Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tommy Edwards his 1950s teen angst classic It’s All In The Game
CD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1958, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1995
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series.
The “Big” night, the night that every school boy and girl has been waiting for, well, maybe not waiting for, but hoping for, the night of their senior prom signifying the end of their days at old North Adamsville High School. Of course being a Podunk town away from the big city lights of Boston said senior prom, as has been a tradition since who knows when is held in the school gymnasium. A school gymnasium that, from long experience, has been turned into a faux-elegant hotel-style ballroom for the occasion. No cheap jack bunting and streamers, a few garlands, and maybe a couple of pieces of subdued lightning like at the ho-hum weekly school dances this night. Today the place is filled with well-appointed tables set with the best china and silverware, the bandstand is ablaze with decorations, and the dance floor specially lit to create, well, to create that mood like you were downtown at some swanky hotel. Even Podunk knows how to raise the bar for those now leaving the North Adamsville High family nest and who will soon be facing that hard 1958 Cold War world that keeps menacing everybody’s happiness.
In the middle of the festivities standing, check to check, as they have since sophomore year, eighth grade if you count the hemming and hawing that went on before the two became one, are Betsy Binstock, resplendent in her chiffony, open shoulder mother-made gown, complete with blue dahlia corsage (just what she wanted) and looking very handsome in his rented tuxedo (from Mr. Tuxedos right up in Adamsville Square as always since time immortal), Earl Avery. Children born and bred to rock ‘n’ roll they have just finished dancing up a storm to Robin Luke’s Susie Darlin’, the latest “have to have” record in the 1958 teen be-bop night. Of course this song, as all the music tonight, will be covered by the local rock band sensations The Rockin’ Ramrods hired for the occasion by the Senior Prom committee to keep their fellow seniors happy. As they release cheeks and head for their table Betsy is beaming because Earl has just made his first, tentative, maybe, kind of, move in the direction of asking her to marry him in the not to distant future. And as if on cue Jack Scott’s My True Love come forth from the bandstand and they shuffle back to the floor as if mesmerized by the power of the song.
Of course, after coming off the floor again to the sound of Tommy Edwards It’s All In The Game Betsy cannot wait to get to the Ladies’ (yes, this night Ladies) Powder Room to tell one and all of her conquest. (Really the “powder room” is the legendary Junior and Senior Girls’ Lounge, looking very much the elegant hotel lounge, including real hand towels, that has been the scene of more gossip about who did or did not do what with whom, the what being, naturally “going all the way” than Hollywood could ever conger up in its wildest dreams.) So Betsy excuses herself from the table and starts picking up girlfriends to head to the lounge. Spunky Betsy knows that in this wicked old world only the strong survive, even in the question of marriage. Therefore her strategy is to spread Earl’s kind of, sort of proposal into something like the granite from the quarry that the town was known to produce in the old, old days. Maybe it has something to do with the evening, maybe it was the Ramrods covering Ed Townsend’s For Your Love, maybe it was just something in the early June air but Betsy went all out that night in the lounge, even speculating that she and Earl would be marriage within the year.
Meanwhile poor Earl, still shaky for even going as timidly far as he did on the marriage question had to laugh as the Ramrods played the Chantels Maybe. Earl nevertheless had a sense that the die was cast as a glowing Betsy and her entourage came back into view. As we leave this scene to the strands of Jimmy Clanton and His Rockets’ Just A Dream Earl has shrugged off all evil thoughts for the night, for his senior prom night and has decided to just go with the flow.
P.S. For those who can hardly wait to know how Betsy and Earl made out here is the scoop. Well, yes they were married in the summer of 1959 although not under the circumstances one would have expected. Whether by design or just happenstance Betsy got pregnant and honest and true Earl did the right thing. In the fall of 1959 Earl Avery, Junior came. Betsy a little worn from her pregnancy seems a bewildered just now. Earl on the other hand, with a raise and new job title to go with his junior boy, couldn’t be happier. Go figure, right.
Showing posts with label high school confidential. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school confidential. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Friday, September 09, 2011
On “The Long March” From North Adamsville High School- For Linda, Class of 1964-With Ernesto “Che” Guevara In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing Whole Lotta Shaking Goin' On to get the juices flowing for those who need a memory jog.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind, or our personal and public trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North Adamsville High lo those many years ago. My excuse previously was that the class committee officers badgered me into writing that stuff (and one in particular who is, to be honest, obsessive about our opinions and comments. And honestly, as well, I am afraid of retribution so I will not mention her name, or maybe that she is a she, under penalty of death, okay). Moreover, I have already done that “heavy meaning” road before in this space and, moreover, this is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already. Thanks, fellow classmates.
Nor is this to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, Red Star Over China. Or even Fidel and "Che's" struggles in the Cuban Sierras that animated some of us in our youth. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North Adamsville High School over to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade. Those were the days, the post- World War II “baby-boomer” days when the then current facilities at the high school were not enough for the overflow. Older readers from other high schools during that period may have their own stories to tell on this over-crowding subject.
Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the various North Adamsville Alumni class lists that I could, by any stretch of the imagination, call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the “skinny”:
"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on any class-related Internet site that I could find. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 Magnet, but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.
The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. This year (2010), as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) are marking our 50th anniversary since graduation. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from the high school over to North Adamsville Junior High when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Adamsville in the spring of 1959, so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the comment boards on your own.
And what if you decide not to cooperate? Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Adamsville Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North Adamsville graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Peter Paul Markin.
Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics
Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)
Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn
Come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Easy now. Shake.
Ah, shake it baby
Yeah, you can shake it one time for me
Yeah-huh-huh-ha-ha, Come along my baby,
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Now let's get down real low one time now
Shake, baby, shake
All you gotta do, honey, is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit, that's what you got
Yeah, come on baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Now let's go one time
Shake it baby, shake, shake it baby, shake
Woo, shake baby, come on baby, shake it, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lot-ta sha-kin' go-in' on.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind, or our personal and public trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North Adamsville High lo those many years ago. My excuse previously was that the class committee officers badgered me into writing that stuff (and one in particular who is, to be honest, obsessive about our opinions and comments. And honestly, as well, I am afraid of retribution so I will not mention her name, or maybe that she is a she, under penalty of death, okay). Moreover, I have already done that “heavy meaning” road before in this space and, moreover, this is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already. Thanks, fellow classmates.
Nor is this to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, Red Star Over China. Or even Fidel and "Che's" struggles in the Cuban Sierras that animated some of us in our youth. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North Adamsville High School over to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade. Those were the days, the post- World War II “baby-boomer” days when the then current facilities at the high school were not enough for the overflow. Older readers from other high schools during that period may have their own stories to tell on this over-crowding subject.
Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the various North Adamsville Alumni class lists that I could, by any stretch of the imagination, call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the “skinny”:
"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on any class-related Internet site that I could find. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 Magnet, but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.
The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. This year (2010), as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) are marking our 50th anniversary since graduation. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from the high school over to North Adamsville Junior High when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Adamsville in the spring of 1959, so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the comment boards on your own.
And what if you decide not to cooperate? Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Adamsville Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North Adamsville graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Peter Paul Markin.
Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics
Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)
Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn
Come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Easy now. Shake.
Ah, shake it baby
Yeah, you can shake it one time for me
Yeah-huh-huh-ha-ha, Come along my baby,
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Now let's get down real low one time now
Shake, baby, shake
All you gotta do, honey, is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit, that's what you got
Yeah, come on baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Now let's go one time
Shake it baby, shake, shake it baby, shake
Woo, shake baby, come on baby, shake it, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lot-ta sha-kin' go-in' on.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
***Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- Out In The Teen Dance Night-Penny’s Sweet Sixteen Party
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Dubs performing their 1950s classic, Could This Be Magic?.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; Volume 4, various artists, Ace Records, 1994
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a girl, a pony-tailed, starch-bloused, woolen-sweatered, wide, flouncy skirt-wearing, Penny Parker, all grown up almost, as the good teen D.J., a.k.a. hostess, that she is, doing her chore of spinning platters, okay, okay, putting records on her portable 45s record player for the guests at her sweet sixteen party, her very first house teen be-bop hop.
We all wish her well, right? And hope she plays a couple of Elvis, Chuck, and Jerry Lee things and not too many slow dances since some of the guys still have not got the hang of that yet. Oh yes, for the clueless, a record player was a machine to put records on in order to hear those guys just mentioned. And records, for the really clueless, were grooved, vinyl plate-like objects that kept the blues away in the 1950s teen night. Just like iPOD, texting, yahoo messaging, etc. keep the blues away from the hip-hop nation teen night.
******
“Don’t come back before one,” Penny Parker, now sweet sixteen party-crowned Penny Parker, as she shouted to her parents leaving out the breezeway door to the garage to take off to places unknown, maybe unknowable, until at least that one o‘clock hour. Peter Parker, Penny proud without showing it, muttered under his breath that he damn well would not be back before one, come hell or high water, while that rock and roll music was infesting, and that was the word that he used, his house. Or at least the downstairs part, rock and roll previously being limited to the Penny upstairs netherworld, and kept away from his ears, well, mainly away form his ears. “Now, Peter,” was all that Delores Parker at first could come up with, and that was usually enough. Tonight however she added, and told him so in no uncertain terms, that her husband was being an old fogy seeing that this was Penny’s sweet sixteen party, she had baby-sat to perdition in order to fund the party (with a little Parker parent help, Delores mainly), had done mostly what they had asked of her, as much as one could expect from a rock-addled post World War II teenager from what she had read in the women’s magazines that she was addicted to reading.
Most importantly tonight was, and here is where woman-girl- female whatever solidarity came in, Penny was going to “coax” Zack Smith into giving her his class ring, the universal teen sign of “going steady,” hands off, and a 180 degree turn in their sometimes stormy relationship since back in about junior high school. If he showed. At least, Delores, thought, she had given that Jimmy Kelly the air, although he was invited, invited tonight for old times sake since Jimmy had been there the night Penny played her first record, Could This Be Magic by the Dubs on her brand new, slave wages-bought record player. But enough of Parker parents, tonight is Penny's night.
Penny night or not, Miss Parker is already starting to fret that Zack will be a no-show. See they had had an argument last week about that “going steady” thing, that eternal love class ring- signifying thing, and Zack for the twenty-third, at least, time stormed off. And Penny for the twenty-second time made peace over the telephone, the midnight blues telephone. But you never knew with Zack. All Penny knew was she wanted him, wanted him bad, and wanted him here tonight to share her sweet sixteen-ness.
So as the couples, maybe a dozen or so of their close friends, started filling up the Parker living room Penny, knowing that she was not the only rock-addled teen in the room, played D.J. And revved up the old Sear& Roebuck recorder player with a stack of platters (records, 45 RPM records okay); Ray Sharpe ‘s Linda Lu; Nappy Brown’s Little by Little; Maybe by the Chantels although she always wondered how they could get their voices that high on that one; a tear-jerker but a slow one by request from Pammy and Sue who had boyfriend troubles of their own, Little Anthony and the Imperials’ Tears On My Pillow which got even hardened corner boys a little weepy as she found out once when Zack and she were “finished” and king corner boy Frankie Riley had asked her out, and she had accepted. Well, she thought that should last this crowd for a while, for a while until Zack gets here, hopefully.
Later, around ten, ten-thirty, just as she was about to give up the thought of Zack’s coming that night, and had resigned herself to playing D.J. putting Buddy Knox’s Party Doll on(although she wasn’t feeling like any party doll then) for this rock-addled crowd Zack came in kind of sneakily through the side door. And instead of coming over to say thanks to Penny for inviting him or any other kind of social graces recognition he began to get into an animated conversation with Jimmy Kelly. Nothing serious but as Penny found out later Zack was miffed at Jimmy, one of his best friends now that the Zack-Jimmy girl wars, or rather Penny wars were over in Zack’s favor, because Jimmy had not told Penny that he was going to be a little late. But that miffed-ness turned into nothing once Zack told the reason for his lateness. See, Penny performing, as it turned out, her last D.J duty for the evening putting on that much requested previously mentioned Could This Be Magic was finally called over by Zack and as the strains of the song echoed through the house he presented her with his class ring, just a while ago engraved with To P.P. Always 10/7/59. Magic.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll; Volume 4, various artists, Ace Records, 1994
Scene: Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which grace each CD in this The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a girl, a pony-tailed, starch-bloused, woolen-sweatered, wide, flouncy skirt-wearing, Penny Parker, all grown up almost, as the good teen D.J., a.k.a. hostess, that she is, doing her chore of spinning platters, okay, okay, putting records on her portable 45s record player for the guests at her sweet sixteen party, her very first house teen be-bop hop.
We all wish her well, right? And hope she plays a couple of Elvis, Chuck, and Jerry Lee things and not too many slow dances since some of the guys still have not got the hang of that yet. Oh yes, for the clueless, a record player was a machine to put records on in order to hear those guys just mentioned. And records, for the really clueless, were grooved, vinyl plate-like objects that kept the blues away in the 1950s teen night. Just like iPOD, texting, yahoo messaging, etc. keep the blues away from the hip-hop nation teen night.
******
“Don’t come back before one,” Penny Parker, now sweet sixteen party-crowned Penny Parker, as she shouted to her parents leaving out the breezeway door to the garage to take off to places unknown, maybe unknowable, until at least that one o‘clock hour. Peter Parker, Penny proud without showing it, muttered under his breath that he damn well would not be back before one, come hell or high water, while that rock and roll music was infesting, and that was the word that he used, his house. Or at least the downstairs part, rock and roll previously being limited to the Penny upstairs netherworld, and kept away from his ears, well, mainly away form his ears. “Now, Peter,” was all that Delores Parker at first could come up with, and that was usually enough. Tonight however she added, and told him so in no uncertain terms, that her husband was being an old fogy seeing that this was Penny’s sweet sixteen party, she had baby-sat to perdition in order to fund the party (with a little Parker parent help, Delores mainly), had done mostly what they had asked of her, as much as one could expect from a rock-addled post World War II teenager from what she had read in the women’s magazines that she was addicted to reading.
Most importantly tonight was, and here is where woman-girl- female whatever solidarity came in, Penny was going to “coax” Zack Smith into giving her his class ring, the universal teen sign of “going steady,” hands off, and a 180 degree turn in their sometimes stormy relationship since back in about junior high school. If he showed. At least, Delores, thought, she had given that Jimmy Kelly the air, although he was invited, invited tonight for old times sake since Jimmy had been there the night Penny played her first record, Could This Be Magic by the Dubs on her brand new, slave wages-bought record player. But enough of Parker parents, tonight is Penny's night.
Penny night or not, Miss Parker is already starting to fret that Zack will be a no-show. See they had had an argument last week about that “going steady” thing, that eternal love class ring- signifying thing, and Zack for the twenty-third, at least, time stormed off. And Penny for the twenty-second time made peace over the telephone, the midnight blues telephone. But you never knew with Zack. All Penny knew was she wanted him, wanted him bad, and wanted him here tonight to share her sweet sixteen-ness.
So as the couples, maybe a dozen or so of their close friends, started filling up the Parker living room Penny, knowing that she was not the only rock-addled teen in the room, played D.J. And revved up the old Sear& Roebuck recorder player with a stack of platters (records, 45 RPM records okay); Ray Sharpe ‘s Linda Lu; Nappy Brown’s Little by Little; Maybe by the Chantels although she always wondered how they could get their voices that high on that one; a tear-jerker but a slow one by request from Pammy and Sue who had boyfriend troubles of their own, Little Anthony and the Imperials’ Tears On My Pillow which got even hardened corner boys a little weepy as she found out once when Zack and she were “finished” and king corner boy Frankie Riley had asked her out, and she had accepted. Well, she thought that should last this crowd for a while, for a while until Zack gets here, hopefully.
