, or a lanky turbo-driven long-line Lincoln, or a rebuilt Cadillac or a tear-up Thunderbird. Relics from a high cubic volume engine age when your twenty-nine cents a gallon gas took you about three feet per gallon. But still, come on now, they looked, well, boss.

Oh, yes, and of course you needed to amp up that boss wagon car radio, previously set exclusively to some father business news station (jesus),  booming out the latest rock and roll hits about cars, especially West Coast car legends and their chicken runs, girls (east coast or west coast, hell, even the Mid-West), girls and boys in trouble, in love, out of love (ditto on that geography thing), chasing that sunset ocean-flecked dream. But mainly, when the dust settled, you had to worry about how and who was going to front that dough to get that new back chrome fender you just needed, absolutely needed, needed like crazy to keep up with the Jones’ son.

But on that boss car radio you were likely, very likely, to be cruising to (even if only riding shotgun in some buddy’s boss car cruising that boulevard looking for, what else, girls who just that moment might be in need of some seaside company, or wanted to go the drive-in, their choice) many of the tunes reviewed in that series. Stick-outs on this fin tail art beauty included: For Your Love, Ed Townsend; Silhouettes, The Diamonds; Somethin’ Else, Eddie Cochran (totally underrated in the classic rock scheme of things after he died in a car accident, naturally, especially his classic Summertime Blues that was a rite of passage each summer vacation); and, as always when you talk 1950s rock, the serious stuff, the serious riffing guitar stuff from the place where rock met the blues, Chuck Berry on Almost Grown, not his number one, A-list material but good in this company.

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Brotherly Love, Circa 1957

Jimmy LaCroix’s older brother, Evie, usually didn’t speak two words to Jimmy, or let him speak two words to him. (Jacques and Evian, by the way, to mother, mother Daphne, and all still up around Gaspe French-Canadian relatives but to Jimmy and Evie, strictly Jimmy and Evie, among themselves and their respective Olde Saco corner boy crowd in that odd second generation, first generation-skipping rush to become Americanized, to be like the bloody old time oppressor English and bog-grown Irish, and shed that blasted patois adieu thing, that down from cold Canada farms and mines hunger thing, that damn Gallic saint this and saint that thing and bless yourself before every meal, at night, in front of every passed church thing, and vanilla melt in with souped-up hot rods, Luckies cigarettes rolled up in a white tee-shirt sleeve, and a Coke bottle beside you at all times in order, hell, what else, in order to “pass” with the swamp yankee Down East lobster fisherman’s daughter and that Irish mill hand mick’s colleen daughter, the one with that flaming red hair, prayer book in one hand and her other hand in, well, let’s leave it at that since Irish colleens, or for that matter wistful mermaid yankee, swamp pedigreed or otherwise, girls do not figure in Jimmy’s, or Evie’s, life just now.) Evie LaCroix fully subscribed to the prerogatives of being an older teenage brother, an older American teenage brother moving hard and fast toward twenty something and different troubles.

Moreover Evie one all-American teenager (black French-genetic hair, long thin build, wiry, and a smoldering something that girls, women, found sexually stirring) rushing to twenty with both a valid license to drive , no suspensions, no drunk stuff against his record (although he had been seen on back roads, the dirt roads and gravel pit ruts that passed for roads, around Gorham Road, just off U.S. Route One, out in farm country, driving full-throttle, some cheap jack whiskey, probably some Johnny Walker color, some blond, he favored blonds, joie blondes, excuse the patois, tied close in the front seat, or his corner boys from Mama’s Pizza Parlor over on Main Street front and back, when he was barely fourteen and sans license), and an automobile, or rather the automobile, a late model flash red (make that very cherry red) ’56 Chevy. A car that said, unmistakenly said, watch out, move over, pops, in your Dodge wagon, Plymouth whatever, Ford tank, and take note of this stud-mobile.

That hard fact car was nothing but a girl magnet (hell, Evie had picked up a few real women, already twenty something and experienced, looking for kicks, night time is the right time kicks, and ready to do what was necessary in the sex department to get to that front seat on more than one frosty Friday night when her walking daddy was just away, and according to rumor, even a very married woman, a thirty something woman, a Mayfair swell woman with kids from over in swanky Ocean City who got her kicks for a while, very hush, hush and out of town up in Portland nestled up against his shoulder) added fuel to the flame of the “no talk” rule between the brothers.

See teenage guys in the Acre (the French-Canadian section over on Atlantic Avenue, so called for either god’s little acre or hell’s, take your pick, near Jimmie Jakes Diner II, the one where all the young no car teenagers hung out in the summer nights since time immemorial not the one by Ocean Avenue for the blue-haired luncheon ladies and summer touristas long gone) had too much to do to keep those fast cars up in order to keep that girl magnet headed their way to talk to inconsequential brothers. Every day after school let out (and some weekends too) when the joint began to hop until closing Evie LaCroix could be seen at the Adventure Car-Hop doing solemn duty to car-filled cars as a short order cook serving greasy burgers with all the fixings (twenty -six possible combinations)and oil-drenched fries (one combination)to the multitudes. (Evie, in the time-honored Acre tradition, like all his corner boys, had no use for further schooling once he got some dough in his jeans, dropped out at sixteen once the school hours proved inconvenient to his new lifestyle.)

