From The Archives Of The Class Struggle- Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched Of The Earth”- A Book Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched Of The Earth.

Book Review

The Wretched Of The Earth, Frantz Fanon, Grove Press, New York, 1968

I have often had reason, when speaking of my long and painful trek to Marxism many years ago now, to note that the polemics of the third section of the Communist Manifesto, where Marx and Engels skewer the various left-wing political tendencies of their day for their short-comings, that I had probably espoused all the tendencies met there, or their modern day equivalent. That said, I have also noted that as a member (a member in good standing, by the way, meaning merely having survived the cultural wars of the past forty years or so and still standing) of the generation of ’68 I had run through all of the “theories” prevalent on the New Left (then New Left, now old and hoary with age) of the 1960s. They included such thread-worn “theories” as that the working class had then (and now by some new new left advocates) lost its central role (had sold out or been bought off in the vernacular of the times) as vanguard for socialism, youth as a class was per se a revolutionary agent for change (perhaps best known in the “red”university premise), guerilla warfare (rural as in China, Cuba and many African countries and urban as in the Weathermen, and its various transformations, creating a second front for those rural struggles, just then, the Vietnamese Revolution, as the central fact of late 20^th century revolutionary practice theory), and most importantly for the discussion here black, blacks as an oppressed minority in the United States were, without question, and without questioning, the vanguard of the socialist revolution. And, one way or another, torturously one way or another, a nation with all that implied for self-determination rather than a segregated caste at the bottom of the main society.

One would think, given even cursory look at the condition of the international revolutionary movement today, and particularly its American component that that last premise would have been proved false by history and by reality. Not so. Recently I had occasion to attend a local planning meeting around the question of police harassment and surveillance of basically peaceful anti-war protestors who wanted to take action, rightfully so, to expose this nefarious activity in a public way. Fair enough, just put together a united front of all those from civil rights advocates, to the peaceful anti-war activists under attack, to the anarchists who right now are taking the brunt of police activity, to any other segment like immigrants, victims of the “war on drugs,” etc. who have come under the police dragnet, set a time, publicize the event(s) and you are off.

Well not so fast, not so fast by a long shot. Apparently, at least in some quarters, some old New Left and some new New Left quarters, whites, generic whites with “white skin privilege” (the basic component of that meeting) cannot move in their own defense without“waiting” on more oppressed (read: communities of color, but really black and Latinos) to chime in. So therefore no action was taken (except, maybe, more meetings to discuss this “theory”). So the old theories (granted in new clothing) have reared their very hoary heads. And sent me back to the books. Particularly to the grandfather of all such theories derived, somewhat unfairly and somewhat haphazardly, from Frantz Fanon’s seminal work, The Wretched Of The Earth.

Certainly if one merely observed empirically the thrust of revolutionary activity in the post-World War II period one would have seen vast national liberation struggles of colonial subjects from Algeria (Fanon’s revolution) to Cuba to Vietnam and everywhere in between to become free from the fetters of empire. And see, see in general, the relative decline of revolutionary activity by the Western working classes. Thus Marxism, or the parody of Marxism, was turned on itself to proclaim that new third world forces would create a new type of socialism (one based not on plenty since not frontal assault on the imperial centers after liberation was contemplated for the most part, but rather some ancient forms of societal existence, if any) led by new types of revolutionary organizations not tainted with the smell of sell-out Western and urban-centered communist and socialist parties or their colonial adherents, and creating a “new man” culture. But first the liberation, and the ethos of liberation.

Obviously such theories, based as they were on dismissal of the historic Marxist centrality of the working classes take state power and creating working class forms of economic and social life, could only work as theories of some military defeat of the imperial centers by revolutionary declassed intellectuals and lumpenproletariat elements freed from the land in third world countries. In short the creation of rural (or urban in some cases) guerilla armies guided by an ethos of revolutionary violence as cleansing its supporters in the process of knocking out the old order. In short, as well, a variant of the old Narodnik theories in the old time19^th century Russian Empire that revolutionaries like Lenin and Trotsky had to fight against in their time.

The real problem with such lumpen-dependent strategies, borne out over time, and now in re-reading The Wretched Of The Earth, painfully borne out, is that the masses play no, or a passive role, in their liberation with all the distortions that a strategy based on a central military strategy creates. Revolutionary violence is probably, very probably, necessary to overturn imperial power but the cult of the gun, the cult of the purifying gun is not, and has not, worked in the struggle for a new socialist culture. The most dramatic example from the American left scene was the fate of the Black Panthers whose best elements (George and Jonathan Jackson, Fred Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, etc.) bought into the Fanon substitutionist revolutionary thesis (the internal black nation theory they got elsewhere including early American Communist party doctrine on black self-determination as advocated by Harry Haywood and his fellows). And some very good Panthers wound up dead, wound up in jail (and some still in jail) and wound up cynical for their efforts. Let that example set in as you read Fanon’s very intriguing book, a book like I said earlier that was very influential in my own early left-wing thinking, and that of the generation of ’68.

Note: I would be incomplete in this review if I did not mention that Fanon, as a well-trained and extremely competent psychiatrist, spent a good portion of the book (the end section) describing the various traumas and pathologies ttributed to both the oppressed and the oppressor in Algeria during the national liberation struggle as a result of the colonial experience. He makes a very strong prima facie case for the proposition that oppression oppresses everyone and we had best get rid of this malignancy and take it off the human agenda as quickly as possible. To that I can say amen, brother.

Quantico psychiatrist: Bradley Manning’s pretrial confinement worse than death row

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By Emma Cape. November 29th, 2012.

Protesters take action out in the cold rain at Bradley Manning’s November 27th hearing that addressed his unlawful pretrial punishment.