Later, around ten, ten-thirty, just as she was about to give up the thought of Zack’s coming that night, and had resigned herself to playing D.J. putting Buddy Knox’s Party Doll on(although she wasn’t feeling like any party doll then) for this rock-addled crowd Zack came in kind of sneakily through the side door. And instead of coming over to say thanks to Penny for inviting him or any other kind of social graces recognition he began to get into an animated conversation with Jimmy Kelly. Nothing serious but as Penny found out later Zack was miffed at Jimmy, one of his best friends now that the Zack-Jimmy girl wars, or rather Penny wars were over in Zack’s favor, because Jimmy had not told Penny that he was going to be a little late. But that miffed-ness turned into nothing once Zack told the reason for his lateness. See, Penny performing, as it turned out, her last D.J duty for the evening putting on that much requested previously mentioned Could This Be Magic was finally called over by Zack and as the strains of the song echoed through the house he presented her with his class ring, just a while ago engraved with To P.P. Always 10/7/59. Magic.
Monday, August 22, 2011
An Old Geezer Jogging, Kind Of, At The North Adamsville"Dust Bowl" (A.K.A. The Cavanaugh Track)-For Bill Bailey, North Adamsville Class Of 1964
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Hicham el Guerouj, the Moroccan Knight, setting the one mile run world record in 2008.
Peter Paul Markin comment:
I have written a number of entries in this space about the old days at North, North Adamsville High School in the early 1960s, for those unfamiliar with that hallowed ground, and the like. This little beauty follows in that same tradition, although with this twist- the "old geezer" described in the headline to this entry has requested anonymity for reasons that will become obvious once the tale he has asked me to tell unfolds. I think, however, that the average, above-average, classmates that old North produced can all figure this one out. Right?
For those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High School and can remember that far back this year (2010) marks the 50th anniversary of our graduation from that unhallowed school. For the old geezer, a man know personally to me from the old days and man given to the faux-heroic feat, the odd-ball, off-hand symbolic gesture, and a disturbingly steadfast adherence to the drumbeat of history this called for some action. Now the old geezer and I go back to the times when we were corner boys together along with Frankie Riley, yes, Frankie Riley the now successful lawyer that you keep reading about in the newspapers of late (that is if anybody still reads such things in the “new age”) along with several other guys at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs.” (For those unfamiliar with that term don’t worry about such a localism it does not affect the story here). So when I speak of odd-ball behavior I know of where I speak.
As if merely a nodding commemoration of the 50th anniversary graduation “event” were not enough since this year also marked the 50th anniversary of the old geezer’s first seriously taking up running (indoor and outdoor track, cross country) as a sport, under the guidance of old time North Adamsville Junior High, Coach Bob Lewis, a gesture was required. As a historic “gesture” he decided to an attempt to run one mile around the old "Dust Bowl" track that served (and still serves) as an “athletic field” for the North high school and middle school (a.k.a. junior high school) community since Hector was a pup. And if not that long, then since beyond local memory.
Now this Herculean effort was to be done in spite of the fact that the old geezer had done no more, at most, than run for the bus for the past quarter of a century, or more. And just missed that bus on more occasions that warrants attention here. Note also that the distance selected for this “heroic” effort was the well-known classic one mile that he sought to run. Not for him that old "lame" 600 yards around the front driveway circle at North that everyone had to do as part of the old-time yearly President's Physical Fitness Test. Kids’ stuff. No, he went back to the mist of time and to feats like those of the first sub-four minute miler, Roger Bannister. (For those unfamiliar with that name it too is not germane to this story, although you can Google the name or look it up in Wikipedia if you have a little time on your hands.
For those not familiar with the location the old "Dust Bowl" is the field the next street over from the North Adamsville Middle School. It served as our junior high school field for some other sports as well. It also was the place where the legendary 1964 football team, led by "Bullwinkle", "Woj", Jim Fallon, Charlie McDonald, Tom Kiley, Walt Simmons, Don McNally, Lee Munson and a host of others practiced being mean under Coach Lion in order to beat beleaguered cross town arch-rival Adamsville High School that year. Now I know that some readers here "know" that location.
Furthermore, it was also the training ground and meet location for the high school spring track team where the silky-strided Bill Bailey held forth in distance running, Ritchie McDonald and others in the middle distances, Brooks Atkins in the sprints, Carl Lindberg and Ralph Moore in the hurdles, Al Bartley in the pole vault and a host of others who ran around in their skimpy black shorts, including the old geezer. The old geezer, moreover, was then distinguished by being a consummate well-below average runner. He had the “slows” as every other teammate told him at every possible opportunity. He was not sure on this one, nor am I, but, perhaps, the football cheerleaders led by the spunky Josie Weinfeld, the sprightly Roxanne Gower, and the plucky Linda Plane also practiced there. In short, if you were not familiar with the locale and grew up in the old town there then you now stand accused of being willfully out of touch with old North Adamsville reality.
I should also mention that this name "Dust Bowl" is not mere hyperbole on my part. In summer and fall, at least, there was more dust that the EPA would find tolerable these days. Moreover, as the old geezer told me the field 'owed' him. So revenge was also a motive here, as well. Apparently he still has cinders in his left knee from when he fell while running on the track 50 years ago. Ouch! He asked me to ask around to see if others had similar "war stories", although none came worthy of notice-mere band-aid wounds. Moreover, and this is symbolic in its own way, the track is not the normal quarter-mile one that you only had to go around four times to the mile(for the non-Math whizzes out there) but five laps to the mile. That may explain many things about our subsequent lives, right?
Okay, now to the big event. In the interest of accuracy this "event", according to the old geezer's information, occurred at about 9:00 AM on February 6, 2010. Now why he was not in Florida or at least in some warm house instead of being out on the "track" will go a long way to explaining the "inner demons" that plague then this sixty-three year-old man's psyche. Moreover, he continued on with his quest despite having to wait upon dogs, and their owners, who seemingly felt such an hour was ripe for a canine national convention at the old bowl. But, we digress.
The old geezer started off okay with the usual burst of adrenaline one gets when the big day finally comes carrying him along for a while, he then settled into a 'pace' and all went well until he started breathing heavily, got light-headed and began feeling cramps in his thigh, and that was only on the first lap. It went down hill from there. He insisted I give the gory details of each lap but thank god for the Delete button. Intrepid soul that he is he” dogged" it out. He informed me that his time for the mile has been declared a matter of national security and therefore not available to the public, although he did allude to an unfavorable comparison with the time it takes to get to the moon and back. Nevertheless the gesture is in the books, a member of the class of 1964 has been vindicated, and life can return to normal. Oh, the old geezer did mention this. For those of you with grandchildren under the age of five he is ready to take on all comers. Okay.
Postscript- If you can believe this the old geezer refuses to permit me to post the “news” of his “heroic” one mile effort if I do not include a blow-by-blow description of his five lap (remember the “Dust Bowl” is five laps to the mile in case you might have forgotten). I thought that giving a short summary of his first lap was more than adequate but no we need to know every hurried breathe, every turned toe, every near collapse. The reader should feel no compulsion to wade through this but don’t forget the Delete button is readily at hand. In any case the following is strictly the old geezer’s take on the matter.
Old Geezer comment:
That February day was cold but not much colder than in the old days when we went down to Clintondale and their winter outdoor track in January that really froze you. The trick was to take off your sweat suit, jump on the oval banked-wooden track as quickly as possible and hit the starting line just as the starter yelled to run. And then do the same thing in reverse after the race. Funny the old Dust Bowl with the exception of them taking out the wooden bleachers where the seven (hey, maybe it was six if you didn’t count the girl scorer, the cute girl scorer, Roseanne something, I think) track and field fans gathered in the old days the place looked like it hadn’t been upgraded since about 1964. Same old rutted, brambly, asphalty, hard-scrabble surface that you dare not trip and fall on. I know because I still carry some “cinder” from the old days in my left knee. But enough. To the run itself.
Of course I started out slow, slow as hell, slower than a couple of the dogs that were rummaging around along with their “guardians.” As I picked up steam I was going pretty good until I started breathing real heavy, started to get the inevitable sweating, and my legs started getting light and wobbly. That was almost at the end of the first lap with four more to go. I almost stopped but I am not built that way, slow or fast, mainly slow I almost always finished a race except when I came up injured a couple of times. The second lap was tough as I started to put my head down to push myself along just like in the old days. Painful step after step.
The third lap got a little better as I got in stride and was pretty uneventful except for a random dog who decide he (or she) wanted to be my “rabbit” ( a rabbit in track is someone who sets the pace, a fast pace, for others and then either falls back or drops out). The fourth lap though almost did me in. I stumbled and almost fell on a clod of dirt that must have been dug up before the winter set in. I managed to right myself but I felt kind of dizzy after that for a while. Hey, four laps are done now and I am at the “gun” lap (fifth for those legions who don’t know track “lingo”). No way am I not going to finish now. And while it seemed like an eternity I did finish with a “sprint” the last ten yards or so. After about twenty minutes recuperation while my pulse slowed down, my blood pressure stabilized and about thirteen other medical conditions passed the crisis point I left the dust bowl feeling I had even up the score on that damn place.
Markin comment:
That "fifteen minutes of fame" thing is pretty attenuated here but for those who actually read this last section there you have it. Enough.
Peter Paul Markin comment:
I have written a number of entries in this space about the old days at North, North Adamsville High School in the early 1960s, for those unfamiliar with that hallowed ground, and the like. This little beauty follows in that same tradition, although with this twist- the "old geezer" described in the headline to this entry has requested anonymity for reasons that will become obvious once the tale he has asked me to tell unfolds. I think, however, that the average, above-average, classmates that old North produced can all figure this one out. Right?
For those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High School and can remember that far back this year (2010) marks the 50th anniversary of our graduation from that unhallowed school. For the old geezer, a man know personally to me from the old days and man given to the faux-heroic feat, the odd-ball, off-hand symbolic gesture, and a disturbingly steadfast adherence to the drumbeat of history this called for some action. Now the old geezer and I go back to the times when we were corner boys together along with Frankie Riley, yes, Frankie Riley the now successful lawyer that you keep reading about in the newspapers of late (that is if anybody still reads such things in the “new age”) along with several other guys at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs.” (For those unfamiliar with that term don’t worry about such a localism it does not affect the story here). So when I speak of odd-ball behavior I know of where I speak.
As if merely a nodding commemoration of the 50th anniversary graduation “event” were not enough since this year also marked the 50th anniversary of the old geezer’s first seriously taking up running (indoor and outdoor track, cross country) as a sport, under the guidance of old time North Adamsville Junior High, Coach Bob Lewis, a gesture was required. As a historic “gesture” he decided to an attempt to run one mile around the old "Dust Bowl" track that served (and still serves) as an “athletic field” for the North high school and middle school (a.k.a. junior high school) community since Hector was a pup. And if not that long, then since beyond local memory.
Now this Herculean effort was to be done in spite of the fact that the old geezer had done no more, at most, than run for the bus for the past quarter of a century, or more. And just missed that bus on more occasions that warrants attention here. Note also that the distance selected for this “heroic” effort was the well-known classic one mile that he sought to run. Not for him that old "lame" 600 yards around the front driveway circle at North that everyone had to do as part of the old-time yearly President's Physical Fitness Test. Kids’ stuff. No, he went back to the mist of time and to feats like those of the first sub-four minute miler, Roger Bannister. (For those unfamiliar with that name it too is not germane to this story, although you can Google the name or look it up in Wikipedia if you have a little time on your hands.
For those not familiar with the location the old "Dust Bowl" is the field the next street over from the North Adamsville Middle School. It served as our junior high school field for some other sports as well. It also was the place where the legendary 1964 football team, led by "Bullwinkle", "Woj", Jim Fallon, Charlie McDonald, Tom Kiley, Walt Simmons, Don McNally, Lee Munson and a host of others practiced being mean under Coach Lion in order to beat beleaguered cross town arch-rival Adamsville High School that year. Now I know that some readers here "know" that location.
Furthermore, it was also the training ground and meet location for the high school spring track team where the silky-strided Bill Bailey held forth in distance running, Ritchie McDonald and others in the middle distances, Brooks Atkins in the sprints, Carl Lindberg and Ralph Moore in the hurdles, Al Bartley in the pole vault and a host of others who ran around in their skimpy black shorts, including the old geezer. The old geezer, moreover, was then distinguished by being a consummate well-below average runner. He had the “slows” as every other teammate told him at every possible opportunity. He was not sure on this one, nor am I, but, perhaps, the football cheerleaders led by the spunky Josie Weinfeld, the sprightly Roxanne Gower, and the plucky Linda Plane also practiced there. In short, if you were not familiar with the locale and grew up in the old town there then you now stand accused of being willfully out of touch with old North Adamsville reality.
I should also mention that this name "Dust Bowl" is not mere hyperbole on my part. In summer and fall, at least, there was more dust that the EPA would find tolerable these days. Moreover, as the old geezer told me the field 'owed' him. So revenge was also a motive here, as well. Apparently he still has cinders in his left knee from when he fell while running on the track 50 years ago. Ouch! He asked me to ask around to see if others had similar "war stories", although none came worthy of notice-mere band-aid wounds. Moreover, and this is symbolic in its own way, the track is not the normal quarter-mile one that you only had to go around four times to the mile(for the non-Math whizzes out there) but five laps to the mile. That may explain many things about our subsequent lives, right?
Okay, now to the big event. In the interest of accuracy this "event", according to the old geezer's information, occurred at about 9:00 AM on February 6, 2010. Now why he was not in Florida or at least in some warm house instead of being out on the "track" will go a long way to explaining the "inner demons" that plague then this sixty-three year-old man's psyche. Moreover, he continued on with his quest despite having to wait upon dogs, and their owners, who seemingly felt such an hour was ripe for a canine national convention at the old bowl. But, we digress.
The old geezer started off okay with the usual burst of adrenaline one gets when the big day finally comes carrying him along for a while, he then settled into a 'pace' and all went well until he started breathing heavily, got light-headed and began feeling cramps in his thigh, and that was only on the first lap. It went down hill from there. He insisted I give the gory details of each lap but thank god for the Delete button. Intrepid soul that he is he” dogged" it out. He informed me that his time for the mile has been declared a matter of national security and therefore not available to the public, although he did allude to an unfavorable comparison with the time it takes to get to the moon and back. Nevertheless the gesture is in the books, a member of the class of 1964 has been vindicated, and life can return to normal. Oh, the old geezer did mention this. For those of you with grandchildren under the age of five he is ready to take on all comers. Okay.
Postscript- If you can believe this the old geezer refuses to permit me to post the “news” of his “heroic” one mile effort if I do not include a blow-by-blow description of his five lap (remember the “Dust Bowl” is five laps to the mile in case you might have forgotten). I thought that giving a short summary of his first lap was more than adequate but no we need to know every hurried breathe, every turned toe, every near collapse. The reader should feel no compulsion to wade through this but don’t forget the Delete button is readily at hand. In any case the following is strictly the old geezer’s take on the matter.