Every once in a while, work while, Evie, pulling his head up from the splattering stovetop to turn over some burger with fried green peppers would eye his girl of the moment, Lorraine Champlain, the ace carhop of the place, and one fox that every guy in town, every guy maybe from young guys like Evie to old, maybe thirty- year old guys, wanted to get next to. Just in case you don’t remember or don’t have Wikipedia handy a car hop was, well, a young, good-looking woman who came (in some places via roller skates) to the side of your car, took your order, and eventually brought you your burger with whatever on it, fries and soft drink on a tray. Nice touch in car- conscious 1950s America, even in sleepy old dying mill town Olde Saco, Maine.

Lorraine, all blond hair (real, by the way, Evie said so real), small breasts like all F-C girls, long forever legs, legs made for wrapping around some guy, made forever longer by the short shorts she wore in summer along with midriff- revealing halter, and some perfume thing that made you do a double-take when she took your order (if Evie did not have his head up, otherwise pass, wisely pass, please). And while many guys ogled Lorraine (and left big tips as tribute) she was true blue to her Evian (not Evie, not to her, or anything like that by the way and no mother’s boy talk about him letting her use that forbidden name, not unless you wanted to mix knuckles with corner boy tough Evie, no, leave that noise at home, or better stand in some sullen corner if that is your line). So you can see that Evie certainly would have had no time, no time at all for bon Jimmie.

Except Jimmy, all twelve years of him, had to, just had to break his armed truce with Evie and speak two, maybe more words. Jimmy was smitten (local Olde Saco corner boy, junior division, word for love, puppy love learned, or half-learned, from a poem, some old- time Robert Browning thing picked up in Miss Genet’s class and immediately adopted in junior division corner boy society) with one Mimi Dubois, Lorraine’s cousin, and someone who might one day challenge Lorraine as the ace car hop in town. But that future prospect was not what was bothering Jimmy that day, the day he got up enough nerve to ask Evie the big question.

He had asked Mimi to go to the movie theater, the Bijou where they had sci-fi stuff and monster movies not the Majestic where they only had old time film noir fare with guys getting themselves blasted up for dames and getting nothing for their efforts, except an off-hand slug in the chest or something, with him on Saturday afternoon to watch the double feature and he needed a please, please favor because the theater was too far from her house to walk and her parents would not let her go without a ride. (They in time-honored tradition did not make the social faux pas of suggesting that they take the pair to the theater, jesus, no, they had been told in no uncertain terms to not even mention that possibility.) Also Jimmy’s parents were out for the very good reason (although not as good as the “in no uncertain terms” one) that Mr. LaCroix had been laid off from the dying textile mills where he had worked most of his life and he didn’t have an automobile at the moment.

So Jimmy spoke, spoke to Evie on the fly after school one afternoon as Evian was preparing to enter his chariot very cherry red Chevy to head to Adventure Car Hop about driving him to the theater. And here is how young Jimmie laid out his case to his older brother. One day at Doc’s (the local Acre drugstore where the junior high school kids hung out because, one, it was right across from the school, and two, Doc’s had a soda fountain and super jukebox that played all the latest teen hits)Jimmie had cornered Mimi. It was there that Jimmy approached his sweet Mimi to ask about going to the movies. And Eddie Cochran saved him. No, not Eddie in person, but his latest hit, Sittin’In The Balcony.

Jimmie kind of came at Mimi sideways, like twelve- year old goofy guys will, and asked Mimi off-handedly a hypothetical question concerning her choice for movie seating options. Down in the orchestra which meant a silly date, like old people did, watching the movies, and maybe eating popcorn or up in the balcony where in Olde Saco tradition (and maybe every other civilized place as well) the young, very young sans automobile, sans money, sans any idea of what was going on went to “make out” and not watch some silly old double feature (although they might come up for air for popcorn occasionally).

[The whole teen Saturday afternoon double feature movie arrangement, circa 1957, the etiquette if you will, bears some further detailed description. Not for the under eighteen Acre/Olde Saco/Maine/U.S.A/ World teenage crowd. Hell no, this was (is) almost instinctive stuff, not stuff that had to be mentioned, has to be instructed about from one generation to another or one older sibling to younger sibling, has to beat around, beat down by every academician, sociological or anthropological academician especially, looking to make a nice career instructing bright college kids about the mores of this heathen cult. That movement was genetic. But there might be some clueless parents who maybe never went to the movies, or who only sat in the orchestra section (to see the movies better, jesus), or went to the library on Saturdays, whatever, so here is the skinny:

