In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Out In The Adventure Car Hop Night - A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Dubs performing the classic Could This Be Magic? to set the mood for this piece.

In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Out In The Adventure Car Hop Night - A CD Review

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1957: Still Rockin’, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1988

Now 1957 was a good year for rock, for "boss" cars, and for car hops if you could keep them, at least that was what some of the older guys told me later. In 1957 my drive-in restaurant experiences were limited to, when we had a car, a working car in our family which was an iffy proposition at best, sitting in the back seat of some beat up sedan waiting during the daytime (the night belonged to the teens and no self-respecting or smart parent would bring tender children to such a place at night) for some cold plastic hamburger with fries. Jesus.

But the music was on fire as the breakout of the previous couple of years hit the pre-teen audience that was just as starved for its own not parent-seal-of-approval music as the older kids. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and a ton of other talent was hitting the airwaves so that if you tired of hearing one song after the one thousandth consecutive playing you could move right on.

In this The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era series some years, I believe reflecting banner years, have two CDs dedicated to the greatest hits for that year. For 1957, which has the magic two, I think that the other 1957 CD is a bit better but this one covers the rest of what should have been preserved. Stick outs here include Chuck Berry’s Rock & Roll Music (Christ, he had about ten hits in those years and most of them still crank up the teen-memory dark night air with their electricity); The Platters’ classic last dance, school dance (oh, please, please save that last dance for me certain she that I have eyed until my eyes got sore all night, and she, certain she, peeked at me too); Little Richard’s Jenny, Jenny (another guy who had a ton of hit in a short period, although they haven't worn as well as Chuck's); and Fats Domino’s Blue Monday (yah, back to school days Monday blahs, except for Monday morning boys' "lav" bragging rights if that certain she I just mentioned really did mean to look my way for that last dance, otherwise why have a Monday anyway).

Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- Classic Rock: 1966: Shakin’ All Over- “You Are On The Bus Or Off The Bus”- The Transformation Of “Foul-Mouth” Phil Into “Far-Out” Phil- With Mad Writer Ken Kesey And His Merry Pranksters In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic Sweet Talkin’ Guy

CD Review

Classic Rock: 1966: Shakin’ All Over, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1998

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the pieces of artwork that graces each CD in this series. In this case, this 1966 case, the then almost ubiquitous merry prankster-edged converted yellow brick road school bus, complete with assorted vagabond minstrel/ road warrior/ah, hippies, that “ruled” the mid-1960s highway and by-ways in search of the great American freedom night. We never found it in the end, but the search was worth it then, and still worth it now.
*****
A rickety, ticky-tack, bounce over every bump in the road to high heaven, gear-shrieking school bus. But not just any yellow brick road school bus that you rode to various educationally good for you locations like movie houses, half yawn, science museums, yawn, art museums, yawn, yawn, or wind-wept picnic areas for some fool weenie roast, two yawns there too, when you were a school kid. And certainly not your hour to get home daily grind school bus, complete with surly driver (male or female, although truth to tell the females were worst since they acted just like your mother, and maybe were acting on orders from her) that got you through K-12 in one piece, and you even got to not notice the bounces to high heaven over every bump of burp in the road. No, my friends, my comrades, my brethren this is god’s own bus commandeered to navigate the highways and by-ways of the 1960s come flame or flash-out.

Yes, it is rickety, and all those other descriptive words mentioned above in regard to school day buses. That is the nature of such ill-meant mechanical contraptions after all. But this one is custom-ordered, no, maybe that is the wrong way to put it, this is “karma” ordered to take a motley crew of free-spirits on the roads to seek a “newer world,” to seek the meaning of what one persistent blogger on the subject has described as "the search for the great blue-pink American Western night."

Naturally to keep its first purpose intact this heaven-bound vehicle is left with its mustard yellow body surface underneath but over that primer the surface has been transformed by generations (generations here signifying not twenty-year cycles but trips west, and east) of, well, folk art, said folk art being heavily weighted toward graffiti, toward psychedelic day-glo hotpinkorangelemonlime splashes and zodiacally meaningful symbols. And the interior. Most of those hardback seats that captured every bounce of childhood have been ripped out and discarded to who knows where and replaced by mattresses, many layers of mattresses for this bus is not merely for travel but for home. To complete the “homey” effect there are stored, helter-skelter, in the back coolers, assorted pots and pans, mismatched dishware, nobody’s idea of the family heirloom china, boxes of dried foods and condiments, duffle bags full of clothes, clean and unclean, blankets, sheets, and pillows, again clean and unclean.

Let’s put it this way, if someone wants to make a family hell-broth stew there is nothing in the way to stop them. But also know this, and know it now, as we start to focus on this journey that food, the preparation of food, and the desire, except in the wee hours when the body craves something inside, is a very distant concern for these “campers.” If food is what you desired in the foreboding 1960s be-bop night take a cruise ship to nowhere or a train (if you can find one), some southern pacific, great northern, union pacific, and work out your dilemma in the dining car. Of course, no heaven-send, merry prankster-ish yellow brick road school bus would be complete without a high-grade stereo system to blast the now obligatory “acid rock” coming through the radiator practically, although just now, as a goof, it has to be a goof, right, one can hear Nancy Sinatra, christ, Frank’s daughter how square is that, churning out These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.

And the driver. No, not mother-sent, mother-agent, old Mrs. Henderson, who prattled on about keep in your seats and be quiet while she is driving (maybe that, subconsciously, is why the seats were ripped out long ago on the very first “voyage” west). No way, but a very, very close imitation of the god-like prince-driver of the road, the "on the road” pioneer, Neal Cassady, shifting those gears very gently but also very sure-handedly so no one notices those bumps (or else is so stoned, drug or music stoned, that those things pass like so much wind). His name: Cruising Casey (real name, Charles Kendall, Harverford College Class of ’64, but just this minute, Cruising Casey, mad man searching for the great American be-bop night under the extreme influence of one Ken Kesey, the max-daddy mad man of the great search just then). And just now over that jerry-rigged big boom sound system, again as if to mock the newer world abrewin’ The Vogues’ Five O’ Clock World.

And the passengers. Well, no one is exactly sure, as the bus approaches the outskirts of Denver, because this is strictly a revolving cast of characters depending on who was hitchhiking on that desolate back road State Route 5 in Iowa, or County Road 16 in Nebraska, and desperately needed to be picked up, or face time, and not nice time with a buzz on, in some small town pokey. Or it might depend on who decided to pull up stakes at some outback campsite and get on the bus for a spell, and decide if they were, or were not, on the bus. After all even all-day highs, all-night sex, and 24/7 just hanging around listening to the music, especially when you are ready to scratch a blackboard over the selections like the one on now, James and Bobby Purify’s I’m Your Puppet, is not for everyone.

We do know for sure that Casey is driving, and still driving effortlessly so the harsh realities of his massive drug intake have not hit yet, or maybe he really is superman. And, well, that the “leader” here is Captain Crunch since it is “his” bus paid for out of some murky deal, probably a youthful drug deal, (real name, Samuel Jackman, Columbia, Class of 1958, who long ago gave up searching, searching for anything, and just hooked into the idea of "taking the ride"), Mustang Sally (Susan Stein, Michigan, Class of 1959, ditto on the searching thing), his girlfriend, (although not exclusively, not exclusively by her choice , not his, and he is not happy about it for lots of reasons which need not detain us here). Most of the rest of the “passengers” have monikers like Silver City Slim, Luscious Lois (and she really is), Penny Pot (guess why), Moon Man, Flash Gordon (from out in space somewhere, literally, as he tells it), Denver Dennis (from New York City, go figure), and the like. They also have real names that indicate that they are from somewhere that has nothing to do with public housing projects, ghettos or barrios. And they are also, or almost all are, twenty-somethings that have some highly-rated college years after their names, graduated or not). And they are all either searching or, like the Captain, at a stage where they are just hooked into taking the ride.