Ft. Meade, MD - Yesterday at Bradley Manning’s Article 13 hearing, professional military psychiatrist Captain Kevin Moore testified that Bradley Manning’s pretrial confinement conditions at Quantico military brig were worse than that of any other long-term pretrial prisoner he’d observed. He added that Bradley’s restrictive conditions, including being held in a 6×8 foot cell, having access to only 20 minutes of sunshine and exercise per day, and being deprived of basic items such as clothing and toilet paper for periods of time, were most comparable to yet still more severe than conditions of prisoners he’d observed on death row.
Bradley Manning’s case garnered considerable media buzz early in 2010 when it came to light that the UN and Amnesty International had initiated investigations into possibly illegal conditions of pretrial confinement at Quantico. Wednesday in court, two high-ranking military psychiatrists, Captain William Hoctor and Captain Moore, testified that the extent to which their recommendations were ignored by the Quantico Marine staff was unlike anything they had experienced elsewhere over a combined 30+ years of experience at various bases. Cpt. Hoctor went so far as to say that even at Guantanamo Bay his recommendations were implemented much faster than at Quantico. At Quantico, it would often take up to two weeks for the staff to implement his recommendations to change a prisoner’s status, in contrast with the few days it would take elsewhere. In PFC Manning’s case, the recommendations of both Cpt. Hoctor and Captain Moore to allow PFC Manning more exercise and downgrade him from Prevention-of-Injury (POI) status based on improved mental state was ignored over the course of many months.
Captain Hoctor said he became the angriest he’d been a long time when Quantico base commander Colonel Daniel Choike stated in a meeting that “Nothing’s going to change. He won’t be able to hurt himself. He’s not going to be able to get away, and our way of ensuring this is that he will remain on this status indefinitely.” During testimony on Tuesday, Col. Choike confirmed his position during that exchange. In reference to this statement, Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee member Jeff Paterson responded, “I think a reasonable person can see why PFC Manning was frustrated with these conditions. No matter what he did or how exemplary his behavior, the Col. had no intention of respecting his overall well-being and legal rights as a pretrial prisoner.”
While base commanders Col. Choike and Col. Robert Oltman testified that they believed brig staff acted in interest of PFC Manning’s safety, they both stated that the longest they had seen any other prisoner held at Quantico was 2 months. Additionally, they had both informed commanding officers that the Quantico brig was unsuitable for holding a prisoner longer than 90 days.
During his testimony, Psychiatrist Captain Moore indicated that he’d been trained in military interrogation, and that adverse mental side effects were to be expected in any prisoner held in such constrictive conditions for a long period of time. POI, the psychiatrists clarified, was typically a short-term status. In closing questions, defense attorney David Coombs asked Cpt. Hoctor how, in his professional psychiatric opinion, he would characterize an authority who chose to ignore or discount possible adverse effects when choosing a highly restrictive status such as POI for a long period of time. After a thoughtful look, Cpt. Hoctor replied the word he would choose is “callous.”

Bradley Manning takes the stand: Quantico abuse, brig deception — courtroom notes, 11/29/12

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PFC Bradley Manning testified today to explain the brutal detention conditions he suffered at the Quantico Marine brig, officials deceiving him regarding how to change those conditions, and relaxed conditions at Ft. Leavenworth. See day 1 notes and day 2 notes here.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 29, 2012.

Courtroom scene when David Coombs played a Quantico video. Sketch by Clark Stoeckley.

Today PFC Bradley Manning took the stand to give much-anticipated testimony about his detention conditions in Kuwait, at the Quantico Marine brig, and at Ft. Leavenworth, explaining that he endured harsh and needlessly restrictive conditions at Quantico, yet was put in much less constrictive custody as soon as he was transferred to Ft. Leavenworth. Furthermore, Quantico’s brig counselor, Gunnery Sergeant Blenis, misled Bradley about who was responsible for his abusive conditions.
Bradley answered questions from defense lawyer David Coombs for several hours in Ft. Meade, MD, for the defense’s motion to dismiss charges based on unlawful pretrial punishment. First he explained his traumatic experience in Kuwait, where he was brought to a military tent, forced to stay in a metal cell that he said felt like an “animal cage,” and was so disoriented and isolated that he felt suicidal. He thought he was going to die in Kuwait, felt “trapped” because no one told him what was happening to him, and when he was transferred he figured he would be sent to Guantanamo Bay.
When transferred to Quantico on July 29, 2010, Bradley was immediately put on Suicide Risk watch, which is effectively solitary confinement with guards checking on him every five minutes. Brig psychiatrists recommended that Bradley’s detention status be reduced to Prevention of Injury (POI) watch in seven days, but Quantico officials didn’t change the status for nearly two weeks. On Suicide Risk, Bradley saw only 20 minutes of natural light each day, interacted with almost no one else, and became increasingly anxious.
For the remainder of his nine-month stay, Bradley was then held on restrictive POI watch, which he described as nearly the same as Suicide Risk, though he was a model detainee and psychiatrists confirmed that he posed no threat to himself or others. Suicide Risk and POI watch aren’t technically referred to as ‘solitary confinement,’ but Bradley was segregated from the rest of the Quantico population. Seeing only the reflection of sunlight down the hall, Bradley was largely cut off from the world. The rooms adjacent to his were empty, and he wasn’t allowed to speak loud enough to communicate with the detainees much further down the hall.
On Suicide Risk, Bradley had to wear a coarse smock and sleep on a tiny uncomfortable mattress. He was never given a pillow during his entire time at Quantico, regardless of his custody status. Throughout his time there, a fluorescent light blasted into Bradley’s six-by-eight-foot cell, 24 hours a day. When he turned his face from the light when trying to sleep, brig officials woke him up to “make sure he was okay.” On Suicide Risk, this happened two or three times every single night, and it still happened a few times a week on POI.
Blenis deceives Manning about his conditions
More and more stressed out, Bradley desperately wanted to be removed from POI watch. Each time he met with brig psychiatrists and during most of his interactions with the brig counselor, he asked what he could do to get his status reduced. GYSGT Blenis, who met with Bradley at least once a week, and who frequently gave him an ‘A’ grade as a detainee, told Bradley that he was perplexed as to why the psychiatrists kept recommending he stay on POI status. However, brig psychiatrist Cpt. Hoctor testified yesterday that the exact opposite was true: Cpt. Hoctor recommended almost every single week that Bradley be removed from POI watch, and was exasperated that Quantico officials fully ignored his advice. He believed “they had made up their mind” to keep Bradley in isolated confinement.
Cpt. Hoctor told Bradley that he recommended normal treatment, and upon hearing the conflicting messages Bradley didn’t know whom to trust. Since GYSGT Blenis and other Quantico officials continued to praise him as a model detainee, with one of them saying he wished he had “100 PFC Mannings,” he thought Cpt. Hoctor might be deceiving him.
Guards provoke Manning, officials remove his clothing
The confusion, coupled with the repeated refusal of brig officials to hear his arguments for ending the restrictive POI watch, led Bradley to become withdrawn and to consider alternative channels to remedy his situation, such as through his defense counsel.
A day after supporters of Bradley Manning protested at Quantico on January 17, 2011, Bradley testified that staff guards handled him gruffly, were curt with their orders, and then put him in an intentionally confusing “shark attack environment” in which they barked contradicting orders at him and yelled at him when he didn’t follow properly. Bradley became panicked, fell down in the recreation hall, and said he “became emotional.”
Bradley continued with his recreation time as usual after the incident, but when he returned to his cell, he knew something was wrong. Guards were whispering outside his cell, officials were passing by and gathering outside, and then Brig Officer in Charge Averhart entered his cell to yell at Bradley.
The two discussed the situation, seemed to relax, and then Bradley brought up his POI status while he had the chance. Averhart felt “insulted” and “furious” that Bradley would broach the subject, and he reminded Bradley of his rank. Averhart left the cell, and GYSGT Blenis asked Bradley to remove his clothes and informed him that he’d be back on Suicide Risk.
Coombs then played two short videos that Quantico officials took of GYSGT Blenis’s response, in which he told Bradley, “We’re not outside rules and regulations with anything we’re doing,” when Bradley countered, “But I’m not a suicide risk.”
Bradley said that psychiatrists recommended he be removed from POI, and GYSGT Blenis responded, “Who sees you every day?” GYSGT Blenis said that Cpt. Hoctor’s was “just a recommendation,” and that “other factors” had to be considered.
Bradley was forced to remain nude, except for his boxers during the day, for the rest of his time at Quantico.
Transitioning to life at Ft. Leavenworth
Finally, Bradley testified about his transfer to Ft. Leavenworth on April 20, 2011. After the multi-day ‘reception process,’ Bradley was not deemed harmful to himself, and was immediately placed in medium security. Bradley was shocked not to be in metal restraints, and felt awkward. He was expecting to be placed in the same status as in Quantico, and said he thought they’d “bring the hammer down.”
At Ft. Leavenworth, which he called a “huge upgrade,” Bradley was given his clothes back, allowed to have basic toiletries he wasn’t allowed to have in Quantico, and was free to use the library, gym, common area, and word processor just about whenever he pleased.
Leavenworth commander confirms Bradley didn’t need POI
Just before Bradley’s testimony, the defense called Ft. Leavenworth’s Garrison Commander Lt. Col. Dawn Hilton telephonically to explain the processes at Ft. Leavenworth to take in detainees, assess their mental health, and determine their custody status.
Lt. Col. Hilton said that she never overruled a mental health professional’s advice regarding Suicide Risk. In fact, she said she made it a priority to try to get detainees off of Suicide Risk, knowing that it affects their mental health, and if a detainee is not off of Suicide Risk within 48 hours, she works to get the detainee into a psychiatric ward. The longest she’s ever had a detainee on Suicide Risk was seven days – an extreme case, and an extreme contrast with Bradley’s several months on that status.
Lt. Col. Hilton said Bradley has never appeared at risk of potentially harming himself, and that he’s been on medium security since his arrival.
Tomorrow, the government will cross-examine Bradley, Coombs will re-direct follow-up questions, and Judge Denise Lind will ask him her own questions.