The 1950s Saturday afternoon double- feature (already this is something very different for more modern ears) at the Bijou was where almost every kid had to learn the basic social skills necessary to survive in cut-throat Olde Saco teen world. First off it was strictly the Bijou that produced a double feature of monster movies (The Blob That Devoured Toledo, Godzilla Meets King Kong, stuff like that), thrillers (The Night Of The Living Dead, etc.) or weird alien stuff. Sci-fi stuff with scary things for outer space. And that is why every kid (and his or her date, if applicable) lined up early. The other movie house in town, The Majestic, was strictly, well, for maybe those library-goers taking a break one Saturday, or kids who wanted to go into the film industry, or adults who had enough sense to stay clear of the Saturday matinee at the Bijou to watch silly romances (adult hard to follow the plot stuff because it was not clear who loved who, or who didn’t, or who ran off with who, and why, stuff like that), or arty stuff. Maybe people who today need some instruction on what went on at the Bijou.

The great divide though (and another reason to get in line early) at the Bijou, in the Acre, in Olde Saco, in Maine, in the U.S. of A, maybe in the World, was where dated up kids would sit, orchestra section or balcony (singles, guys or girls, groups, guys or girls, don’t count here and took their lame dumb luck seats down below, including those clowns who were there to actually watch the movies, again jesus, why would anyone do that). So every date situation from twelve to eighteen (nobody older, not on Saturday afternoon, they were saving their energies for the night, the night time is the right time and not at some silly movie house but rather down at Olde Saco Beach, really Seal Rock at the far end), began with that critical question.

Needless to say the balcony was off-limits to anyone over eighteen, ushers, the management, anybody once the film started. Now here is where those lucky enough to make the cut had things working their way at the Bijou. Those B-films (hell, maybe C, D, or F, who remembers) were great for “making out” (wink, wink). Why? Not every girl or guy who went up in balcony was brazen, or all that knowledgeable about love, or anything, or about how to“get in the mood,” although all wanted to get in the mood. So those dopey scenes on the screen where some gigantic monster devoured a building, or weird trapezoidal beings took over average American bodies, or where some seaweed looking blot sucked the life out of some average American kid were just scary enough to make the couple, and it wasn’t always the girl, draw closer for protection. Nice, huh, and then you didn’t have to look at the screen after that (except for a little popcorn, or something like that.]

And Mimi?

Mimi answered like this, and thus caused Jimmy his boldness in asking his brother for help. “If you are asking me just to ask me a silly question while Eddie Cochran’s Sittin’ In The Balcony is playing then I’d answer orchestra but if you are really asking me to go to the movies with you then it’s the balcony. Evian laughed, laughed out loud at that and then grabbed Jimmy by the shoulder and said, “Sure kid, I was young once too.”

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Shirelles “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”- Billie’s, Billie The Pope Of “The Projects” Night, View

Click on the headline to link to aYouTube film clip of The Shirelles performing the classic Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

Markin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.

Note: Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around, every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook, and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of girls-finding-out-about worthiness.

Although in early 1959 my family was beginning to start the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I would still wander back to the old neighborhood until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words (somewhat edited, of course) that appear in this space. That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
********

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Lyrics

Carole King

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Tonight you're mine completely,

You give your love so sweetly,

Tonight the light of love is in your eyes,

But will you love me tomorrow?



Is this a lasting treasure,

Or just a moment's pleasure,

Can I believe the magic of your sighs,

Will you still love me tomorrow?



Tonight with words unspoken,

You said that I'm the only one,

But will my heart be broken,

When the night (When the night)

Meets the morning sun.



I'd like to know that your love,

Is love I can be sure of,

So tell me now and I won't ask again,

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Will you still love me tomorrow?

**********
Billie back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over the Adamsville Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he moved “uptown” to North Adamsville, came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of the old neighborhood and we got to talking about this latest record, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? by the Shirelles. They are hot.

Fair’s fair right, so I’ll give you Markin’s, Peter Paul’s, take on the lyrics, so I can come crashing down on his silly pipe dream ideas. By the way if you don’t know, and he will tell you this himself if he is honest, he was behind, way behind, in figuring out girls, and their girlish charms. I had to practically tell him everything he knows.

Where did I learn it? Hell like everybody else from the older kids, the older guys, and my older sisters too if you can believe that. So I know a lot, or at least enough to keep old Peter Paul from being a total goofball. Still, see, he thinks the main thing is that the girl in the song here is worried about her reputation because she has just given in, in a moment of passion, to her boyfriend, it’s way too late to turn back and yet she is having second thoughts, second thought regrets, about it, and about what he will think of her and whether it will get around that she “does it.”