One young man, however, sticks out, well, not sticks out, since he is dressed in de rigeur bell-bottomed blue jeans, olive green World War II surplus army jacket (against the mountain colds, smart boy), Chuck Taylor sneakers, long, flowing hair and beard (well, wisp of a beard) and on his head a rakish tam just to be a little different, “Far Out” Phil (real name Phillip Larkin, North Adamsville High School Class of 1964). And why Far Out sticks out is not only that he has no college year after his name, for one thing, but more importantly, that he is nothing but a old-time working class neighborhood corner boy from in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor back in North Adamsville, a close-by suburb of Boston.

Of course then Far Out Phil was known, and rightly so as any girl, self-respecting or not, could tell you as “Foul-Mouth” Phil, the world champion swearer of the 1960s North Adamsville (and Adamsville Beach) be-bop night. And right now Far Out, having just ingested a capsule of some illegal substance (not LSD, probably mescaline) is talking to Luscious Lois, talking up a storm without one swear word in use, and she is listening, gleam in her eye listening, as ironically, perhaps, The Chiffons Sweet Talkin’ Guy is beaming forth out of his little battery-powered transistor radio (look it up on Wikipedia if you don’t know about primitive musical technology) that he has carried with him since junior high school. The winds of change do shift, do shift indeed.

Hats Off To 50 for The North Adamsville Class Of ’61- Ouch!-With The Catholic Workers’ Dorothy Day In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing his teen tear-jerker, Teen Angel to set the mood for this post.

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

Recently I have been getting a stream of “guestbook” and “add to friends” visits from members of the North Adamsville Class of 1961 at my profile page here. I am not altogether sure why this is so since the members of this class would have been preparing to go out the door and entering the “New Frontier” (although that word was not widely in usage at the time even though we all were, at least those of us who had a strain of Kennedy Irish Catholic brethren in us and they were legion in this old suburban Boston working-class stronghold, charter members) while I was entering the sophomore class at North from Adamsville Central Junior High (now Middle School). The only thing that I can think of, off-hand, which connects us, is that those members and I are marking the same year anniversaries, their 50th anniversary graduation from North and my 50th from one of the feeder junior high schools.

Moreover I am befuddled by the get on my bandwagon response from those lofty and fear-inducing now senior seniors since back in day, back in the real light of day back in the day, those of us who entered North in 1961 were seen as, used as, or forgotten as mere sophomores and therefore subject to the whims of any upperclassmen (or women) who needed a convenient mat to wipe their shoes on, literally at times. Now I am not one to harbor a grudge, not a fifty years later grudge anyway, but here are a few things that make me wonder if maybe those now senior seniors are not a bit, well, forgetful.

On Day One, at freshman/sophomore orientation (some students had entered North in 1960 from another junior high school that only had room for seventh and eighth-graders and then pushed them out in the hard, cruel high school social world, “the bigs,” before their time, their knowing what was what real world time), it was made very clear to us freshmen/sophomores by said seniors who “guided” us around the school that we were only, boys or girls as the case may have been, to use certain “designated” lavatories under penalties of extreme harassment, abuse, and possible physical duress. Needless to say the second floor boys’ lav, the one that was out back, had several huge windows to release the smoke from quick between classes cigarettes, and was the repository of local folklore about who was “hot,” who was not, and, most importantly, importantly to the seniors anyway, who was “doing it,” or could be coaxed into “doing it.” Of course that meant the subject was girls in all those categories of hotness and doing-ness and no freshmen/sophomore wimp boys need apply.

This I do know. I will never forget the time one Homer Bigelow, by mistake no question, because Homer was just stupid enough to do this, walked into the second floor boys’ lav on some dismal Monday morning before school when the talk was heated about who "did," or did not do what, or some other lies or half-lies over the weekend, just to “take a leak.” Two minutes later, maybe less, one Homer Bigelow, Class of 1964, was “escorted” by Jack Winn and Bill Callahan, Class of 1961, minus his pants (in other words, in his underwear) through the second floor corridor, down the back stairway and out in the frosty November day for his troubles. Of course, when some twerp named Joe Reilly, Class of 1967, tried that same stunt, tried using the second floor boys’ lav stunt that is, a few years later one Francis X. Riley and one Peter Paul Markin, both members in good standing of the Class of 1964, “escorted" said victim minus his pants (in other words, in his underwear) out that same second floor corridor and down that same back stairway and out into the not so cold April morning (see we were more “humane” than those savage ‘61ers).

And, christ, the senior girls were worst. See, the tradition, meaning that the practice went on so far back nobody remembered when it started, was that they, junior and senior girls, had their own special “lounge” to “make their faces,” or whatever the term was in use then to look school day schoolgirl beautiful and get the guys so tongue-tied and “hopped-up” that, of course, the guys would jump at the chance to take them out on weekend dates and spend dough (allowance dough, or hard shoulder-to-the-wheel working part-time dough, it did not matter as long as it was there to be spent). Of course, just like the guys the place was useful for a quick “puff” (strictly tobacco cigarettes in those days, I think) out those huge back hall windows, and, most importantly, on Monday mornings for who was “cute” (read: sexy), who was not, who tried every trick in the book to get who to “do it,” who did or didn’t, and other assorted lies and half-lies.

Naturally, in a school with a few hundred students, some girl, some non-junior or senior girl, in this case Penny Smith, by mistake I am sure because Penny was nothing but a whiz at Math and English, walked in one morning (I don’t remember the day of the week and that is not important here because, as I found out later, the girls talked every morning before school about who was cute, and who was not, not just on Monday morning) because she desperately needed to use the bathroom. No problem, Penny. Except that poor Penny, Class of 1964 Math and English whiz or not, was locked into a bathroom stall for most of the day before someone took pity on her and let her out. No guy would ever do anything so cruel. Needless to say when Penny’s day came and some unsuspecting underclass woman, Bessie Kiley, made a similar “error” Penny became the “high sheriff" of the bathroom stalls and locked her in. I think, and someone can refresh my memory on this, Bessie was in that stall all day and only got out when the janitress was cleaning up at the end of the day.

I won’t even go into the details of the other “off-limits” first floor boys’ lav where the “bikies, bad-ass corner boys, and their slutty “mamas” hung out across from the woodworking shop (christ, let’s call it a mens’ lav-some of those guys were maybe twenty-somethings, or maybe were getting ready to go on Social Security or something like that). The hoary story there was even regular-guy second floor corner boy seniors and flinty girls’ lounge girls didn’t go near that place, period. The legend was that once, in the dead-of-nights early 1950s some square boy, or anyway no be-bop boy, tried to go in, again to “take a leak” and for his efforts got thrown through one of those wood-working shop windows for his troubles.

But rigid class segregation on the bathroom question was maybe the least of it. At every school dance, whether you were cute or not for a boy, schoolgirl beautiful or not for a girl, we did all the leg work to get the place in order for the big Saturday night school dance and then were not invited. Well not invited until junior year when, of course, every thing was different. Or at the Thanksgiving rally we were used as the "platform” on which the football team stood, literally. (There was a sophomore exception here for exceptional sophomore football players a couple of them who, as we later found out with a couple of winning seasons, could “eat” most of the senior boys for lunch, maybe even a couple of those bad-ass corner boys down in wood-working).

Ya, I could spill the beans on plenty of injustices, including when a couple of guys, maybe non-Irish Protestant guys for all I know, but definitely 1961 seniors, waylaid me and threw me in the showers in the boys’ gym locker room just because they heard that I had gone to a nuclear disarmament demonstration (a small one, by the way) on Boston Common sponsored by the Catholic Worker movement (you know, Dorothy Day and the social gospel message that appealed to me then and that I have written about elsewhere). They called me a Bolshevik and they damn well knew I wasn’t one, then. They said Coach Doyle (the football coach) sent them.But see, that was then and now we are all together under the big Raider red tent oneness. At least long enough to wish the North Adamsville Class of 1961 well, except maybe those crazy guys who threw me in the showers.

