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
When Cowboy Angels Roamed The Wide World Wicked West-With
The 75th Anniversary Of The Musical “Oklahoma!” In Mind-Okay
By Sam Lowell
Everybody has been fretting about the freight car full of
50th anniversary commemorations over the past couple of years
starting with 2017s Summer of Love, 1967 (the obsessive devotion to honor which
was the undoing of long time site manager here Allan Jackson but that is a tale
already told) and now knee deep in the 2018 ones with the sad recent
commemoration of Bobby, you know beloved Bobby Kennedy of the “seek a newer
world” idea. Earlier in the year Si Lannon was beside in commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the musical Hair and a
couple of years ago Sandy Salmon went nuts over the 75th anniversary
commemoration of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s Casablanca. So I am in good company in running an account of the 75th
anniversary of the musical Oklahoma! Which is in revival at the famous summer
stock Ogunquit Playhouse up in the Maine town of the same name.
Frankly I had no intention of going to the revival or of
commenting on the production here in this space but I have had more onerous
tasks under more trying conditions, so I am not complaining. See my long- time
companion Laura Perkins wanted to go to Maine as is her wont to get some
sunlight and fresh ocean air before the places get crowded with people from all
over including those denizens of landlocked Quebec nation who seek the Maine
shore as their own come July and August. As is well known by those who have
even glanced at this space over the years I am crazy for the ocean so it was a
no-brainer. As we prepared for the short trip Laura mentioned how much she has
liked the production o of The Million
Dollar Quartet about the minute at the Sun Records studio in Memphis Elvis,
I hope I need not give a surname, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis
blew out the rock and roll lights early in their careers and wondered aloud
whether we might see something at the Playhouse while we were up there. I
checked and it came out Oklahoma!, or rather the last preview of the
production. I got the tickets and we were off.
Now Laura knows all kinds of good things about music,
books, art, culture in general as she has displayed here over the past year or
so since she has come back to write reviews that have suited her talents. What
she knew nada, nothing, no way about was Broadway musicals and show tunes.
Clueless from how they are produced and the norm of how their creators divide
up the labor as here with Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers doing music and
lyrics a thing they did many times to good effect on the Great White Way. So
this production was something of a primer about how said musicals come together
in the modern theater. Previously to this very musical most of them starred
well-known singers who sang their hearts out behind a thinly veiled script,
usually so hokey boy meets girl thing although that has been the staple of many
creative ventures in books and film as well. Without getting bogged down in
technical stuff this pair, Oscar and Richard if I may be so bold, decided to
grab unknown singers and dancers and do an ensemble performance around what is
frankly still a pretty thin plotline-yes that tried and true boy meets girl
thing that has keep half of Western civilization on the edge of their seats form
millennia plopping it down in the West as an add on.
Of course, in America, the America of the original
conception you could not go wrong by heading out to the Wild West, well sort of
wild west to do a tribute to the rugged individuals who went there-and
survived. Went to the Oklahoma Territory early on before statehood cast its
shadow on the land, on the Native American land if you think about it. Land
from the trail of tears now with white value as the teeming Eastern cities
filled up and some looked for that legendary pot of gold and streets paved that
way too away from all of that grit and grime to breathe free at last. Still
remember as everybody should and as a god friend of mine learned the hard way
out in Standing Rock when they were trying to stop the goddam pipeline going
through their sacred lands, remember it was Native American sacred land, their
sacred lands. Some are juts now starting to do their invocations around that theme
just so the unknowing get to know what is what. Kids of my generation, the vaunted
Generation of ’68 which is beginning to tire and peter out, and maybe the
generation before learned, the one the media have declared the greatest
generation based on scant evidence beyond the Great Depression and World War II
after which they fell asleep, a drugged sleep if you ask me, their idea of the
West, the only good Indian is a dead one, good guys wear white hats and bad
guys from Hollywood movies, the ubiquitous television and less so from book by
guys like Zane Grey and his crowd.