Yah, she does it, now officially certified a woman, or at least acting like a woman can act, that is what my sister Donna says, and from the feel of the song, probably in some back seat of some “boss”convertible, a Chevy I hope. Her guy, some under-the-hood day and night guy making that baby, his real baby, hum against the in-stock store-bought standards of his father’s car, his old fogy father’s car. She was breathless weeks ago when her Chevy guy came up gunning that beast behind her walking home from school and said “Hop in.” And she did, now she's the queen bee of the high school Adventure Car-Hop night. All the other girls, friend or foe, frantic at her fortune and ready to leap, girls’ “lav” leap, all over her come Monday morning finely-tuned grapevine gossip time. So tonight was paying back time, car- hop queen bee paying back time. No turning back.

I hope, I really hope, they “did the deed”down by the seashore, big old moon out, big old laughing moon, waves splashing against the rocks and against the sounds of the night, the sounds of the be-bop moaning and groaning night. Call me a romantic but at least I hope that is where she gave it up. Or, maybe, away from coastal shoreline possibilities it was at some secluded lovers’ lane mountain top, tree-lined, dirt road, away from the city noise, some be-bop music playing on the car radio, just to keep those mountain fears away, motor humming against the autumn chill and the creaking sun ready to devour that last mountain top and face the day, and to face the music.

But see that’s where Markin has got it all wrong, all wrong on two counts, because Chevy guy two-timing her, or spreading the “news” about his conquest, or even that hellish girls’ lav whirlwind inferno is not really what’s bothering her. Markin has got this starry-eyed thing, and I think it is from hanging around, or being around, all those straight lace no-go Catholic girls, who do actually worry about their reputations, at least for public consumption. That is why high Catholic that I am, just like old Markin, I don’t go within twenty yards of those, well, teasers. Yah, teasers but that’s a story for another time, because right now we have only time for women, or girls who act like women.

What’s bothering moonstruck girl, number one, is that she likes it, she liked doing it with Chevy guy, and is worried that she’ll go crazy every time a boy gets within an arm’s length of her. She“heard” that once a girl starts doing it they can’t help themselves and are marks, easy marks, for every guy who gives them the eye. Jesus, where did she ever get that idea. Must have been out in the streets, although I personally never heard such an idea when I was asking around. This is what I heard, well, not from the street but from my sister Donna, she said it was okay, natural even, for girls to like sex. If the moment was right, and maybe the guy too. It wasn’t some Propagation of the Faith, do-your-sex-duty to multiply thing we heard in church. Hell, Donna said she liked it too, and believe me, old Donna doesn’t like much if you listen to her long enough. So moonstruck girl don’t worry.

But number two you do have to worry about, although I don’t know what you can do about it now. I never did ask Donna about that part. Pregnant. Yah, the dreaded word for girls and guys alike when you were just trying to have a little fun, just liking it. Now everything your mother told you about “bad” girls, about leaving school, about shot-gun weddings, or about having to go to “Aunt Bessie’s” for a few months, flood memories and as the sun comes up there is momentary panic. Like I say I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know the medical part of the thing. But Peter Paul, leave it to Peter Paul, who knows diddley about sex (except what I tell him) says do you know about “rubbers.” And he got all in a lather telling me that there is some new pill coming out, and coming out soon, so you don’t have to worry. This from a guy was practically missed the first time he kissed a girl. But if he is right, and I ain’t saying he is, then check it out and then you can still like “doing it.” And not worry.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-The Be-Bop Beach Night, Circa 1960

“Josh called, Josh called, Josh called about seven times while you were out Betty,” Mrs. Becker yelled up to Betty rushing to her room in order to get ready for her big date with new romance Teddy. Teddy today freshly met, six hours and fifteen minutes ago freshly met, at the beach, the beautiful, beautiful Olde Saco Beach, formerly just a beach, a too stony to the Betty feet touch beach, fetid at low tide (it stunk, honestly) and on more than one occasion held to be a beach fit solely for lowlife by one Betty Becker. But now beautiful, beautiful since Teddy, Teddy Andrews, had noticed her, had traversed and graced his bare feet on that stony brine in order to introduce himself to her, her Betty Becker, soon to be a senior at Olde Saco High and then, then …fleeting moments of fantasy, Mrs. Teddy Andrews.

Now it was not merely happenstance that Betty Becker was on Olde Saco Beach this July 1960 afternoon, stationed there along with her bevy of summering Olde Saco High School girls (okay, okay three other girls just in case four does not make a bevy) in their sacred sanctified spot between the Seal Rock Yacht Club and the South Saco River Club. This spot had been a dedicated place for the pick (and not so pick) of the Olde Saco High soon to be senior girls since, well, since there was probably an Olde Saco Beach, or at least as far back as anyone, any soon to be senior girl could remember. Reason: reason number one and there was (is) no other reason worthy of mention was this was prime real estate, stony brine or not, to be noticed, noticed in summer swim suits or diaphanous sun dresses, by what passed for the Olde Saco Mayfair set, junior division. In short, future husband or lover material to take a step or two up in the world without much heavy lifting (or so most of these young unworldly women thought).