Quantico psychiatrist: Bradley Manning treated worse than death row inmates

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Notes from the courtroom in today’s hearing for PFC Bradley Manning. Two mental health professionals testified to the fact that Quantico was the first brig to blithely ignore their recommendations to remove a detainee from restrictive conditions. See day 1 notes here.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 28, 2012.

Psychiatrist Captain William Hoctor. Courtroom sketch by Clark Stoeckley.

Mental health professional Captain Kevin Moore took the stand in the second day of this week’s pretrial hearing for PFC Bradley Manning, explaining that Bradley’s isolated conditions that wore on his mental health were even worse than death row treatment he observed earlier in his career.
Cpt. Moore and another psychiatrist, Captain William Hoctor, testified that Quantico Brig officials ignored their recommendations to remove Bradley from Suicide Risk watch and then from Prevention of Injury (POI) watch for several months. They both said that this was completely different than previous brig officials they’ve worked for, who usually complied with their recommendations within days.
The military didn’t listen to Cpt. Hoctor’s concerns that holding Bradley on Suicide Risk watch when he was in no danger of harming himself was detrimental to Bradley’s mental health. A detainee earlier that year had killed himself at Quantico, and Cpt. Hoctor explained that officials were keenly aware of the high-level of media scrutiny in Bradley’s case and was exerting extreme caution. However, they had no psychiatric reason, he said, to keep him on POI watch or to remove his clothes, and that the restrictive treatment left Bradley isolated, stressed, and depressed.
Cpt. Hoctor recommended within one week of meeting with Bradley at Quantico that he be removed from Suicide Risk watch, saying that Bradley was not a danger to himself, didn’t appear depressed, and needed to socialize with other detainees. The brig ignored that recommendation, without explaining why.
Later, while Bradley was still on Suicide Risk, Cpt. Hoctor asked if Bradley could get more time to exercise, as his already-slim frame was dropping weight quickly. He recommended that Bradley be integrated into the prison population, as he was becoming withdrawn and hadn’t had contact with his peers in months. He also told officials that Bradley needed more time outside, since he was only getting 20 minutes each day. In addition to these specific requests, in his weekly reports on Bradley’s mental health, Cpt. Hoctor continually recommended that Bradley be removed from POI watch.
Unfortunately, “They had made up their mind” to keep Bradley on POI watch, Cpt. Hoctor said. Quantico officials refused each specific offer and continued to ignore his weekly calls for reduced confinement treatment, again giving no explanation.
Defense lawyer David Coombs asked Col. Hoctor if he thought Quantico was running the risk of of endangering Bradley Manning, and Col. Hoctor said yes, it was, as these conditions might have “unintended consequences.” Coombs asked how Col. Hoctor would describe officials who didn’t consider these effects, and he said, “callous.”
Bradley’s treatment would continue indefinitely
When Cpt. Hoctor expressed his concerns, and the fact that Bradley’s restrictive conditions should not be justified with mental health language, to Col. Robert Oltman, Security Battalion Commander in charge of Quantico, Col. Oltman told him that Cpt. Hoctor should continue to report weekly but that “we’ll do what we want to do,” and that Bradley would be on POI watch for the foreseeable future.
This made Cpt. Hoctor the “angriest [he’d] been in a long time,” as the treatment was “senseless,” had no psychiatric justification, and a Battalion Commander had never before said outright that such a confinement statues would continue indefinitely regardless of his recommendations. He also said that this treatment could harm Bradley, as “everyone has limits,” though “he’d been strong.”
Col. Oltman’s testimony
Col. Oltman himself testified for most of this morning, explaining why Bradley remained on POI watch and why he didn’t fully trust Cpt. Hoctor’s opinion. Col. Oltman didn’t make the decision to put Bradley on POI watch, but decisions in Bradley’s confinement were passed along to Col. Oltman who then passed them up the command chain. He had the authority to change Bradley’s status, but never reduced his status. He said that because a soldier, Captain Webb, had killed himself at Quantico earlier that year, and since Cpt. Hoctor hadn’t recommended Cpt. Webb be put on Suicide Risk, Col. Oltman didn’t weigh his advice for other detainees as heavily.
But in most of his testimony, Col. Oltman emphasized that Quantico officials were interested in Bradley’s safety and media coverage. At one point, after Coombs asked him whether he ever disagreed with the decision to keep Bradley on POI watch, Col. Oltman said that he was never 100% certain that Bradley could be taken off of POI watch at all.
Removing Bradley’s underwear
Coombs asked Col. Oltman about the incident in which Brig Officer in Command Denise Barnes decided to remove even Bradley’s underwear after he quipped that he could hang himself with his elastic waistband. Cpt. Hoctor had said that Bradley was merely making a sarcastic comment “intellectualizing the absurdity of his conditions,” but Col. Oltman said, “You don’t joke about suicide.”
Coombs shot back reminding Col. Oltman that he’d laughed at Lt. Col. Greer’s Dr. Seuss parody that mocked Bradley’s nudity.
Corrections official Col. Wright didn’t find Quantico’s response very funny either, as he informed Col. Oltman that removing a detainee’s clothes for suicidal reasons was inappropriate for a prisoner on POI watch and not on Suicide Risk.
“This is not the way we do business,” Col. Wright said.
But Col. Oltman didn’t change the status, nor did those below him. Instead Col. Oltman characterized Col. Wright’s as the view from “30,000 feet,” meaning it wasn’t informed by on-the-ground information, similar to Col. Choike’s “armchair quarterback” comment yesterday.
OIC Barnes and Col. Oltman emailed back and forth about the incident, and OIC Barnes found a loophole of sorts in brig regulations: one of the instructions of POI watch says that OIC can remove clothing (the loophole element being that OIC Barnes just had to refrain from justifying it with the potential suicide element).
Col. Oltman didn’t bother to reconcile Col. Wright and OIC Barnes’s opinions, satisfied with OIC Barnes’s reasoning, while Bradley remained humiliated and naked each night.