Old Geezer comment:
That February day was cold but not much colder than in the old days when we went down to Clintondale and their winter outdoor track in January that really froze you. The trick was to take off your sweat suit, jump on the oval banked-wooden track as quickly as possible and hit the starting line just as the starter yelled to run. And then do the same thing in reverse after the race. Funny the old Dust Bowl with the exception of them taking out the wooden bleachers where the seven (hey, maybe it was six if you didn’t count the girl scorer, the cute girl scorer, Roseanne something, I think) track and field fans gathered in the old days the place looked like it hadn’t been upgraded since about 1964. Same old rutted, brambly, asphalty, hard-scrabble surface that you dare not trip and fall on. I know because I still carry some “cinder” from the old days in my left knee. But enough. To the run itself.
Of course I started out slow, slow as hell, slower than a couple of the dogs that were rummaging around along with their “guardians.” As I picked up steam I was going pretty good until I started breathing real heavy, started to get the inevitable sweating, and my legs started getting light and wobbly. That was almost at the end of the first lap with four more to go. I almost stopped but I am not built that way, slow or fast, mainly slow I almost always finished a race except when I came up injured a couple of times. The second lap was tough as I started to put my head down to push myself along just like in the old days. Painful step after step.
The third lap got a little better as I got in stride and was pretty uneventful except for a random dog who decide he (or she) wanted to be my “rabbit” ( a rabbit in track is someone who sets the pace, a fast pace, for others and then either falls back or drops out). The fourth lap though almost did me in. I stumbled and almost fell on a clod of dirt that must have been dug up before the winter set in. I managed to right myself but I felt kind of dizzy after that for a while. Hey, four laps are done now and I am at the “gun” lap (fifth for those legions who don’t know track “lingo”). No way am I not going to finish now. And while it seemed like an eternity I did finish with a “sprint” the last ten yards or so. After about twenty minutes recuperation while my pulse slowed down, my blood pressure stabilized and about thirteen other medical conditions passed the crisis point I left the dust bowl feeling I had even up the score on that damn place.
Markin comment:
That "fifteen minutes of fame" thing is pretty attenuated here but for those who actually read this last section there you have it. Enough.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
“The Next Girl Who Throws Sand In My Face Is…” Johnny Silver’s Sad Be-Bop 1950s Beach Blanket Saga.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Falcons performing You're So Fine.
DVD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘N’ Roll: The Late 50s, various artist, Time-Life Records, 1997
Markin comment:
No question that my corner boy comrades from the old Frankie Riley-led Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out and me from the day high school got out for the summer drew a bee-line straight to the old-time Adamsville Beach of blessed memory. Did we go to said beach to be “one” with our homeland, the sea? No. Did we go to admire the boats and other things floating by? No. Did we go to get a little breeze across our sun-burned and battered bodies on a hot and sultry August summer day. No. Well, maybe a little. But come on now we are talking about sixteen, maybe seventeen, year old guys. We were there, of course, because there were shapely teeny-weeny bikini-clad girls (young women, okay, let’s not get technical about that pre-woman’s liberation time) sunning themselves like peacocks for all the world, all the male teenage North Adamsville world, the only world that mattered to guys and gals alike., to see.
And they were sunning themselves and otherwise looking very desirable and, well, fetching, in not just any old spot wherever they could place a blanket but strictly, as tradition dictated, tradition seemingly going back before memory, between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. So, naturally, every testosterone-driven teenage lad who owned a bathing suit, and some who didn’t were hanging off the floating dock right in front of said yacht clubs showing off, well, showing off their prowess to the flower of North Adamsville maidenhood. And said show-offs included, of course, Frankie Riley (when he was not working at the old A&P Supermarket), his faithful scribe, Peter Paul Markin, and other including the, then anyway, “runt of the litter,” Johnny Silver. It is Johnny’s sad beach blanket bingo tale that gets a hearing today. If it all sounds kind of familiar, even to the younger set, it is because, with the exception of the musical selections, it is.
*********
“The next girl who throws sand in my face is going get it,” yelled Johnny Silver to no one in particular as he came back the Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boy beach front acreage just in front of the seawall facing, squarely facing, midpoint between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. As the sounds of Elvis Presley’s Loving You came over Frankie Riley’s transistor radio and wafted down to the sea, almost like a siren call to teenage love, one of those no one in particulars, Peter Paul Markin replied, “What did you expect, Johnny? That Katy Larkin is too tall, too pretty and just flat-out too foxy for a runt like you. I am surprised you are still in one piece. And I would mention, as well, that her brother, “Jimmy Jukes,” does not like guys, especially runt guys with no muscles bothering his sister.” Johnny came back quickly with the usual, “Hey, I am not that small and I am growing, growing fast so Jimmy Jukes can eat my… “But Johnny halted just in time as one Jimmy Jukes, James Allen Larkin, halfback hero of many a North Adamsville fall football game came perilously close to Johnny and then veered off like Johnny was nothing, nada, no thing. And after Jimmy Jukes was safely out of sight, and Frankie flipped the volume dial on his radio louder as the Falcons’ You’re So Fine came on heralding Frankie’s attempt by osmosis to lure a certain Betty Ann McCarthy his way, another standard brand fox in the teenage girl be-bop night, Johnny poured out his sad saga.
Seems that Katy Larkin was in one of Johnny’s classes, biology he said, and one day, one late spring day Katy, out of the blue, asked him what he thought about Buddy Holly who had passed away in crash several years before, well before he reached his potential as the new king of the be-bop rock night. Johnny answered that Buddy was “boss,” especially his Everyday, and that got them talking, but only talking, almost every day until the end of school. Of course, Johnny, runt Johnny, didn’t have the nerve, not nearly enough nerve to ask a serious fox like Katy out, big brother or not. Not until this very day when he got up the nerve to go over to her blanket, a blanket that also had Sara Bigelow and Tammy Kelly on board, and as a starter asked her if she liked Elvis’ That’s When The Heartache Begins. She answered quickly and rather curtly (although Johnny did not pick up on that signal) that it was “dreamy.” Then Johnny’s big moment came and he blurted out, “Do you want to go to the Surf Dance Hall with me Saturday night? Crazy Lazy is the DJ and the Rockin’ Ramrods are playing. And as the reader knows, or should be presumed to know, Johnny’s answer was a face full of sand. And that sad, sad beach saga is the end of another teen angst moment. So the to the strains of Robert and Johnny’s We Belong Together we will move along.
Well, not quite. It also seems that Katy Larkin, tall (too tall for Johnny, really), shapely (no question of really about that), and don’t forget foxy, Katy Larkin had a “crush” on one John Raymond Silver if you can believe that. She was miffed, apparently more than somewhat, that Johnny had not asked her out before school got out for the summer. That more than somewhat entailed throwing sand in Johnny’s face when he did get up the nerve to ask. So on the first day of school, while Johnny was turning his radio off and putting it in his locker just before school started, after having just listened to the Platters One In a Million for the umpteenth time, Katy Larkin “cornered” (Johnny’s term) Johnny and said in a clear, if excited voice, “I’m sorry about that day at the beach last summer.” And then in the teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all woman imperative, “You are taking me to the Fall All-Class Mixer and I will not take no for an answer.” Well, what is a guy to do when that teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all women imperative, voice commands. So Johnny is now re-evaluating his attitude toward beach sand and maybe, after all, it was just a girl being playful. In any case, Johnny grew quite a bit that summer and now Katy Larkin is not too tall, not too tall at all, for Johnny Silver to take to the mixer, or anywhere else she decides she wants to go.
DVD Review
The Heart Of Rock ‘N’ Roll: The Late 50s, various artist, Time-Life Records, 1997
Markin comment:
No question that my corner boy comrades from the old Frankie Riley-led Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out and me from the day high school got out for the summer drew a bee-line straight to the old-time Adamsville Beach of blessed memory. Did we go to said beach to be “one” with our homeland, the sea? No. Did we go to admire the boats and other things floating by? No. Did we go to get a little breeze across our sun-burned and battered bodies on a hot and sultry August summer day. No. Well, maybe a little. But come on now we are talking about sixteen, maybe seventeen, year old guys. We were there, of course, because there were shapely teeny-weeny bikini-clad girls (young women, okay, let’s not get technical about that pre-woman’s liberation time) sunning themselves like peacocks for all the world, all the male teenage North Adamsville world, the only world that mattered to guys and gals alike., to see.
And they were sunning themselves and otherwise looking very desirable and, well, fetching, in not just any old spot wherever they could place a blanket but strictly, as tradition dictated, tradition seemingly going back before memory, between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. So, naturally, every testosterone-driven teenage lad who owned a bathing suit, and some who didn’t were hanging off the floating dock right in front of said yacht clubs showing off, well, showing off their prowess to the flower of North Adamsville maidenhood. And said show-offs included, of course, Frankie Riley (when he was not working at the old A&P Supermarket), his faithful scribe, Peter Paul Markin, and other including the, then anyway, “runt of the litter,” Johnny Silver. It is Johnny’s sad beach blanket bingo tale that gets a hearing today. If it all sounds kind of familiar, even to the younger set, it is because, with the exception of the musical selections, it is.
*********
“The next girl who throws sand in my face is going get it,” yelled Johnny Silver to no one in particular as he came back the Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner boy beach front acreage just in front of the seawall facing, squarely facing, midpoint between the North Adamsville and Adamsville Yacht Clubs. As the sounds of Elvis Presley’s Loving You came over Frankie Riley’s transistor radio and wafted down to the sea, almost like a siren call to teenage love, one of those no one in particulars, Peter Paul Markin replied, “What did you expect, Johnny? That Katy Larkin is too tall, too pretty and just flat-out too foxy for a runt like you. I am surprised you are still in one piece. And I would mention, as well, that her brother, “Jimmy Jukes,” does not like guys, especially runt guys with no muscles bothering his sister.” Johnny came back quickly with the usual, “Hey, I am not that small and I am growing, growing fast so Jimmy Jukes can eat my… “But Johnny halted just in time as one Jimmy Jukes, James Allen Larkin, halfback hero of many a North Adamsville fall football game came perilously close to Johnny and then veered off like Johnny was nothing, nada, no thing. And after Jimmy Jukes was safely out of sight, and Frankie flipped the volume dial on his radio louder as the Falcons’ You’re So Fine came on heralding Frankie’s attempt by osmosis to lure a certain Betty Ann McCarthy his way, another standard brand fox in the teenage girl be-bop night, Johnny poured out his sad saga.
Seems that Katy Larkin was in one of Johnny’s classes, biology he said, and one day, one late spring day Katy, out of the blue, asked him what he thought about Buddy Holly who had passed away in crash several years before, well before he reached his potential as the new king of the be-bop rock night. Johnny answered that Buddy was “boss,” especially his Everyday, and that got them talking, but only talking, almost every day until the end of school. Of course, Johnny, runt Johnny, didn’t have the nerve, not nearly enough nerve to ask a serious fox like Katy out, big brother or not. Not until this very day when he got up the nerve to go over to her blanket, a blanket that also had Sara Bigelow and Tammy Kelly on board, and as a starter asked her if she liked Elvis’ That’s When The Heartache Begins. She answered quickly and rather curtly (although Johnny did not pick up on that signal) that it was “dreamy.” Then Johnny’s big moment came and he blurted out, “Do you want to go to the Surf Dance Hall with me Saturday night? Crazy Lazy is the DJ and the Rockin’ Ramrods are playing. And as the reader knows, or should be presumed to know, Johnny’s answer was a face full of sand. And that sad, sad beach saga is the end of another teen angst moment. So the to the strains of Robert and Johnny’s We Belong Together we will move along.
Well, not quite. It also seems that Katy Larkin, tall (too tall for Johnny, really), shapely (no question of really about that), and don’t forget foxy, Katy Larkin had a “crush” on one John Raymond Silver if you can believe that. She was miffed, apparently more than somewhat, that Johnny had not asked her out before school got out for the summer. That more than somewhat entailed throwing sand in Johnny’s face when he did get up the nerve to ask. So on the first day of school, while Johnny was turning his radio off and putting it in his locker just before school started, after having just listened to the Platters One In a Million for the umpteenth time, Katy Larkin “cornered” (Johnny’s term) Johnny and said in a clear, if excited voice, “I’m sorry about that day at the beach last summer.” And then in the teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all woman imperative, “You are taking me to the Fall All-Class Mixer and I will not take no for an answer.” Well, what is a guy to do when that teenage girl imperative, hell maybe all women imperative, voice commands. So Johnny is now re-evaluating his attitude toward beach sand and maybe, after all, it was just a girl being playful. In any case, Johnny grew quite a bit that summer and now Katy Larkin is not too tall, not too tall at all, for Johnny Silver to take to the mixer, or anywhere else she decides she wants to go.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Entering North, 1960-For The North Adamsville Junior High School (Middle School) Class Of 1960- An Encore For The Adamsville Central Junior High School Class of 1961.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing his teen tear-jerker, Teen Angel to set an "appropriate" mood for this post.
Markin, Class Of 1964, comment:
Every once in a while I am reminded that it has been more than 45 years since we, the Class of 1964, went though the hallowed halls of the old school. Now, in 2010, those of us that went to North Adamsville Junior High School (now Middle School) are facing our 50th anniversary since graduation. Those who went to Central get a year's reprieve, but your day is coming. We will meet up to form the hearty Class of 1964. To mark the occasion I have written a little something. The following tale, although maybe not as light-hearted as some of my earlier entries, I believe, makes a point we all can appreciate.
*******
Funny, here I am, finally, finally after what seemed like an endless heat-waved, eternal August dog day’d, book-devoured, summer, standing, nervously standing, waiting with one foot on the sturdy granite-chiseled steps, ready at a moment’s notice from any teacher’s beck and call, to climb up to the second floor main entrance of old North, an entrance flanked by huge concrete spheres on each side, that are made to order for me to think that I too have the weight of the world on my shoulders this sunny day. And those doors, by the way, as if the spheres are not portentous enough, are also flanked by two scroll-worked concrete columns, or maybe they are gargoyle-faced, my eyes are a little bleary right now, who give the place a more fearsome look than is really necessary but today, today of all days, every little omen has its evil meaning, evil for me that is.
Here I am anyway, pensive (giving myself the best of it, okay, nice wrap-around-your soul word too, okay), head hanging down, deep in thought, deep in scared, get the nurse fast, if necessary, nausea-provoking thought, standing around, a little impatiently surly as is my “style” (that “style” I picked up a few years back in elementary school down in the Germantown “projects”, after seeing James Dean or someone like that strike the pose, and it stuck). Anyway its now about 7:00 AM, maybe a little after, and like I say my eyes have been playing tricks on me all morning and I can’t seem to focus, as I wait for the first school bell to sound on this first Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960.
No big deal right, we have all done it many times by now, it should be easy. Year after year, old August dog days turn into shorter, cooler September come hither young wanna-be learner days. Nothing to get nervous about, nothing to it.(Did I say that already?)Especially the first day, a half day, a “gimme” day, really, one of the few out of one hundred and eighty, count ‘em, and mainly used for filling out the one thousand and one pieces of paper about who you are, where you live, who you live with, and who to call in case you take some nasty fall in gym trying to do a double twist-something on the gym mat or a wrestled double-hammer lock grip on some poor, equally benighted fellow student that goes awry like actually happened to me last year in eighth grade. Hey, they were still talking about that one in the Atlantic locker rooms at the end of the year, I hear. Or, more ominously, they want that information so that if you cross-up one, or more, of your mean-spirited, ill-disposed, never-could have-been-young-and-troubled, ancient, Plato or Socrates ancient from the look of some of them, teachers and your parents (embarrassed, steaming, vengeful Ma really, in our neighborhoods) need to be called in to confer about “your problem,” your problem that you will grow out of with a few days of after school “help.” Please.