That reason was moreover of more recent origin, and datable as well, since Lydia LeClair, Olde Saco Class of 1944 and of humble MacAdams Textile Mills mill worker family had snagged Robert MacAdams, a grandson of the founder, and was even then comfortable ensconced in a small mansion over in Ocean City for all to see, and admire. So from that time not only was this spot sacred senior girl ground but the seat of dreams of getting out from under some small white picket fence cottage over on Atlantic Avenue and a pinched life fate like their parents. So daily in the summer, pretty girls, not so pretty girls, even just average girls could be found between those two boat clubs and nowhere else. And heaven help, no better, hell help any soon to be freshman, sophomore or junior girl (one not even need to mention junior high girls) found in that precinct before her time. Come to think of it most days anybody but that select company. (And any others would be well advised to avoid that place what with the preening, the giggles, and the incessant johnny angel, teen angel, fool in love, earth angel, angel baby, endless sleep, music roaring out of those collective transistor radios). But enough of beaches, enough of stones, enough of boat clubs, enough of blaring music back to Betty Becker and her palpable dream.

That afternoon Teddy (father a lawyer for the MacAdams Textile Mills and therefore worthy of local Mayfair swell-dom) had spied her, he said, from the deck of the Seal Rock Club and was compelled, compelled he said, to check out the foxy blonde-haired chick (boy term of art, circa 1960 and forward, for, girl, woman) in the red bikini. Betty smiled, smiled the of the knowing, knowing that she had turned more than one head this summer, older guys too with silly no-account leering looks, with that very revealing bathing suit. Unlike the others though, young and old, that she would have rebuffed if they had approached (some if they had come within a mile of her) Teddy had noticed, saw red, saw sex in big letters, walked over to the bevy of blankets (the other three of the so-called not exactly unbecoming but not blonde and red-bikini-ed and therefore this day not Teddy Andrews temperature raising) told her just that, told her how foxy she looked. And she practically swooned (although already practiced in coy-ship just smiled, obligatory smile responded). A few minutes of off-hand banter and they were dated up for the evening.

Dreamy Teddy, rich Teddy, of the father-bought new Pontiac Star Chief sitting in front of the Seal Rock Club for all the world, all the Olde Saco girl world to see, and that was what mattered, with plenty of zip and style (car and boy)that every girl in school was crazy to get in the front seat of, and with. Teddy of the now forget Josh, forget he ever existed Josh. Josh of the two years standing since the first day of freshman year as her beau, but more importantly, with "what is a girl to do big doings and a big hungry world," walking Josh of the no car fraternity. Blah. And before Betty could hear the faint ring of another Josh call she was out the door and planned to be off-limits, Teddy off-limits, to every Josh in school, including Josh, until somebody came by with a father-bought Cadillac and then maybe she would find herself in the front seat of that automobile. Maybe. Yes, a girl, a working-class girl with good looks, a good personality but a little light on the book smarts, and a lot light on the dough smarts had to look out for herself. Josh, eternally understanding Josh, would understand, wouldn’t he?

Meanwhile Josh, Josh of the infinite nickels, had stepped away from the telephone at Doc’s Drugstore over on Main Street after making that eighth call to one Betty Becker. See, Josh had two reasons for using the public telephone at Doc’s, first, he didn’t want snooping older brothers to harass him over his long Betty craze (they had her figured as, at best, a gold-digger and was just hanging on to Josh until the next best thing came along) and so he would not use a home phone to call her. And secondly, currently, the Breslin residence, due to an out of work father, had no phone with which to call Miss Betty in any case. So he was pushing shoe leather between the telephone booth and his stool at Doc’s where a forlorn Coke (cherry Coke) was waiting on the completion of his errand. He said to himself one more time was all and then he would head home. Doc’s motions made him realize that was his fate in any case as he was ready to close up shop for the evening. Ninth call, no soap, and he left saying a pitiful good night to Doc.

Out on Main Street he walked head down, lost in thought, when a big new Pontiac, two-toned (a couple of shades of green then stylish, uh, cool) passed him by, honking like crazy. He didn’t realize who it was until the car came back to him honking like crazy again. Then he saw Betty and her dreamy Teddy laughing, laughing like crazy at the “pedestrian.” The car stopped, Betty got out and gave Josh his class ring back saying that she was not walking any place anymore, thank you. And then, to add insult to injury, Teddy floored the gas pedal leaving dust all over Josh. He could faintly sense them laughing, laughing like crazy once again as they drove away. (Josh found out later through one of the Betty bevy that she was miffed at Teddy for that last act, although she never said anything to Josh about it then or ever since she avoided him like the plague thereafter.)

When Josh got home he went up into his tiny room (the fate of the youngest brother), closed the door behind him, locked it, and turned on his transistor radio. Rock and roll music calmed him down at times like these. Then he thought over the situation and while he was still hurt he could see that Betty had to take her chance, take her chance to get out from under the Olde Saco rock and while he didn’t forgive her he did understand. What he didn’t understand, and wouldn’t understand for many years, was why she acted that way that night on Main Street after they had just discussed the issue the not making fools of each other under any circumstances the previous week. That previous week Betty and he had laughed at that thought promising eternally that such would never be their fates.