Military feared independent reviews of Bradley’s treatment: notes from the courtroom, 11/27/12

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Quantico’s base commander testified about internal discussions about Bradley’s detention conditions, why Quantico wasn’t fit to detain him in the first place, and the response to Bradley’s complaints about abusive treatment.
By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. November 27, 2012.

Despite freezing rain, dozens of Bradley Manning supporters rallied outside Ft. Meade before his hearing.

Quantico base commander Col. Daniel Choike revealed in testimony today that the military barred or delayed independent analyses of PFC Bradley Manning’s abusive confinement, claiming that Bradley’s defense could “exploit” such a review in the press, and instead sought reviews that would confirm and justify the military’s handling of the young private.
Col. Choike answered defense lawyer David Coombs’ questions for nearly eight hours today at Ft. Meade, Maryland, during the defense’s Article 13 motion to dismiss charges based on unlawful pretrial punishment that Bradley endured for more than nine months at Quantico.
When the former Security Battalion Commander in charge of Quantico, Col. Robert G. Oltman, and Col. Choike discussed an independent mental health professional’s impending visit to the Marine brig, the two expressed reservations about what the review would conclude. Col. Choike asked if the visit could be blocked or pushed back, and Col. Oltman assured him that this could be “easily done with an email.”
In emails, Col. Choike attempted to justify this position, saying, “armchair quarterbacks are not welcome,” and that whoever reviewed the confinement would need “expertise” to understand the command structure and why the military needed to keep Bradley on Prevention of Injury watch. When Bradley’s defense brought an Article 138 Complaint (a complaint any member of the Armed Forces can make against his or her commanding officer), the military assigned the Marines’ own Chief Warrant Officer 5 Abel Galaviz to investigate the conditions, despite the fact that Galaviz and his superior officers had already been involved with and approved of Bradley’s confinement status.
Col. Choike testified at length about his specific role in reviewing and maintaining Bradley’s maximum security, the collective refusal to listen to brig psychiatrists’ recommendations for medium security, and just how involved three-star General George Flynn was in directing Bradley’s confinement.
Earlier this fall we learned that Gen. Flynn oversaw Bradley’s confinement from the Pentagon. Today, Col. Choike revealed that Gen. Flynn primarily wanted to be notified of changes in Manning’s status or new elements regarding his conditions before the media got wind of them, so that he could control the narrative regarding Bradley’s conditions, or, as Col. Choike said today, be “ahead of the disinformation campaign.”
Later in the testimony, Col. Choike discussed how Gen. Flynn worked to make sure that if “something happened” to Bradley, meaning if he were to harm himself, “Quantico would not be left holding the bag.”
Col. Choike also revealed, near the day’s end, that he didn’t believe from the start that Bradley should have been kept at Quantico. The Marine brig, which had recently been in transition from a post-trial to a pre-trial confinement facility, was meant for short-term detention. Government lawyers told Col. Choike early on that they expected Bradley’s trial to last nearly two years, and Col. Choike told his superiors that he didn’t think Quantico was adequately resourced to hold Bradley for that long, and that Bradley shouldn’t be held there for more than 90 days at most. The military ignored Col. Choike’s qualms, clearly to Bradley’s detriment.
Another revealing bit: in reviewing the hundreds of emails among Quantico officials with Col. Choike, Coombs stopped upon one email from an unnamed brig official who, when Bradley was forced to remove his underwear and stand naked against his will, emailed a mocking Dr. Seuss version of the events:

“I can wear them in a box,
I can wear them with a fox,
I can wear them in the day,
I can wear them so I say,
But I can’t wear them at night,
My comments gave the staff a fright.”

“Col. Choike,” Coombs asked after reading the poem aloud. “Do you think the subject of the removal of his underwear was a joking matter?”

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm

Tom Rush-Eric Von Schmidt Lyrics from an old traditional song

Chorus:
Wasn't that a mighty storm
Wasn't that a mighty storm in the morning
Say, wasn't that a mighty storm
Blew all the people away

Well, Galveston had a sea wall
Meant to keep the water down
High tide from the ocean
Sent water over Galveston

Chorus

Yeah, year was 1900
Fifty long years ago
Death came walking on the water that day
Death calls, you gotta go

Now the trumpets, they sounded warning
Said it's time to leave this place
But no one thought about leaving town
Til death stared them in the face

Chorus[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/james_taylor/wasnt_that_a_mighty_storm.html ]
Right then the sea started boiling
A thing that no ship could stand
I thought I heard a captain crying out
Somebody save a drowning man

They had two trains loaded
With people trying to leave town
Tracks gave way to the water now
And all of those people drowned

Chorus

I said the year was 1900
Fifty long years ago
Death came walking on the water
Death calls, you gotta go

I said Death, your hands are clammy
You got them on my knee
You came and threw a stone at my mother
And now you're coming after me.