Or this “gimme” day (let’s just call it that okay, it will help settle me down) will be spent reading off, battered, monotone home room teacher-reading off, the also one thousand and one rules; no lateness to school under penalty of being placed in the stocks, Pilgrim-style, no illness absences short of the plague, if you have it, not a family member, and then only if you have a (presumably sanitized) doctor’s note, no cutting classes to explore the great American day streets at some nearby corner variety store, or mercy, Norfolk Downs, one-horse Norfolk Downs also under severe penalty, no (unauthorized) talking in class (but they will mark it down if you don't authorize talk, jesus), no giving guff (ya, no guff, right) to your teachers, fellow students, staff, the resident mouse or your kid brother, if you have a kid brother, no writing on walls, in books, and only on occasion on an (authorized) writing pad, no(get this one, I couldn’t believe this one over at Atlantic) cutting in line for the school lunch (the school lunch, Christ, as poor as we are in our family we at least have the dignity not to pine, much less cut in line for, those beauties: the American chop suey done several different ways to cover the week, including a stint as baloney and cheese sandwiches, I swear), no off-hand rough-necking (or just plain, ordinary necking, either), no excessive use of the “lav” (you know what that is, enough said), and certainly no smoking, drinking or using any other illegal (for kids) substances. Oh, ya, and don’t forget to follow, unquestioningly, those mean-spirited, ill-disposed teachers that I spoke of before, if there is a fire emergency. And here’s a better one, in case of an off-hand atomic bomb attack go, quickly and quietly, to the nearest fall-out shelter down in the bowels of the old school. That’s what we practiced over at Atlantic. At least, I hope they don’t try that old gag and have us practice getting under our desks in such an emergency like in elementary school. Christ, I would rather take my chances, above desk, thank you. And… need I go on, you can listen to the rest when you get to homeroom I am just giving you the highlights, the year after year, memory highlights.
And if that isn’t enough, the reading of the rules and the gathering of more intelligence about you than the FBI or the CIA would need we then proceed to the ritualistic passing out of your books, large and small. (placing book covers on each, naturally, name, year, subject and book number safety placed in insert). All of them covered against the elements, your own sloth, and the battlefield school lunch room, that humongous science book that has every known idea from the ancient four furies of the air to nuclear fission, that math book that has some Pythagorean properties of its own, the social studies books to chart out human progress (and back-sliding) from stone-cave times on up, and, precious, precious English book (I hope we do Shakespeare this year, I heard we do, that guy knew how to write a good story, same with that Salinger book I read during the summer). Still easy stuff though, for the first day.
Ya, but this will put a different spin on it for you, well, a little different spin anyway. Today I start in the “bigs”, at least the bigs of the handful-countable big events of my short, sweet life. Today I am starting my freshman year at hallowed old North and I am as nervous as a kitten. Don’t tell me you weren’t just a little, little, tiny bit scared when you went from the cocoon-like warmth (or so it seemed compared to the “bigs”) of junior high over to the high school, whatever high school it was. Come on now, I’m going to call you out on it. Particularly those Atlantics who, after all, have been here before, unlike me who came out of the "projects" and moved back to North Quincy after the "long march" move to Atlantic in 1958 so I don't know the ropes here at all. They, especially those sweet girl Atlantics, including a certain she that I am severely "crushed up" on, in their cashmere sweaters and jumpers or whatever you call them, are nevertheless standing on these same steps, as we exchange nods of recognition, and are here just as early as I am, fretting their own frets, fighting their own inner demons, and just hoping and praying or whatever kids do when they are “on the ropes” to survive the day, or just to not get rolled over on day one.
And see, here is what you also don’t know, know yet anyway. I’ve caught Frank’s disease. You never heard of it, probably, and don’t bother to go look it up in some medical dictionary at the Thomas Crane Public Library, or some other library, it’s not there. What it amount to is the old time high school, any high school, version of the anxiety-driven cold sweats. Now I know some of you know Frank, and some of you don’t, but I told his story to you before, the story about his big, hot, “dog day” August mission to get picnic fixings, including special stuff, like Kennedy’s potato salad, for his grandmother. That’s the Frank I’m talking about, my best junior high friend, Frank.
Part of that story, for those who don’t know it, mentioned what Frank was thinking when he got near battle-worn North on his journey to Norfolk Downs back in August. I’m repeating; repeating at least the important parts here, for those who are clueless:
“Frank (and I) had, just a couple of months before, graduated from Atlantic Junior High School and so along with the sweat on his brow from the heat a little bit of anxiety was starting to form in Frank’s head about being a “little fish in a big pond” freshman come September as he passed by. Especially, a proto-beatnik “little fish”. See, he had cultivated a certain, well, let’s call it “style” over there at Atlantic. That "style" involved a total disdain for everything, everything except trying to impress girls with his long chino-panted, plaid flannel-shirted, thick book-carrying knowledge of every arcane fact known to mankind. Like that really was the way to impress teenage girls. In any case he was worried, worried sick at times, that in such a big school his “style” needed upgrading…”
And that is why, when the deal went down and I knew I was going to the “bigs” I spent the summer this year, reading, big time booked-devoured reading. Hey, I'll say I did, The Communist Manifesto, that one just because old Willie Westhaven over at Atlantic called me a Bolshevik when I answered one of his foolish math questions in a surly manner. I told you that was my pose, what do you want, I just wanted to see what he was talking about. In any case, I ain’t no commie, although I don’t know what the big deal is, I ain't turning anybody in, and the stuff is hard reading anyway. How about Democracy in America (by a French guy), The Age of Jackson (by a Harvard professor who knows Jack Kennedy, and is crazy for old-time guys like Jackson),and Catcher In The Rye (Holden is me, me to a tee). Okay, okay I won’t keep going on but that was just the reading on the hot days when I didn’t want to go out, test me on it, I am ready. Here's why. I intend, and I swear I intend to even on this first nothing (what did I call it before?-"gimme", ya) day of this new school year in this new school in this new decade to beat old Frankie, old book-toting, girl-chasing Frankie, who knows every arcane fact that mankind has produced and has told it to every girl who will listen for two minutes (maybe less) in that eternal struggle, the boy meets girl struggle, at his own game. Frankie, my buddy of buddies, mad monk, prince among men (well, boys, anyhow) who navigated me through the tough, murderous parts of junior high, mercifully concluded, finished and done with, praise be, and didn’t think twice about it. He, you see, despite, everything I said a minute ago was “in.”; that arcane knowledge stuff worked with the “ins” who counted, worked, at least a little, and I got dragged in his wake. Now I want to try out my new “style”
See, that’s why on this Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960, this 7:00 AM, or a little after, Wednesday after Labor Day, I have Frank’s disease. He harped on it so much before opening of school that I woke up about 5:00 AM this morning, maybe earlier, but I know it was still dark, with the cold sweats. I tossed and turned for a while about what my “style”, what my place in the sun was going to be, and I just had to get up. I’ll tell you about the opening day getting up ritual stuff later, some other time, but right now I am worried, worried as hell, about my “style”, or should I say lack of style over at Atlantic. That will tell you a lot about why I woke up this morning before the birds.
...Suddenly, a bell rings, a real bell, students, like lemmings to the sea, are on the move, especially those Atlantics that I had nodded to before as I take those steps, two at a time. Too late to worry about style, or anything else, now. We are off to the wars; I will make my place in the sun as I go along, on the fly.
********
....and a trip down memory lane.
MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel
(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)
Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please
Markin, Class Of 1964, comment:
Every once in a while I am reminded that it has been more than 45 years since we, the Class of 1964, went though the hallowed halls of the old school. Now, in 2010, those of us that went to North Adamsville Junior High School (now Middle School) are facing our 50th anniversary since graduation. Those who went to Central get a year's reprieve, but your day is coming. We will meet up to form the hearty Class of 1964. To mark the occasion I have written a little something. The following tale, although maybe not as light-hearted as some of my earlier entries, I believe, makes a point we all can appreciate.
*******
Funny, here I am, finally, finally after what seemed like an endless heat-waved, eternal August dog day’d, book-devoured, summer, standing, nervously standing, waiting with one foot on the sturdy granite-chiseled steps, ready at a moment’s notice from any teacher’s beck and call, to climb up to the second floor main entrance of old North, an entrance flanked by huge concrete spheres on each side, that are made to order for me to think that I too have the weight of the world on my shoulders this sunny day. And those doors, by the way, as if the spheres are not portentous enough, are also flanked by two scroll-worked concrete columns, or maybe they are gargoyle-faced, my eyes are a little bleary right now, who give the place a more fearsome look than is really necessary but today, today of all days, every little omen has its evil meaning, evil for me that is.
Here I am anyway, pensive (giving myself the best of it, okay, nice wrap-around-your soul word too, okay), head hanging down, deep in thought, deep in scared, get the nurse fast, if necessary, nausea-provoking thought, standing around, a little impatiently surly as is my “style” (that “style” I picked up a few years back in elementary school down in the Germantown “projects”, after seeing James Dean or someone like that strike the pose, and it stuck). Anyway its now about 7:00 AM, maybe a little after, and like I say my eyes have been playing tricks on me all morning and I can’t seem to focus, as I wait for the first school bell to sound on this first Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960.
No big deal right, we have all done it many times by now, it should be easy. Year after year, old August dog days turn into shorter, cooler September come hither young wanna-be learner days. Nothing to get nervous about, nothing to it.(Did I say that already?)Especially the first day, a half day, a “gimme” day, really, one of the few out of one hundred and eighty, count ‘em, and mainly used for filling out the one thousand and one pieces of paper about who you are, where you live, who you live with, and who to call in case you take some nasty fall in gym trying to do a double twist-something on the gym mat or a wrestled double-hammer lock grip on some poor, equally benighted fellow student that goes awry like actually happened to me last year in eighth grade. Hey, they were still talking about that one in the Atlantic locker rooms at the end of the year, I hear. Or, more ominously, they want that information so that if you cross-up one, or more, of your mean-spirited, ill-disposed, never-could have-been-young-and-troubled, ancient, Plato or Socrates ancient from the look of some of them, teachers and your parents (embarrassed, steaming, vengeful Ma really, in our neighborhoods) need to be called in to confer about “your problem,” your problem that you will grow out of with a few days of after school “help.” Please.
Or this “gimme” day (let’s just call it that okay, it will help settle me down) will be spent reading off, battered, monotone home room teacher-reading off, the also one thousand and one rules; no lateness to school under penalty of being placed in the stocks, Pilgrim-style, no illness absences short of the plague, if you have it, not a family member, and then only if you have a (presumably sanitized) doctor’s note, no cutting classes to explore the great American day streets at some nearby corner variety store, or mercy, Norfolk Downs, one-horse Norfolk Downs also under severe penalty, no (unauthorized) talking in class (but they will mark it down if you don't authorize talk, jesus), no giving guff (ya, no guff, right) to your teachers, fellow students, staff, the resident mouse or your kid brother, if you have a kid brother, no writing on walls, in books, and only on occasion on an (authorized) writing pad, no(get this one, I couldn’t believe this one over at Atlantic) cutting in line for the school lunch (the school lunch, Christ, as poor as we are in our family we at least have the dignity not to pine, much less cut in line for, those beauties: the American chop suey done several different ways to cover the week, including a stint as baloney and cheese sandwiches, I swear), no off-hand rough-necking (or just plain, ordinary necking, either), no excessive use of the “lav” (you know what that is, enough said), and certainly no smoking, drinking or using any other illegal (for kids) substances. Oh, ya, and don’t forget to follow, unquestioningly, those mean-spirited, ill-disposed teachers that I spoke of before, if there is a fire emergency. And here’s a better one, in case of an off-hand atomic bomb attack go, quickly and quietly, to the nearest fall-out shelter down in the bowels of the old school. That’s what we practiced over at Atlantic. At least, I hope they don’t try that old gag and have us practice getting under our desks in such an emergency like in elementary school. Christ, I would rather take my chances, above desk, thank you. And… need I go on, you can listen to the rest when you get to homeroom I am just giving you the highlights, the year after year, memory highlights.
And if that isn’t enough, the reading of the rules and the gathering of more intelligence about you than the FBI or the CIA would need we then proceed to the ritualistic passing out of your books, large and small. (placing book covers on each, naturally, name, year, subject and book number safety placed in insert). All of them covered against the elements, your own sloth, and the battlefield school lunch room, that humongous science book that has every known idea from the ancient four furies of the air to nuclear fission, that math book that has some Pythagorean properties of its own, the social studies books to chart out human progress (and back-sliding) from stone-cave times on up, and, precious, precious English book (I hope we do Shakespeare this year, I heard we do, that guy knew how to write a good story, same with that Salinger book I read during the summer). Still easy stuff though, for the first day.
Ya, but this will put a different spin on it for you, well, a little different spin anyway. Today I start in the “bigs”, at least the bigs of the handful-countable big events of my short, sweet life. Today I am starting my freshman year at hallowed old North and I am as nervous as a kitten. Don’t tell me you weren’t just a little, little, tiny bit scared when you went from the cocoon-like warmth (or so it seemed compared to the “bigs”) of junior high over to the high school, whatever high school it was. Come on now, I’m going to call you out on it. Particularly those Atlantics who, after all, have been here before, unlike me who came out of the "projects" and moved back to North Quincy after the "long march" move to Atlantic in 1958 so I don't know the ropes here at all. They, especially those sweet girl Atlantics, including a certain she that I am severely "crushed up" on, in their cashmere sweaters and jumpers or whatever you call them, are nevertheless standing on these same steps, as we exchange nods of recognition, and are here just as early as I am, fretting their own frets, fighting their own inner demons, and just hoping and praying or whatever kids do when they are “on the ropes” to survive the day, or just to not get rolled over on day one.
And see, here is what you also don’t know, know yet anyway. I’ve caught Frank’s disease. You never heard of it, probably, and don’t bother to go look it up in some medical dictionary at the Thomas Crane Public Library, or some other library, it’s not there. What it amount to is the old time high school, any high school, version of the anxiety-driven cold sweats. Now I know some of you know Frank, and some of you don’t, but I told his story to you before, the story about his big, hot, “dog day” August mission to get picnic fixings, including special stuff, like Kennedy’s potato salad, for his grandmother. That’s the Frank I’m talking about, my best junior high friend, Frank.