[Betty MacAdams, nee Becker, did eventually find her Mayfair swell, for a while, marrying a great-grandson of the founder of the MacAdams textile fortune, moved over with the rest of the clan to Ocean City, had a couple of kids, was eventually divorced by that great-grandson when he went to live with his mistress, and was last heard from living quietly in Europe on her divorce settlement. For a while, until such things went out of fashion, public fashion anyway, Betty (Class of 1961) was held up as the Olde Saco High senior girl example of the possibilities of summering between those two old boat clubs waiting on the Mayfair swells, junior division.- JLB]

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-When The World Imitated Elvis, Circa 1956

Click on the headline to link to a Youtube film clip of Carl Perkins performing Bopping The Blues.

CD Review

The Rock and Roll Era: 1956, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989

Nobody in the whole wide Western world wanted to be the be-bop max daddy king hell king of rock and roll more than Billie (not Billy, not regular old ordinary vanilla Billy) Bradley. Well, nobody except maybe the king himself, Elvis, but Billy was a close second. What Billy was first at, and maybe more first than Elvis, was the desire to use whatever musical talents he had (and they were promising) to be the king hell king of the projects where he grew up. And so whenever Billie (don’t spell it the other way even now, even now when he is long gone from king hell king strivings) was not in school, was not humoring his corner boys (including me) with some song or skit, or was not robbing some uptown Olde Saco merchant of his earthy goods or planning to, he was before the mirror (vanity thy name is Billie or one of thy names is Billie) singing some song but more importantly developing that certain look that was to drive the girls wild.

And it worked for a while, a while around the Olde Saco projects for a while with the local girls (junior division about age twelve or under) who wanted their Elvis moment even if it was once removed. Not that Billie’s look was anything like Elvis’ (in tense moments Billie would call Elvis’ style pure punk, nothing , nada). Every time Olde Saco South Elementary School put on a charity talent show during the period from, say 1956 to 1958 Billie was there. And for several shows running he was the be-bop king hands downs. The girls would flock around him and his “rejects” would wind up with his corner boys (including me) and so for all the Olde Saco days and nights of that period we were his biggest promoters. Praise be king Billie.

Then one night one 1958 night at a church benefit held in the basement of Sainte Brigitte’s Billie came unglued. See he had become something of a local kid celebrity by then and so Alabaster Records, the big label for new talent, had sent an agent to see Billie do his stuff. Naturally Billie wanted to impress so he tore into his best cover, Carl Perkin’s Bopping The Blues. What nobody knew, at least nobody in the audience (except said corner boys), was that his suit, his sweet Billie suit, had been quickly made by his mother on the fly from material purchased at some bargain discount joint. About half way through the performance first one arm of his suit jacket came flying off and then the other. Needless to say the Alabaster agents wrote Billie off without a murmur.

Here is the funny part. The girls, those giggling teeny-bopper girls, thought that the arm gag was part of Billie act and so for many, many months Billie was followed by a bevy (nice, word, huh) of adoring girls from school and the neighborhood. And we, his loyal corner boys gladly took his “rejects.” Here is the not funny part though. After than night, after that rejection something, and I don’t know what and I was closest to him at that point, snapped in Billie. Something about the world being fixed a certain way, a certain not Billie way and it ate at him. From that point on the wanna-be gangster began to take over. I stayed with him through part it and then moved on. But when he was in his Elvis moment, yes, when he was in his Elvis moment, he made the earth move.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-The Golden Age Of The Automobile, Circa 1954

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, the more aerodynamic, and more powerfully-engined the better. It wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, driven by those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight white 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 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 driven by those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys, smelling of aromatic ganga, mary jane, herb, grass deeply drawn , name your name for nirvana twists, either. The guys with the faux leather jackets, black as night and black as their desiccated hearts, short tempers and short knives ready to avenge at the drop of a hat, or just because they were feeling that way that day, any slight. 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), this zen master “chicken run’ hood, or that black-hearted chain-wielder, because this guy is “cute.” Go figure.

No, and forget all those stereotypes that they, the historians, the literary critics, the social commentators, the media-aratti, 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 had 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, World War II survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, had 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”, the Acre projects (a.k.a. the Olde Saco Housing Authority apartments up in Maine although nobody ever called it that except to snicker , just the Acre). And I will bet the same was true over at the Adamsville, Massachusetts “projects” near Boston where my amigo Peter Paul Markin grew up he did too, 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 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, young as I was, 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 street car dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least up there in Olde Saco 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 I had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to “up-town” Olde Saco Center even. 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 at, and sneer at 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. And always dreaming, or maybe pointing out in daytime to anybody in this whole candid world who would listen, of great 1954 this or that “boss” (local, hell maybe nation, among the young then, term of art for primo, numero uno things) Buicks, Pontiacs, and especially that two-toned Chevy just off the assembly line.

