Out In the Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Olde Saco Rocked, Rocked Into The Night

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Otis Redding performing his torch classic I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.


CD Review

1965: The Beat Goes On, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1988


Scene evoked by the cover art that graces the front of this CD. The cover illustrates an example of 1965 teen jail-break concert, or better, some local teen queen bee club, where a local cover band, complete with mopped-hair and Nehru jackets, amped-up to the high heavens is trying to make its own musical break-out.

Ya, Olde Saco, Maine is rocking tonight. School’s over for the summer, mercifully over, and everybody who is anybody, anybody in the teen world, what other world is there, is out in the sea breeze night. Hell, Josh, Joshua Lawrence Breslin, freshly-minted junior-to-be at Old Saco High come the fall earlier in the evening even counted a bunch of walkers and others touristas who don’t really count out this night. This Friday night just before the French-Canadians from up in Quebec (the locals call them “cubies,” to draw a distinction between the foreigners and the homegrown varieties of French Canadian including Josh himself whose mother is a LeBlanc) descend on the town come July and take up all the air, the Maine soft fluffed beach sand, and the whiskey clubs with their arcadian dreams, and liquor stinks.

Ya, he chuckled to himself they sure don’t count, not tonight. And not down at the Surfside Club where the local favorites from up in Bangor, the Rockin’ Ramrods, are holding their first concert, well, dance really since they fronted for The Kinkies down in one of Boston’s Fenway night clubs a few weeks back. Now, for the squares, what the Surfside is about is a teen night club where no liquor is served, no official liquor okay. And only people eighteen to twenty-one can get in. Period, well, kind of period.

See last summer after the Beatles hit the shore the guy who owns the Surfside, Lenny LaCroix, decided he could make more dough, lots more dough, using his club on Friday and Saturday nights to let the teeny-boppers bop (hey, that is how he explained it to one and all in the Olde Saco Tribune). Before that he used to have a fox-trot and whisky crowd, mainly whisky, foul up the place for a few hours before heading off to watch late night television or something. And so almost every week since then every eighteen to twenty-one year old within fifty miles including those tweedy Colby girls and Bates guys came thundering down the newly opened Maine Turnpike to listen to what was what on the local music scene. But mainly to be seen, and see. Officially, okay

Hold on a minute. How does one Joshua Lawrence Breslin, who by no stretch of the imagination can fit the eighteen year old minimum either by looks or by stance, fit in. Well, that is where the old ancient human game, hell maybe Adam and Eve invented it, who you know, who you know in the Old Saco teen night scheme of things comes into play.

See the king hell king of that night is none other than usually day and night whiskey-soaked “Stewball” Stu (although nobody, nobody alive anyway, calls him to his face, not if they want to stay alive anyway) who has been the king of the car-crazed night here as long as anyone can remember. Why? Let us just say ‘57 cherry flaming hellfire red “boss” Chevy and be done with it. And Josh, having inadvertently done Stu a good turn turning over some local Lolita that Stu was interested in, has been riding “shot gun” on most Friday and Saturday nights in that '57 chariot for the past couple of years.

And the very long in the tooth (over 21) Stu is nothing but the guy who turned the owner of the Surfside, Lenny, on to the idea of evicting the sloe-gin fizz crowd and making his joint a teen club. Besides Stu, at the best of times an oily mechanic to normal people (read: non-teens), is nothing but a magnet for the legion of honeys who love ’57 Chevys, or rather love being seen in that kind of vehicle, and what that does to them in lots of ways. Best of all if Stu, who sometimes can be a hard and cruel king, is open-armed welcome his boy Josh is welcome too. So tonight is no different from a million other nights that way. Strictly Friday routine.