Chorus

Chorus

Funny he, Adam Evans, thought as he laid in his toss and turn early morning Seals Rock Inn, San Francisco bed, as the rain poured down in buckets, literally buckets, at his unprotected door, the winds were howling against that same door, and the nearby sea was lashing up its fury how many times the sea stormy night, the sea fury tempest day, the, well, the mighty storm anytime, had played a part in his life. He was under no circumstances, as he cleared his mind for a think back, a think back, that was occupying his thoughts more and more of late, trying to work himself into a lather over some metaphorical essence between the storms that life had bestowed on him and the raging night storm. No way, too simple. Rather he was just joy searching for all those sea-driven times, times when a storm, a furious storm like this night or maybe just an average ordinary vanilla storm passing through and complete in an hour made him think of his relationship with his homeland the sea and with its time for reflection. And so on that toss and turn bed he thought.

He thought first and mainly about how early the sea came into his life, almost from birth down at those ragged slopes around Germantown where he lived growing up and was tumbled into the sea early. And learned the power of the sea early when one winter storm night Mother Nature played a trick on her seaward brethren and tried to bring them home to her bosom all in one lashed-up swoop as the water came right up to that hovel (really a cottage, maybe slightly bigger) door and the lot of them only reached higher ground in a split second before a big foam-flecked (aren’t they always when they come in that hard, fast and furious) wave crashed that cottage down. And later, childhood later, a few years later anyway, when he, bravo he, decided, yes, decided that the impeding summer storm he could sense coming would be no deterrent to his taking that log on the beach and using it to swim to China , or some such place, on the current. And losing the log in the churning waters almost drowned, except for the screams of his panic beach-bound brother sounding the alarm for help and some Madonna savior swimmer, beach-bound too, came and swooped him up before he went down for the third time. Don’t tell Ma, jesus, don’t tell Ma.

Or that night, that funny night (funny night in retrospect, then and now retrospect) when he, his buddy Will and his girl, and she, she Terry Wallace, sat in Will’s father-bought high school car, a ’59 Dodge, “making out”while the sea churned up around them at old Nippo Beach just up from home Germantown and the police, spotting the car and the fix, came and rescued them rescued them while they were in, ah, compromising positions (you figure it out, he just laughed his thought laugh) because in the throes of love they had not realized that they were in a couple of feet of sea water that had splashed over some poor man-made seawall built against Mother’s angers.

Or that day, that wind- swept day, when his world fell apart, the day when Diana had left him, left him for good, left him for another man, another non-sea driven man, after she called it quits when spending a couple of months up in that storm-ravaged Maine cottage where she, quote, was tired as hell of the sea, of the wind, of the stuff that the wind did to her sensitive skin, and, and, tired of him playing out some old man of the seas, some man against nature thing with her in his train.

Or that time later with Sarah when the winter seas once again bore down on them in Marblehead coming up over a double seawall, damn a double sea walls, and almost touching their front steps. And she too calling it quits, although not over another man, or over his man and nature obsession, or over that breeched double sea-wall but just her calling it Sarah quits. And he sorry, more than Diana sorry, when she left.

Or that Maine time a few years back when a sudden winter storm came up the coast of Maine and he was stranded for a couple of days when Mile Road was cut off and he finally knew what it was like to be totally dependent on happenstance, on others, and, in the end on his own devises.

Or tonight, the winds blasting away, rain splashing down, left to his own devises, his own thoughts, and just then he thought, that no, no he was wrong, he really was searching for that metaphor, that metaphor, that mighty storm metaphor. that would sum up his life.

From The Pen Of Amercian Socialist Leader Eugene V. Debs-The Canton, Ohio Anti-War Speech 1918

Markin comment:

Every presidential candidate worth his or her salt (and vice-presidential candidates as well) should consider it an honor and a requirement to run for high office by being arrested as described below following in the tradition of Socialist party candidate Eugene V. Debs in 1920 when he ran his campaign from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. And why was Brother Debs in prison? For opposition to his generation’s imperial war, World War I. The one, to remind everyone, that was “to make the world safe for democracy.”         

And here is a challenge, post-election challenge, to the candidates of the major bourgeois parties, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney (or is it the other way around?). Why were you not at that demonstration and subject to arrest for a righteous cause?  They are more likely to be subject to arrest for other more heinous crimes.  Barack  Obama for his war crimes against the peoples of the world and Mitt Romney for simple tax evasion and being stupid and greedy in a public place. And tell everybody that is what Debs would say too.

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http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- The Time Of Motorcycle Bill

 

There was a scourge in the land, in the 1950s American land. No, not the dreaded but fatalistically expected BIG ONE that would send old mother earth back to square one, or worst, coming from the Russkies. Sure that was in the air and every school boy and girl had their giggling tales of having to hide, hide ass up, under some desk or other useless defense in air raid drill preparations for that eventually. Sure, as well, the air stunk of red scare, military build-up cold war “your mommy is a commie turns her in.” But that was not the day to day scare for every self-respecting parent from Portland to the Pacific. That was reserved for the deadly dreaded motorcycle scare that had every father telling his son to beware of falling under the Marlon Brando sway and spiraling down to a life, a low life of crime and debauchery (of course said son not knowing of the word, the meaning of debauchery, until much later just shrugged his innocent shoulders). More importantly every mother, every blessed mother, self-respecting or not (with a gentle nod from Dad) warned off their daughters against this madness and perversity.

Of course that did not stop the sons from mooning over every Harley that rode the ride down Main Street, Olde Saco (really U.S. Route One but everybody called it Main Street and it was) or the daughters from mooning (and maybe more) over the low- riders churning the metal on those bad ass machines. Even prime and proper Lily Dumont, the queen of Saint Brigitte’s Catholic Church rectitude on Sunday and wanna-be “mama” every other waking minute of late. And the object of her desire? One “Motorcycle Bill,” the baddest low- rider in all of Olde Saco.

Now baddest in Olde Saco (that’s up in ocean edge Maine for the heathens and others not in the know) was not exactly baddest in the whole wide world, nowhere as near as bad as say Sonny Barger and his henchmen outlaws- for- real bikers out in Hell’s Angels Oakland as chronicled by Doctor Gonzo (before he was Gonzo), Hunter S. Thompson in his saga of murder and mayhem sociological- literary study Hell’s Angels. But as much is in life one must accept the context. And the context here is that in sleepy dying mill town Olde Saco mere ownership, hell maybe mere desire for ownership, of a bike was prima facie evidence of badness. So every precious daughter was specifically warned away from Motorcycle Bill and his Vincent Black Lightning 1952 (although no mother, and maybe no daughter either, could probably tell the difference between that sleek English bike and a big pig Harley). But Madame Dumont felt no need to do so with her sweet sixteen Lily who, maybe, pretty please maybe was going to be one of god’s women, maybe enter the convent over in Cedars Of Lebanon Springs in a couple of years after she graduated from Olde Saco High along with her Class of 1960.