....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

*Frankie’s North Adamsville Fourth of July-For Arlene, North Adamsville Class Of 1965

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Fourth of July (Independence Day) celebrations.

Frankie, Frankie Riley, couldn’t quite remember exactly when he heard his first Fourth of July fire-cracker, or seen and heard his first fireworks for that matter. He got it all mixed and confused together with his recollections of two-bit carnival times, which also included, at least sometimes, setting off fire-crackers or fireworks displays. But it must have been early, very early, in his life at a time when he, and his mother and father and two brothers, two brothers just then, would visit his grandparents’ house on the Fourth. And the beauty of where those grandparents lived was that it was a bee-line directly across the street from Welcome Young Field on Sagamore Street. Sagamore Street of now blessed memory.

One thing Frankie was sure of though as he thought about Sagamore Street days was that he was going to need help in relating the details of what happened because, frankly, he was confused and mixed up about more than just when he first saw and heard fire-crackers and fireworks displays. But for just this moment he was going to fly on his own. And while depending on his own memories, such as they were, he also knew, knew, flat-out what he wasn’t going to be talking about. Nix, to the tattoo of marching drums, some yankee doodle threesome all bed-sheet patched up from wounds suffered at the hands of the bloody British but still carrying, carrying proudly, the brand new American flag all aflutter, and tattooing that beat up drum and playing the fife to kingdom come. That was standard fare at these Fourth celebrations but that battered patriot thing was not his Fourth, although he had to admit it might have been somebody’s.

No also to an overblown description of some Hatch Shell Fourth, streams of humanity stretched out as far as the eye could see along the Charles River, sweating in the July suns, searching for cool, for water, for shade against the madness and waiting, patiently or impatiently as the case may have been, for the night cools, and the big boom symphony Overture of 1812 finale. Again, frankly, that was not his thing, although he knew just by the numbers that it was certainly somebody else’s. And while he was at it he would not go on and on about the too quickly over fireworks displays the directly succeeded that big boom overture. All of that, collectively, was too much noise, sweat, heat, swelter, and just plain crowdedness for what he wanted to remember about the Fourth. Instead he wanted to lower the temperature a little, lower the noise more, and lessen the logistics, the picnic basket, cooler, blankets, umbrellas, child’s toys logistics, and return to those Sagamore streets of his 1950s youth when Welcome Young Field in North Adamsville’s Atlantic section (why it was called that particular name he never really did get except Sagamore Street Grandma Riley always called it one-horse Atlantic so it had to mean something) was the center of the universe, and if not, it should have been.

Frankie knew that, probably like in your neighborhood in the old days, every year in late June the local older guys, mainly guys from the Dublin Grille and some scattered fathers, including Joseph Riley, Senior, Frankie's father and denizen of the Dublin Grille, would put together a kitty, collecting contributions and seeking donations from local merchants to put together a little “time” for the kids on the 4th of July. Now this Dublin Grille was the favored watering hole (and maybe the only one close enough to be able to “drop in for glass” and also be able to walk home afterwards when that glass turned into glasses) for all the working class fathers in the neighborhood. And nothing but a regular hang-out for all the legions of single Irish guys who were still living at home with dear, sweet mother. Said mother who fed (and fed on time), clothed, darned socks, holy socks worn out from hard living on the Welcome Young softball field, and whatnot for her son (or, more rarely, sons) who was too afraid of woman, or a woman’s scorn at late night Dublin Grille antics, to move out into the great big world. But come late June they, the fathers and occasional older brothers, were kings among men as they strong-armed neighbors and merchants alike for dough and goods.

What Frankie was not clear on (and he is looking for help here) was the details of the organization of this extravaganza, how the money was gathered, what merchant provided what goods, where did the lads get the various Fourth fixings. However he could surely speak to the results. As these things go it was pretty straight forward, you know; foot races of varying lengths for various age groups, baby contests, beauty contests, some sort of parade, pony rides and so forth. But that is only the frame. Here is the real story of the day. Here is what any self-respecting kid lived and died for that day.

Tonic (you know, soda, pop) and ice cream. And not just one tonic or one ice cream but as much as you could hoard. Twice during the day (Frankie thought maybe about 10:00AM and 1:00PM) there would be what one can only describe as a free-for-all as everybody scrambled to get as many bottles of tonic (you know, soda) and cups of ice cream as they could handle. Here is the secret to the success that Frankie’s older brothers, Timmy and Tommy, and he had in grabbing much more than their fair share of the bounty. Go back to that part about where Grandma and Grandpa lived. Ya, right on the corner of Welcome Young Field on Sagamore Street. So, the trio would sprint with one load of goods over to their house and then go back for more until they had filled up the back-door refrigerator.

Just thinking about it now Frankie thought, “Boy that was work, as we panted away, bottles clanking in our pockets, ice cream cups clutched in every hand.” But then, work completed, they could savor their one tonic (read: soda) and one ice cream cup that they showed for public consumption just like the nice boys and girls. There were other sounds of the day like the cheering for your friends in the foot races, or other contests, the panting and the hee-haws of the ponies. As the sun went down it went down to the strains of some local pick-up band of the era in the tennis court as the dancing started. But that was adult time. Our time was to think about our day's work, our hoard and the next day's tonic and ice cream. Ah....

Frankie’s call for remembrance help was heeded. Below is the traffic, mostly unedited, giving other information about those Atlantic Fourth of July celebrations.

Richard Mackey:

Frankie it was, like you said, organized by the guys at the Dublin Grille, guys like my father and yours, and my older brother, Jimmy, in his thirties at the time, who, as you also said, was afraid to go out in the world and lived at home forever with dear, sweet mother (and she was sweet, too sweet). He never married, never missed a softball game, never had a dirty, unsewed sock, or missed a free glass of beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon, if you remember that brand). Jimmy and his buddies, his softball buddies, did a lot of the leg work when he was younger and then they kind of took over the show as the older guys, like my father and yours, had too much to do or something and handed it over to them.

They had a truck, maybe rented or maybe from one of the grocery stores, with a loud speaker that would go up and down the streets and had some of the older kid (15 or 16 years old ) going door to door for donations. I don’t know about the strong-arming part, but maybe. Probably not the neighborhood families so much as the merchants. Remember those were hard-nosed corner boys days and Jimmy was a serious corner boy when things got tight. I know Jimmy used to “set up” his buddies a lot during that collecting time and he never worked all that much.

The day [Fourth of July] started at around 8:00 am and ended with the talent show in the tennis court. I think Mr. Burke won every year that I can remember for his "crazy legs dancing.” Joe Gill, who worked at Estrella’s Market on Newbury Ave, was part of the group that set the whole celebration up. He was a friend of Jimmy’s as well so maybe that is where they got the tonic and ice cream from. The last one I remember was around 1975, because I had my oldest son there.

Frankie Riley:

That Joe Gill Richard Mackey mentioned lived, with his dear sweet Irish-brogued mother, forever, never married, never missed a softball game, never had a dirty, unsewed sock, and never missed a free beer (Knickerbocker, if you remember that brand) directly across the street from my grandparents, Daniel and Anna Riley, on Sagamore Street. That house is the place where we stashed our loot (the tonic and ice cream). Joe, when he worked for Estrella's, would also take my grandfather, disabled from a stroke and a retired North Adamsville fireman, riding around with him when he delivered orders. My grandfather was a, to be kind, difficult man to deal with so Joe must have had some charm.

Sticky Fingers McGee:

The earliest recollection I have of the July 4th festivities at Young Field was when I returned to Atlantic in July 1945, when I was six, after being away for a couple years. I seem to remember that they had foot races and other activities. I remember running one of the races which was close between me and another kid, Spider Jones. They declared Spider the winner, but I threw a fit. Nothing big, just a little shoving, no fists or anything like that. It was just a race, okay. I still think that I won that race and if they had had proper equipment like a camera for photo finishes at the finish line I could have proved that I won. After writing that last thing I guess I still haven’t yet learned to take a loss gracefully but like I said the camera would not have lied.

Later, in the 50's maybe, I remember hearing a girl who sang like Theresa "Tessie" Brewer at the Young Field tennis courts. I think somebody said she was the sister of one Joseph “Babe” Baldwin (Class of 1958) who later became one of North's best all-round athletes. That's all I remember of the Atlantic 4th celebrations, and I'm not totally sure of the accuracy of those memories. The years continue to cloud some memories.

Frank Riley:

Sticky, glad to see you haven’t mellowed with age, at least according to fellow class-mate Jimmy Callahan. Jimmy says hello and to tell you that Spider Jones had you by a mile in that race. He was right at the finish line when you exploded. (He says you did punch Spider, by the way). As for the forget memories part we all know that well-traveled path. Although your memory for some flea-bitten thirty-yard dash for some crumb-bum dollar prize gives me pause on that one.

Irene Devlin:

Hi

Back in the 50's the first 9 1/2 years of my life was on the top floor of a three-decker on Sagamore St., and Welcome Young was were we spent every day. We all waited for the Fourth. Richard [Mackey]is right about the truck. My grandfather, George Kelley, and my uncles would ride on the back of the flatbed truck going up and down the streets playing their musical instruments while others collected donations. We would throw change to the people collecting. On the big day we would line up early in the morning with our costumes on. Buddy Dunne and Elliot Thompson had a lot to do with getting everything together along with a lot of the guys from the Dublin Grille. On our way down Sagamore Street from Newbury Ave heading to Welcome Young everyone would get a shiny quarter for marching. I do remember going to Harry’s Variety Store (later owned by my Uncle Harry Kelley) for free ice cream and "tonic."

The rest of the day would be filled with games and shows, and yes the tennis court would be converted to a stage for the day and night activities.

Richard, didn't you live on the second floor of the Parker's Sagamore Street house?
******

A Day In The Life Of A Member Of The Generation Of '68-For Mary, Class Of 1964 Somewhere

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia entry for the "Summer Of Love", 1967.

"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.

He was scared, Billy was scared, Billy Bradley well known member of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 was scared, as he entered the foyer of the North Adamsville Holiday Inn for what was to be his class’ 5th reunion on this 1969 November weekend, this Thanksgiving Saturday night. Yes, he reflected, those had been his glory days, those days from 1961 to 1964 when he had been the captain of the billiards team three years running. A time then when he could have had every good-looking, every interesting girl that he wanted, and, well, whatever else he wanted from the girls who hung around Joe’s Billiard Parlor after school during the season, and some of them after the season as well.

Of course in those glory days when everyone in town, and other places too, bled raider red the football players, even the dinks, had first dibs on the girls. But after that, well after that, it was open season and the girls, the interesting girls, found their way to Joe’s Billiard Parlor. Billy had to chuckle even now as he thought about it, about those basketball bozos, those hockey hoboes, those tennis touts, those golf goofs, and those soccer scum who were clueless about why the girls didn’t flock, all a-flutter, to them and their dink sports. And in their flailing, their anger, and their clueless-ness these pseudo-jocks, en masse, in those days started spreading vicious slanders around about how Joe’s was nothing but a rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out of a pool hall. Run by a “connected” bookie, Joe, on top of all that. Like those girls, those interesting girls, knew or cared a fig, hell half a fig, about the finer distinctions, as important as they are to aficionados, between pool and billiards as they draped themselves languidly around the empty billiard tables and filled the place almost to the rafters at Joe’s. Or that Joe made book right in front of them. Ya, those geek guys were, no question, clueless.

But that was then and tonight was a whole different ballgame. See Billy, after deciding to come back and tweak a few noses at this reunion thing, started to get cold feet. Of course he blew off the tradition Thanksgiving Thursday football game between North and cross-town arch-rival Adamsville High in order not to send his classmates a telegram about his new world. Although he had not been back in those five years since graduation, he knew, knew in his heart, that the blue-collar working class ethos that had practically buried him alive back in those so-called days would still be in play, still be in play in the "us" against "them" world, and the them was the “monster” government that was intent on wreaking havoc with its giant footprint every place it could, including right this minute in Vietnam, to the cheers of the North Adamsville thems.

And they, the thems, certainly the father and mother thems would definitely not understand that Billy Bradley, a son of the blue-collar working class, a kid who started out like them, and their kids, who thankfully never went to college but straight to work, saving, mercifully saving, the old man’s wallet from extinction, went over to the other side, the “us”, and helped caused eruptions in places like New York City ( jesus, even New York City, is nothing sacred, he could hear them say snickering in the background chatter of this ill-starred reunion dinner), in Washington, D.C. and points west, Yes, he knew that story, knew it first-hand, chapter and verse, from those occasional calls back home to mother. Hell, she had led the chorus, at least the chorus about what was he going to do with his life and how was he going to use his hard fought for, and ever harped on desperately paid for, education. He would not even mention her tirades about marriage, family, and producing kids, grand kids. And, as he thought of it occasionally, maybe she led the snickers too. Yes indeed, he knew the story chapter and verse, and as well from the odd-hour telephone calls sent homeward to mother’s house threatening the usual “if-I ever-see-that-s.o.b.,” and that was just the mildly curious expression of bad vibes ready to pounce on him this night, or so he feared.

See, if you didn’t realize it before, Billy was now a vision of heaven’s own angel choir. As he looked at himself in the hotel lobby mirror he sensed that he was out of place here, and not just in the family-friendly, take a vacation to historic North Adamsville, land of late presidents, and earlier revolutionary brethren long gone and best forgotten, forgotten for what they were trying to do with that fragile democratic experiment idea they had on their minds as they civilized this green-grassed new continent, Holiday Inn scene gathered around him. Yes, unquestionably he was out of synch here with his symbol of “youth nation” faded blue jeans, his battle-scarred (Chicago 1968) World War II Army olive drab jacket, Army-Navy surplus store-purchased, his soft, velvety well-worn (and slightly smelly, sorry) moccasins that had many hitchhike miles on them, and his longish pony-tailed hair with matching unkempt beard. No his act would not play in Peoria, Adamsville’s kindred.

This is a mistake, my mistake, he said to himself and he was ready to turn around just then. But just as had made the pivot he heard a voice, “Hey, Captain Billy you old pool hall hoodlum.” And then, “Come on now don’t turn the other way on me.” Finally he recognized the voice if not the person yelling it out. “Wait a minute that’s “Thundering” Tommy Riley, ace football player, captain of the vaunted 1964 team, class president, and, in earlier times, his bosom buddy,” Billy blurred out to no one in particular. Now envision Buffalo Bill Cody although Billy was not sure if Cody was as big as Tommy, with fringed-deerskin jacket, the obligatory “youth nations” faded blue denims, some exotic roman sandals, and long straight hair, longer than Billy’s, with matched beard tooped off by a well-worn (and stained) Stenson hat. Another vision of heaven’s own, well, own something, not angels, not angels, no way. And standing right next to him, right next to him and very like heaven’s own angelic, or maybe Botticelli's versions of the angelic, or Joni Mitchell if you don’t know Botticelli’s work, was Chrissie, Chrissie McNamara, a secret long ago Billy flame, very secret, although maybe not so long ago at that.

Now Tommy and Chrissie were an “item” back in ’64, a big item. Chrissie was, among other things, other things like being an actress, a school newspaper writer, and a high-scoring ten pin bowler, head cheerleader (mainly to be around Tommy more, from what Billy had heard). But Tommy’s girl or not , head cheerleader or not, Chrissie was a fox. A fox though who had no time for billiard parlor romances, or even to step into the rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out joint where the guy who ran it “made book.” No, not pristine Chrissie. Tonight though Billy understood why he had that crush on her for she had on a shapely sarong thing and wore her hair, more blondish hair long now, very long as was now the fashion amount hipper women. The only word he could think of, newer world or not, brothers and sisters in struggle now or not, was fetching.

Tommy motioned Billy to come over and the trio greeted each other heartily. Tommy, never at a lost for words, started telling his epic saga from his football career-ending injury freshman year at State U. to his getting “religion” about the nature of the American state, the need to transform that state to a more socially useful one, and the need have people be better, much better toward each other. Yes, here was a kindred, no weekend hippie tourista. Chrissie was another matter; she seemed less sure of her place in the sun, questioned whether any change, especially disruptive change, mattered and whether maybe it was better just to try to do the best you could within the system. "Yes, Chrissie I see your point, for you anyway," Billy found himself thinking. Hell, he had “crushed” such arguments, from male or female, like so much tissue many times before but not tonight, not this Chrissie in front of him night. Ya, Billy thought it was still like that with Chrissie. Tommy and Chrissie also made it very clear as well, reflecting the new “religious” sensibilities of youth nation that they were just friends. And Billy did notice Chrissie giving him several side-glance peeks while they were talking, and he was insistently peeking right back.

After than confab ended the trio prepared themselves, or rather fortified themselves, to make the rounds together of the other classmates milling around the now somewhat crowded lobby waiting for dinner to start. This tour, this death-march tour, caught Billy feeling like he had a pit in his stomach, especially after a couple of guys started to bait them with the “hippie-dippie” taunt that was standard fare among the squares, and that he would normally shrug his shoulders at except it was here at North. Then a couple of guys from the billiards team came rushing up to him, a couple of alternates, at best, who began a play by play of the North Adamsville-Adamsville contest. No, not the recent Thanksgiving football game, as one might expect, but the 1964 senior year billiards match against the old arch-rival. Billy thought they will probably go to their graves reciting the excruciating details of that one. Move on with your lives, boys, please.

Moreover, with one exception, Janie Thompson, well two, if you count Chrissie, none of the good-looking billiard hall hanging-off-the-rafters girls, or any others that had caught his eye back then, gave him a tumble. They were there but they either didn’t recognize him, or didn’t want to. Many of them had the look, the married look that dictated eyes straight ahead, or the pregnant look (now or in the recent past) that spoke of greater concerns than giving some bearded hippie boy a tumble. Most, whether they had caught his youthful eye in the past or not, had that secure job hubby, little white picket fenced house in the real suburbs, preparing for parenthood look. Chrissie though, mercifully just then, was still giving her peeks, and Billy was right back at her.

Right then though he began talking to Janie, Janie Thompson. Now Janie had certainly blossomed out some because back in the day she was just a wallflower hanging around with a couple of beauties whom Billy had taught how to play billiards, and a couple of other things. Janie told him that she had just graduated from Radcliffe (which he had vaguely remembered she was heading to) but more importantly she had followed, followed closely, his various anti-war activities while in and around Cambridge. Well, things are looking up, or so he thought. But a closer look around, and a conference with Tommy, convinced him that this was neither his place, nor his time and that they (Billy and Janie, Tommy and Chrissie in no particular combination) better go out back and have a joint, and then blow this place. Janie, although she had never smoked before, was game, Billy was certainly game. And off they went, blowing the dust of the place off them in the process. Who was it, oh yes, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the book You Can’t Go Home Again. Billy thought he should have read that novel long before he actually did and then he would have known, known for sure, that the generation of ’68, his generation of ’68, was fated to be a remnant.

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Teen Queens’ “Eddie My Love” (1956) - A 60th Anniversary, Of Sorts- Billie's 1956 View

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 archeologists 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)

**********
Billie here, William James Bradley, if you don’t know already. To “the projects” born but you don’t need, or at least you don’t absolutely need to know that is get the drift of what I have to say here. I am here to give my take on this latest song, Eddie My Love, that just came out and that the girls are going weepy over, and the guys are saying “that a boy, Eddie.” At least that’s what the wiser guys I hang around with say when they hear the record played on the radio. Except, of course, sappy Markin, Peter Paul Markin if you don’t know, my best friend at Adamsville Elementary School (or maybe best friend, he has never told me one way or the other what it was with us from his end, but sappy as he may be at times, he is my best friend from my end) who thinks Eddie should be righteous and return to his forlorn girl. What is he kidding? Eddie keep moving wherever you are, and keep moving fast. And please, please don’t go within a mile of a post office.

Why do I hold such an opinion and what gives me the “authority”, some authority like the pope of rock and roll, or something to speak this way? Well, first off, unlike Markin, I take my rock and roll, my rock and roll lyrics seriously, hell, I have written some myself. Also I have some talent in this field and have won vocal competitions (and dance ones too), although there have been a few more I should have won. Ya, should have won but the fix was in, the fix was in big time, against project kids getting a break, a chance to make something out of the jailbreak music we are hearing. I’ll tell you about those bad breaks some time but now I am hot to straighten everybody out, even Markin, on this one. Markin pays attention to, too much attention to, the “social” end of the question, looking for some kind of teenage justice in this wicked old world when there ain’t none. Get it, Peter Paul.

Look, I can read between the lines of this story just like anybody else, any pre-teenage or teenage anybody else. Parents, my parents, Markin’s parents, Ozzie and Harriet, whoever, couldn’t get it if you gave them that Rosetta Stone they discovered to help them with old time Egyptian writing and that we read about in Mr. Barry’s class. No way. But Billie, William James Bradley, who will not let any grass grow beneath his feet is wise, very wise to the scene. Hey, it’s not rocket stuff, it’s simply the age old summer fling thing. Eddie, handsome, money in his pocket, super-charged car under his feet, gas in the tank, and an attitude that he is king of the known world, the known teenage world, sees this cutie, makes his play, they have some fun, some teenage version of adult fun for any not wise kids, school days come and he is off to his next cutie. Ya, he said he would write and, personally, I think that was a mistake. A quick “I'll be in touch,” and kiss on the cheek would have been smarter.

See Eddie, love ‘em and leave ‘em Eddie, is really a hero. What did this teen queen think was going to happen when Eddie blew into town? Love, marriage and here comes the teen queen with a baby carriage. Please. Eddie, Eddie your love ain’t got no time for that. And that old threatening to do herself in or whatever she means by “my next day might be my last,” is the oldest trick in the book, the oldest snare a guy trick that is. Ya, maybe someday when things are better, and guys don’t have that itch, that itch to move on, and maybe can settle down in one place and have plenty of dough, plenty of ambition, and the old wicked world starts taking care of its own better. Whoa… wait a minute, I’m starting to sound like Markin. Jesus, no. Eddie just keep moving, okay. Billie’s pulling for you.

***Out In The Be-Bop Night- The Push For The Great 1960s Breakout- “Harold and Maude”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) performing Where Do The Children Play?

DVD Review

Harold and Maude, Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, directed by Hal Ashby, 1971


Some films, especially coming of age films of either the political or social kind, do not age well. That is the fate of the early 1970s cult classic of sorts, Harold and Maude. This was a film that some friends of mine in Cambridge would queue up for on a weekly basis, and gladly, at one particular theater that played the film and only that film for about a year. See, that was the time of the great attempted late 1960s break-out from the confines of bourgeois society and the tracked career path by all kinds of people and Harold seemed a kindred spirit, and was then. Maude, needless to say was everybody’s grandmother dream, if only compared to harsh mother reality, and if you liked little old ladies in tennis sneakers. And you should.

The premise of the film certainly had appeal, teen angst, big time teen angst by the distraught Harold (Bud Cort) trying to, against his class background and his monster mother’s well-laid plans for his future, fight for his place in the world (or the next world in his faux fascination with death and funerals) and old age angst (happy angst, if that is not an oxymoron) by the bubbly Maude (Ruth Gordon). By the end of the film old Ruth is able to bring Bud around to seeing that life, his life, is worth living. Well, ho hum for the premise now, now that some of us are approaching old Maude’s age.

What is false here, maybe not as false as some things we have learned along the way but false nevertheless, is Maude’s aged wisdom. The truth, the bitter truth, is that the wisdom we acquired was done so in our youth and we have been living off that, chipping away at the edges, ever since. What still holds up, and holds well, is the sound track of Cat Stevens’ (now Yusuf Islam) great songs like Wild World and Where Do The Children Play? Wordsworth had it right- to be young was very heaven.
********
Where Do The Children Play? Lyrics
Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)


Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Yes, get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything.

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can't get off.

Oh, I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
'til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

***A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Adamsville South Elementary School Class Of 1958

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and the Comets performing Rock Around The Clock placed here to give a nostalgic reminder of the times, the times of our 1958 elementary school times.

Fritz Taylor, if he thought about it at all, probably would have said that he had his history hat on again like when he was a kid, that day in 2008 when out of the blue, the memory time blue, he thought about her, thought about fair Rosimund. No, before you get all set to turn to some other thing, some desperate alternate other thing, to do rather than read Fritz’s poignant little story, this is not some American Revolution founding fathers (or mothers, because old-time Abigail Adams may have been hovering in some background granite-chiseled slab grave in very old-time Adamsville cemetery while the events to be related occurred) or some bold Massachusetts abolitionist regiment out of the American Civil War 150th anniversary memory history like Fritz used to like to twist the tail around when you knew him, or his like.

Fritz, that 2008 early summer’s day, was simply trying to put his thoughts together and write something, write something for those who could stand it, those fellow members of his who could stand to know that the members of the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 were that year celebrating the 50th anniversary of their graduation from elementary school. In Fritz’s case not North Adamsville Elementary School like many of his fellows but from Adamsville South Elementary School across town on the “wrong side of the tracks.” And although, at many levels that was a very different experience from that of the average, average North Adamsville class member the story had a universal quality that he thought might amuse them, amuse them that is until the name, the thought of the name, the mist coming from out of his mouth at the forming of the name, holy of holies, Rosimund, stopped him dead in his tracks and forced him to write a different story.

Still, once the initial trauma wore off, he thought what better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane, that Rosimund-strewn memory lane. Those days although they were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, paled beside this Rosimund-related story that cut deep, deep into his graying-haired mind, and as it turned out one that he have not forgotten after all. So rather than produce some hokey last dance, last elementary school sweaty-palmed dance failure tale, some Billie Bradley-led corner boy down in the back of Adamsville South doo wop be-bop into the night luring stick and shape girls like lemmings from the sea on hearing those doo wop harmonies, those harmonies meant for them, the sticks and shapes that is, or some wannabe gangster retread tale, or even some Captain Midnight how he saved the world from the Cold War Russkies with his last minute-saving invention Fritz preferred to relate a home truth, a hard home truth to be sure, but the truth. So drugged with many cups of steaming instant black coffee, a few hits of addicted sweetened-orange juice, and some protein eggs he whiled away one frenzied night and here is what he produced:

At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably suppose to learn, maybe required to, depending on the whims of your school district’s supervisory staff and maybe also what your parents expected of such schools, to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks - the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. After all that is what it there for isn’t it. At least it was that way in the old days, and if things have changed, changed dramatically in that regard, you can fill in your own blanks experience. But here that is where fair sweet Rosimund comes in, the paired-off part.

I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. You are ready to flee, boy or girl flee, to some safe attic hideaway, to reach for some dusty ancient comfort teddy bear, or for the venturesome, some old sepia brownie camera picture album safely hidden in those environs, but flee, no question, at the suggestion of those painful first times when sweaty-handed, profusely sweaty-handed, boy met too-tall girl (age too-tall girls hormone shooting up first, later things settled down, a little) on the dance floor. Now for those who are hopped up, or even mildly interested, in such ancient rituals you may be thinking, oh well, this won’t be so bad after all since Fritz is talking about the mid-1950s and they had Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the television to protect them from having to dance close, what with those funny self-expression dance moves like the Stroll and the Hully-Gully that you see on old YouTube film clips. And then go on except, maybe, the last dance, the last close dance that spelled success or failure in the special he or she night so let me tell you how really bad we had it in the bell-bottomed 1960s (or the disco 1970s, the hip-hop ‘80s, etc.). Wrong.

Oh, of course, we were all after school black and white television-addled and addicted making sure that we got home by three in the afternoon to catch the latest episode of the American Bandstand saga about who would, or wouldn’t, dance with that cute girl in the corner (or that amazon in the front). That part was true, true enough. But here we are not talking fun dancing, close or far away, but learning dancing, school-time dancing, come on get with it. What we are talking about in my case is that the dancing part turned out to be the basics of country bumpkin square-dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy, yes, sweaty-palmed, star-crossed ten-year-old boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” and some off-hand “doze-zee dozes(sic)” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with a girl that I had a “crush” on, a serious crush on, and that is where Rosimund really enters the story.

Rosimund see, moreover, was not from “the projects” but from one of the new single-family homes, ranch-style homes, that the up and coming middle-class were moving into up the road. In case you didn’t know, or have forgotten since North Adamsville High days, I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” down at the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments. The rough side of town, okay. You knew that the minute I mentioned the name, that AHA name, and rough is what you thought, and that is okay. Now. But although I had started getting a handle on the stick "projects" girls I was totally unsure how to deal with girls from the “world.” And Rosimund very definitely was from the world. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it at her name. Rosimund. Enchanting name, right? Thoughts of white-plumed knighted medieval jousts against some black-hooded, armored thug knight for the fair maiden’s hand, or for her favors (whatever they were then, mainly left unexplained, although we all know what they are now, and are glad of it)

Nothing special about the story so far, though. Even I am getting a little sleepy over it. Just your average one-of-the-stages-of-the-eternal-coming-of-age-story. I wish. Well, the long and short of it was that the reason we were practicing this square-dancing was to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of school-time activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. Parents, refreshments, various local dignitaries, half the school administrators from downtown whom I will go to my grave believing could have cared less if it was square-dancing or basket-weaving because they would have ooh-ed and ah-ed us whatever it was. But that is so much background filler. Here is the real deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosimund, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square-dancer look, some now farmer brown look but back then maybe not so bad.

I thought I looked pretty good. And Rosimund, looking nice in some blue taffeta dress with a dark red shawl thing draped and pinned across her shoulders (although don’t quote me on that dress thing, what did a ten-year old boy, sister-less, know of such girlish fashion things. I was just trying to keep my hands in my pockets to wipe my sweaty hands for twirling time, for Rosimund twirling time) actually beamed at me, and said I looked like a gentleman farmer. Be still my heart. Like I said I though I looked pretty good, and if Rosimund thought so well then, well indeed. And things were going nicely. That is until my mother, sitting in a front row audience seat as was her wont, saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me, and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity. Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home by said irate mother and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father also heard about it when he got home from that hard day’s work that he was too infrequently able to get to keep the wolves from the door, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosimund.

Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Just like you might have remembered about old Fritz back in the day. Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. …But, oh, Rosimund.
************

Rock Around The Clock Song Lyrics from Bill Haley

One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.

Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.

*Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The Middle School Dance—Teen Angst, And That Ain’t No Lie

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the legendary Lavern Baker performing her classic, Jim Dandy.

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1957, Time-Life, 1987

As I have noted in reviewing The ‘60s: Last Dance part of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the 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. The following is one such episode in that old time, eternal saga.

As part of the review of the dance sequel that I mentioned above I noted that there were two phases to the old school days dance scene, the high school one when we had all learned, or should have learned, the ropes enough not to be too foolish or too out of line on that social occasion, not if we expected to get a tussle from that certain she or he and the middle school one (formerly known as junior high school but we will use the current usage here on the off chance that someone who only knows the term middle school is reading this). I also noted that one could draw a sharp distinction between the two based on such factors as age, the more convoluted nature of social relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (and, nowadays, same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or a little off-hand nuzzling (or mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the middle school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were “hot” in those years.

In a sense the middle school scene is just an earlier version of the high school dance. No, stop, what am I talking about, hell, there is no question that the high school dance was a picnic to detail in comparison. We were light years ahead by then. At the middle school dance we were just wet-behind-the ears (boy and girls alike, although I think the girls were a little ahead of us, or at least we liked the idea that they were). Here though is what I gathered from a fellow middle schooler, Francis J. Murphy, “Frankie”, my best friend in those tormented years, when he heard that the big school dance was coming up in the spring. He merely went into denial, denial that he could care about such a “bourgeois” event (not his word but the idea is there), such a “square” event (his word, although he was probably clueless about what was square and hip in those days) and that he planned to be “out of town” that day. Ya, like he was the President on important business of state.

But here is the funny thing, a few weeks before the big event, as most of his classmates started to get lined up for, and behind the spirit of, this thing he started making noises about being free, maybe, or that he might be able to free up time that day to fit the dance into his schedule. Probably just a snafu of some sort with his appointment secretary previously, I assume. See, here is what he, and every not-nerd, non-dweeb, heck, just breathing young male and female knew, this event would permanently solidify, solidify like stone, the social order of the school, in or out, no questions asked, no prisoners taken. So he too “knew” that signing that world peace treaty that he seemed to be on the verge of signing rather than attend the dance was nothing compared to being in the fight, the furious fight, to gain leverage in the upper echelons of the school pecking order.

All fair enough, all true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations leading up to the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that included getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually included in the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here.

Damn, whatever physical description I could conger up would be just so much eye wash anyway. The thing could have been held in an airplane hangar and we all could have been wearing paper bags for all we really cared. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless, small, meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground. And that is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation), the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven, that it was a slow one.

Ah, memory. So what is the demographic that this CD compilation is being pitched to, aside from the obvious usual suspects, the AARP crowd. Well that’s simple. Any one who has been wounded in love’s young battles; any one who has longed for that he or she to come through the door; anyone that has been on a date that did not work out, been stranded on a date that has not worked out; anyone who has had to submit to being pieced off with car hop drive-in food; anyone who has gotten a “Dear John” letter or its equivalent; anyone who has been jilted by that certain he or she; anyone who has been turned down for that last school dance from that certain he or she that you counted on to make your lame evening; anyone who has waited endlessly for the telephone (now iphone, etc., okay for the younger set who may read this) to ring to hear that certain voice; and, especially those hes and she who has shed those midnight tears for youth's lost love. In short, everybody except those few “most popular “types who the rest of us will not shed one tear over, or the nerds who didn’t count (or care) anyway.

Stick outs here include on this exceptional compilation from this exception year: legendary rocker Jerry Lee Lewis on Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On and Great Balls Of Fire; The Dell-Vikings' Come Go With Me; a surprise classic with The Tune Weavers on Happy, Happy Birthday Baby (that I played about twenty times today never mind fifty years ago); The Everly Brothers on Wake Up Little Susie (yes, they are definitely in trouble); Chuck Willis’ up tempo C.C.Rider: legendary singer and the much underrated LaVern Baker on her classic Jim Dandy; Dale Hawkins on the sultry Susie-Q: The Bobbettes on the snappy, hip-hoppy Mr Lee: Buddy Knox on Party Doll: and, The Dubs on the slow classic (and the one you prayed for to be that last dance) Could This Be Magic. I would not have wanted to have been the dee-jay working off this list at those dances. You would have been hounded, and rightly so, out the back door with requests.

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Battle Rages- Jerry Lee or Elvis?- Jerry Lee Lewis’ “High School Confidential”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis banging away on that piano for his life on High School Confidential from the movie of the same name.

Markin comment:

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

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

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

You better open up honey it's 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 everybody 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
Everybody’s 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
Everybody’s 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
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
********
Peter Paul Markin comment:

“Who are you taking to the hop? Come on now, tell me, tell me, your old buddy Billie, who you asked? Was it Theresa? Was it Donna? Was it Karen?” That was the incessant bugging by my old elementary school boy compadre, Billie, William James Bradley if you didn’t know already, every time a school sock hop came up. But you know, or you should know, that was just a little way that he had to bait me about my shyness, or rather my awkwardness around girls. Around girls that he, king hell king of the late 1950s rock night “discarded” and left for the rest of us, especially for me.

And he knew, he knew damn well that I had not gotten up the nerve to ask any of those three ex-flames, or any girl, to the dance coming up in a few days. For one thing because, as king hell king of the rock night, and therefore king, crowned or uncrowned, of the sock hop he had all the configurations, combinations, set-ups, and, and, no-go bust-ups all computed out, no, not on some machine memory depot but in his head. For another because he didn’t know that I had decided just to go to the dance alone and maybe getting lucky there. Heck, I had done it before, a few times, although not with any great success but if there is any rhyme or reason to youth it is around the possibilities of getting lucky. Of course, old Billie had “selected” Laura as his escort, no awkwardness in Billie, although I had heard, heard from more than one budding teenage source that she “liked me,”(don’t ever tell him this though for I will deny it on seven stacked bibles). Or liked my seriousness, and my clowny, get in the way bookishness. So I am going “stag” on the hope, the hell or high water hope that Billie will let his old buddy, his old amigo, his, well you know, have a dance with his escort to see if I have some “magic.”

Now, and ever since I heard about her opinion of me, I have been wracking my brain to figure out this question. How could she “like me”, or not like me for that matter, I do not know because although I had looked over in her direction in class dreamily (yes, dreamily) more than somewhat I had never said word one to her, or her to me. Now this Laura, if you want a description is not drop-dead beautiful, at least by Billie-Markin defined drop-dead beautiful, twelve and thirteen year old girl beautiful, but she has something else that I would not (and Billie definitely would not) figure out how to say for many years, she was fetching. Definition: nice figure, meaning having a shape, if you really want to know, because when you think about it, boy or girl, twelve and thirteen year old boy or girl, any girl that had a shape (meaning had womanly contours, hips, breasts, nicely-formed legs) rather than a stock stick figure tomboy-like girl was bound to get ahead in that be-bop night, and probably now too.

But more than that, for me, if not for Billie, she didn’t giggle, silly giggle like the other girls when a boy said something stupid-funny (and the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe is more than somewhat filled with stupid-funny stuff done by eons of clueless guys, trying, trying just like me, and just like Billie if he could have ever been honest about it, to figure out the key to the girl-charm thing, yes, there is plenty of room in that universe even now for the stupid-funny) and, she carried herself in a way, sometimes with a certain thoughtful look, sometimes by a thing she did by putting her fingers to her lips, and maybe the most important, that she knew she was a girl and was content with that knowledge. She would lack for no dates or admirers, ever. Oh, ya she was also smart, not Billie street smart, not Markin two-thousand facts smart but asking and answering teacher smart, without being crazy smart about it that you also knew every boy, or almost every boy, in the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe did not like in girls then, and maybe now for all I know. It only gets sifted out later.

But enough of Laura, of Billie, christ of Markin as well, of pre-sock hop arrangements, derangements and dreamily kid in the night be-bop stuff let us get to the sock hop. Hey, wait a minute, you know what sock hops are, or you heard from your parents or grandparents what sock hops are, right? Back in the fifties, yes, the 1950s (and a little bit into the 1960s but the term had kind of died out by then, at least for “non-squares”). If you don’t then I’ll fill you in quickly now, but you’ll see you really know about all of this because it is nothing but a “primitive”, maybe Stone Age when you hear it, version of any school dance scene since they started making teenagers a separate social category in the world, the whole wide world even. Okay the idea was to hem in this mad dash, this mad craze to dance, and dance guys with girls and vice versa, that kids have been into since the radio and jukebox came on the scene, maybe back in that Stone Age now that I think about it.