Part of that story, for those who don’t know it, mentioned what Frank was thinking when he got near battle-worn North on his journey to Norfolk Downs back in August. I’m repeating; repeating at least the important parts here, for those who are clueless:
“Frank (and I) had, just a couple of months before, graduated from Atlantic Junior High School and so along with the sweat on his brow from the heat a little bit of anxiety was starting to form in Frank’s head about being a “little fish in a big pond” freshman come September as he passed by. Especially, a proto-beatnik “little fish”. See, he had cultivated a certain, well, let’s call it “style” over there at Atlantic. That "style" involved a total disdain for everything, everything except trying to impress girls with his long chino-panted, plaid flannel-shirted, thick book-carrying knowledge of every arcane fact known to mankind. Like that really was the way to impress teenage girls. In any case he was worried, worried sick at times, that in such a big school his “style” needed upgrading…”
And that is why, when the deal went down and I knew I was going to the “bigs” I spent the summer this year, reading, big time booked-devoured reading. Hey, I'll say I did, The Communist Manifesto, that one just because old Willie Westhaven over at Atlantic called me a Bolshevik when I answered one of his foolish math questions in a surly manner. I told you that was my pose, what do you want, I just wanted to see what he was talking about. In any case, I ain’t no commie, although I don’t know what the big deal is, I ain't turning anybody in, and the stuff is hard reading anyway. How about Democracy in America (by a French guy), The Age of Jackson (by a Harvard professor who knows Jack Kennedy, and is crazy for old-time guys like Jackson),and Catcher In The Rye (Holden is me, me to a tee). Okay, okay I won’t keep going on but that was just the reading on the hot days when I didn’t want to go out, test me on it, I am ready. Here's why. I intend, and I swear I intend to even on this first nothing (what did I call it before?-"gimme", ya) day of this new school year in this new school in this new decade to beat old Frankie, old book-toting, girl-chasing Frankie, who knows every arcane fact that mankind has produced and has told it to every girl who will listen for two minutes (maybe less) in that eternal struggle, the boy meets girl struggle, at his own game. Frankie, my buddy of buddies, mad monk, prince among men (well, boys, anyhow) who navigated me through the tough, murderous parts of junior high, mercifully concluded, finished and done with, praise be, and didn’t think twice about it. He, you see, despite, everything I said a minute ago was “in.”; that arcane knowledge stuff worked with the “ins” who counted, worked, at least a little, and I got dragged in his wake. Now I want to try out my new “style”
See, that’s why on this Wednesday after Labor Day in the year of our lord, 1960, this 7:00 AM, or a little after, Wednesday after Labor Day, I have Frank’s disease. He harped on it so much before opening of school that I woke up about 5:00 AM this morning, maybe earlier, but I know it was still dark, with the cold sweats. I tossed and turned for a while about what my “style”, what my place in the sun was going to be, and I just had to get up. I’ll tell you about the opening day getting up ritual stuff later, some other time, but right now I am worried, worried as hell, about my “style”, or should I say lack of style over at Atlantic. That will tell you a lot about why I woke up this morning before the birds.
...Suddenly, a bell rings, a real bell, students, like lemmings to the sea, are on the move, especially those Atlantics that I had nodded to before as I take those steps, two at a time. Too late to worry about style, or anything else, now. We are off to the wars; I will make my place in the sun as I go along, on the fly.
********
....and a trip down memory lane.
MARK DINNING lyrics - Teen Angel
(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)
Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘60s Song Night- The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine”
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic, He's So Fine.
THE CHIFFONS
"He's So Fine"
(Do-lang, do-lang, do-lang)
(Do-lang, do-lang)
He's so fine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Wish he were mine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
That handsome boy over there
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
The one with the wavy hair
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
I don't know how I'm gonna do it
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
But I'm gonna make him mine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
He's the envy of all the girls
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
It's just a matter of time
(Do-lang-do-lang)
He's a soft [Spoken] guy
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Also seems kinda shy
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Makes me wonder if I
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Should even give him a try
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
But then I know he can't shy
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
He can't shy away forever
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
And I'm gonna make him mine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
If it takes me forever
(Do-lang-do-lang)
He's so fine
(Oh yeah)
Gotta be mine
(Oh yeah)
Sooner or later
(Oh yeah)
I hope it's not later
(Oh yeah)
We gotta get together
(Oh yeah)
The sooner the better
(Oh yeah)
I just can't wait, I just can't wait
To be held in his arms
If I were a queen
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
And he asked me to leave my throne
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
I'll do anything that he asked
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Anything to make him my own
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
For he's so fine
(So fine) so fine
(So fine) he's so fine
(So fine) so fine
(So fine) he's so fine
[Fades]
(So fine) oh yeah
(He's so fine) he's so fine
(So fine) uh-huh
(He's so fine)
He's so fine.....
*****
That Frankie, Frankie Riley, really gets to me sometimes. Here he has the best girl around, Joanne Doyle, smart, cute, maybe more than cute but I don’t dare say it here just in case he has the joint cased (or maybe she will see it and be embarrassed), and he is catting around, catting around like crazy trying to make every twist not tied to a big bruiser of a guy. Even then, if she is a boffo, he will take a run at her and hope his track shoes are fast enough. or faster than her boyfriend anyway.
And here I am all by myself,girl-less, Johnny O’Connor, Jumping Johnny O’Connor they call me but I don’t like it, don’t like it at all. See, back in sixth grade, back before Markin, Peter Paul Markin, came on the scene and took my place, my rightful place, as Frankie’s right-hand man we were at a “petting” party, a girl’s birthday party really, but you know how kids' stuff gets going, boy and girl kids' stuff, and this stick tried to kiss me hard, some sweet-perfumed, freshly-soaped stick (I can still smell her smell now), when the lights went out and I jumped up and ran out of that birthday girl’s house. Now, and probably for eternity, I am Jumping Johnny O’Connor. But I still don’t like it. And funny that stick girl, I’ll just call her by her first name, Jenny, turned out to be lately, well she turned out to be cute, maybe more than cute but I don’t dare say it just in case she has her spies around.
Now don’t get me wrong, Peter Paul’s a good guy, a funny guy really, and he has about twelve million facts that he seems to keep tied up in a bag and has ready for any occasion, any Frankie-needs-facts-occasion. So I can see where Frankie could use him as maybe second right hand guy, and I could be first. See, where Peter Paul has those facts I’ve got the beef, the well-muscled beef, that Frankie really needs if, and when, those track shoes aren’t fast enough when that boffo girl’s big bruiser boy friend gets the word.
Some people call me a stup and a simp for hanging around with a weirdo like Frankie but that’s not right. I just don’t like to read a lot of books, and stuff like that. I like my sports, and getting some serious attention, some serious girl attention, except no dice from Joanne and ever since that party nothing but ice from that Jenny, for being good at them. But see, Frankie, and now Peter Paul, are into that new be-bop beat thing, and I have noticed that Joanne is playing right into it, even liking it when Peter Paul starts going on and on about this and that in the universe, poetry, politics, history, and not sports. But I am a sensitive guy about stuff like that jumping name, and no way would I do Peter Paul’s soap box tirade stuff or Frankie’s catting if ever I could find a true love girl.
Enter Jenny:
Oh there's John O’Connor across the street sitting in the window seat at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor alone. And there, as usual, walking over to him is Frankie Riley, the most esteemed high exalted leader of that pack of foolish beatniks who hang there after school and at night whenever he can escape the leash, the Joanne Doyle leash, and, of course, Peter Paul Markin, his slavish dribbling (oops) scribbling scribe who fancies himself a man of letters, whatever that is. Gee, I wish John would get away from that crowd. He doesn’t fit in. I know him and Frankie go way back, first grade at North Adamsville Elementary I think, but since Peter Paul and his eleven thousand useless facts made the scene a couple years ago John has been second fiddle. It’s a shame because John is so sexy and such a good athlete, football, basketball, baseball that he doesn’t need those flannel-shirt wearing, black chino-wearing, work-boot–wearing, sunglass-wearing, ah, men of some letters that I can think of.
Maybe you know the story about John and me in sixth grade already but let me just tell you my side. I’ve heard a lot of different stories about how he got the name, wrong stories, so let me set you straight. They call John Jumping John O’Connor because of me. See, I have had a crush on him since, well, since, so when Chrissie McNamara had her twelfth birthday and told me John was coming I was crazy to go too. I took a long bath, dressed up in my best dress, and wore some of my mother’s perfume (don’t tell her, alright). Okay, okay I wasn’t a beauty like Chrissie but I sure was prettier than that Joanne Doyle. And I didn’t have a shape, then. I was a stick like the boys called us among themselves (so they thought, like such terms could be kept secret, secret with sisters around) back them, shapes and sticks.
The party was going pretty good and John, for some reason, asked me to dance, we danced and that was that, for him anyway. But as will happen at twelfth birthday parties, and on other occasions as well, the party was really a cover for “petting.” You know what petting is right, and if you don’t look it up. I was thrilled, heart-beating thrilled, pulse-pulsating thrilled that John danced with me, and misread the meaning of it big time. So when the lights went out I drew a bee-line to John and gave him a big kiss right on the mouth as hard as I could. He pushed me away like I was one of his football opponents, jumped off the sofa he was on, and ran out the door. That’s the real story. Except for me, for my midnight alone sorrows. Since then he hasn’t spoken to me, or acknowledged my existence. Funny though, I have seen him in class lately looking over in my direction for a few seconds and then turning his head back when I have spotted him, at least I hope he is looking my way.
I admit it. I am miserable ever since that party a few years back. Sure I have gone out with other boys to parties, the movies, and for pizza. I even went out with Peter Paul once but he was so full of air, and of himself, that I put the geek (no go) sign on him. And, yes, Frankie, pure as the driven snow Frankie, just so you know, has made more passes at me than you can shake a stick at. And Joanne, Plain Jane Joanne Doyle, is clueless. But John is the only one who has my eyes since, well, since. Maybe one day, one day when I am just miserable enough, just miserable enough to say enough, I will walk into Salducci’s and just sit on his lap and dare, not double dare, John O’Connor to jump up. It’ll be harder to get me off of him than the whole opposing team on the football field on Saturday afternoon.
Reenter John:
Hey, there's Jenny at the bus stop. I wonder where she is going all by herself. I noticed that she noticed that I was looking at her, looking at her kind of long and easy, a couple of times in study class. I wonder if she is still sore at me for pushing her aside when she kissed me hard like that and I jumped out the door at Chrissie’s birthday party that time. I didn’t mean to do to it but I had never been kissed by a girl like that before. I wonder too if she knew when I asked her to dance then that I had had a crush on her since, well, since. Maybe some day, maybe some day when all the guys, all the guys with their be-bop wisdom wise-guy stuff, are not around, I’ll go over and apologize to her.
THE CHIFFONS
"He's So Fine"
(Do-lang, do-lang, do-lang)
(Do-lang, do-lang)
He's so fine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Wish he were mine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
That handsome boy over there
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
The one with the wavy hair
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
I don't know how I'm gonna do it
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
But I'm gonna make him mine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
He's the envy of all the girls
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
It's just a matter of time
(Do-lang-do-lang)
He's a soft [Spoken] guy
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Also seems kinda shy
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Makes me wonder if I
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Should even give him a try
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
But then I know he can't shy
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
He can't shy away forever
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
And I'm gonna make him mine
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
If it takes me forever
(Do-lang-do-lang)
He's so fine
(Oh yeah)
Gotta be mine
(Oh yeah)
Sooner or later
(Oh yeah)
I hope it's not later
(Oh yeah)
We gotta get together
(Oh yeah)
The sooner the better
(Oh yeah)
I just can't wait, I just can't wait
To be held in his arms
If I were a queen
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
And he asked me to leave my throne
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
I'll do anything that he asked
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
Anything to make him my own
(Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang)
For he's so fine
(So fine) so fine
(So fine) he's so fine
(So fine) so fine
(So fine) he's so fine
[Fades]
(So fine) oh yeah
(He's so fine) he's so fine
(So fine) uh-huh
(He's so fine)
He's so fine.....
*****
That Frankie, Frankie Riley, really gets to me sometimes. Here he has the best girl around, Joanne Doyle, smart, cute, maybe more than cute but I don’t dare say it here just in case he has the joint cased (or maybe she will see it and be embarrassed), and he is catting around, catting around like crazy trying to make every twist not tied to a big bruiser of a guy. Even then, if she is a boffo, he will take a run at her and hope his track shoes are fast enough. or faster than her boyfriend anyway.
And here I am all by myself,girl-less, Johnny O’Connor, Jumping Johnny O’Connor they call me but I don’t like it, don’t like it at all. See, back in sixth grade, back before Markin, Peter Paul Markin, came on the scene and took my place, my rightful place, as Frankie’s right-hand man we were at a “petting” party, a girl’s birthday party really, but you know how kids' stuff gets going, boy and girl kids' stuff, and this stick tried to kiss me hard, some sweet-perfumed, freshly-soaped stick (I can still smell her smell now), when the lights went out and I jumped up and ran out of that birthday girl’s house. Now, and probably for eternity, I am Jumping Johnny O’Connor. But I still don’t like it. And funny that stick girl, I’ll just call her by her first name, Jenny, turned out to be lately, well she turned out to be cute, maybe more than cute but I don’t dare say it just in case she has her spies around.
Now don’t get me wrong, Peter Paul’s a good guy, a funny guy really, and he has about twelve million facts that he seems to keep tied up in a bag and has ready for any occasion, any Frankie-needs-facts-occasion. So I can see where Frankie could use him as maybe second right hand guy, and I could be first. See, where Peter Paul has those facts I’ve got the beef, the well-muscled beef, that Frankie really needs if, and when, those track shoes aren’t fast enough when that boffo girl’s big bruiser boy friend gets the word.
Some people call me a stup and a simp for hanging around with a weirdo like Frankie but that’s not right. I just don’t like to read a lot of books, and stuff like that. I like my sports, and getting some serious attention, some serious girl attention, except no dice from Joanne and ever since that party nothing but ice from that Jenny, for being good at them. But see, Frankie, and now Peter Paul, are into that new be-bop beat thing, and I have noticed that Joanne is playing right into it, even liking it when Peter Paul starts going on and on about this and that in the universe, poetry, politics, history, and not sports. But I am a sensitive guy about stuff like that jumping name, and no way would I do Peter Paul’s soap box tirade stuff or Frankie’s catting if ever I could find a true love girl.
Enter Jenny:
Oh there's John O’Connor across the street sitting in the window seat at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor alone. And there, as usual, walking over to him is Frankie Riley, the most esteemed high exalted leader of that pack of foolish beatniks who hang there after school and at night whenever he can escape the leash, the Joanne Doyle leash, and, of course, Peter Paul Markin, his slavish dribbling (oops) scribbling scribe who fancies himself a man of letters, whatever that is. Gee, I wish John would get away from that crowd. He doesn’t fit in. I know him and Frankie go way back, first grade at North Adamsville Elementary I think, but since Peter Paul and his eleven thousand useless facts made the scene a couple years ago John has been second fiddle. It’s a shame because John is so sexy and such a good athlete, football, basketball, baseball that he doesn’t need those flannel-shirt wearing, black chino-wearing, work-boot–wearing, sunglass-wearing, ah, men of some letters that I can think of.
Maybe you know the story about John and me in sixth grade already but let me just tell you my side. I’ve heard a lot of different stories about how he got the name, wrong stories, so let me set you straight. They call John Jumping John O’Connor because of me. See, I have had a crush on him since, well, since, so when Chrissie McNamara had her twelfth birthday and told me John was coming I was crazy to go too. I took a long bath, dressed up in my best dress, and wore some of my mother’s perfume (don’t tell her, alright). Okay, okay I wasn’t a beauty like Chrissie but I sure was prettier than that Joanne Doyle. And I didn’t have a shape, then. I was a stick like the boys called us among themselves (so they thought, like such terms could be kept secret, secret with sisters around) back them, shapes and sticks.