But that was before, walking home to Olde Saco’s French- Canadian (F-C) quarter, the Acre, on Atlantic Avenue with classmate and best friend Clara Dubois, Lily heard the thunder of Bill’s bike coming up behind them, stopping, Bill giving Lily a bow, and them revving the machine up and doing a couple of circle cuts within a hair’s breathe of the girls. Then just a suddenly he was off, and Lily, well, Lily was hooked, hooked on Motorcycle Bill, although she did not know it, know it for certain until that night in her room when she tossed and turned all night and did not ask god, or any of his associates, to guide her in this matter.

One thing about living in a sleepy old town, a sleepy old dying mill town, is that everybody knows everybody’s business at least as far as any person wants that information out on the public square. Two things are important before we go on. One is that everybody in town that counted which meant every junior and senior class high schooler in Olde Saco knew that Bill had made a “play” for Lily. And the buzz got its start from none other than Clara Dubois who had her own hankerings after the motorcycle man (her source of wonder though was more, well lets’ call it crass than Lily’s, Clara wanted to know if Bill was build, build with sexual power like his motorcycle. She had innocently, perhaps, understood the Marlon mystique). The second was that Bill, other than his bike, was not a low life low- rider but just a guy who liked to ride the roads free and easy. See Bill was a freshman over at Bowdoin and he used the bike as much to get back and forth as to do wheelies in front of impressionable teenage girls from the Acre.

One day, a few days after their Motorcycle Bill “introduction,” when Lily and Clara were over at Seal Rock at the end of Olde Saco Beach (not its real name but given it because it was the local lovers’ lane and many things had been sealed there including a fair share of “doing the do”) Bill came up behind them sans his bike. Now not on his bike, without a helmet, and carrying books, books of all things, he looked like any student except maybe a little bolder and a little less reserved. He started talking to Lily and something in his demeanor attracted her to him. (Clara swore, swore on seven bibles, that Lily was kind of stand-offish at first but Lily says no.) They talked for a while and then Bill asked Lily if she wanted a ride home. She hemmed and hawed but there was just something about him that spoke of mystery (who knows what Clara thought). She agreed and they walked a couple of blocks to where he was parked. And there Lily saw that Vincent Black Lightning 1952 of her dreams. Without a word, without anything done except to tie her hair back she climbed on the back of the bike at Bill’s beckon. And that is how one Lily Dumont became William Kelly’s motorcycle “mama.”

From Out in the Be-Bop 1950s Song Night- The Falcon’s “You’re So Fine”

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Now many music and social critics have done yeomen’s service giving us the meaning of various folk songs, folk protest songs in particular, from around this period. You know they have essentially beaten us over the head with stuff like the meaning of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind as a clarion call for now aging baby-boomers back then and a warning (not heeded) that a new world was a-bornin’, or trying to be. Or better, The Times They Are A-Changin’with plaintive plea for those in charge to get hip, or stand aside. (They did neither.) And we have been fighting about a forty year rearguard action to this very day trying to live down those experiences, and trying to get new generations to blow their own wind, change their own times, and sing their own plainsong in a similar way.

Like I said the critics have had a field day (and long and prosperous academic and journalistic careers as well) with that kind of stuff, fluff stuff really. The hard stuff, the really hard stuff that fell below their collective radars, was the non-folk, non-protest, non-deep meaning (so they thought) stuff, the daily fare of popular radio back in the day. A song like today’s selection, You’re So Fine. A song that had every red-blooded American (and who knows maybe world teen) wondering their own wondering about the fate of the song’s narrator. About what happened that night (and the next morning) that caused him to pose the comment in that particular way. Yes, that is the hard stuff of social commentary, the stuff of popular dreams, and the stuff that is being tackled head on in this series- Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night. Read on.
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She stood there, just stood there grinning to herself at the bathroom door going in to freshen up from the night ‘s pillow exertions, and, a little sore, good sore, to do other womanly after sex things. Grinning that womanly grin (although she was barely out of her teens, having turned twenty just the month before that grin moment) that connoted that she had caught herself a man, a good man from the looks of him this first morning, and a man whom she knew, knew deep in her womanly soul, that believed, and perhaps, would believe to infinity, or something like that, that he had bedded her with his line, his oh so fine line the night before at the Carousel Club, the one in Old Town for the college set and the young who were full of energy and looking, frankly, looking for sex, not the one over on Main Street that was reserved, strictly reserved for touritas mainly interested in the next drink, where he, so he thought, had picked her up.

What he did not know, and would not know to infinity or something like that, was at just that 1959 moment, just that turned twenty moment, she had dumped her no good, two-timing (she later found out five-timing so the no good stands two and one half more no good ) boyfriend from State U, the local hush-hush dope dealer on campus (selling to ancient tea heads, not so ancient beats, the curious, and an occasional girl, prodded on by some anxious boyfriend, who needed to loosen herself up before her first bout with the sex pillows), and all-around heel. So she had been on the rebound last night, had purposefully dolled herself up, all tight cashmere sweater to reveal her perky bosom, all skin- tight black shirt to show her curvaceous hips and slender and graceful legs, all ruby red lips stick to highlight her lips and a dab of come hinter, come hither perfume to highlight, to highlight her prowl needs.

Then he came into the club, known, vaguely known from around campus as something of a beat, something of a hipster (although she did not recall him around boyfriend tea times), something of an egghead, and something of a loner, all kind of vaguely known but known. And not known, intelligence gathered in the Ladies’ Room where she cornered Clara White who knew of such things, such campus things, not known to be hard on women, or at least his women. So when he came by her stool seat at the bar, her very friendly seat at the bar, and asked her in a very friendly but civilized manner whether the seat next to her was empty, she was ready, ready to be swept of her feet if that was where things were headed.

And then he started with that you’re so fine line, like from the big hit song, The Falcons’ song, everybody at school was playing and everybody knew the words to. And every guy had as his opening line that month. But it wasn’t what he said but the way he said it, like he was thankful that she, and she alone, was sitting alone at the bar just that minute. That he was thankful too that she let him sit next her. And that she had dolled herself up to look, well, to look so fine. So with that opening, after the troubles of the past few months, and his casual, his non-threatening offer to buy her a drink, she knew Clara’s intelligence was right, and she knew too that she was not going to sleep alone that night in her apartment. And as the evening progressed, without a lot of boring this and that to foul things up, he too knew where he was spending the night.

Just then he awoke, and she asked him, asked him like they would be together for a time whether he wanted some coffee, and what he wanted in it. And he answered like he didn’t want to put her to any bother and just like he too expected they would be together for a time.