So dear mother and father, you name the generation, figured out if you can’t beat them join them, and the schools (and churches later) were in cahoots. So every once in a while to keep three eyes on this stuff (and to avoid the feared, seriously feared, basement or “family room”-launched “petting parties” if kids are left to their own devices), maybe a few times a month they would throw a sock hop (the sock part comes from the fact, the hard fact, that most girls, most twelve and thirteen year old girls, wore ankle socks. Ya, no nylons, etc. If you don’t believe me look it up on Wikipedia, or something). Now, most times, this was nothing but some parent or teacher acting as dee-jay and "spinning platters” (records) in some dank, well-lighted, too well-lighted school gym or church basement, christ more than once in the school cafeteria when the gym was being used for other purposes that night. Yes, the night, the night in those days being from seven to about ten in the evening so you would have to think pretty hard about not going, stag or dated up, to the dance if for no other reason than to be able to get out of the house, the cramped, nowhere project house (really apartment) for a few hours uncramped freedom.

This night, this night that Billie kidded me about, this Billie and Laura night, though somehow, although I am vague on the details of how they were brought in, we are not reduced to cranky, scratchy records but a real live local band, a band that prided itself, I heard, on doing covers of the “hot” new singers and groups we knew from American Bandstand (an afternoon television show that had Philly kids, older Philly kids, dancing and swaying to whatever dee-jay Dick Clark, is he still around?, decided was wholesome and fit for the ears of America’s afternoon rock obsessed youth). So this is a time you definitely did not want to miss. And to truth to tell I went early, nervously early if you must know, to see what was up and watch the band set up.

Now this is not just any time in the 1950s, although the sock hop thing, the worried parent, worried about those “petting party” things(and more, much more, about sex things) and this wild and woolly rock obsessed thing their no understand what kids are into could have been anytime from about 1955 on, from the time that Elvis exploded onto the scene with those swiveling hips, that jumping girl guitar, that unkempt hair (ya, unkempt to them), and that permanent sneer came onto the scene.

No, this is 1958 when the Elvis thing had died down a little now that he was dead, or we thought he was dead, and for a fact he might have well have been dead in the constant teen chew-up of rock talent from the kind of music and movies he was into after giving us such great stuff like Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Heartbreak Hotel and One Night With You. Ya, the king was dead, long live the king, and let’s move on, okay. Billie and I talked about it, about how guys, rock guys that is, seen to have a short shelf-life, but as Billie knew, knew from his own bumpy rock “career”, that’s show biz. So this night we are wondering, wondering like crazy, how the band will work out and whose music they will cover.

Like I said I got there early and watched the band set up, including a piano besides the guitar and drums so I figure maybe they will do some Little Richard or Fats Domino stuff. Seven o’clock comes and here comes Billie with Laura. Wow, Billie has on a nice jacket, wide lapels like all the rock guys are wearing these days (I’ll tell you about how he got it sometime but you can figure that a projects boy didn’t get it as a birthday present from Ma and Pa). Really sharp. But double wow on Laura who has on a cashmere sweater, some wide skirt and, can you believe this, nylons, to show off her nice legs. Oh ya, and just a hint of smile on her face like she is here with the king of the rock night, crowned or uncrowned, and she has staked out the territory as queen, demure queen, but queen nevertheless.

Yes, fetching (although we will agree between ourselves that I don’t know that word, or how to use it in relationship to describing girls and their charms just yet, alright). But here is where the sweetest part comes in when Billie and Laura make their royal entrance and come over to where I am standing when Billie introduces me, formally introduces Laura to me, she gives me this, well, I don’t care if I do wear out the word, fetching smile and says “I’ve seen you in class but you never seem to pay any attention to me. I thought that report you gave on Greek democracy in class was very well done.” Be still my heart, she actually remembers the report… and me. And here I am wearing some bedraggled (always bedraggled, always) stripped (stripes, jesus) white collared shirt, ratty black pants, and old Thom McAn Easter-bought brown shoes. Well, she remembered my report, that’s a start, and it actually was pretty good because I went to the Thomas Crane Public Library right up in Adamsville Square to look the stuff up.

But enough of reports, and "be still my hearts" because the music is going on. A few covers of Little Richard and Fats as I expected, with that piano and all, some Buddy Holly that sounded a little tinny, a few other non-memorable odd and ends, including some Elvis that sounded, and I again swear on seven bibles, like old time parents’ music, like Frank Sinatra, or those guys. The suddenly, the leader of the band said that he had a special guest on the piano for the next number. We all wondered what the song would be while they were setting the piano up closer to the front. I heard somebody say it was going to be something by a new guy, Jerry Lee Lewis. Whoa! I have only heard him once or twice but I thought his piano was smoking so maybe this guest guy could do a good cover on it. Billie, Billie king hell king of the rock night, must have known something was up, and why (always why) because he brought Laura over and asked me if wanted to dance the next dance with her. Me, two left feet, or two right feet, stag, coming to the dance stag just hoping that I would get lucky with “discarded” Theresa, Donna, or Karen dance with fetching Laura. No way. The she said “but I really want to dance with you, you being Billie friend, and he says you are a good dancer,” and then turns a very whimsical smile on me.

Well what are you going to do when a woman (alright girl, but a girl with a shape) wants to dance with you, and had something nice to say about your school report, and, oh yes had that smile, that come hinter smile that leaves a man (okay, boy) anywhere from twelve to twelve hundred weak at the knees. Well, the music is starting so I say yes, okay yes.

And what does our guest pianist do but a cover, a hot cover by the way, of Jerry Lee Lewis’ latest, High School Confidential, which I had heard about but had not heard. Great. Laura and I are dancing away and she is doing nothing but give me meaningful smiles and, maybe that rumor about her “liking me” was true. I am just dancing away like crazy and people are looking at me like where did he learn how to do that. After the dance I returned Laura to Billie, a little miffed Billie but I could have been wrong on that. And then Theresa came over and asked if I wanted to dance. A few dances, a few Laura-less dances later the call for last dance came, and not feeling like watching Laura with Billie just then I headed home.

The next morning, a Sunday morning, if I recall, Billie came over to the house and was fuming/hangdog as we talked, talked obviously about the sock hop doings. Fuming because I had switched up on him. How? Well, apparently, Laura, sweet fetching Laura, spent more than the allotted time talking about me, rather than about Billie’s virtues and he had used the dance, the Jerry Lee Lewis manic rock number that he had found out the band was going to play to make me look silly (his word, although mine when I heard it was more of an expletive). Hangdog because he felt bad now that he had done his best friend wrong, wrong over a girl although, in Billie fashion, he tried to step back and argue that maybe he did me a favor getting me out on the dance floor. See, though what he didn’t know (and don’t tell him either, if you know his whereabouts) is that I had been taking lessons from his slightly older sister, Carol, on how to dance this latest faster dance stuff.

So that is the end of the story, or almost the end. A few days later Laura knocked at our apartment door in the afternoon after school. My mother answered the door and invited her in, although she, my mother that is, said Laura was coming in no matter what from the look on her face. She was fuming, although as it turns out good fuming, because she said she had been smiling at me like crazy when we were dancing to give me the “hint” to ask her for the last dance, the last close to her dance. Sorry, Laura. And then she blurted out her command, “You and I are going to the next sock hop together and you had better not say no.” Well, when a woman (girl, are you happy) "insists” on something, almost anything like that, and on top of that had that kind remark about that school report, and that shape, what is a boy, a boy of the twelve and thirteen year old universe to do but say yes. So at the next dance I won’t be dancing with Billie “discard” Theresa, Donna, or Karen although they are okay but with fetching Laura. So there Billie, we are even. And if anybody asks you, like they asked me once-Elvis or Jerry Lee? Jerry Lee, long live the king.