But it was those break-downs, those oil slicks under the car, those sick engine sounds that meant no good, that funny rattling sound coming from the rear which meant hard-earned money (and maybe no car for a while if it was a battle between that and kids’groceries) would have to be spend on repair that ruled the young Breslin family world. Sometimes the only difference between having a car available and not was dependent on the good graces of one Joey Parker, the max daddy of the self-taught local mechanics who, very conveniently, lived in a trailer at the outer edge of the Acre and who, from some unknown beginning , was friendly with my father, the late Prescott Breslin. (Our“relationship,” my relationship with Joey, if that is the right term, had started when my father had to push, assisted by three young sons, a transmission- busted 1947 Studebaker over to his place for major work and I was totally fascinated by the automobiles strewn in all conditions around his “garage.”)So in the end the golden age of the American automobile turns out to be about the valor of Joey Parker and his mad passion for fixing lame and halting automobiles.

Joey Parker was several years older than me, maybe ten, but that didn’t stop him from letting me hang around his “garage”and watch him turn some stumble-bum wreck of an automobile that had been scrapped off some back road after some midnight “chicken run” into a vehicle worthy of a king. Worthy that is if what you wanted was speed and chicken runs and were not worried like a lot of older guys (and like my corner boys from the stoop in front of Mama’s Pizza parlor over Main Street and me later when our time came about ninth grade when we are already plotting Seal Rock dream dates in some sultry, sexy heap) were about the thing being “girl ready,” especially girl back seat ready. Then you went, just like we did, over to Bill’s Esso and got the thing all dolled up, amped up, and perfumed up, I guess.

Then though all I, ten years of surly snarl and Meme back-bite, cared about, aside from the revival of various Breslin clunkers already mentioned, was Joey turning his wrecks into speed. And, truth, that was all that Joey cared about, at least that s all he talked about. About that ability to pull the throttle down from zero to sixty in about thirty second s flat (wild estimate for I wouldn’t know the exact time it took unless I was told). Here is the funny part though, unlike a lot of guys who had those “boss”engines under the hood to impress the girls (women too, married women from what I heard, although I didn’t put too much credence in that talk at the time. Every guy from about fourteen to four hundred believed that those young married women were just pining away for some sex instead of doing the housework while hubby was at work. Those ideas died hard.) as they zoomed down Olde Saco Boulevard, Joey didn’t talk or seem to take much interest in girls.

Although they, when he had some speed demon roadster all polished and pretty, flocked to his trailer looking for, well, you know what they were looking for (although I didn’t at the time). One girl, about sixteen, had her brother, my school friend Benny, hang around Joey’s for the express purpose of gathering intelligence about who Joey was, or was not, seeing and dropping hints via that poor brother that she was ready to give her all to sit in the front seat of a Joey-mobile.

[A few years later long after I had stopped hanging around the garage and moved on to the corner I found out the exact reason why Joey was not interested in discussing girls, or his sex life. We (or maybe, I) thought he might be a fag (a term of, well you know, derision in the Acre and elsewhere in 1950s America). Gay. No way. See Joey had fathered at least two children by two different girls up around Portland way and was laying low, very low on the girl front-JLB]

Now in case you don’t know, and maybe thought I was some juvenile delinquent-in- waiting, ready, at age ten, to plot out robberies and other mayhems in order to be ready to get my own fixed up wreck when my time came the reason I was hanging Joey’s garage was just because it was located down the end of our family’s street over in the Acre and when thing s got tough at home with Ma mainly (we called her in the French-Canadian fashion, Meme, she nee LeBlanc from the LeBlancs up around Quebec City way) then I headed to Joey’s to cool out. There was always a battle over sometime, mainly dough or no dough stuff, and desires kid know-nothing economic desires, but that is my story (and Meme’s) not Joey’s so I will move on.

Sometimes we, Joey and I, would run around town but mainly I just hung out there with a couple of other guys my age that also had the Ma problem. We did that for a few years until we had to start worrying about girls and cars rather some wrecked cars getting revived but the best years were the first couple when Joey would let us watch, maybe let us hand him some tool and also let us listen to the forbidden (Ma forbidden, Meme strictly forbidden no devil’s music in her pure Roman Catholic home, period, end of story) local radio station, WMEX, that he had on constantly. The local rock and roll radio station (although at first we did not know that term but we sure as hell knew the bounce of the music).Around the house Ma and Dad were strictly tuned into WJDA and the old fogey World War II stuff like Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee and Frank (yes, that Frank) that drove me up a wall even before I hit on Joey’s WMEX.