FromThe Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- When The Corner Boys Grow Up

I have spilled much ink talking about the corner boy society that I grew up in 1950s Olde Saco (that’s up in Maine, seacoast Maine, not the great forest, farmland, ski mountain Maine but real honest lobsterman, shipbuilder, yawl Maine, all Mainiac Maine though and you cannot buy that entre for those interested) where some hard-ass (and soft-ass too) corner boys ripped up the imaginations of wanna-bes like me and my corner boys who hung around, soft-ass hung around, Mama’s Pizza Parlor over on Atlantic Avenue not far from the beach in case of any luck, girl luck, and car back seat Seal Rock sealed dreams, waiting, well, waiting for some breathe of fresh air, maybe coming in from the nearby ocean to wash over us and take us out of that red scare cold war night. In the meantime we hung out, Jimmy LaCroix, Phil Dubois, Jack (not French-Canadian mother and grandmere Jeanbon but good old American vanilla Jack like Jack Kennedy, our co-religionist) Bleu, his brother Deni, and me (me of the Kentuck Baptist father but F-C mother, nee LeBlanc, and of a long story of that union’s coming about that I will tell you about sometime when I am not corner boy-addled) doing a little of this and a little of that, some stuff legal other stuff well, let’s just leave it as other stuff. And leading us, unquestionably leading us once things got sorted out at about age fifteen, was Big Red Dubonnet, the king hell king of the Mama’s Pizza Parlor corner boys.

So on any given night, mostly weekends but in the summer seemingly every night, from about junior high school on you could find us in those environs, usually sitting on the stoop in front of Mama’s or holding up the brick wall on the parking lot side, one foot on the wall the other firmly on terra firma as was our style when corner boy posing, including white tee-shirt, black chinos and midnight sunglasses. Or playing pinball on Mama’s back room machine, the Madame LaRue busty ladies pictured on the scoreboard begging you to play for their favors, play fiercely although empty-handedly (except those seventeen free games you racked up in your, ah, frenzy to please Madame). Or when rock and roll threw its fresh breathe over us we tossed many quarters in Mama’s jukebox to hear the latest songs like the Chiffon’s He’s So Fine about twelve times straight and hoped that certain shes came in to listen and maybe help make us those selections. Or, on some dark moonless night, heading toward sixteen, seventeen maybe, maybe a little drunk, maybe a little dough hunger, or needing dough girl hungry, we might just be found doing our midnight creep around the neighborhood in order to make ends meet, that little of this and that stuff mentioned early.

As high school turned to work world, or maybe college world as things opened up even for working- class kids in those blessed 1960s times, the old corner boy society, or our generation’s chapter of it, went in several difference directions, some good some not so good, including those like our leader, the by then legendary Big Red Dubonnet who had graduated to armed robberies of gas stations, liquor stores, warehouses and Shawshank. Yah, Big Red was tough (I once saw him chain-whip, mercilessly chain-whip, a guy, an Irish guy from over in the Irishtown section of the Acre, and a guy who was known far and wide as tough as nails, for the simple error of being on the wrong corner, Red’s (and our), while breathing), was pretty smart, in a street smart way, knew a couple of things about the world and, and, be still my heart, let me have some free Madame LaRue games after he had racked up a ton and needed to take care of some ever present girl business. And I too was the beneficiary of Big Red’s (not Red, Big Red, don’t ever make that mistake, remember what I said about that chain-whipping) largess on many occasions because Big Red attracted girls, and not just slutty girls around the Acre like you’d expect, but girls who had their Saint Brigitte’s Church (Roman Catholic in that French-Canadian heavy old mill town) novena book recitals in one part of their brains and lust, bad boy lust, in the other, on more occasions that you would think. And knew more tricks, more please a boy tricks, than some old seacoast sailor’s whore.

And that is where memories of Big Red and the characters, hard-ass grown up corner boys who I ran into, or heard about, stone-killer Irish guys from Southie and Charlestown in Boston who filled up the state pen at Walpole (now called Cedar Junction at the behest of the local citizenry tired of hard-ass grown corner boy reputations ), blackjack armed robbery guys from South Point over in Springfield, general murder and mayhem motorcycle guys from Oakland and up and down the West Coast, and street tough guys hard-bitten by war, mainly Vietnam, from the wharves of Seattle, intersect in my mind. See Big Red, the late Big Red Dubonnet now, never could find anything better in this whole wide world than to be the king hell king of the corner boy night. But that, just like any kingship, takes dough, and so you either work the work-a-day world with the squares or go where the dough is-for Big Red in Podunk gas stations and liquors stores, maybe an off-hand truck or warehouse heist. They were, Big Red and the others, all driven by that same first glance, last chance, imperative though, and by the same need to hone their respective skills on a regular basis before a hostile and unforgiving world.

No question the life held me in thrall, as it now holds me in the thought that for a minute back in the 1950s, hell, more than a minute, I could have been lured to the life, no sweat, no looking back. Jesus I was the “holder” (innocent kid who looked like he could barely tie his shoes, and that task badly, let alone engage in criminal endeavors when cop time came) on more than one occasion when the great (locally Olde Saco and Portland great) “clip artist” Ronny Bleu (older brother of Jack and Deni) had the local merchants in a frenzy anytime he was in the down town area, or maybe even thought about being there. And later in gratitude to Big Red for his favors (no, jesus, no not that lame free pinball game stuff, but when he “gave”me one of his “reject” girls, a college girl he said he couldn’t understand and thought I might be able to) I did a couple of favors for him in return. Just look out stuff on a couple of heists but Big Red always appreciated it and everybody around town knew enough to not hassle me for any reason, any reason at all. I’ll never forget the thrill the first time we saw Big Red pull out his gun, some old .32 automatic I think, or when we heard that the Esso gas station over on Gorham Road in Scarborough was hit one dark night by a guy aiming a .32 at the gas jockey attendant. He got away clean, clean as a whistle, especially when that gas jockey blanked out when thought about that gun later when the cops put Big Red in front of him for identification. The stuff of legends, no question. So you can see the pull was strong, real strong.

Oh yah, sure the life had its downside, the time up at Shawshank, or some two bit county pokey. Stuff like that. But being connected, well, being able to walk around free as a bird because you were connected, that was something, wasn’t it? But get this too. I don’t know how true the code of omerta (silence) still is in Charlestown (or Southie, or about seventeen other places where corner boys, some corner boys anyway, go on to the life) but I am willing to believe that it is honored more in the breech than the observance. At least it was in Podunk. How do you think they (and you know who the they is, the cops from the locals to the feds), got the lead that got Big Red after he knocked over the biggest fur warehouse in Portland that last time before they clipped his wings, clipped them bad? I hope that bastard rots in hell. Big Red- RIP.