The party was going pretty good and John, for some reason, asked me to dance, we danced and that was that, for him anyway. But as will happen at twelfth birthday parties, and on other occasions as well, the party was really a cover for “petting.” You know what petting is right, and if you don’t look it up. I was thrilled, heart-beating thrilled, pulse-pulsating thrilled that John danced with me, and misread the meaning of it big time. So when the lights went out I drew a bee-line to John and gave him a big kiss right on the mouth as hard as I could. He pushed me away like I was one of his football opponents, jumped off the sofa he was on, and ran out the door. That’s the real story. Except for me, for my midnight alone sorrows. Since then he hasn’t spoken to me, or acknowledged my existence. Funny though, I have seen him in class lately looking over in my direction for a few seconds and then turning his head back when I have spotted him, at least I hope he is looking my way.
I admit it. I am miserable ever since that party a few years back. Sure I have gone out with other boys to parties, the movies, and for pizza. I even went out with Peter Paul once but he was so full of air, and of himself, that I put the geek (no go) sign on him. And, yes, Frankie, pure as the driven snow Frankie, just so you know, has made more passes at me than you can shake a stick at. And Joanne, Plain Jane Joanne Doyle, is clueless. But John is the only one who has my eyes since, well, since. Maybe one day, one day when I am just miserable enough, just miserable enough to say enough, I will walk into Salducci’s and just sit on his lap and dare, not double dare, John O’Connor to jump up. It’ll be harder to get me off of him than the whole opposing team on the football field on Saturday afternoon.
Reenter John:
Hey, there's Jenny at the bus stop. I wonder where she is going all by herself. I noticed that she noticed that I was looking at her, looking at her kind of long and easy, a couple of times in study class. I wonder if she is still sore at me for pushing her aside when she kissed me hard like that and I jumped out the door at Chrissie’s birthday party that time. I didn’t mean to do to it but I had never been kissed by a girl like that before. I wonder too if she knew when I asked her to dance then that I had had a crush on her since, well, since. Maybe some day, maybe some day when all the guys, all the guys with their be-bop wisdom wise-guy stuff, are not around, I’ll go over and apologize to her.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Of This And That Out In The North Adamsville Be-Bop Night Circa, 1960
Of This And That Out In The North Adamsville Be-Bop Night Circa, 1960
Markin comment:
I have, on more than one occasion, cursed the Internet to the high heavens for stirring up, or of being the catalyst to stir up ancient memories, ancient memories I was entirely willing to keep back in the deep recesses of my mind. And then the next moment I find that I need to bow down, profusely bow face to the floor, to its ability to make some necessary link information available at the touch of a mouse. The latter is such a moment here.
Recently I received an e-mail via one of the sites that I am linked to from an old high school flame, well, maybe more of a flicker, Betty Ann Kelly (maiden name), who e-mailed me in response to a general question that I had posed to my fellow classmates at old North Adamsville High School, Class of 1964. That question actually involved any memories, such as they were, remembered of those times, more specifically of North Adamsville Junior High days (now, Middle School) since when I posed the question we were in the throes of “celebrating” our fiftieth anniversary of graduation from that school (1960). Her response was simple- as will be noted below she had not actually attended North Adamsville Junior High (Middle School) but rather Adamsville Central Junior High (ditto on the middle school thing).
Needless to say, flame or flicker, I have some egg on my face for not remembering that she was not one of us-a North Adamsville Junior Higher- when the town junior high school rivalries were almost as intense as those of the cross-town rivalry between North Adamsville High and Adamsville High. More to the point I would have gone to my grave believing that she had been a classmate and so I bow down, profusely bow down, to the high tech Internet for making the connections that made that connection possible. My return e-mail is posted below to “enlighten” those of our generation who face some of the same issues-how to turn on the computer, how to deal with forgetfulness (I am being kind to all parties here), and how to “forget” that if one has a 50th middle school graduation anniversary in 2010 then a 50th high school anniversary is on the horizon. Ugh! Damn Internet.
*********
Dear Betty Ann,
Thanks for your note. Before I go on I just have to comment, kiddingly anyway, on this e-mail snafu. [The response e-mail was received about a year after the original one was sent-Markin.] At your expense? Well, yes. I thought, and correct me if I am wrong, that e-mail was supposed to be faster than the regular mails. And if not that, then at least faster than the Pony Express of old, old days. I do note that you are located in up- state New York so that explains a lot, an awful lot. Now for a little fun at my expense. It seems that I did not edit the e-mail that I sent you. I forgot to correct, retype actually, the quotation marks when I went from my word processor to the site e-mail screen. Thus, you got some strange Serbo-Croatian transliterations, or some other forgotten language, in your e-mail. I will take some laughs on that one.
Okay, now down to business. The thing that I requested in that e-mail, information and ideas in order to honor our 50th anniversary since graduation, if you had been a North Adamsville Junior High alumna and not a benighted Adamsville Central alumna I got another way. I actually worked around it and wrote from different angle from what I expected to do. If you look on the Class Wall of the Class Of 1964 homepage you will find it- Entering North-1960. You will also find a couple of other posts, as well. Also if you Google Tales From Old North Adamsville High you will be able to click to a blog I established last year about the old days when we all bled raider red. Such little subjects as summer beach nights, Tri-Hi-Y, Howard Johnson’s ice cream, boys’ and girls’ bowling teams, and some sad, some silly, and some just plain be-bop things as well. Of course, since this is your 50th anniversary of graduating from Adamsville Central Junior High (oops, Middle School) you are duty-bound to write a little something, and we will all meet up in the fall of 1961 to form the North Adamsville Class of 1964.
As for rumors, threats, dreads, and celebrations of our 50th anniversary since graduation from high school I have no particular information right now. Perhaps someone on the site might have some information. I will say this-in 2004 I received an invitation to our 40th reunion, although I did not attend. I have never attended any reunion (although I wrote about old friend, Bill Connolly, going to the fifth reunion in 1969- it is posted on that Tales blog). How about you? The people who put that one together were Linda Paul and Gary Docker. Linda has her name listed on this site so maybe you could check with her. In 2004 I was not bleeding raider red but now I am not sure that I would not attend a 50th reunion if it is organized.
Let me hear from you- soon (within a year, okay). Friendly regards. Peter Paul Markin
Markin comment:
I have, on more than one occasion, cursed the Internet to the high heavens for stirring up, or of being the catalyst to stir up ancient memories, ancient memories I was entirely willing to keep back in the deep recesses of my mind. And then the next moment I find that I need to bow down, profusely bow face to the floor, to its ability to make some necessary link information available at the touch of a mouse. The latter is such a moment here.
Recently I received an e-mail via one of the sites that I am linked to from an old high school flame, well, maybe more of a flicker, Betty Ann Kelly (maiden name), who e-mailed me in response to a general question that I had posed to my fellow classmates at old North Adamsville High School, Class of 1964. That question actually involved any memories, such as they were, remembered of those times, more specifically of North Adamsville Junior High days (now, Middle School) since when I posed the question we were in the throes of “celebrating” our fiftieth anniversary of graduation from that school (1960). Her response was simple- as will be noted below she had not actually attended North Adamsville Junior High (Middle School) but rather Adamsville Central Junior High (ditto on the middle school thing).
Needless to say, flame or flicker, I have some egg on my face for not remembering that she was not one of us-a North Adamsville Junior Higher- when the town junior high school rivalries were almost as intense as those of the cross-town rivalry between North Adamsville High and Adamsville High. More to the point I would have gone to my grave believing that she had been a classmate and so I bow down, profusely bow down, to the high tech Internet for making the connections that made that connection possible. My return e-mail is posted below to “enlighten” those of our generation who face some of the same issues-how to turn on the computer, how to deal with forgetfulness (I am being kind to all parties here), and how to “forget” that if one has a 50th middle school graduation anniversary in 2010 then a 50th high school anniversary is on the horizon. Ugh! Damn Internet.
*********
Dear Betty Ann,
Thanks for your note. Before I go on I just have to comment, kiddingly anyway, on this e-mail snafu. [The response e-mail was received about a year after the original one was sent-Markin.] At your expense? Well, yes. I thought, and correct me if I am wrong, that e-mail was supposed to be faster than the regular mails. And if not that, then at least faster than the Pony Express of old, old days. I do note that you are located in up- state New York so that explains a lot, an awful lot. Now for a little fun at my expense. It seems that I did not edit the e-mail that I sent you. I forgot to correct, retype actually, the quotation marks when I went from my word processor to the site e-mail screen. Thus, you got some strange Serbo-Croatian transliterations, or some other forgotten language, in your e-mail. I will take some laughs on that one.
Okay, now down to business. The thing that I requested in that e-mail, information and ideas in order to honor our 50th anniversary since graduation, if you had been a North Adamsville Junior High alumna and not a benighted Adamsville Central alumna I got another way. I actually worked around it and wrote from different angle from what I expected to do. If you look on the Class Wall of the Class Of 1964 homepage you will find it- Entering North-1960. You will also find a couple of other posts, as well. Also if you Google Tales From Old North Adamsville High you will be able to click to a blog I established last year about the old days when we all bled raider red. Such little subjects as summer beach nights, Tri-Hi-Y, Howard Johnson’s ice cream, boys’ and girls’ bowling teams, and some sad, some silly, and some just plain be-bop things as well. Of course, since this is your 50th anniversary of graduating from Adamsville Central Junior High (oops, Middle School) you are duty-bound to write a little something, and we will all meet up in the fall of 1961 to form the North Adamsville Class of 1964.
As for rumors, threats, dreads, and celebrations of our 50th anniversary since graduation from high school I have no particular information right now. Perhaps someone on the site might have some information. I will say this-in 2004 I received an invitation to our 40th reunion, although I did not attend. I have never attended any reunion (although I wrote about old friend, Bill Connolly, going to the fifth reunion in 1969- it is posted on that Tales blog). How about you? The people who put that one together were Linda Paul and Gary Docker. Linda has her name listed on this site so maybe you could check with her. In 2004 I was not bleeding raider red but now I am not sure that I would not attend a 50th reunion if it is organized.
Let me hear from you- soon (within a year, okay). Friendly regards. Peter Paul Markin
Monday, January 17, 2011
*Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Teen Queens’ “Eddie My Love” (1956) - A 55th Anniversary, Of Sorts- An Alternate Take- For Those Who Waited By The Midnight Phone
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Teen Queens performing the classic Eddie My Love.
Markin comment:
This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archaeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
EDDIE MY LOVE
(Aaron Collins / Maxwell Davis / Sam Ling)The Teen Queens - 1956
The Fontane Sisters - 1956
The Chordettes - 1956
Dee Dee Sharp - 1962
Also recorded by:
Lillian Briggs; Jo Ann Campbell; The Sweethearts.
Eddie, my love, I love you so
How I wanted for you, you'll never know
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait to long
Eddie, please write me one line
Tell me your love is still only mine
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
You left me last September
To return to me before long
But all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone
Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next day might be my last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
You left me last September
To return to me before long
But all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone
Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next day might be my last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
(Transcribed from the Teen Queens
recording by Mel Priddle - May 2006)
**********
Come closer will you, because I have got a story to tell, come on away from that midnight phone waiting and maybe put on The Teen Queens’ Eddie My Love like I have on right now or some other teen trauma tune, sad, sad tune to help drown your sorrows while I’m telling the story,
Yes, get away from that midnight telephone call wait by your bedside table and listen up a minute or two because I’ve got a story to tell, a 1950s teen story to tell, or let’s make it a 1950s teen story, and if it works out for 1960s, 1970s, 2000s teens except the techno-gadgets ways to wait, to wait that midnight call are different, well, well there you have it,
and let’s make it a boy-girl story, although I know, and you know I know, that it could have been a boy-boy, girl-girl, whatever story and that’s okay by me, except that it wouldn’t be okay, okay as a public 1950s story,
and let’s make it a Saturday night, a hard by the phone, waiting Saturday night, maybe midnight, maybe not, maybe you cried or brooded yourself to sleep before that hour, that teen dread hour when all dreams came crashing to the floor, like a million guys and girls know about, and if you don’t then, maybe move on, but I think I know who I’m talking to,
and let’s make it a winter night, a long hard winter night, wind maybe blowing up a little, maybe a little dusting of snow, and just that many more dark hours until the dawn and facing another day without…,
and let’s make it, oh the hell with that let’s make it get to the story and we’ll work out the scenic details as we go along.
I’ll tell you, Betty’s got it bad, yes, Betty from across the way, from the house across the way where right now I can see her in her midnight waiting bedroom window, staring off, staring off somewhere but I know, I know, what ‘s wrong with her. Her Eddie’s flown the coop, and has not been heard from for a while.
Yes, Betty’s got it bad, and it’s too bad because she deserves better. Let me tell you the story behind the story, although I can already see that you might know what’s coming. Yes, I know the story because Betty’s best friend, Sue, gave me the details when I saw Betty moping around, moping around day after day like there was going to be no tomorrow, especially after school with her head down, head moping down after the mailman came.
Yes, I know, I know Sue, old best friend Sue, is nothing but a mantrap and has flirted with more guys in this town than you could shake a stick at, including Eddie (keep that between us, please). Hell, now that I think about it, I’ll get this thing all balled up. Let Betty, old true to Eddie, Betty tell her story herself, or at least through Sue, and I’ll just write it down my way, and you be the judge.
“Last summer, oh sweet sixteen last summer, old innocent girlish sweet paper dream last summer, Eddie, Eddie Cooper, Eddie with the hot cherry red, dual exhaust, heavy silver chrome, radio- blasting, ’55 Chevy (my brother Timmy told me about cars and their doo-dads, I just like to look good in them and the ’55 is the “boss”), that I knew I would be just crazy to sit in, and give the “look”, the superior “I’m with a hot guy, and sitting in a hot car , bow down peasants look,” came rumbling and tumbling into town.
Summer beach time, soaking up the sun down between the yacht clubs beach time, summer not a care in the world time , Sue, my best friend Sue, my best friend Sue and all that stuff they say about her and the boys is just fantasy, men fantasy, and I were sitting just talking about this and that, oh well, about boys, and I was telling her the latest about Billy, Billy from the neighborhood, who I had been going out with for ages, more or less, Billy with the reading too many books and wanting to talk poetry or “beat” stuff, Billy, Billy with the no car, or sometimes car but no “boss” car, never, when Eddie, Eddie, Eddie John Cooper, parked his honey Chevy and came over to us, through all that sand and all,
Eddie gave Sue the once over, like guys will do automatically, even though I secretly thrill to know that that once over is just a game because even as he came over the sand I could see he had eyes, big blue eyes, for me, only me,
We talked, idle talk, sex in the air talk, but don’t talk about talk, still talk a lot for a summer beach day, and I knew, I swear I knew he wanted to ask me out for later, or maybe right there to ride in his car but three’s company, and for once I couldn’t shake Sue, my best friend Sue, Sue with the million boyfriends so she says, who I could see was taken in by his big blued-eyed, black haired, tight tee-shirt, blue jean-ed charm too.
Truce, Sue truce, as we walked home, Eddie-less, a few blocks away. Truce, except that I heard a big engine, a big “boss” car engine, coming up behind me as I hit the sidewalk in front of my house, and dream, dream wake me up, it was Eddie, Eddie John Cooper and that cherry ’57 Chevy. He said, and I will never forget this, “Hop in,” and opened the door. I was suppose to have a “date”, some donk poetry reading date with Billy, ah, Billy who. We were off as soon as I close that cherry door.
And we were off, off for a sweet summer of love, ’55 Chevy love and okay, truth, because I know that Sue probably blabbed it around but I let Eddie take me to the back seat of that warm-bodied Chevy one night, and some nights after that. But let me just tell you this about Sue, my best friend Sue, honest, she’s the one who told me what to do with a boy, ya, she told me everything.