That was not the real West as more recent Hollywood
productions and books have underscored but the West of the 1940s understanding
that city guys like Rodgers and Hammerstein has in mind. The real deal though
beside touting the virtues of the West is the inevitable romance between the
two main characters handsome singing cowboy angel to make Tex Ritter blush
angel Curly and his dead aim at Laurie who for much of the production does not
give him the time of day despite her love for the big goof. Along the way
though there is a dark spot in the person of the crazy maniac Jud who also has
a hankering for Laurie, a murderous hankering. This Jud represents the
uncivilized part of the West but for purposes of the musical also is the center
of a dream sequence which I thought was rather amazing for what had started
outlooking like a light look at the West draped around the romance. Of course
there was the usual amount of singing especially the title tune and Oh What a Beautiful Morning as the newly
wedded part after fighting off the dark spirits of Jud in their very own surrey
with the fringe on top.
P.S. I note that one Laura Perkins. She of the nada, nothing,
no way has ordered Camelot, An American
in Paris, and a couple of Miss Judy Garland musicals, the latter after I
tipped her to the fate of one of our old corner boys Timmy Riley who eventually
came out of the closet in San Francisco and is running the most popular tourist
attraction drag queen show in that town with him occasionally headlining with
his take on Miss Judy Garland which had made him the toast of the town.
The “Cold” Civil War Rages In America-In The Second Year Of The Torquemada (Oops!) Trump Regime- Immigrants, Trans-genders, DACAs, TPSers, Media People, Leftists, Hell, Liberals Know Your Constitutional Rights-It May Save Your Life
By Frank Jackman
Over the first year of the Trump regime as this massive control freak regime has plundered right after right, made old Hobbes’ “life is short, brutish and nasty” idea seem all too true for a vast swath of people residing in America (and not just America either) I have startled many of my friends, radical and liberal alike. Reason? For almost all of my long adult life I have been as likely to call, one way or another, for the overthrow of the government as not. This Republic if you like for a much more equitable society than provided under it aegis. This year I have been as they say in media-speak “walking that notion back a bit.” Obviously even if you only get your news from social media or twitter feeds there have been gigantic attempts by Trump, his cronies and his allies in Congress to radically limit and cut back many of the things we have come to see as our rights in ordinary course of the business of daily life. This year I have expressed deep concerns about the fate of the Republic and what those in charge these days are hell-bend of trying to put over our eyes.
Hey, I like the idea, an idea that was not really challenged even by the likes of Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes in their respective times that I did not have to watch my back every time I made a political move. Now maybe just every move. This assault, this conscious assault on the lives and prospects of immigrants, DACAs, TPSers. Trans-genders, blacks, anti-fascists, Medicaid recipients, the poor, the outspoken media, uppity liberals, rash leftist radicals and many others has me wondering what protections we can count on, use to try to protect ourselves from the onslaught.
I, unlike some others, have not Cassandra-cried about the incipient fascist regime in Washington. If we were at that jackboot stage I would not be writing, and the reader would not be reading, this screed. Make no mistake about that. However there is no longer a question in my mind that the “cold” civil war that has been brewing beneath the surface of American society for the past decade or more has been ratchetted up many notches. Aside from preparing politically for that clash we should also be aware, much more aware than in the past, about our rights as we are confronted more and more by a hostile government, its hangers-on and the agents who carry out its mandates.
I have been brushing up on my own rights and had come across a small pamphlet put out by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a good source for such information in these times. I have placed that information below.
As the ACLU disclaimer states this information is basic, should be checked periodically for updating especially the way the federal courts up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court have staked the deck against us of late. In any case these days if you are in legal difficulties you best have a good lawyer. The other side, the government has infinite resources, so you better get your best legal help available even if it cost some serious dough which tends to be the case these days with the way the judicial system works.
Most importantly when confronted by any governmental agents from the locals to the F.B.I. be cool, be very cool.
No Pride in Genocide: White LGBTQ Solidarity w/ Black Power Weds June 20, 7-9pm @ Parts & Crafts 577 Somerville Ave, Somerville Wheelchair Accessible Register at USMBosPride.eventbrite.com
A workshop for white LGBTQIA-identified folks to learn about solidarity as defined by the African People's Socialist Party. Learn about the colonialist LGBTQIA past and present-- and how white people can unite with a liberated future for Black Power.