In Defense Of The Scientific Method- On Global Warming

DVD REVIEW

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, AL GORE, ET.AL, 2006

Yes, Virginia there is global warming. Yes, it is a human made phenomenon. And, yes, we have to do something about it, pronto. This film lays out the scientific argument for the observations that scientists, and others, have been screaming at us about for the past couple of decades. For that alone it deserved the documentary Oscar that it won this year. However, more, much more needs to be done to spread the word, and do something real about the impending sinkhole. And that is the rub. The ruling classes and their hangers-on have severely downplayed the serious effects on the globe of current trends. There is no will to fundamentally alter the squandering of finite global resources, although there is plenty of talk.

Those who have panned the film have done so on the basis of a political belief that god, technology or just hiding one’s head in the sand will pull us through. Their main argument is that this scare-mongering about major planetary changes has occurred several times in the past and we are still here. That is a recipe for doing nothing and accepting that this capitalist-dominated world economy will find a way out. Of course by that time Kansas will be beachfront property. No, I will stand by the scientific method that underscores this film. Will some of the predictions prove unwarranted? Probably. Are there mistakes in calculations? Probably. But I like that way rather than depending on Exxon’s good graces and explanations. There was a time when the ruling classes also aspired to use the scientific method to solve societal problems at the time of the classic bourgeois revolutions like the English and more so the French. Now apparently astrology charts suffice. If that is the best to be done -move on over and let working people work on this world-historic problem.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay, Circa 1958

Peter Paul Markin and Frankie Riley had known each other from the days in the old 1960s North Adamsville neighborhood, the old just barely working- class neighborhood where the chronically unemployed, under-employed and just plain ne’er-do-wells, mainly Irish, mainly third or fourth generation Irish and thus firmly planted by the prior toil of forbears lived, where they had met, beyond North Adamsville Junior High corridor met, while hugging the walls (literally according to both sources) at the old Sacred Heart (Roman Catholic) Church at the weekly (except Lent, of course, and other odd-ball feast days like the Feast ofthe Immaculate Conception which even as ignorant, flat- out ignorant as these boyos were drew a guffaw) “sock hop” held by the senior parish priest, Monsignor Lally.

Held to, well, “keep an eye, maybe more than one, on the younger portion of his flock,” as he expressed it each Sunday when making the announcement for the next one in the line-up. The real reason, of course, whispered among the young, including wall-huggers Markin and Riley, was to keep said young sheep, away from too much heathen (read: ersatz Protestant music probably a Baptist or Unitarian conspiracy, the good priest spouted both theories) devil’s music; that rock and roll music that was just then epitomized by that hip-swaying, butt-flaying, making the girls“wet” (wet in the wrong places) praying false god Elvis Presley. And by all means to keep them, that unprotected flock to a person, but especially those with access to automobiles, from dark seawalls down at Adamsville Beach listening to fogged-up car radios in the back seat and digging the beat while, well, just while or for those without golden automobile access or too young, away from the Strand Theater, the exclusive upstairs balcony section of course, for the young set, the car-less healthy young interested in s-x (you know just in case the old bastard is still around).

Although they had known each other for some fifty years and were duly standing against the wall, as in old Sacred Heart day, at Lucy’s the site of their fiftieth anniversary high school class reunion not far from the old high school, North Adamsville High, Peter Paul and Frankie still remembered the first song that had heard upon meeting at that fateful junior high school time sock hop, Danny and the Juniors’ At The Hop. And the reason they remembered that song so vividly was one sparking blue-eyed, flaming red-haired Clara Murphy, a girl who had given both of them her come hither twelve-years old look that night (and previously at school) and they had been hooked, hooked as bad as men (okay, boys) could be hooked by a woman (okay, girl). So it was not surprising that they both had rushed over to ask her to dance when that number was being played at that fateful dance. And Clara in her Solomonic wisdom turned them both down. Or maybe not so solomonic. Clara Murphy couldn’t, just that moment decide whether she liked Peter Paul or Frankie better, or whether she liked either of them, according to Frankie’s intelligence source, his younger sister Amy who was friends with Clara’s sister Bonnie and so gave in to her budding feminine wiles and turned them both down.

Naturally that denial after those come hither looks inflamed the boyos. So for the next several weeks Peter Paul and Frankie made every mad school boy attempt to win her favors. Both had recklessly, although determinedly, courted legal danger by “clipping” (five finger discount, oh, you know, petty larceny) onyx rings (Frankie’s had a diamond in the center) for her (again intelligence, reliable intelligence, Clara sister Bonnie via Amy, had informed them separately that she liked those kinds of rings). She accepted both as tokens of friendship she called it. Ditto 45 RPM Elvis and Jerry Lee records (an easy “clip” for these adventurers, just place under your undershirt and walk out, or better slide into your underpants, no salesperson is going there, no way). Accepted, dispassionately accepted. Not ditto though, not ditto “clipped” flowers and candy (especially when Clara heard how the previous goods were “purchased” although she did not go so far as to give them back). They had each worked, really dragged their butts carrying doubles, as caddies as the local golf course to gather the dough necessary for those expenses. And on it went like that for several weeks.

To no avail because, also exhibiting another aspect of budding wiles, Clara took up with Bill Larkin, their friend and fellow classmate Kenny’s older brother (one year older). Reason: stated Clara reason. Bill had a head on his shoulders and, quote, was not so hung up on silly rock and roll that was just a passing thing, unquote.Both men laughed at the recollection that reunion night, a bittersweet recollection, since later Clara married Bill, they later had drifted west to the coast, formed and unformed a couple of rock and roll bands in the strobe light dreams 1960s with Clara as a Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick –like lead singer and Bill on lead guitar, and a few years after that Bill had been killed, face-down killed, down in some dusty town in Mexico, Sonora, they thought, when a major drug deal went south on him.

According to the reports, police reports, Mexican police reports, so maybe a little off on the details, but on point on the face-down dead part, Bill and Clara had “muled” many times for one of the budding drug cartels. Bill had decided to go “independent”trying to take-off with one of his deliveries to be used as seed money for his own operation and wound up in a back alley with six slugs in the back of his head. Clara who had accompanied him on that fateful trip (and had been holding that delivery, ten kilos of coke just then becoming the drug of choice for the hipsters, and not cartel recovered) was never heard from again.

Just then some oldies but goodies aficionado, or someone who had seriously misspent his or her youth, put Roll and Rock Is Here To Stay on, and for the life of the two boyos they couldn’t remember until later that Danny and the Juniors had recorded that song as well. They then raised a drink to Clara Murphy, Clara of the sparkling eyes and flaming red hair, and of their youth.