Come late August as summer beach love drew to an end and those damn school bells seemed ready to ring, Eddie, out of school Eddie my love, told me he had a job offer in another state and he needed to take the job to support his mother and his ’57 Chevy.
I started crying, crying like crazy, trying to make him stay, stay with his ever-lovin’ Betty but no he had to go. He didn’t know about a phone, or a phone call, but he said he would write and I haven’t heard from him since even though I wear out the mailman every day.”
Christ my heart bleeds for Betty every time I think about what Eddie has done, and see, I know Eddie, no I don’t know Eddie personally but I know Eddie stuff, stuff that has been going on since Adam and Eve, hell, probably before that.
But Betty, Betty, sweet Betty, I hate to break it to you but Eddie, Eddie John Cooper ain’t coming back. And old Eddie ain’t writing and it ain’t because he doesn’t have the three cents for a stamp, no Eddie, well, enough of that, let's just say Eddie’s moved on.
And Betty, Betty hold onto your Eddie My Love dream for a moment. But Betty, tomorrow, not tomorrow tomorrow but some tomorrow you‘ve got to move on. And Betty then why don’t you call your Billy. I’ll be here by the phone, the midnight phone.
Markin comment:
This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archaeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
EDDIE MY LOVE
(Aaron Collins / Maxwell Davis / Sam Ling)The Teen Queens - 1956
The Fontane Sisters - 1956
The Chordettes - 1956
Dee Dee Sharp - 1962
Also recorded by:
Lillian Briggs; Jo Ann Campbell; The Sweethearts.
Eddie, my love, I love you so
How I wanted for you, you'll never know
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait to long
Eddie, please write me one line
Tell me your love is still only mine
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
You left me last September
To return to me before long
But all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone
Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next day might be my last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
You left me last September
To return to me before long
But all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone
Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next day might be my last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long
(Transcribed from the Teen Queens
recording by Mel Priddle - May 2006)
**********
Come closer will you, because I have got a story to tell, come on away from that midnight phone waiting and maybe put on The Teen Queens’ Eddie My Love like I have on right now or some other teen trauma tune, sad, sad tune to help drown your sorrows while I’m telling the story,
Yes, get away from that midnight telephone call wait by your bedside table and listen up a minute or two because I’ve got a story to tell, a 1950s teen story to tell, or let’s make it a 1950s teen story, and if it works out for 1960s, 1970s, 2000s teens except the techno-gadgets ways to wait, to wait that midnight call are different, well, well there you have it,
and let’s make it a boy-girl story, although I know, and you know I know, that it could have been a boy-boy, girl-girl, whatever story and that’s okay by me, except that it wouldn’t be okay, okay as a public 1950s story,
and let’s make it a Saturday night, a hard by the phone, waiting Saturday night, maybe midnight, maybe not, maybe you cried or brooded yourself to sleep before that hour, that teen dread hour when all dreams came crashing to the floor, like a million guys and girls know about, and if you don’t then, maybe move on, but I think I know who I’m talking to,
and let’s make it a winter night, a long hard winter night, wind maybe blowing up a little, maybe a little dusting of snow, and just that many more dark hours until the dawn and facing another day without…,
and let’s make it, oh the hell with that let’s make it get to the story and we’ll work out the scenic details as we go along.
I’ll tell you, Betty’s got it bad, yes, Betty from across the way, from the house across the way where right now I can see her in her midnight waiting bedroom window, staring off, staring off somewhere but I know, I know, what ‘s wrong with her. Her Eddie’s flown the coop, and has not been heard from for a while.
Yes, Betty’s got it bad, and it’s too bad because she deserves better. Let me tell you the story behind the story, although I can already see that you might know what’s coming. Yes, I know the story because Betty’s best friend, Sue, gave me the details when I saw Betty moping around, moping around day after day like there was going to be no tomorrow, especially after school with her head down, head moping down after the mailman came.
Yes, I know, I know Sue, old best friend Sue, is nothing but a mantrap and has flirted with more guys in this town than you could shake a stick at, including Eddie (keep that between us, please). Hell, now that I think about it, I’ll get this thing all balled up. Let Betty, old true to Eddie, Betty tell her story herself, or at least through Sue, and I’ll just write it down my way, and you be the judge.
“Last summer, oh sweet sixteen last summer, old innocent girlish sweet paper dream last summer, Eddie, Eddie Cooper, Eddie with the hot cherry red, dual exhaust, heavy silver chrome, radio- blasting, ’55 Chevy (my brother Timmy told me about cars and their doo-dads, I just like to look good in them and the ’55 is the “boss”), that I knew I would be just crazy to sit in, and give the “look”, the superior “I’m with a hot guy, and sitting in a hot car , bow down peasants look,” came rumbling and tumbling into town.
Summer beach time, soaking up the sun down between the yacht clubs beach time, summer not a care in the world time , Sue, my best friend Sue, my best friend Sue and all that stuff they say about her and the boys is just fantasy, men fantasy, and I were sitting just talking about this and that, oh well, about boys, and I was telling her the latest about Billy, Billy from the neighborhood, who I had been going out with for ages, more or less, Billy with the reading too many books and wanting to talk poetry or “beat” stuff, Billy, Billy with the no car, or sometimes car but no “boss” car, never, when Eddie, Eddie, Eddie John Cooper, parked his honey Chevy and came over to us, through all that sand and all,
Eddie gave Sue the once over, like guys will do automatically, even though I secretly thrill to know that that once over is just a game because even as he came over the sand I could see he had eyes, big blue eyes, for me, only me,
We talked, idle talk, sex in the air talk, but don’t talk about talk, still talk a lot for a summer beach day, and I knew, I swear I knew he wanted to ask me out for later, or maybe right there to ride in his car but three’s company, and for once I couldn’t shake Sue, my best friend Sue, Sue with the million boyfriends so she says, who I could see was taken in by his big blued-eyed, black haired, tight tee-shirt, blue jean-ed charm too.
Truce, Sue truce, as we walked home, Eddie-less, a few blocks away. Truce, except that I heard a big engine, a big “boss” car engine, coming up behind me as I hit the sidewalk in front of my house, and dream, dream wake me up, it was Eddie, Eddie John Cooper and that cherry ’57 Chevy. He said, and I will never forget this, “Hop in,” and opened the door. I was suppose to have a “date”, some donk poetry reading date with Billy, ah, Billy who. We were off as soon as I close that cherry door.
And we were off, off for a sweet summer of love, ’55 Chevy love and okay, truth, because I know that Sue probably blabbed it around but I let Eddie take me to the back seat of that warm-bodied Chevy one night, and some nights after that. But let me just tell you this about Sue, my best friend Sue, honest, she’s the one who told me what to do with a boy, ya, she told me everything.
Come late August as summer beach love drew to an end and those damn school bells seemed ready to ring, Eddie, out of school Eddie my love, told me he had a job offer in another state and he needed to take the job to support his mother and his ’57 Chevy.
I started crying, crying like crazy, trying to make him stay, stay with his ever-lovin’ Betty but no he had to go. He didn’t know about a phone, or a phone call, but he said he would write and I haven’t heard from him since even though I wear out the mailman every day.”
Christ my heart bleeds for Betty every time I think about what Eddie has done, and see, I know Eddie, no I don’t know Eddie personally but I know Eddie stuff, stuff that has been going on since Adam and Eve, hell, probably before that.
But Betty, Betty, sweet Betty, I hate to break it to you but Eddie, Eddie John Cooper ain’t coming back. And old Eddie ain’t writing and it ain’t because he doesn’t have the three cents for a stamp, no Eddie, well, enough of that, let's just say Eddie’s moved on.
And Betty, Betty hold onto your Eddie My Love dream for a moment. But Betty, tomorrow, not tomorrow tomorrow but some tomorrow you‘ve got to move on. And Betty then why don’t you call your Billy. I’ll be here by the phone, the midnight phone.
Friday, December 24, 2010
**Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- A Fragment Of Working Class Culture-Out In The School Dance Night- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Teen Angels performing Eddie, My Love.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1956: various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing this Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.
And we, we small-time punk in the old-fashioned sense of that word, we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie who I will talk about some other time, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.
Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Ya right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.
But can you blame me, or us, for our jail-break visions and our clandestine subterranean life-transistor radio dreams of lots of girls (or boys as the case may be), lots of cars, and lots of money if we could just get out from under that parental noise. Now this Time-Life series has many compilations but, as if to prove my point beyond discussion, the year 1956 has two, do you hear me, two CDs to deal with that proposition that I mentioned above. And neither includes Elvis, Jerry Lee, Bo Diddley or some other stuff that I might have included. I already reviewed the other 1956 compilation previously but here are the stick outs from this selection:
Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins (Elvis covered it and made millions but old Carl had a better old rockabilly back beat on his version); In The Still Of The Night, The Five Satins (a doo wop classic that I am humming right this minute, sha dot do be doo, sha dot do be doo or something like that spelling, okay); Eddie, My Love, The Teen Queens (incredible harmony, doo wop back-up, and, and “oh Eddie, please don’t make me wait too long” as part of the lyrics, Whoa!); Roll Over Beethoven, Chuck Berry ( a deservedly early break-out rock anthem. Hell I thought it was big deal just to trash Patti Page old Chuck went after the big boys.); Be-Bop-a-Lula, Gene Vincent (the guy was kind of a one hit wonder but Christ what a one hit, "ya, she’s my baby now"); Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino (that old smooth piano riffing away); Rip It Up, Little Richard (he/she wild man Richard rips it up; Young Love, Sonny James ( dreamy stuff that those giggling girls at school loved, and so you "loved" too); Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (for a minute the king be-bop, doo wop teenage angel boy. Everybody wanted to be the doo wop king or queen); See You Later, Alligator, Bill Haley and The Comets (ya, these “old guys” could rock, especially that sax man. Think about it people still use the expression “see you later alligator”); and Since I Met You Baby, Ivory Joe Hunter (every dance pray, every last dance pray, oh my god, let them play Ivory Joe at the end so I can dance close with that certain she I have been eying all night).
Note: I have mentioned previously the excellent album cover art that accompanies each Time-Life classic rock series compilation. Not only does it almost automatically evoke long ago memories of red hot youth, and those dreams, those steamy dance night dreams too, but has supplied this writer with more than one idea for a commentary. This 1956 compilation album cover is in that same vein. The cover shows what looks like a local cover band from the 1950s getting ready to perform at the local high school dance. Although the guys, especially the lead vocalist, look a little skittish they know they have to make a good showing because this is their small time chance at the big time. Besides there are about six thousand other guys hanging around in their fathers’ garages ready and willing to step up if the Danny and the Bluenotes fall flat.
This live band idea is actually something of a treat because, from what I recall, many times these school dance things survived on loud record playing dee-jay chatter, thus the term “record hop.” From the look of it the school auditorium is the locale (although ours were inevitably held in the school gym), complete with the obligatory crepe, other temporary school-spirit related ornaments and a mesmerized girl band groupie to give the joint a festive appearance.
More importantly, as I said before, at least for the band, as they are to be warming up for the night’s work, is that they have to make their mark here (and at other such venues) and start to get a following if they want to avoid another dreaded fate of rock life. Yes, the dreaded fate of most bands that don’t break out of the old neighborhood, the fate of having to some years down the road play at some of the students they are performing for today children’s birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings and the like. That thought should be enough to keep these guys working until late in the night, jamming the night away, disturbing some old fogy Frank Sinatra fans in the neighborhood, perfecting those covers of Roll Over Beethoven, Rip It Up, Rock Around The Clock and Jailhouse Rock. Go to it boy, you bet.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1956: various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing this Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.
And we, we small-time punk in the old-fashioned sense of that word, we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie who I will talk about some other time, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.
Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Ya right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.
But can you blame me, or us, for our jail-break visions and our clandestine subterranean life-transistor radio dreams of lots of girls (or boys as the case may be), lots of cars, and lots of money if we could just get out from under that parental noise. Now this Time-Life series has many compilations but, as if to prove my point beyond discussion, the year 1956 has two, do you hear me, two CDs to deal with that proposition that I mentioned above. And neither includes Elvis, Jerry Lee, Bo Diddley or some other stuff that I might have included. I already reviewed the other 1956 compilation previously but here are the stick outs from this selection:
Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins (Elvis covered it and made millions but old Carl had a better old rockabilly back beat on his version); In The Still Of The Night, The Five Satins (a doo wop classic that I am humming right this minute, sha dot do be doo, sha dot do be doo or something like that spelling, okay); Eddie, My Love, The Teen Queens (incredible harmony, doo wop back-up, and, and “oh Eddie, please don’t make me wait too long” as part of the lyrics, Whoa!); Roll Over Beethoven, Chuck Berry ( a deservedly early break-out rock anthem. Hell I thought it was big deal just to trash Patti Page old Chuck went after the big boys.); Be-Bop-a-Lula, Gene Vincent (the guy was kind of a one hit wonder but Christ what a one hit, "ya, she’s my baby now"); Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino (that old smooth piano riffing away); Rip It Up, Little Richard (he/she wild man Richard rips it up; Young Love, Sonny James ( dreamy stuff that those giggling girls at school loved, and so you "loved" too); Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (for a minute the king be-bop, doo wop teenage angel boy. Everybody wanted to be the doo wop king or queen); See You Later, Alligator, Bill Haley and The Comets (ya, these “old guys” could rock, especially that sax man. Think about it people still use the expression “see you later alligator”); and Since I Met You Baby, Ivory Joe Hunter (every dance pray, every last dance pray, oh my god, let them play Ivory Joe at the end so I can dance close with that certain she I have been eying all night).
Note: I have mentioned previously the excellent album cover art that accompanies each Time-Life classic rock series compilation. Not only does it almost automatically evoke long ago memories of red hot youth, and those dreams, those steamy dance night dreams too, but has supplied this writer with more than one idea for a commentary. This 1956 compilation album cover is in that same vein. The cover shows what looks like a local cover band from the 1950s getting ready to perform at the local high school dance. Although the guys, especially the lead vocalist, look a little skittish they know they have to make a good showing because this is their small time chance at the big time. Besides there are about six thousand other guys hanging around in their fathers’ garages ready and willing to step up if the Danny and the Bluenotes fall flat.
This live band idea is actually something of a treat because, from what I recall, many times these school dance things survived on loud record playing dee-jay chatter, thus the term “record hop.” From the look of it the school auditorium is the locale (although ours were inevitably held in the school gym), complete with the obligatory crepe, other temporary school-spirit related ornaments and a mesmerized girl band groupie to give the joint a festive appearance.
More importantly, as I said before, at least for the band, as they are to be warming up for the night’s work, is that they have to make their mark here (and at other such venues) and start to get a following if they want to avoid another dreaded fate of rock life. Yes, the dreaded fate of most bands that don’t break out of the old neighborhood, the fate of having to some years down the road play at some of the students they are performing for today children’s birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings and the like. That thought should be enough to keep these guys working until late in the night, jamming the night away, disturbing some old fogy Frank Sinatra fans in the neighborhood, perfecting those covers of Roll Over Beethoven, Rip It Up, Rock Around The Clock and Jailhouse Rock. Go to it boy, you bet.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
*Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The School Dance Last Chance
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Platters performing their classic last dance number, Only You.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘50s: Keep On Rocking, Last Dance, Time-Life, 1989
I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.