Featuring a presentation screening by Gazi Kodzo, Secretary General of the African People's Socialist Party, and Mads Ambrose, leading organizer of USM Portland, on the role and responsibility of white LGBTQIA people to join in solidarity with the African community's struggle for Black Power and self-determination.
Fundraiser for the Black Power Blueprint! This event is a "Reparations Challenge" hosted by USM Boston, as a way for white folks to raise resources for the black-led economic development programs of the APSP which support African self determination.
$5 Suggested Donation (no one turned away for lack of funds) *REGISTRATION REQUIRED* USMBosPride.eventbrite.com
Hosted by USM Boston. The Uhuru Solidarity Movement was created by and is accountable to the African People's Socialist Party. We organize in the white community for reparations to African people. uhurusolidarity.org
#BecomeUngovernable announces Boston, MA, sister rally in solidarity with #Unity4J
In solidarity with the rally in Sydney Town Hall Square, Australia, #BecomeUngovernable announces a sister rally in Boston on Sunday, June 17, demand that the Australian government meet its obligations to protect Assange, as it did for Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste. The rally will be held at the Parkman Bandstand on the Boston Common at noon. It will last until approximately 2:30.There will be several speakers along with information about building a worldwide movement to ensure the safe release of Julian Assange, and his return to safety in Australia.
On March 28 of this year, Assange's contact with the outside world was cut off by the Ecuadorian government. Since that time, the Ecuadorian government has stated that Assange may stay in the safety of the embassy, essentially if he agrees to cease all press activities. The treatment of Assange by Ecuador, under pressure from Washington, is a serious threat to democracy which relies on a free and unencumbered press.
The Australian government is obligated, under both international and national law, to defend its citizens against persecution and unjust treatment.
In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!-David Gilbert http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners.html A link above to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.
Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month
Markin comment (reposted from 2010) In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom. That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a longtime supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all. Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!
Rosalie Sorrels Passes At 83 (2017)- The Long Labor Memory, Indeed- The Music Of Rosalie Sorrels and Utah Phillips
If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go Round At 83
By Music Critic Bart Webber
Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in (and the former two never got over since they will still tell a tale or two about the times if you go anywhere within ten miles of the subject-I will take my chances here because this notice is important) all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. That is where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers who sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
But there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some other colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s where some of those names played but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.
Yeah, out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is different, where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes.
The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. She was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember her cover of Old Devil Time that night-yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels
CD REVIEWS Every Month Is Labor Month The Long Memory, Indeed
The Long Memory, Rosalie Sorrels and Utah Phillips, Red House Records, 1996
Yeah, That Long Hot Summer-With Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s Film Adaptation of William Faulkner’s Work In Mind
By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell
“Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, have things gone to hell in a handbasket now that old Will Varner has gone to meet his maker, has gone to the shades, the shades of hell most likely” shouted Jefferson Baker out across the length of Varner’s General Store where he was the manager of just one of the late Will Varner’s enterprises in the holy of holies town of Frenchman’s Bend, which might have well have been called Varner’s Bend since every civil institution, and some not so civil like Minnie Littlejohn’s high class whorehouse on the edge of town, had the Varner brand attached to it some which way. (That whorehouse by the way Varner’s most lucrative business after the cotton fields, after that best 28,000 acres of sweet Mississippi bottomland in the great state of Mississippi and run by Minnie, his sweetie before he passed away although they never did get married like she was always badgering him to do, so everything was on the up and up except maybe the whores).
Jefferson Baker was doing all that confounded yelling in the direction of one Johnny Hodges from the American Literary Gazette who was in Frenchman’s Bend to do a story on the Varner legacy since Varner had been the real life redneck landowner model for some of the short stories that his old friend William Faulkner had done before he had hung up his shingle. (Between themselves ever since undergraduate days at Oxford, Oxford, Mississippi the home of the state university not the other one over in England or someplace like that they were Will and Hod but here William and Johnny will do.). Johnny was looking for background about how a low-rent redneck like Will Varner was able to hoodwink everybody in that part of the state, in that bottomland blessed county into acknowledging him as the leading figure. The leading figure as against what he, Varner, and maybe William too when he was creating his off-beat oafish characters, the “decaying gentry” that had run the county and state since about Robert E. Lee’s surrender.