So this night Josh is making his usual trek over to Stu’s “house,” really just a mucked-up trailer cum ad hoc garage, hell, let’s just call it a dump and be done with it, down at the corner of his own wrong side of the tracks street, Albemarle, and Main. That trip is required protocol now since mother Delores (nee Leblanc, and no nonsense French-Canadian in such matters) put her foot down (or rather both feet) last spring and declared Stu and his car persona non grata and persona non car. No big deal this night though as the stars have come out and Josh dreams his usual dream, his usual Friday night salacious dream of “scoring” a bevy of babes at this hoe-down teen night club scene so that he will have one for each night in the week like his mentor, Stu. He arrives at Stu’s, they pass their usual grunt greetings, and they are off into the ocean air, wave-flecked night.

First stop. Or rather first pass through. Jimmy Jacks’ Diner (the one on Main and Atlantic, the teen girl magnet and guy hot car hang-out one, not the lame senior citizen blue plate special before six joint over on West Grand, hell no) to see who may be out and about early, who is not going anywhere near some hot teen club, and who, or what, crazed who is looking for Stu to go mano y mano with him on some dawn Squaw Rock “chicken” run. Ya, some crazed yahoo from the sticks or something who hasn’t heard that Stu and his Chevy are immortal. But this night “no dice,” nothing, nada and so it is off to the pier to scout things out there on the pilgrimage.

Scouting the pier is a much part of the Friday night summer ritual as breathing, no question. See this is like Stu’s coronation, or reaffirmation of his kinghood. And also see that the honeys who hang around the pier are those who, unlike Josh and his cachet, have no chance of sneaking into (or staying) the Surfside and so they must cool their act on the amusement park boardwalk. That little problem, however, does not stop them from getting in line, a line six deep at times, to oh, oh, oh, Stu’s Chevy and hope, hope that maybe tonight he sees their teeny-bopper charms. And Stu, normally a girl stoic at least out front, loves this adoration from, well from girls his own age, his socially developed own age. Josh though thanks his lucky stars Stu is that way ever since that local Lolita turnover, thanks his lucky starts everyday. Even if the Stu aura has never brought him any luck with those silly, screaming skee ball sticks. Even on a lonesome Monday night.

But even an adored king knows that hanging around parent and cop heavy boardwalks is ill-advised, especially ill-advised, when one Officer “Pete” is aiming dead-eye at Stu and getting his pencil and citation book out ready to pounce on some lame town ordinance to ticket Stu. They are off, although more than one pair of sad-eyed, mini-skirted sticks is moaning and groaning about the leaving. Jesus, Stu really is the king hell king.

Arriving at the Surfside (on East Grand just after the Acey-Duecey Club where all the lamo, old-time motorcycle guys and their “sweeties” hang trying to jump-start their youth dreams) Stu parks in the spot that Lenny has set aside for him as is appropriate for royalty. Stu and Josh go in. And, as usual, they split up and take their respective spots around the bandstand. For a while now Stu and Josh have agreed, no, Stu have proclaimed that once inside the club it is every man for himself and Stu wants no high school junior-to-be messing with his time. Period.

Stu, of course, gets his usual looks from the local shapes (no amusement boardwalk stuff here either, pure honey) who know that a look from Stu means a ride in that ’57 Chevy if not tonight then sometime. But see Stu’s fifteen minutes of fame is strictly local, the girls from the colleges, the ones that Josh eyes and spies, think Stu is, if you can believe this, nothing but a high school drop-out and/or hoodlum. At least that is what one such college girl had just told Josh, while they were slow dancing to Otis Redding’s I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, when he tried to lash-up to Stu’s star with a freshman girl, Laura, from Colby.

And see, maybe, she, Laura, was right, well right from her Colby perspective, because just before midnight Stu (with a hot red head, definitely a shape, in short green mini-skirt whom Josh had seen around town working in one of the summer hash houses) came up to Josh and for the umpteenth time told him that he had to find his own way home because, well, just because. Just then that Colby girl, maybe sensing that Josh wasn’t some Stu clone, jumped right in and said she would make sure that Josh got home. And the way she said it had Olde Saco Rock jetty beach front ocean “parking” and checking out the dawn written all over it. Ya, Olde Saco rocked that night.

In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When "Stewball" Stu Stewart ’57 Chevy Ruled The “Chicken” Roads

In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When "Stewball" Stu Stewart ’57 Chevy Ruled The “Chicken” Roads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHG5-GxI_Es

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Chuck Berry performing his classic School Day to give a flavor of the times to this piece

CD Review

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987

Scene: Brought to mind by the cover artwork that graces the front of the booklet that accompanies this CD. The artwork contains, in full James Dean-imitation pout, one good-looking, DA-quaffed, white muscle-shirted young man, an alienated young man, no question, leaning, leaning gently, very gently, arms folded, on the hood of his 1950’s classic automobile, clearly not his father’s car, but also clearly for our purposes let us call it his “baby.”

And that car, that extension of his young manhood, his young alienated manhood, is Friday night, Saturday night, or maybe a weekday night if it is summer, parked (priority parked, meaning nobody with some Nash Rambler, nobody with some foreign Volkswagen, no biker even , in short, nobody except somebody who is tougher, a lot tougher, than our alienated young man better breathe on the spot while he is within fifty miles of the place) directly in front of the local teenage (alienated or not) "hot spot." And in 1950s’ America, a teenage America with some disposal income (allowance, okay), that hot spot is likely to be, as here, the all-night Mel’s (or Joe’s, Adventure Car-Hop, whatever) drive-in restaurant opened to cater to the hot dog, hamburger, French fries, barbecued chicken cravings of exhausted youth. Youth exhausted after a hard night, well, let’s just call it a hard night and leave the rest to your knowing imagination, or their parents’ evil imaginations.

And in front of the restaurant, in front of that leaned-on “boss” automobile stands one teenage girl vision. One blondish, pony-tailed, midnight sun-glassed, must be a California great American West night teeny-bopper girl holding an ice cream soda after her night’s work. The work that we are leaving to fertile (or evil, as the case may be) imaginations. Although from the pout on Johnny’s (of course he has to be a Johnny, with that car) face maybe he “flunked out” but that is a story for somebody else to tell. Here’s mine.
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Not everybody, not everybody by a long-shot, who had a “boss” ’57 cherry red Chevy was some kind of god’s gift to the earth; good-looking, good clothes, dough in his pocket, money for gas and extras, money for the inevitable end of the night stop at Jimmy John’s Drive-In restaurant for burgers and fries (and Coke, with ice, of course) before taking the date home after a hard night of tumbling and stumbling (mainly stumbling). At least that is what one Joshua Breslin, Josh, me, freshly minted fifteen- year old roadside philosopher thought as for the umpteenth time “Stewball” Stu left me by the side of Albemarle Road and rode off into the Olde Saco night with his latest “hot” honey, fifteen year old teen queen Sally Sullivan.

Ya, Stewball Stu was nothing but an old rum-dum, a nineteen year old rum-dum, except he had that “boss” girl-magnet ’57 cherry red Chevy (painted that color by Stu himself) and he had his pick of the litter in the Olde Saco, maybe all of Maine, night. By the way Stu’s official name, was Stuart Stewart, go figure, but don’t call him Stuart and definitely do not call him “Stewball” not if you want to live long enough not to have the word teen as part of your age. The Stewball thing was strictly for local boys, jealous local boys like me, who when around Stu always could detect a whiff of liquor, usually cheap jack Southern Comfort, on his breathe, day or night.

Figure this too. How does a guy who lives out on Tobacco Road in an old run-down trailer, half-trailer really, from about World War II that looked like something out of some old-time Hooverville scene, complete with scrawny dog, and tires and cannibalized car leavings every which way have girls, and nothing but good-looking girls from twelve to twenty (nothing older because as Stu says, anything older was a woman and he wants nothing to do with women, and their women’s needs, whatever they are)? And the rest of us get his leavings, or like tonight left on the side of Route One? And get this, they, the girls from twelve to twenty actually walk over to Tobacco Road from nice across the other side of the tracks homes like on Atlantic Avenue and Fifth Street, sometimes by themselves and sometime in packs just to smell the grease, booze, burnt rubber, and assorted other odd-ball smells that come for free at Stu’s so-called garage/trailer.