I remember the first, maybe the second, time Joey let me hang around (it was done mainly, as it was with the other guys, by him not saying “get lost”). For some reason he did not have the radio on that morning before he started working on some 1954 Pontiac that had gotten mashed going 110 MPH, or something like that, over on Gorham Road in Scarborough. So he talked, talked a blue streak for a taciturn, gruff, few words kind of guy, about how he had finally found a wreck, this Pontiac Star Chief, that he could turn into a chariot (his term) that would blow Johnny Blaze, Johnny, king of the “chicken run” Olde Saco Beach Saturday night, away. Beat Johnny so bad that he would thereafter happily have his work done over at Bill’s Esso like all the other squares (1950s term of art for, for, hell, you know, squares, the regular nine to five people, stuff like that).

Even I had heard of Johnny and his exploits. About his almost jet-like cars. About how he totally blew Stewball Stu (named as such for his constant companion whisky breathe but don’t ever call him that to his face or you might have your face mangled at the wrong end of chain whipping) the previous king away leaving him badly injured in some swamp ditch down in South Berwick one rainy early Sunday morning, driving away laughing and with Stu’s girl (they had bet her as part of the bargain). Rough boy. The most famous though was the night he outran the Kennebunk cops out on Route 109, blew them away, and the next morning sat down at the Jeffery’s Diner and smiled, just smiled at the same cops who chased him, while they were having their coffee and. And they, red-faced, couldn’t let on they had been beaten by a civilian. Beautiful. Yes, Johnny was the king in that jacked up Chevy of his and would be hard to displace, very hard I thought.

Then Joey went on and on that morning about the displacement this and that, the wheel base this and that, the fuel pump this and that, the dual carburetors this and that, all stuff then (and now) which I was clueless about. All I knew was that I wished Joey well, that I hoped that he would beat old Johnny (not for any other reason than I knew Joey and didn’t know Johnny), and that I wished he would let me hang around while he was putting his masterpiece together. And he did. Did let me hang around and did finish his masterpiece. It took him maybe two months, in between working on various conditions of my father’s and other’s cars in order to carry the freight for expenses for his souped-up Star Chief.

Word got around; got around small town Olde Saco (and the even smaller part that cared about chicken runs Olde Saco) that Joey was ready, ready for Johnny Blaze anytime, anywhere. As such things go about two days later I heard from Benny, one of the other kids that also hung around Joey’s (and the brother of that girl who was ready to give her all for Joey at the slightest glance, sorry sister Joey was booked, booked solid) that the deal was down for Saturday night June 6^that the far end (the traditional chicken run end) of Olde Saco Beach near Seal Rock and did I want to sneak out of the house and go with him. The sneaking part was necessary since these chicken runs were held at about two in the morning when few people, and cops, were in that area. I said I would try, try in order to give support for our man Joey and because I had never seen a chicken run up close (just some off-hand dueling by strictly week-end warriors, probably drunk, on Route 1, kid’s stuff really).

That trying to get out of the house Saturday night part never happened though. Jesus, it never happened. Here is what did. The Friday before the big run Joey decided he wanted to take the Pontiac on a test run, a run over that same Gorham Road he said that had brought him his“good luck” wheels in the first place. Here is where it got kind of crazy though in the good luck department. Joey had also decided that since I had hung around his place so much while he was building his baby (his term) he wanted me to ride with him on that run. See, I was his good luck. I was thrilled, Jesus was I. So that Friday about eight o’clock, like I was some date, he picked me up at my house so my parents wouldn’t worry and we rode over to the Gorham Road.

I do not know about now but in those days the Gorham Road was nothing but a country road, a road for farmers to get to Scarborough, or maybe try to connect with Route 1to Portland or to head south. In other words on a Friday night not a bad place to test out a car for speed. And we did, jesus, we did. Joey got her up to about 120 MPH fast, faster that I would have believed possible, and got me white as sheet. I almost threw up I was so scared. At that point he slowed down (and so did my pulse rate). But that was not the end of it. Some Scarborough cops were now on his tail, lights flashing. Joey, in what must have been a Johnny Blaze moment, decided he was going to outrun them (he, fortunately, did not tell me that).

And guess what, he did, as we lost them somewhere on that road I don’t remember how far up, maybe about ten miles. Needless to say I wanted no more part of being a co-pilot with Joey Parker, although I later continued to hang around his garage since I still had enough Meme beefs to fill the planet. Oh yah, Joey, Joey beat Johnny Blaze that Saturday night, beat him bad, left him knee deep in the waters off Seal Rock, his car filled with engine-destroying salt water (the chicken runs around Olde Saco were raced on the flats at low tide on the beach but one a car went out of control the damn thing usually wound up in some water). I don’t think Johnny ever turned over a new leaf though and went thereafter to Bill’s Esso. The last I had heard he was serving ten to fifteen for an armed robbery up in Shawshank.

As for Joey, here is the beauty of it, that Sunday morning he went into Jimmy Jake’s Diner III over in Scarborough (Diner I and II were in Olde Saco, I for jukebox teens and II for blue-haired ladies and summer touristas) and smiled, just smiled at the two cops who had chased him on Friday night while they were having their coffee and. So when you think of the be-bop golden age of the American automobile think about those red-faced cops, and think about Joey Parker too.