That part of the story, that fly-catching the old staid rabble gentry was not some much what interested Johnny since William had pretty much covered those bases in his works wand which when all was said and done was a pretty straight story of a grizzled upstart grabbing those decaying gentry by the balls and squeezing them in the only way they understood trading their lands for leisure time money, but about the guy who inherited all those acres and the town’s major enterprises. That would be one Ben Quick who had had the sense to marry Will’s schoolmarm daughter, Miss Clara always called Miss Clara even long after she was married. Had by guile and wit shut out Will’s legitimate son, Jody, who was essentially an emotional cripple who couldn’t keep up the pace that Will and later as Ben took over more and more of the day to day running of the operations were able to keep up. Didn’t have that merciless mercenary take no prisoners and let the devil take the hinter post as he himself in his more candid if increasingly drunken moments would weep out to anybody who would listen, including his disgusted father.
The mention of the name Ben Quick, now his boss, by Johnny sent Jefferson Baker into spasms of shuttled speech, “That barn-burner, that bastard barn-burner and son of a barn-burner taking over is the end, is the end of whatever Will Varner had put together. You know Ben’s old man, Shep Quick, got killed one reckless night when he got caught with a can of kerosene going after Bill Monroe’s barns when Bill wouldn’t give him some payment for some service that he had never provided. If you interview Ben don’t tell him I told you what happened to the old man. Don’t tell him that it was Will Varner, and a lot of the rest of us acting as his posse, sent him to the shades, shades of hell, maybe Will and Shep will meet there. Kind of some kind of justice when you think a minute. That was long ago and Ben’s wife, Miss Clara, you know Will’s schoolmarm daughter, told me one time when she was helping me with inventory that Ben had told her one night when he had been unjustly accused of being an active barn-burner that Ben’s father, Shep, just up and left, maybe with a woman, maybe with just a jug of fuel, never to return leaving a wife and seven kids to be cared for. That won’t add anything to your story and I and every other person in town who either knew, or was there when they shot him down like a rabid dog will deny that story was true. So just know that maybe longing for his long lost old man or something like that, you with your book-learning may know what ailed him better than I do, was part of what made Ben tick, made him hungry to get out from the rushes.”
Johnny told Jefferson that he would not betray a confidence and that he, Johnny had a feeling that Ben’s rise had a lot more to do with him being a chip off of old Will Varner’s block, a ruthless wheeler-dealer and cutthroat artist than any misanthropic gasoline genes his old man left him.
Jefferson continued, “You know it was Jody Varner, Will’s legitimate son and ne’er do well who kept Ben in Frenchman’s Bend, kept a known barn-burner known far and wide by anybody paying attention from across the county on our doorsteps. Will had been away in Jackson the first time they found cancer in his bloated festered body and Jody had been left in charge when Ben came walking up to the door looking for a place to work. Smartass Jody figured the guy looked like he was from hunger, looked like a million other drifters when it came right down to it and offered him a shack as a tenant farmer for the Varner estates. Ben accepted although he probably already had a good idea that this Jody was a light-weight, maybe a mommy’s boy from the look of it all dressed up like a sportsman and displacing him would be merely a matter of time and circumstances. When the old man, when Will got home, home amid all this damn fanfare like he was the Pharaoh back in Egypt times he blew his top at Jody. Made him feel about two inches tall in front of his wife, this lustrous Eula who I will talk about more later and his big sister Clara, you know the schoolmarm, the local ice queen if you wanted to know the truth back then.”
“But I will say this for Will, a contract’s a contract even if Jody and Ben only shook on it and he let Ben stay on after he sized him up. Maybe that sizing up time is what made him think about advancing Ben’s future. The whole thing got a little mixed up probably because Will was flying by the seat of his pants. See that cancer business, that dying business when it came right down to it since that cancer eventually did get him scared Will silly. Got him suddenly looking for heirs, grandkids who would keep the Varner name going to infinity in Mississippi and maybe beyond you never know with these wheeler –dealer types. So Clara not being married and with no grands kids in the background he was placing his bet, maybe a series of bets, on this Ben Quick. You might ask about Jody at this point. Jody and that hot little number of a wife of his, that Eula who had the sweetest walk this side of the Mississippi if you know what I mean.” Baker insinuated with the beginning of a big ass leer like guys get when their thoughts turn to luscious little pieces of the Sunflower state, maybe anywhere, any state.