Let me tell you about Stu, Sally, and me tonight and this will definitely clue you in to the Stu-madness of the be-bop Olde Saco girl night. First of all, as usual, it is strictly Stu and me starting out. Usually, like today, I hang around his garage on Saturdays to get away from my own hell-house up the road and I am kind of Stu’s unofficial mascot. Now Stu had been working all day on his dual-exhaust carburetor or something, so his denims are greasy, his white tee-shirt (sic) is nothing but wet with perspiration and oil stains, he hasn’t taken a bath since Tuesday (he told me that himself with some sense of pride) and he was not planning to do so this night, and of course, drinking all day from his silver Southern Comfort flask he reeked of alcohol (but don’t tell him that if you read this and are from Olde Saco because, honestly, I want to live to have twenty–something as my age). About 7:00 PM he bellows out to me, cigarette hanging from his mouth, a Lucky, let’s go cruising.

Well, cruising means nothing but taking that be-bop ’57 cherry red Chevy out on East Grand and look. Look for girls, look for boys from the hicks with bad-ass cars who want to take a chance on beating Stu at the “chicken run” down at the flats on the far end of Sagamore Beach, look for something to take the edge off the hunger to be somebody number one. At least that last is what I figured after a few of these cruises with Stu. Tonight it looks like girls from the way he put some of that grease (no not car grease, hair-oil stuff) on his nappy hair. Yes, I am definitely looking forward to cruising tonight once I have that sign because, usually whatever girl Stu might not want, or maybe there are a couple of extras, or something I get first dibs. Ya, Stu is righteous like that.

So off we go, stopping at my house first so I can get a little cleaned up and put on a new shirt and tell my brother to tell our mother that I will be back later, maybe much later, if she ever gets home herself before I do. The cruising routine in Olde Saco means up and down Route One (okay, okay Main Street), checking out the lesser spots (Darby’s Pizza Palace, Hank’s Ice Cream joint, the Colonial Donut Shoppe where I hang during the week after school and which serves a lot more stuff than donuts and coffee, sandwiches and stuff, and so on). Nothing much this Saturday. So we head right away for the mecca, Jimmy John’s. As we hit Stu’s “saved” parking spot just in front I can see that several stray girls are eyeing the old car, eyeing it like tonight is the night, tonight is the night Stu, kind of, sort of, maybe notices them (and I, my heart starting to race a little in anticipation and glad that I stopped off at my house, got a clean shirt, and put some deodorant on and guzzled some mouthwash, am feeling tonight is the night too).

But tonight is not the night, no way. Not for me, not for those knees-trembling girls. Why? No sooner did we park than Sally Sullivan came strolling (okay I don’t know if she was strolling or doo-wopping but she was swaying in such a sexy way that I knew she meant business, that she was looking for something in the Olde Saco night and that she had “found” it) out to Stu’s Chevy and with no ifs, ands, or buts asked, asked Stu straight if he was doing anything this night. Let me explain before I tell you what Stu’s answer was that this Sally Sullivan is nothing but a sex kitten, maybe innocent-looking, but definitely has half the boys, hell maybe all the boys at Olde Saco High, including a lot of the guys on the football team drooling over her. I know, because I have had more than one sleepless night over her. See, she is in my English class and because Mr. Murphy let’s us sit where we want I usually sit with a good view of her. So Stu says, kind of off-handedly, like having the town teen fox come hinter on him was a daily occurrence, says kind of lewdly, “Well, baby I am if you want to go down Sagamore Rocks right now and look for dolphins?” See, Sagamore Rocks is nothing but the local lovers’ lane here and “looking for dolphins” is the way everybody, every teenage everybody in town says “going all the way,” having sex for the clueless. And Sally, as you can guess if you have been following my story said, “Yes” just like that. At that s why I was dumped, unceremoniously dumped, at my street while they roared off into the night. So like I said not every “boss” car owner is god’s gift to women, not by a long shot. Or maybe they are.