But all of that social stuff is neither here nor there at last dance time. The real question, the world historic question, is whether that song will be a slow one or a fast one. A slow one means that you have to dance close and hope, hope to high heaven, that you do not ruin your partner’s feet and shoes (shoes, moreover, brought for just this occasion, damn). A fast one brings a sigh of relief as you know; know as sure as you are born, that you can fake that one with a couple of wiggly moves. This compilation has both types of songs for the nostalgically-inclined AARP demographics this item is pitched to. And for the younger set a chance to giggle at what your parents and grandparents got all heated up about and along the way thank someone, some blessed spirit, that as members in good standing of hip-hop nation you avoided all of that.
Stick outs here include: legendary rocker Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller (fast); The Fireflies’ You Were Mine (slow, ouch); Sandy Nelson’s Teen Beat (fast); and The Platter’s classic (the one you prayed they would play) Only You. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘50s: Keep On Rocking, Last Dance, Time-Life, 1989
I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.
But all of that social stuff is neither here nor there at last dance time. The real question, the world historic question, is whether that song will be a slow one or a fast one. A slow one means that you have to dance close and hope, hope to high heaven, that you do not ruin your partner’s feet and shoes (shoes, moreover, brought for just this occasion, damn). A fast one brings a sigh of relief as you know; know as sure as you are born, that you can fake that one with a couple of wiggly moves. This compilation has both types of songs for the nostalgically-inclined AARP demographics this item is pitched to. And for the younger set a chance to giggle at what your parents and grandparents got all heated up about and along the way thank someone, some blessed spirit, that as members in good standing of hip-hop nation you avoided all of that.
Stick outs here include: legendary rocker Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller (fast); The Fireflies’ You Were Mine (slow, ouch); Sandy Nelson’s Teen Beat (fast); and The Platter’s classic (the one you prayed they would play) Only You. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
*Growing Up Absurd in 1950's Texas- Larry Mc Murtry's "The Last Picture Show"-The Movie- An Encore
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the movie version of Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show.
DVD Review
The Last Picture Show, written by Larry McMurtry, starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybil Sheppard, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, 1971
Having just recently re-watched this great movie and after having kind of panned its sequel, Texasville (see post dated August 14, 2010), for no other reason (although there were more) that I liked the coming-of-age story of Last Picture better than the more recently experienced mid-life crisis (mine, and Duane’s) of Texasville I want to expand a little on the movie. A couple of years ago I gave it a few lines as an addendum to a review of Larry McMurtry’s book. Some of the points made there apply to both works, some to the film itself, especially in light of Jeff Bridge’s recent (2010) Oscar-winning performance in Crazy Hearts as Bad Blake-basically Last Picture’s Duane at 57.
****
There has been no shortage of coming of age stories in modern American literature. The late J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is merely the most famous and probably widely known of the genre. Here Larry McMurtry, the Texas bibliophile, Old West aficionado and flea market pack rat gives us his take on growing up absurd in a faded, dust-blown, one-horse (and one movie theater) semi-boom (and bust)town Texas during the Korean War era in the early 1950's with his central cast of Duane, Sonny and the femme fatale, Jacy.
Although the locale is different from Catcher in the Rye, the issues raised by the teenagers who drive the stories and those of their perplexed and clueless parents are the same. And what do those issues entail? Sex, the meaning of existence, sex, what to do on Friday night, sex, what to do on Saturday night, sex- well you get the drift. And those dilemmas of youth and its fight for recognition as presented through the main male characters, Sonny and Duane, are in McMurtry's hands well thought out and, at times, poignant. The attention to detail that McMurtry is noted for is on full display in the interplay between the “jock” students (Duane), the nerds (Sonny, kinda) and the “in” crowd (Jacy). High school football, the whys and wherefores of the high school classroom and the sheer fight to find one's own identity in this mix all contribute to a very strong trip “down memory lane” for this watcher.
From my own personal experience I know how tough it was to grow up in the 1950's (the later part) and it is good to see that there are indeed some universal ailments that are common, like those mentioned above, to the “tribal community” called youth in America. Moreover, watch this movie because it also has a few things to say about the adults, especially Sonny's lover, the older woman and the football coach's wife Ruth (played by Cloris Leachman in a mostly understated but powerful role), and their dilemmas as well. Damn, McMurtry is singing my song here.
The film version of this book strongly evokes visually the points that McMurtry tries to make in the book. It helps that he was the screenwriter in this effort. Fine performances were turned in by the young Timothy Bottoms, who story is more central in the movie than in the book. Jeff Bridges, at the start of his illustrious career, is tailor-made for these "bad", misunderstood man/boy roles (see his role as Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts) and who gets less play here than in Texasville. And Cybil Sheppard as, frankly, a very “hot”, sex-crazed (maybe), high school teaser as the object of Sonny and Duane's attentions (and of a fierce rivalry for her “attentions”). Also a very fine old cowboy, symbolic dying Old West performance by Ben Johnson. Also by Cloris Leachman as, the above-mentioned, neglected abused dish rag of a coach’s wife and as Sonny's genteel influence, older woman lover. And all in black and white to highlight the dusty, main street is the only street, small Texas town grit and boom-bust oil patch ambience. This is high plebeian art.
DVD Review
The Last Picture Show, written by Larry McMurtry, starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybil Sheppard, directed by Peter Bogdanovich, 1971
Having just recently re-watched this great movie and after having kind of panned its sequel, Texasville (see post dated August 14, 2010), for no other reason (although there were more) that I liked the coming-of-age story of Last Picture better than the more recently experienced mid-life crisis (mine, and Duane’s) of Texasville I want to expand a little on the movie. A couple of years ago I gave it a few lines as an addendum to a review of Larry McMurtry’s book. Some of the points made there apply to both works, some to the film itself, especially in light of Jeff Bridge’s recent (2010) Oscar-winning performance in Crazy Hearts as Bad Blake-basically Last Picture’s Duane at 57.
****
There has been no shortage of coming of age stories in modern American literature. The late J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is merely the most famous and probably widely known of the genre. Here Larry McMurtry, the Texas bibliophile, Old West aficionado and flea market pack rat gives us his take on growing up absurd in a faded, dust-blown, one-horse (and one movie theater) semi-boom (and bust)town Texas during the Korean War era in the early 1950's with his central cast of Duane, Sonny and the femme fatale, Jacy.
Although the locale is different from Catcher in the Rye, the issues raised by the teenagers who drive the stories and those of their perplexed and clueless parents are the same. And what do those issues entail? Sex, the meaning of existence, sex, what to do on Friday night, sex, what to do on Saturday night, sex- well you get the drift. And those dilemmas of youth and its fight for recognition as presented through the main male characters, Sonny and Duane, are in McMurtry's hands well thought out and, at times, poignant. The attention to detail that McMurtry is noted for is on full display in the interplay between the “jock” students (Duane), the nerds (Sonny, kinda) and the “in” crowd (Jacy). High school football, the whys and wherefores of the high school classroom and the sheer fight to find one's own identity in this mix all contribute to a very strong trip “down memory lane” for this watcher.
From my own personal experience I know how tough it was to grow up in the 1950's (the later part) and it is good to see that there are indeed some universal ailments that are common, like those mentioned above, to the “tribal community” called youth in America. Moreover, watch this movie because it also has a few things to say about the adults, especially Sonny's lover, the older woman and the football coach's wife Ruth (played by Cloris Leachman in a mostly understated but powerful role), and their dilemmas as well. Damn, McMurtry is singing my song here.
The film version of this book strongly evokes visually the points that McMurtry tries to make in the book. It helps that he was the screenwriter in this effort. Fine performances were turned in by the young Timothy Bottoms, who story is more central in the movie than in the book. Jeff Bridges, at the start of his illustrious career, is tailor-made for these "bad", misunderstood man/boy roles (see his role as Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts) and who gets less play here than in Texasville. And Cybil Sheppard as, frankly, a very “hot”, sex-crazed (maybe), high school teaser as the object of Sonny and Duane's attentions (and of a fierce rivalry for her “attentions”). Also a very fine old cowboy, symbolic dying Old West performance by Ben Johnson. Also by Cloris Leachman as, the above-mentioned, neglected abused dish rag of a coach’s wife and as Sonny's genteel influence, older woman lover. And all in black and white to highlight the dusty, main street is the only street, small Texas town grit and boom-bust oil patch ambience. This is high plebeian art.
Friday, July 30, 2010
*The Last Waltz- The Never-Ending Review Tour-Coming Of Age, Period- Oldies But Goodies- An Encore
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Aretha Franklin performing her classic Chain Of Fools.
CD Review
Oldies But Goodies, Volume Thirteen, Original Sound Record Co., 1993
Note: The term “last waltz” used in the headline is used here as a simple expression of the truth. Just when I thought I had completed this “Oldies But Goodies” series at Volume Ten I now find that this is a fifteen, fifteen count ‘em, volume series. Therefore I am whipping off these last five in one day and be done with it. After all how much can we rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in these compilations. How many times can one read about wallflowers, sighs, certain shes (or hes), the moonlight of high school dances (if there was any) and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. Bastante! Enough!
******
I have been doing a series of commentaries elsewhere on another site on my coming of political age in the early 1960s, but here when I am writing about musical influences I am just speaking of my coming of age, period, which was not necessarily the same thing. No question that those of us who came of age in the 1950s are truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents, please.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that your parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.
Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.
But what about the now, seeming mandatory to ask, inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song that seems to be included in each CD compilation? The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumbly-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar). Here the classic There Goes My Baby fills the bill. Hey, I did like this one, especially the soulful timing. And, yes, I know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?
**********
Aretha Franklin - Chain Of Fools lyrics
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Five long years I thought you were my man
But I found out I'm just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Every chain has got a weak link
I might be weak child, but I'll give you strength
You told me to leave you alone
My father said come on home
My doctor said take it easy
Whole bunch of lovin is much too strong
I'm added to your chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain,
Chain, chain of fools
One of these mornings the chain is gonna break
But up until then, yeah, I'm gonna take all I can take
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
CD Review
Oldies But Goodies, Volume Thirteen, Original Sound Record Co., 1993
Note: The term “last waltz” used in the headline is used here as a simple expression of the truth. Just when I thought I had completed this “Oldies But Goodies” series at Volume Ten I now find that this is a fifteen, fifteen count ‘em, volume series. Therefore I am whipping off these last five in one day and be done with it. After all how much can we rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in these compilations. How many times can one read about wallflowers, sighs, certain shes (or hes), the moonlight of high school dances (if there was any) and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. Bastante! Enough!
******
I have been doing a series of commentaries elsewhere on another site on my coming of political age in the early 1960s, but here when I am writing about musical influences I am just speaking of my coming of age, period, which was not necessarily the same thing. No question that those of us who came of age in the 1950s are truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents, please.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that your parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.
Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.
But what about the now, seeming mandatory to ask, inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song that seems to be included in each CD compilation? The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumbly-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, asked a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar). Here the classic There Goes My Baby fills the bill. Hey, I did like this one, especially the soulful timing. And, yes, I know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?
**********
Aretha Franklin - Chain Of Fools lyrics
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Five long years I thought you were my man
But I found out I'm just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Every chain has got a weak link
I might be weak child, but I'll give you strength
You told me to leave you alone
My father said come on home
My doctor said take it easy
Whole bunch of lovin is much too strong
I'm added to your chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain,
Chain, chain of fools
One of these mornings the chain is gonna break
But up until then, yeah, I'm gonna take all I can take
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
Thursday, July 15, 2010
*Not Ready For Prime Time Class Struggle, High School Class Struggle That Is-Jerry Lee Lewis' "High School Confidential"
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing his classic, High School Confidential.
Markin comment:
The devil made me do it, made me do this post. Otherwise there is not rational reason to explain it. Okay?
Jerry Lee Lewis - High School Confidential lyrics
You better open up honey its your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everbody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Solo Time!
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Well Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Markin comment:
The devil made me do it, made me do this post. Otherwise there is not rational reason to explain it. Okay?
Jerry Lee Lewis - High School Confidential lyrics
You better open up honey its your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everbody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Solo Time!
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Well Everybodys hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Thursday, July 01, 2010
*Coming Of Age In The 1950s, Period- Oldies But Goodies - An Encore
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Betty Everett performing here classic rock number,"It's In His Kiss". Oh, ya.
CD Review
Oldies But Goodies, Volume Three, Original Sound Record Co., 1987
I have been doing a series of commentaries elsewhere on another site on my coming of political age in the early 1960s, but here when I am writing about musical influences I am just speaking of my coming of age, period, which was not necessarily the same thing. No question that those of us who came of age in the 1950s are truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents, please.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that your parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.
Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.
So what still sounds good on this CD compilation to a current AARPer and, and perhaps some of his fellows who comprise the demographic that such a 1950s compilation “speak” to. Of course, Come Go With Me by the Dell Vikings, Betty Everett’s It’s In His Kiss and the savage drum line of Frankie Ford’s Sea Cruise. But what about Jerry Butler’s gospel-tinged For Your Precious Love? Yes, I know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven that you didn’t destroy your partner's shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for she) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?
************
It's In His Kiss
Does he love me, I wanna know
How can I tell if he loves me so
Is it in his eyes, oh no you'll be deceived
Is it in his eyes, oh no he'll make believe
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh yeah
Or is it in his face, oh no it's just his charm
In his warm embrace, oh no that's just his arm
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh it's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh-oh
Kiss him and squeeze him tight
And find out what you wanna know
If it's love, if it really is
It's there in his kiss
How 'bout the way he acts, oh no that's not the way
And you're not listening to all I say
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss, that's where it is
Oh yeah it's in his kiss, that's where it is
Oh-oh, kiss him and squeeze him tight
And find out what you wanna know
If it's love, if it really is
It's there in his kiss
How 'bout the way he acts, oh no that's not the way
And you're not listening to all I say
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh yeah it's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh it's in his kiss
CD Review
Oldies But Goodies, Volume Three, Original Sound Record Co., 1987
I have been doing a series of commentaries elsewhere on another site on my coming of political age in the early 1960s, but here when I am writing about musical influences I am just speaking of my coming of age, period, which was not necessarily the same thing. No question that those of us who came of age in the 1950s are truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents, please.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all music that your parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.
Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. And, here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.
So what still sounds good on this CD compilation to a current AARPer and, and perhaps some of his fellows who comprise the demographic that such a 1950s compilation “speak” to. Of course, Come Go With Me by the Dell Vikings, Betty Everett’s It’s In His Kiss and the savage drum line of Frankie Ford’s Sea Cruise. But what about Jerry Butler’s gospel-tinged For Your Precious Love? Yes, I know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven that you didn’t destroy your partner's shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for she) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?
************
It's In His Kiss
Does he love me, I wanna know
How can I tell if he loves me so
Is it in his eyes, oh no you'll be deceived
Is it in his eyes, oh no he'll make believe
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh yeah
Or is it in his face, oh no it's just his charm
In his warm embrace, oh no that's just his arm
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh it's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh-oh
Kiss him and squeeze him tight
And find out what you wanna know
If it's love, if it really is
It's there in his kiss
How 'bout the way he acts, oh no that's not the way
And you're not listening to all I say
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss, that's where it is
Oh yeah it's in his kiss, that's where it is
Oh-oh, kiss him and squeeze him tight
And find out what you wanna know
If it's love, if it really is
It's there in his kiss
How 'bout the way he acts, oh no that's not the way
And you're not listening to all I say
If you wanna know, if he loves you so
It's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh yeah it's in his kiss
That's where it is, oh it's in his kiss
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