This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Friday, August 01, 2014
The Promise of a Socialist Society
(Quote of the Week)
Workers Vanguard No. 1025
31 May 2013
TROTSKY
LENIN
The Promise of a Socialist Society
(Quote of the Week)
In the selection below, Friedrich Engels makes plain how proletarian revolution opens the road to an emancipated future in which the productive powers of humanity are unleashed for the benefit of all mankind.
Their political and intellectual bankruptcy is scarcely any longer a secret to the bourgeoisie themselves. Their economic bankruptcy recurs regularly every ten years. In every crisis, society is suffocated beneath the weight of its own productive forces and products, which it cannot use, and stands helpless face to face with the absurd contradiction that the producers have nothing to consume, because consumers are wanting. The expansive force of the means of production bursts the bonds that the capitalist mode of production had imposed upon them. Their deliverance from these bonds is the one precondition for an unbroken, constantly accelerated development of the productive forces, and therewith for a practically unlimited increase of production itself....
With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears.... Man’s own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history—only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is humanity’s leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.
To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific socialism.
—Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring (1878)
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The Latest From The “Veterans For Peace” Facebook Page-Gear Up For The Summer 2014 Anti-War Season-Troops Out Of Afghanistan Now!-No New War In Iraq -Hands Off The World! -Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
Click below to link to the Veterans For Peace Facebook page for the latest news on what anti-war front the organization is working on.
A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day-Monday November 11, 2013 - Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Afghanistan! Hands Off Syria! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Back on Veterans Day 2010 I happened to be at the Boston Common located just off the downtown section when I came across some white flags, maybe twenty, waving in the distance over near when Charles Street intersects Beacon Street (the main street of the famous Beacon Hill section of Boston). Since I was heading that way I decided to check out what those flags were all about. Upon investigation I found that the white flags also contained in black outline a peace dove symbol and the words Veterans for Peace. Yah, sign me up, my kind of guys and gals. So, to make a long story short, I marched with the contingent that year in their spot behind, and not part of, the official parade sponsored by the city (the reason for that separation will be described in more detail below) and have marched each year since, including this year. Previously in promoting and commemorating this peace event I have recycled my sketch from 2010 out of laziness, hubris, or the basic sameness of the yearly event. I have updated that sketch a bit here to reflect on this year’s event. **********
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, and socialist causes in my long political life. Some large, many small but both necessary. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have, like I have, “switched” over to the other side, have gotten “religion” on the questions of war and peace and what to do about it, have exposed the better angels of their nature after the long hard thrust of war, and preparations for war have lost their allure, and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon.
From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days (the days when even guys like the present Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry had to march in the streets to allay their angers and hurts) I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them out of the barracks, off the bases, and into the streets as happened a little as the Vietnam War moved relentlessly onward ) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, don’t do a bookish analysis, complete with footnotes, of the imperial system and their cog part in it, but they are kindred spirits. Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (the infamous “battle of the barstool,” no, battles) and donning the old overstuffed moth-eaten uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened in 2010 (and this year) as well. What also happened in Boston this year as in 2010 (and other years but I had not been involved in prior marches) was that the Smedley Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one, one o’clock in the afternoon in downtown Boston near the Common. Previous to 2010 there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events so all I know is that were some heated disputes) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long, maybe before, as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois parties’ pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set in 2010 and this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated that year, if you can believe this, from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. This year by a phalanx of Boston Police motorcycle cops. Nice, right? Something of the old "I’ll take my ball and bat and go home" by the "officials" was in the air on that one on every occasion.
In the event this year’s march went off as usual for both parties, as we waited behind the motorcycle cordon for the “officials” to pass by. While waiting I noticed that while the anti-war contingent was about the same size as it has been for the past few years that I have participated, filled out with other peace activists from Quakers and shakers to ranters and chanters and ant-drone folk (strolling along with a mobile replica of a drone to make their point nicely), all angelic, or at least all also on the right side of the angels, the VFP component looked a little smaller. This reflecting the inevitable aging, can’t make the walk, reality that VFP like myriad peace and social justice-oriented organizations are now peopled, alarmingly so, mainly by older activists who cut their teeth in the struggles of the 1960s (or earlier).
Equally as alarming was the sight of more of my Vietnam era veterans using canes, walkers and other aids to either walk the parade or to get around and listen to the program at the end of the march at the Samuel Adams Park at Fanuiel Hall. The hopeful sign though was an increased number of Iraq (Iraq 2003) and Afghanistan veterans who have had enough time to reflect on their war experiences and made a decision to come over to the side of the angels. One such veteran spoke from platform, as did veterans from the Korean and Vietnam War eras, as well as a speaker on behalf of Chelsea Manning, the heroicWikileaks whistle-blower soldier.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in this wicked old world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers in 2010 and this year well, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we again this year formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited for us after the official paraders had marched by and waved, clapped, and flashed the ubiquitous peace sign at our procession from the sidelines. Be still my heart.
That response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these fellow vets would go beyond then “bring the troops home” and pacific vigil tactics and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from everywhere, embrace a more studied response to the nature of war policy “in the belly of the beast” then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today, like at that first white flag sighting in 2010 I was very glad to be fighting for our socialist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
*******
***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots
A YouTube clip to give some flavor to this subject.
Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin
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Boston Remembers Hiroshima & Nagasaki
Moving from Violence to Unity
Please join us for the 2nd annual memorial procession to take action in building a non-violent world free of the atrocities of nuclear weapons, militarism, and oppression.
In this year's procession, we will bring together music, dance and talks to commemorate the 69th year of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki tragedies. Almost 7 decades later, it's time to fund jobs in Boston's communities, not militarism and violence! Let's show that there is a connection between violence in the community and the mass destruction caused by these weapons.
Date: Wednesday, Aug 6th Time: 3:00pm-5:30pm Assemble at: First Church in Boston, Marlborough Street at Berkeley Street Procession to: Boston City Hall Plaza
Speaking this year during the ceremony will be Tina Chery, President and CEO of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. After her oldest son passed away due to gun violence, she founded this institute to educate and outreach to the families of homicide victims. She subsequently developed the Peace Curriculum with the aim of creating a safe environment for young people. Integrating classroom discussions and community service with an emphasis on peace and peacemaking, this curriculum is an effective intervention for reducing juvenile crime.
aPerformers:
Soran Bushi" - Japanese Dancers, Taiko Drumming, Music
Don't forget to mark August 6th down in your calendars, it is only a month away! Please join us!
Massachusetts Peace Action
initiated this event;
Dorchester People for Peace helped bring it to Boston. The First Church in Boston generously opened its doors and embraced Boston Remembers Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
$15 an hour Minimum Wage on the Ballot in West
Roxbury!
Over the last
few weeks, 15 Now has been collecting signatures to put a $15/hr minimum wage on
the ballot in several districts in Massachusetts, including West Roxbury and
we've had neighborhood meetings all over the city of Boston.
After
turning in our signatures, we've made the ballot in West Roxbury!
This November, working people all over the neighborhood will be able
to way in on the national discussion by saying 'yes' to a $15/hr minimum wage in
Boston!
Please consider donating to help us hire an organizer for the ballot
question adn stay tuned for more information surrounding the upcoming 'Vote Yes'
campaign in West Roxbury this fall!
15
Now was launched in January of 2014 by Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant
and her organization Socialist Alternative with the support of unions, community
organizations and low-wage workers. Within six months our grassroots campaign
won a historic victory in Seattle, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The
first major city in the US to do so!
The
victory of the campaign in Seattle marks a major turning point for working
people. During a time when workers and unions are on the defensive from a
seemingly unstoppable attack from big business, working people stood up to
corporate power and won an estimated $3 billion wage increase for the lowest
paid workers over the next 10 years, lifting 25% of the workforce in Seattle out
of poverty. the message is clear: we can take on big business and
win!
15
Now is an open grassroots organization that anyone can join who wants to help
organize working people into a mass movement to win a $15 an hour minimum
wage.
With
over 30 chapters, 15 Now is spreading across the country like a prairie fire.
From putting $15 on the ballot in Boston to pushing efforts forward in Chicago,
the Bay Area, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and New York City -15 Now is a leading
force in the struggle against the great scourge of our time -
inequality!
Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
DPPers Protest
Against the Slaughter in Gaza
Standouts organized
by DPP drew members and others to Roxbury Crossing on Saturday and Ashmont on
Wednesday. We distributed over 1200 copies of a flyer first issued by Mass Peace
Action and then adapted by DPP. The response from most passersby and drivers
was very positive. More than 25 people participated in one or both of the
actions. Many thanks to DPPers Becky, Rosemary, Lenore, Phyllis, Margaret,
Kelley, Victor, Denise, Winston, among others. Mike made the beautiful DPP
banner we used.
RASHID
KHALIDI: Collective Punishment in Gaza
Peace
was achieved in Northern Ireland and in South Africa because the United States
and the world realized that they had to put pressure on the stronger party,
holding it accountable and ending its impunity… Instead, the United States puts
its thumb on the scales in favor of the stronger party. In this surreal,
upside-down vision of the world, it almost seems as if it is the Israelis who
are occupied by the Palestinians, and not the other way around. In this skewed
universe, the inmates of an open-air prison are besieging a nuclear-armed power
with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world.
3-Minute
VIDEO: Analysis shows Israel Keeps Changing Justification for Gaza
Attack
Analysis
of tweets from Israeli military over past few weeks shows that the justification
for its attack on Gaza keeps changing, with previous narratives admitted to be
untrue.Watch
EVEN
“LEFT-WING” POLITICIANS CAN’T QUIT ISRAEL
Much
of the American left is critical of Israel, particularly since its incursion
into Gaza. But in the halls of Congress, even progressive Democrats beloved by
grassroots activists are loath to criticize the Jewish State’s ongoing military
offensive. A Pew Research Center poll released Monday showed that a
plurality of Democrats across the country, 35 percent, and liberals, 44 percent,
said that Israel had “gone too far” in its response to its conflict with Hamas.
Meanwhile 47 percent of Democrats told Gallup that Israel’s actions during the current conflict
were “unjustified,” compared to just 31 percent who thought the opposite. But
these opinions are nearly impossible to find in Congress. Democrats, when asked
a question about Israeli operations in Gaza, had two standard responses:
irritation, or else a statement of their broad support of Israel, without going
into specifics. It was as if the very mention of Israel turned the question into
a hostile interview. More
Israel
uses Palestinians as human shields but US lawmakers condemn Hamas
Both
houses of the US Congress are considering passing a resolution [since passed in
the House and Senate “by unanimous concent”] that condemns Hamas for using human
shields despite not having any evidence to prove Hamas is employing this tactic…
But even The New York Times has conceded that “There is no evidence that Hamas and other militants force
civilians to stay in areas that are under attack.” The BBC’s Middle East editor,
Jeremy Bowen, similarly declared, “I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel’s
accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields.” ...Israel was condemned by the United Nations as recently as
last year for its “continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and
informants.” More recently, Palestinian civilians have accused Israeli forces of
using them as human shields in the Khuzaa neighborhood in Gaza, which has
been the site of heavy shelling. More
Much
more on the Gaza crisis below.
*
* * *
The Latest From The Rag Blog-A Voice Of The Old New Left
Click below to link to The Rag Blog
http://www.theragblog.com/
Peter Paul Markin comment:
When we were young, meaning those of us who were militant leftist baby-boomers from what I now call the “Generation Of ‘68”, we would chuckle/gasp/shriek in horror when some Old Leftists tried to tell us a few of the ABCs of radical politics. Those scorned old leftists, mainly old Stalinist Communist Party hangers-on or moribund Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party members who had come of political age in the 1930s and 1940s had nothing to tell us young stalwart in-your-face- rebels who were going to re-invent the world, re-invent it without the hurts and sorrows accumulated from millennia of previous struggles to push the rock up the hill of human progress.
Well, we fell significantly short of that aim, had that Promethean rock come speeding down over our heads. Today I am still not sure whether in retrospect those scorned Old Leftists of old had anything going but all I know is we are now cast in somewhat the same light. We are now the Old New Leftists. Problem is that unlike our 1960s generation, warts and all, there is no sizable younger crowd of young stalwart in-your-face-rebels to thumb their noses up at us. And there should be. That has not stopped many old radicals, many who have not succumbed to old age and hubris, from trying to be heard. And the place they have congregated, for better or worse, at least from what I can see is at this site.
So I find this The Rag Blog website very useful to monitor for the latest in what is happening with past tense radical activists and activities. Anybody, with some kind of name, and who is still around from the 1960s has found a home here. The remembrances and recollections are helpful for today’s activists. Strangely the politics are almost non-existent, as least any that would help today, except to kind of retroactively “bless” those old-time New Left politics that did nothing (well, almost nothing) but get us on the losing end of the class (and cultural) wars of the last forty plus years. Still this is a must read blog for today’s left-wing militants.
A Markin disclaimer:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Sometimes I will comment on my disagreements and sometimes I will just let the author/writer shoot him or herself in the foot without note. Off hand, as I have mentioned before in other contexts, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in the entries on this website. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. Read on.
There are two photos below and both are middle Eastern neighborhoods in different countries where families lived… husbands, wives, elderly relatives and lots of kids. Both neighborhoods were destroyed in a show of force by political leaders who called up ruthless and incessant shelling and bombing against civilians, all the while denying they were doing so.
These were political and tactical decisions to use deadly force to achieve total control of a populace… the old “bombing your way to peace” is still happening with a vengeance. Continue reading →
Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel
As The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Starts ... Some Remembrances-Poet's Corner- Wilfred Owen's Anthem For Doomed Youth (1914)
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
***An Old Geezer Sighting In North Quincy-Another 50thAnniversary, Of Sorts –With A North Star-Gazer In Mind
A YouTube clip of Johnny Cash’s I Still Miss Someone to set the mood for this sketch.
My old friend Peter Markin and I have over the years sat down in some locale, in the old days usually a bar, and told each other stories, some true, some stretched.I first met Markindown at the Surf Ballroom in Hull in the summer after we had graduated from high school (he from Hull High) when we chased the same girl on the dance floor (a girl who eventually dumped both of us, me first). One afternoon last fall over lunch I told him the story of my 50th anniversary “jog” around the old North Quincy cross-country course which I had done a few weeks earlier. He insisted on writing something up about the event. He did so but left the piece in a folder and forgot about it until now.Since this site was created to propagandize such events we both thought it would be an appropriate place to tell the gruesome tale. Here are Markin’s recollections from that afternoon:
Writers, or at least people who like to write, know, know deep in their souls, or hell, maybe only know by instinct that some things should not be written. Or if written then discarded (and in the age of cyberspace one can just press the DELETE button, praise be). That was my initial response when my friend from the old days, Alfred Francis Johnson, hell just Al which is what everybody except nerdy girls called him, when he insisted that I write a little something for him. That “little something” that he was all exercised about was “jogging” in the fall of 2013 on the old North Quincy cross-country course in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the last time he ran it as a member of the team in 1963. Jesus.
Yes I know, although these days the media and others on slow news days are prone to commemorate all kinds of anniversaries of events including odd-ball years like 30thand 40th, this was a weird request. But that afternoon Al argued his case as he does when he is exercised about something and I had to hear him out. He said that if he had actually run that course after 50 years of statutory neglect I should tout that fact to all who would listen.
Al had told me previously that he had taken up jogging a few years before to while the time away and keep the extra pounds off. I remember looking at him then like he had three-heads. I said that personally I would have a hard time running one hundred yards (or meters, whatever the short distance is they run these days) without crying out desperately for oxygen and many other medicals services.
Al then went into high gear. He mentioned that a few years back, it must have been about 2010, he had written a sketch about his current running prowess to commemorate the 50thanniversary of when he began running as a sport. Yeah, it was 2010. He had run a mile over at some practice field, the “dust bowl” he called it which gives you an idea of the condition of the track to prove that he was not over the hill, or something like that. Yes, I know again, like this was some fleet-footed ancient marathon feat worthy of notice. His point was that the sketch which he wrote was well received by the AARP-worthy audience in need of elderly care he was addressing thus throwing down the gauntlet about my ability to match that result. No sale, brother, no sale.
That negative response on my part set him off, had him seeing red. He went into his classic “you owe me” rant. That “you owe me” stems from way back in the summer of 1964 when we first met down in my hometown of Hull which is about twenty miles south of North Quincy. We had met at the Surf Ballroom where there was a weekly live band dance (rock and roll, of course, now called classic rock, damn) and I “stole” a girl from him that we were both interested in. The girl eventually faded but our friendship began. And with that little tidbit he won his argument. Not on the merits of his case, and not even to shut him up, but because I told him that if I wrote something now about his silly anniversary then next year, next summer, I would get to write the real story about the 50th anniversary of the night that I supposedly “stole” that girl from him. And that will not be pretty, brother, it will not be pretty.
So here goes.
Al had mentioned to me before, maybe several years ago, that this North Quincy cross-country course had a storied past. The reason for that distinction was that his best friend, his running mate in both senses, running around the track and running around town, was Bill Cadger. Bill was a great runner who over his career won many races on the course and for many years held the course record. Al stood in his shadow, stood deep in his shadow. That fact is neither here nor there now, except that this course of two and one-half miles which they had run together in practice many times was laid out along the streets of old North Quincy in a way that Al had not noticed back in the day when he was seriously try to run the thing. There were many landmarks of his youth as he ran it this time, this time when he was running, oops, jogging slowly enough to see things. To reflect on things, to remember. And those recollections, that filler, is what I will finish this sketch with. Except to now tell anybody who will listen, anybody who wants to know, that yes Al finished the course, and did not, I repeat, did not need medical attention, none.
The first part of the course started on the side of the high school, the East Squantum Street side. Just seeing the old high school again reminded Al of the tough times he had getting through the place. Not academically, not even socially, except a little, a little shy and unknowing about girls, no knowledge shy with three boys and no girls in the family to ease the way. And a deep-crusted Catholic studied ignorance of things sexual, how to deal with the subject, okay. He was moreover, and Bill too, which is why they got along, filled with all kinds of teenage angst and alienation, feelings of being isolated, and feeling out of sorts with the world. He said he laughed as he thought about that, thought about how someday, now someday he might get over that angst and alienation. Yah, Al said he had to laugh about that, about how they all said back in the day he would get over it when he got older. The only thing better now was that he had a small handle on it, and some helpful medication.
The first leg continued down East Squantum onto Bayfield Road, the cross street before strewn with houses of relatives, some that he liked and some, who later when he joined, joined with abandon (as did I), the “youth nation” that was a-borning in the late 1960s shut their doors to him, called him renegade, called him in the parlance of the times, “red,” “commie,” and “monster.” Jesus. But those street also had houses filled with budding romances, or flirtations in that close- packed community, romances and flirtations. Flirtations that he, girl-shy, had trouble picking up on when the boys’ “lav” Monday morning before school bull- sessions (emphasis on the bull) and he came up on the radar as someone that Sally, Susie, or Marie “liked” on that preternatural teen grapevine that had Facebook beat six ways to Sunday. He wondered as he passed some cross streets after Bayfield what had happened to Sally, Susie, and Marie. Did they too fade from the town’s memory like he had, Had they, like many in their nomadic generation, shaken the dust off of the town unlike their parents, his parents, and definitely his grandparents who stayed anchored to the town and took a certain pride in that fact. He had to laugh again, why not, he was moving slow enough to laugh and look and feel something about things, that even now it always came down to girls, oops, women, even after two marriages and a million short- haul things. And he still was trying to figure them out. Jesus
The second leg brought him along what is now Quincy Shore Boulevard, along the ocean, along the one piece of geography that has defined his life; the old days remembrances of running along in the beach sand, a task too tough now with those wobbly knees and aching ankles, with Bill running a mile ahead, and him, Al, getting all red from the sun; summer afternoons spent on the beach between the Squantum Yacht Club and the Wollaston Boat Club the “spot” to hang in waiting around for, what else, that certain she you had had your eye on in school, or just what came in on the ocean; Saturday night parking steamed cars with the roar of the ocean drowning out love’s call; end of night stops at Joe’s for burgers and fries to placate a different hunger. Thoughts of later walks (not runs, hell, no) along Pacific beaches, Malibu, Carlsbad, LaJolla, Magoo Point, with love Angelica, Angelica from Indiana and ocean-deprived, her almost drowning in some riptide not knowing the fierceness of Mother Nature, of Uncle Neptune when the furies were up; solo walks, lonely walks in the 1970s when the booze and dope almost broke him (and he called me, desperately called me for help, and I said “I’ll meet you in Malibu and we’ll get you dried out, brother”).
Much later solitary walks along endless Maine beaches trying to figure out what went wrong with that second marriage, and why his current relationship had run out of steam several years before. Simple stuff as the rush of the foam-flecked waves called out for serenity. As he made the third leg down Atlantic Boulevard heading back toward the school he laughed again, twice laughed, first that he was going to finish running the whole course and secondly that no matter what somebody better make sure that he was not buried in some ocean-less place like Kansas when his time came. He had come from the muck of the sea and let him lay his head down there.
As Al travelled that last leg, the leg that brought him to the corner of his old neighborhood he cringed, cringed at the thought of all the misbegotten things that had happened in that vanished shack of a cramped house that he came of age in and of his estrangement from his family, a shame, a crying shame (and I, Hull–born twenty miles away from the same kind of neighborhood, with the same family grievances will not go into detail about that here -see we do not “air our family linens in public,” got it). But he also had a certain nostalgia, a certain sadness as he remembered the various generations of cats that helped make life a little bit bearable when cursed mother got on her sway, father silent, silent as the grave. Joy Smokey, Snowball, Blackie, Big Boy, Sorrowful, Grey Boy, Calico, and many others. Making him think too of later manhood long gone beloved Mums who had helped him get through drugs, booze, depression, angst, a bad marriage and about seven other maladies. And just then recently gone and still filled with sorrows and sadnesses his companion shadow Willie Boy as he shed a tear for him, and them all.
Then past Atlantic Street onto Newbury Street and remembrances of many miles walked getting up the courage to talk to Lydia the first girl he fell hard for, and wonder, wonder too what happened to her, doing well he hoped. And last stop before the finishing hill and kick to the line Grandma’s Young Street house, savoir sainted (everybody agreed, sainted especially with devil Grandpa) Grandma who saved his tender teens from total despair, from starvation too and blessed memories. And regrets, regrets too that he had not been better at the end for her. Sorrows there, joys too.
Ah, streets, all known streets, all blessed streets (not church-blessed but still blessed), all ocean-breezed streets, all memory streets, as he chugged up that Newbury Street hill which led back on to East Squantum and the school. A hill where in memory time, fifty- years ago time, he would put a rush kick to the finish. This day he ambled across the ancient imaginary finish line, fist in the air like some Olympic champion. Done.