Putting that leer aside when Johnny formally failed to recognize lecherous look Baker continued, “One day she just showed up with Jody after he had gone to Jackson on some family business and he told the old man that he/they had gotten married. The old man for a while was tickled pink, was expecting to see those grandchildren and his legacy pushed forward. But I guess Jody for all his sexual appetites and playboy manners was shooting blanks, had no spunk, maybe really was a mommy’s boy in all departments although it would not have suited Will Varner to have his boy called a “sissy,” maybe be light on his feet and so nobody called him anything but Will Varner’s boy to his face or behind his back. But you can see where a young blue-eyed stud like Ben Quick, barn-burner pedigree or not, came prancing around that Will started to get ideas, started planning something.”
“Hey, I said I would mention Eula and I will now. Like I said that young Jody Varner picked her up out of some whorehouse or something on one of his sprees to Jackson, maybe I have it wrong and it was New Orleans. Get this though they were for public consumption they were prancing her around as a product of Miss Farmer’s Boarding School over in Vicksburg. Everybody who got one look at her, one watch through of that divine ass walk knew she hadn’t been within ten miles of a boarding school except maybe to give the boys a treat or two. For a while things were okay, Jody and Eula I heard spent most of their time up in their bedroom. Will was pleased as punch assuming that they were sweating on the satin sheets, on his satin sheets, enough to produce that first grandson Will forever dreamed of to insure what he called his immortality. I wish I could convey the way he dragged that word out like it was a feast day celebration. But I guess Jody was shooting blanks because after a while Eula never produced the bump associated with child production. That is when the young boys started showing up in the heat of the night calling her name and driving Jody to distraction. Before long word started seeping around, hell I learned about it from my son who claimed he had been one of her victims, that Eula was taking the youngsters out back after Jody went to bed and showing them what was what. “Playing the flute” my son said she called it so you know she was well-versed in all the sexual arts probably did do some time in a finishing school, some high-end whorehouse. Will found out about it from the guys hanging around the porch of the Varner General Store but by then he had given up on Jody’s prowess to produce an heir, had always thought that his late wife Emma had turned Jody into a mommy’s boy anyway, and had moved on in his planning to Miss Clara, to his ice cold but smoldering inside daughter to grab some young stud and do his magical work for him.
“Of course getting an ice queen off her high moral and idealistic horse long enough to take the measure of a man, to take what a man was built to give, was no simply chore, especially since for some reason she had since high school lammed onto Alan, Alan Winter, the son of what Will always laughing called one of the “decayed gentry” family without a pot to piss in who had been living off parsimony since Grant came through on his way to Vicksburg town and some Winter freed all his slaves shaking in his boots that he would be executed by the Yankees if he didn’t. So the story went. Will had this Alan figured as more than just a mommy’s boy, had him figured as “light on his feet,” a fairy and that Miss Clara, Sister his pet name for her was wasting her time pursuing a guy who probably was sneaking off to New Orleans to see what the young studs were up to when they came into port off the ships and freighters.
“Then almost out of the blue, almost like manna from heaven tainted, threadbare, bedraggled Ben Quick came waltzing down the road after having been thrown out of more towns in the county than you could shake a stick at. Sometimes for just lighting a cigarettes if the town fathers were a bit high strung and nervous. But Will saw something, correctly saw something in Ben like himself. A young man from hunger.”
Johnny knew from his own observations around that time what those hungers meant to a lot of young men freshly back from the war, from World War II, after they had had their paths altered for a while, or twisted a bit. At just that moment he wished that he could converse with the “ghost” of William who could tell him what it was like for guys like Will Varner to come out of the mud and slime sometime after the First World War and stake claim to whatever they could stake claim to. Then he might get a handle on what Will had seen in Ben’s steely-blue eyes. Maybe it was something in the genes and he could then just sit at William’s feet and get the lowdown on Will and transfer those qualities to Ben. What he sensed of Ben from Jefferson’s description of the rise of one Ben Quick in the local scene was that whatever hurts he had received from knowing what his father was, from being a barn-burner’s son, and a fair one himself that what really drove him was the fact that he was a lot smarter, street smarter, than guys like Jody, or that faggot Alan whom he had to turn Miss Clara against if he was to make his way in the world. If he was to consume any of that unspent energy he had powerfully stored to make something of himself.
Not having William around and depending on what Baker could tell him he was able to piece together what a new son of the South, a new Mississippi boy looking to make good, could do. Of course this New South, this new Mississippi was all about white Mississippi boys, blacks of any persuasion did not count for jack, were hoers and carriers under the strict precepts of Mister James Crow and nothing more, as William would say, need be said about those who were in the shadows, what didn’t count except to be of no account.
Jefferson picked up the thread of the conversation, “It was not long after Jody contracted for Ben’s tenancy that Will and Ben had had their conversation and the next thing anybody knew Ben was in turn selling untamed horses for the old man to his neighbors and had been brought into the general store to show what contempt Will had had for Jody since Jody had assumed he was the king of the store. It was around this time as well that rumors began to spread that Eula was going by the store more frequently when Jody was travelling to get goods and she was teaching Ben how to “play the flute” as they say (as if he needed any such instruction). Rumors or not, true or not, Ben knew, Will knew, as well, that some misbegotten dalliance with Eula was not going to go anywhere not matter how sweaty she got those sheets. So Ben took dead aim at Miss Clara.
“Like I said this Miss Clara while pleasant enough to talk to as long as you were not interested in grabbing some hay with her was a serious ice queen, didn’t want to get involved with any of the local studs who would have been glad to give her tumble if only to spite Will for some grievance done to them by him. She only had eyes for this Alan, this mommy’s boy and so Ben had his work cut out for him. Those steely-blue eyes, muscular body and wavy hair wouldn’t be enough against Miss Clara’s expectations. At least that was what the speculation was after Ben Quick had foolishly spent his whole month’s pay in order to have a Miss Clara-prepared luncheon at the Sunday church social. He had outbid that sissy Alan and got to have that dainty lunch. Although just that moment she was fuming since she had wanted and expected Alan to be her lunch partner.
“Something, nobody is quite sure what, but something happened between Ben and Miss Clara when they went off by themselves to have the contents of that expensive luncheon basket. All anybody had heard was the pair in loud angry indecipherable shouting, then silence, then more. Somebody said it was all about Ben swearing that he was going to have Miss Clara no matter what, pursue her to the end times and her blowing his talk off as hot air. Alan, ever the gallant as good manners amount the decayed gentry dictated, went to fetch Miss Clara back from the clutches of this low-life. A short time later Miss Clara appeared. Alone. Ever after that nobody any longer saw Miss Clara together. A couple of months later though I noticed that Miss Clara was coming around the store more often to talk to, but mainly to stare, at Ben Quick. I heard that one night after I had gone home for the evening and Ben had shut up the store that Ben and Miss Clara had gone in that back room for a quick round of love-making.
“Whether that was true or not, about six months later Ben and Miss Clara were married right in the main hall of the Varner mansion with half the town in attendance. What a time, what a time. About a year later the first of the five Quick boys arrived. Shortly after the arrival of that last boy Will’s cancer did him in and ended one chapter of the Varner story. I still can’t believe that a damn barn-burner grabbed whatever there was to grab around these parts and now nobody does anything but pay hat homage to Benjamin Quick, owner of half of Frenchman’s Bend. Damn.”
*From The Archives- Rosalie Sorrels Passes At 83-A Rosalie Sorrels Potpourri-Idaho, Cafe Lena, Childhood Dreams and Such
If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go Round At 83
By Music Critic Bart Webber
Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in (and the former two never got over since they will still tell a tale or two about the times if you go anywhere within ten miles of the subject-I will take my chances here because this notice is important) all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. That is where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, and a whole crew of younger folksingers who sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
But there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some other colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s where some of those names played but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.
The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. She was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember her cover of Old Devil Time that night-yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels
