A View From The International Left Archives- Ontario’s 1912 Ban on French Education-Canada: Equal Language Rights for All!

Workers Vanguard No. 1095	9 September 2016

Ontario’s 1912 Ban on French Education-Canada: Equal Language Rights for All!

The following article is reprinted from Spartacist Canada No. 189 (Summer 2016), newspaper of our comrades of the Trotskyist League/Ligue Trotskyste, Canadian section of the International Communist League.

Barely a month goes by without one or another government official issuing a hypocritical apology for past transgressions by the Canadian capitalist rulers. In one of the more recent, Ontario’s Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne stood before the Legislature in February to apologize for the banning of teaching in French in provincial schools more than a century ago.

Regulation 17, enacted in 1912, effectively outlawed French-language education in all Ontario schools beyond the first two grades. At the time, francophones made up about 10 percent of Ontario’s population, and a much higher proportion in the north and parts of the east and southwest. This blatantly discriminatory legislation produced a defiant backlash: francophone teachers ignored the ban and led students out of classrooms, while mothers blocked entrances to schools and confronted police who tried to impose the regulation. In Quebec, outrage over Regulation 17 contributed to the revolts against conscription during World War I, which were brutally repressed by the police and military.

The Ontario government’s edict exemplified the Anglo chauvinism of the Canadian ruling class, which suppressed the national rights of overwhelmingly francophone Quebec and the linguistic rights of French speakers elsewhere. In 1837-38, Quebec’s bourgeois-democratic Patriote rebellion was drowned in blood by British troops. Following Confederation in 1867, the battles of the largely francophone Métis people [of mixed Native-European descent] for language and property rights in Manitoba and later Saskatchewan led to the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. The subsequent hanging of Métis leader Louis Riel by the Tory government of John A. Macdonald led to mass protests in the streets of Montreal. To this day, francophones in Ontario—who number over 600,000—and elsewhere in nominally bilingual Canada keep having to fight for French-language education, hospital services and other basic rights.

This is the backdrop to the Ontario government’s apology, which naturally included no promise of compensation. The purpose of such apologies for crimes of a supposedly distant past—whether to francophones, Native people, Japanese and Chinese Canadians or Sikhs—is to maintain the deceitful fiction that modern capitalist Canada is a beacon of fairness, freedom and equality for all. The ruling class uses its cant about a progressive, multicultural and bilingual Canada to keep the national and language questions at bay in a country where more than 20 percent of the population primarily speaks French and where immigrant languages now also abound. The historic treatment of francophones has become something of a template for dealing with minorities arriving from all over the world: ugly chauvinism is papered over with soothing words, alongside the co-opting of “cultural” elites including religious leaders and corrupt politicians of all hues.

The Battle for French Schools in Ontario

The provincial Conservative government of James Whitney passed Regulation 17 in July 1912 following an official inquiry into the state of Ontario’s bilingual schools. Protests and school walkouts began that same year. The Globe (25 November 1912) reported that “about 1,000 young French-Canadians” rallied against Regulation 17 the previous day in Ottawa, which was then about 25 percent francophone. The reporter summarized: “It was asserted that the new regulations, particularly No. 17, were contrary to every right, natural and constitutional, possessed by French-Canadians under the [1867] British North America Act, and that their purpose was to Anglicize the children who attended the bilingual schools.”

During the 1914 provincial election campaign, a rally for a Conservative candidate ended abruptly when he was hit by a rotten egg thrown by a protester against Regulation 17. Two years later, mothers formed a chain around Ottawa’s École Guigues to stop police from evicting two teachers who refused to comply with the regulation. Pulling out their long hairpins for self-protection, they managed to keep the cops out. In 1917, Catholic French Canadian parishioners near Windsor revolted when the police tried to enforce the installation of a priest deemed an opponent of bilingual education. Nine were arrested and ten injured, including two women in their 70s. The next year, protesters in Montreal and Quebec City confronted police and the military in anti-conscription demonstrations. Four protesters were killed in Quebec City. These angry rallies showed that Quebec’s francophone population had no desire to fight and die in a war for British imperialism and its Canadian lapdogs.

To complement police repression, government officials responded to the protests against Regulation 17 with patronizing contempt. Declaring that “French-speaking citizens…are noted for their obedience to duly constituted authority,” Premier Whitney added: “those who are exciting prejudices and misrepresenting the situation are counselling the minority to defy the whole authority of the Province of Ontario” (Globe, 9 October 1912).

Part of the basis for this condescending claptrap was the role of the Catholic church, to which nearly the entire French Canadian population belonged. The priests and bishops had long enforced acceptance of francophones’ inferior status under British and English Canadian rule, imposing obedience to authority through fear of excommunication and damnation. But defense of the French language was one of the key pillars that justified the church’s political existence, and French-speaking priests could not defend Regulation 17 without discrediting themselves. So a civil war of sorts erupted in the Ontario Catholic church between its French-speaking leadership and the English-speaking Irish wing. Faced with the raw bigotry of the Protestant Orange Order, which held great sway in the province, the Irish priests largely supported Regulation 17, fearing that all Catholic schools—English as well as French—might be targeted for suppression amid the debate over bilingual education. These debates were argued all the way to the Vatican, where Pope Benedict XV sagely declined to take a side.

Increasingly unenforceable and a nagging source of national and linguistic tensions, Regulation 17 stopped being formally applied in 1927. However it was not rescinded until 1944, and French schools were not officially recognized in Ontario until 1968 while access to them only became a legal right in the 1980s. The battle for francophone rights in Ontario flared up again in the 1990s when the Conservative government of Mike Harris tried to shut down the only French-language teaching hospital in Ontario, Ottawa’s Hôpital Montfort. This led to huge protests, which eventually saved it from closure.

Today, Ontario maintains two school systems, a public and a separate, publicly funded Catholic system. Many French-language schools are tied to the latter and are often older and ill-maintained. As Marxists who advocate the complete separation of church and state, we call for a single, secular public school system with bilingual and where necessary multilingual education. Francophones and other minorities, wherever numbers warrant, should have the same level of access to quality education in the language of their choice as the English-speaking majority.

In Quebec, the hold of the Catholic church was finally broken through the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, which saw the emergence of a distinct French-speaking capitalist class. The emergent Québécois bourgeoisie soon began its own drive to assimilate non-francophone minorities, especially immigrants, through restrictive language legislation. Just as we oppose anti-French discrimination in English Canada, we also oppose the restrictive provisions of Quebec’s French-language charter, Law 101, notably in the field of education. At the same time, we recognize that the primary root cause of the linguistic and ethnic divisions within Quebec is the Canadian rulers’ longstanding anti-Quebec chauvinism and hostility toward French language rights.

At around the same time as the battles for French schools in English-dominated Canada, V.I. Lenin, the future leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was tackling the interlinked questions of national and language rights in the multinational tsarist empire, which was dominated by Great Russian chauvinism. In concluding a polemic against Russian liberals who advocated that Russian be made the “official” language, he stated:

“That is why Russian Marxists say that there must be no compulsory official language, that the population must be provided with schools where teaching will be carried on in all the local languages, that a fundamental law must be introduced in the constitution declaring invalid all privileges of any one nation and all violations of the rights of national minorities.”

— “Is a Compulsory Official Language Needed?” (January 1914)

For Lenin, advocacy of the democratic right of all nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to separate, together with opposition to privileges for any nationality or language, was crucial to combating divisions among the workers and uniting them in the fight for socialist revolution.

Canadian Nationalism Rooted in Anti-French Chauvinism

After the Conquest of New France in 1760-63, the British crown was dead set on wiping out any remnants of the French colonies in North America. Between 1755 and 1763, the British deported about 10,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia, with thousands dying on the journey. In Quebec, the British sought to eradicate French education while trying to swamp the French population through immigration from Britain, though the high francophone birthrate proved to be an insuperable obstacle.

A small number of francophone missionaries and coureurs des bois fur traders had arrived in Ontario as early as the 17th century. Later, Quebec’s high birthrate and the scarcity of arable land pushed the French-speaking population further afield in the 1800s and early 1900s. Attempts to colonize new areas within Quebec had limited success, as most of the province essentially sits on hard rock. Many workers seeking jobs ended up in the U.S., northern Ontario and further west. French Canadian nationalists like Henri Bourassa argued that sparsely populated Western Canada should be open to both English and French colonists, but the Anglo rulers begged to differ.

Canada had received quasi-independence from Britain in 1867 under the stewardship of arch-reactionary Tory prime minister Macdonald, a member of the Orange Order. Macdonald’s crushing of the Northwest Rebellion and hanging of Louis Riel ensured that this region would be controlled by the English. (Manitoba had been majority francophone, largely of Métis heritage, when it entered Confederation in 1870.)

The ideology that drove Canada’s ruling elite was epitomized by the phrase “One Language, One Flag, One Country,” associated with D’Alton McCarthy, a Tory MP and Orange Order leader from central Ontario. The importance that the capitalist rulers placed on stopping the spread of French language rights was captured in an early history of the Métis struggle written by Charles P. Mulvaney, a military officer who himself participated in the suppression of the Northwest Rebellion. Mulvaney criticized Macdonald for his intransigence towards the Métis’ desire for the right to own their own farms, but when it came to the demand for language rights, he declared:

“The other demands were purely political, and were introduced by Riel himself in order to found an exclusively French Province in the North-West. To grant this would have been to repeat the lamentable error by which England at the Conquest perpetuated the French language, law, and religion, and established an island of mediaevalism and of alien race in the midst of the spread of English Canadian civilization.”

— The History of the North-West Rebellion of 1885 (1885)

Elsewhere in the country, “English only” bigotry targeted Chinese and other immigrants, especially in B.C. [British Columbia]. And of course Native people suffered for generations under the residential school system, which aimed at destroying their identity and making them “Canadian,” including by wiping out their languages.

For Working-Class Unity Against Capitalism!

While the francophone minority suffered the blows of chauvinist policies, they were not simply victims. In the course of the 20th century, many Franco-Ontarians became a key component of the labour movement, notably in the mines of northern Ontario. The Communist Party-led Mine Mill union in the Sudbury area, one of the world’s main nickel-mining centres, had thousands of French Canadian members. In her book, Voices from French Ontario (1982), Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos described how “by the 1950s Mine-Mill local 598, with its 15,000 members, was bigger than most northern Ontario towns and more influential than any other institution in Sudbury—including the Roman Catholic church.” In the words of a francophone Mine-Mill unionist quoted by Arnopoulos: “The church had a rival. The priests didn’t like it, and they decided to find a way to run it out of town.”

The Catholic hierarchy allied with the bosses and right-wing union leaders to drive out Mine Mill in one of the key battles in the anti-Communist purges that sapped the fighting strength of the Canadian labour movement from the late 1940s to the early ’60s. In response, many francophone workers broke with the church. While the northern Ontario mining industry has since been devastated by closures and mass layoffs, workers of francophone origin remain a strong component of the working class in many parts of the country.

In recent decades, overt “English only” bigotry has largely been sidelined, at least at official government levels. But the ethos of “Canadian unity,” with Anglo chauvinism as a necessary corollary, remains at the heart of capitalist Canada. Confronted with the powerful class and other social struggles that shook Quebec in the 1960s and ’70s, the federal government combined cosmetic reform with the fist of repression. Thus, Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who had introduced official bilingualism, sent the army to occupy Quebec and orchestrate the jailing of hundreds of left-wing and nationalist militants in October 1970. And through two referendums on Quebec independence in 1980 and 1995, Liberal-led federal governments resorted to threats, lies and dirty tricks in order to maintain a “united” Canada.

Since the events of a century ago, the national divide between Quebec and English Canada has deepened to the point where it has poisoned prospects for united class struggle against the capitalists. The Trotskyist League/Ligue Trotskyste advocates Quebec independence, recognizing that this would create better conditions for the workers to see that “their” capitalists are class enemies, not allies, and thereby clear the way for struggle against the bosses in each nation. At the same time, we recognize that in the event of Quebec independence, the Canadian ruling class would seek to roll back democratic gains won by French speakers outside Quebec. Moreover, today’s Quebec bourgeois nationalists, who seek to become the exploiters of their “own” working class, are utterly indifferent to the plight of francophones outside Quebec—who are themselves, for misguided though understandable reasons, generally hostile to the idea of an independent Quebec.

In the event of Quebec independence, Marxists would continue to fight for the defense and extension of language rights for linguistic minorities, including immigrants and indigenous people, in both English Canada and Quebec. As an elementary democratic measure, predominantly francophone regions that are geographically adjacent to Quebec (e.g., largely Acadian parts of New Brunswick) should have the right to decide whether to join an independent Quebec or remain within Canada.

Our perspective is the forging of a Marxist vanguard party that would act, in Lenin’s words, as a “tribune of the people,” opposing all instances of chauvinism and oppression in order to unite the working class in the fight for socialist revolution. French-speaking workers in Ontario, New Brunswick and elsewhere will play an important role in this struggle. Down with anti-French chauvinism! Equal language rights for all!

Listen Up!-From The Women And Men Who Know First Hand The Bloody Face Of War-The Military Families Against War

Listen Up!-From The Women And Men Who Know First Hand The Bloody Face Of War-The Military Families Against War  

By Frank Jackman

I have often, very often lately, had occasion to mention that during these seemingly endless wars of the early 2000s that those soldiers, sailors, Marines and Air personnel who have one way or the other gotten “religion” on the question of war and peace have more “street cred” on in the anti-war streets than those civilians like these days even an old veteran like myself who whatever their righteous anger cannot convey to the public. I often take the example from my own generation, the Vietnam War veterans, specifically those who worked with and around Vietnam Veterans for Peace (VVAW) like John Kerry before he headed for the main change and became the front man for every imperialist endeavor since, when they took to the streets got the muted admiration (or at least silence) from the most rabid pro-war chicken-hawks. Remembering those famous silent marches through the streets of every major town and the Capitol with the battered, bruised, hurt, scarred, mentally and physically leading the way crying out to the high heavens for an end to the madness, an end to the death tolls, for bringing the troops home and for letting the next generation live without the threat of warrior deaths hanging over their heads.             

If the wounded warriors turned anti-warriors of the endless wars that have plagued this country for this whole century thus far in every place where the American government has decided to put its ugly nose have “street cred” when the deal goes down that holds as true for the organizations of anti-war military families who have lost loved ones to the false policies of that same crazed government. Many times they do not appear on the streets like the grizzled veterans of the myriad conflicts but everybody damn well give a listen to what they have to say because unlike the chicken-hawks and their hangers-on these families have suffered the loss of their sons and daughters to the beast military machine. Yeah, listen up, listen up carefully.     

*****Coming Of Age, Political Age, In The 1960s Night- A Baptism Of Fire-Making War On The War-Makers

*****Coming Of Age, Political Age, In The 1960s Night- A Baptism Of Fire-Making War On The War-Makers-The Struggle Against Nuclear War

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He was scared. All of fourteen year old Peter Paul Markin’s body was scared. Of course he knew, knew just as well as anybody else, if anybody thought to ask, that he was really afraid not scared, but Peter Paul was scared anyway. No, not scared (or afraid for the literary correct types), not Frannie De Angelo demon neighborhood tough boy, schoolboy nemesis scared, scared that he would be kicked in the groin, bent over to the ground in pain for no reason, no reason except Frannie deep psycho hard boy reasons known only to himself. Markin was used to that kind of scared, not liking it, not liking getting used to it but he was not tough, not even close although he was wiry, but not Franny heavyweight tough, but used to it. And this certainly was not his usual girl scared-ness on the off chance that one, one girl that is, might say something to him and he would have no “cool” rejoinder. (Yes, girls scared him, not Franny scared but no social graces scared, except in the comfortable confines of a classroom where he could show off with his knowledge of two thousand arcane facts that he thought would impress them but no avail then, later he would be swarmed, well, maybe not swarmed but he didn’t have to spend many lonely weekend nights studying to get to three thousand arcane facts) This was different. This, and his handkerchief-dabbed wet palms and forehead did not lie, was an unknown scared.

See, Peter Paul had taken a bet, a “put your money where your mouth is" bet, from best freshman high school friend Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, if you want to know the full name. Now these guys had previously bet on everything under the sun since middle school, practically, from sports game spreads, you know Ohio State by ten over Michigan stuff like that, to how high the master pizza man and owner at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, Tonio, would throw his pizza dough one strange night when Frankie needed dough (money dough that is) for his hot date with girlfriend Joanne. So no bet was too strange for this pair, although this proposition was probably way too solemn to be bet on.

 

What got it started, the need for a bet started, this time, really had to do with school, or maybe better, the world situation in 1960. Peter Paul, a bundle of two thousand facts that he guarded like a king’s ransom, went off the deep end in 9th grade Civics class when he, during a current events discussion, exploded upon his fellow classmates with the observation that there were too many missiles, too many nuclear bomb-loaded guided missiles, in the world and that both sides in the Cold War (The United States and the Soviet Union and their respective hangers-on) should “ban the bomb.” But you have not heard the most provocative part yet, Peter Paul then argued that, as a good-will gesture and having more of them, the United States should destroy a few of its own. Unilaterally.

 

Pandemonium ensued as smarts guys and gals, simps and stups also, even those who never uttered a word in class, took aim at Peter Paul’s head. The least of it was that he was called a “commie” and a "dupe" and the discussion degenerated from there. Mr. Merck was barely able to contain the class, and nobody usually stepped out line in his class, or else. Somehow order was restored by the end of class and within a few days the class was back to normal, smart guys and girls chirping away with all kinds of flutter answers and the simps and stups, well the simp and stups did their simp and stup thing, as always.

 

Frankie always maintained that that particular day was one of the few that he wasn’t, and he really wasn’t, glad that Peter Paul was his friend. And during that class discussion he made a point, a big point, of not entering the fray in defense of his misbegotten friend. He thought Peter Paul was off the wall, way off the wall, on this one and let him know it after class. Of course, Peter Paul could not leave well enough alone and started badgering friend Frankie about it some more. But this was stone wall time because Frankie, irreverent, most of the time irreligious, and usually just happy to be girl-smitten in the world, and doing stuff about that, and not worried about its larger problems really believed, like the hard Roman Catholic-bred boy that he was underneath, that the evil Soviet Union should be nuclear fizzled-that very day.

 

But Peter Paul kept egging the situation on. And here is the problem with a purist, a fourteen year old purist, a wet behind the ears fourteen year old purist when you think about it. Peter Paul was as Roman Catholic-bred underneath as Frankie but with this not so slight difference. Peter Paul’s grandmother, Anna, was, and everybody who came in contact with her agreed, a saint. A saint in the true-believer catholic social gospel sense and who was a fervent admirer of Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker for social justice movement started in the 1930s. So frequently The Catholic Worker, the movement newspaper, would be lying around her house. And just as frequently Peter Paul, taking grandmother refuge from the hell-bend storms at his own house, would read the articles. And in almost every issue there would be an article bemoaning the incredible increase in nuclear weapons by both sides, the cold war freeze-out that escalated that spiral and the hard fact that the tipping point beyond no return was right around the corner. And something had to be done about it, and fast, by rational people who did not want the world blown up by someone’s ill-tempered whim. Yah, heady stuff, no question, but just the kind of thing that a certain fourteen year old boy could add to his collection of now two thousand plus facts.

Heady stuff, yah, but also stuff that carried some contradictions. Not in grandmother Anna, not in Dorothy Day so much as in Peter Paul and through him Frankie. See, the Catholic Worker movement had no truck, not known truck, anyway with “commies" and "dupes”, although that movement too, more than once, and by fellow Catholics too, was tarred with that brush. They were as fervent in their denunciation of the atheistic Soviet Union as any 1950s red-baiter. But they also saw that that stance alone was not going to make the world safer for believers, or anybody else. And that tension between the two strands is where Frankie and Peter Paul kind of got mixed up in the world’s affairs. Especially when Peter Paul said that the Catholic Worker had an announcement in their last issue that in October (1960) they were going to help sponsor an anti-nuclear proliferation rally on the Boston Common as part of a group called SANE two weeks before the presidential elections.

Frankie took that information as manna from heaven. See, Frankie was just as interested in knowing two thousand facts in this world as Peter Paul. Except Frankie didn’t guard them like a king’s ransom but rather used them, and then discarded them like a tissue. And old Frankie, even then, even in 1960 starting to spread his wings as the corner boy king of the North Adamsville high school class of 1964, knew how to use his stockpile of facts better than Peter Paul ever could. So one night, one fiercely debated night, when Frankie could take no more, he said “bet.” And he bet that Peter Paul would not have the courage to travel from North Adamsville to Park Street Station in Boston to attend that SANE rally by himself (who else would go from old working- class, patriotic, red-scare scared, North Adamsville anyway). And as is the nature of fourteen year old boy relationships, or was, failure to take the bet, whatever bet was social suicide. “Bet,” said Peter Paul quickly before too much thinking time would elapse and destroy the fact of the bet marred by the hint of hesitation.

But nothing is ever just one thing in this wicked old world. Peter Paul believed, believed fervently, in the social message of the Catholic Worker movement especially on this nuclear war issue. But this was also 1960 and Irish Jack Kennedy was running, and running hard, to be President of the United States against bad man Richard Milhous Nixon and Peter Paul was crazy for Jack (really for younger brother, Bobby, the ruthless organizer behind the throne which is the way he saw his own future as a political operative). And, of course, October in election year presidential politics is crunch time, a time to be out hustling votes, out on Saturday hustling votes, especially every Irish vote, every Catholic vote, hell, every youth vote for your man.

 

On top of that Jack, old Irish Jack Kennedy, war hero, good-looking guy with a good-looking wife (not Irish though not as far as anyone could tell), rich as hell, was trying to out-Cold War Nixon, a Cold War warrior of the first degree. And the way he was trying to outgun Nixon was by haranguing everyone who would listen that there was a “missile gap,” and the United was falling behind. And when one talked about a missile gap in 1960 that only meant one thing, only brooked only one solution- order up more, many more, nuclear-bomb loaded guided missiles. So there it was, one of the little quirks of life, of political life. So, Peter Paul, all fourteen year old scared Peter Paul has to make good on his bet with Frankie but in the process put a crimp into his hoped-for political career. And just for that one moment, although with some hesitation, he decided to be on the side of the “angels” and to go.

That Saturday, that October Saturday, was a brisk, clear autumn day and so Peter Paul decided to walk the few miles from his house in North Adamsville over the Neponset Bridge to the first MTA subway station at Fields Corner rather than take the forever Eastern Mass. bus that came by his street erratically. After crossing the bridge he passed through one of the many sections of Boston that could pass for the streets of Dublin. Except on those streets he saw many young Peter Pauls holding signs at street corners for Jack Kennedy, other passing out literature, and others talking up Jack’s name. Even as he approached the subway station he saw signs everywhere proclaiming Jack’s virtues. Hell, the nearby political hang-out Eire Pub looked like a campaign headquarters. What this whole scene did not look like to Peter Paul was a stronghold place to talk to people about an anti-nuclear weapons rally. Peter Paul got even more scared as he thought about the reception likely at the Boston Commons. He pushed on, not without a certain tentative regret, but he pushed on through the turnstile, waited for the on-coming subway to stop, got on, and had an uneventful ride to the Park Street Station, the nearest stop to the Common.

Now Park Street on any given Saturday, especially in October after the college student hordes have descended on Boston, is a madhouse of activity. College student strolling around downtown looking for goods at the shops, other are just rubber-necking, other are sunning themselves on the grass or park benches in the last late sun days before winter arrives with a fury. Beyond the mainly civilized college students (civilized on the streets in the daytime anyway) there are the perennial street people who populate any big city and who when not looking for handouts, a stray cigarette, or a stray drink are talking a mile a minute among themselves about some supposed injustice that has marred their lives and caused their unhappy decline. Lastly, and old town Boston, historic old town Boston, scene of many political battles for every cause from temperance to liberty, is defined by this, there are a motley crew of speakers, soap-box speakers whether on a real soap-box or not, who are holding forth on many subjects, although none that drew Peter Paul’s attention this day. After running that gauntlet, as he heads for the Francis Parkman Bandstand where the SANE rally was to take place he was amused by all that surrounds him putting him in a better mood, although still apprehensive of what the day will bring forth.

Arriving at the bandstand he saw about twenty people milling around with signs, hand-made signs that showed some spunk, the most prominent being a large poster-painted sign that stated boldly, “Ban The Bomb.” He is in the right place, no question. Although he is surprised that there are not more people present he is happy, secretly happy, that those twenty are there, because, frankly, he thought there might be just about two. And among that crowd he spotted a clot of people who were wearing Catholic Worker buttons so he is now more fully at ease, and was starting to be glad that he came here on this day. He went over to the clot and introduced himself and tells them how he came to be there. He also noted that one CWer wore the collar of a priest; a surprise because at Sacred Heart, his parish church, it was nothing but “fire and brimstone” from the pulpit against the heathen communist menace.

Get this-he also met a little old lady in tennis sneakers. For real. Now Frankie, devil’s advocate Frankie, baited Peter Paul in their arguments about nuclear disarmament by stating that the “peaceniks” were mainly little old ladies in tennis shoes-meaning, of course, batty and of no account, no main chance political account, no manly Jack Kennedy stand up to the Russians account. Peter Paul thought to himself wait until I see Frankie and tell him that this little old lady knew more about politics, and history, than even his two thousand facts. And was funny too boot. Moreover, and this was something that he had privately noticed, as the youngest person by far at the rally she, and later others, would make a fuss over him for that very reason talking about young bravery and courage and stuff like that.

Over the course of the two hours or so of the rally the crowd may have swelled to about fifty, especially when a dynamic black speaker from the W.E.B. Dubois club at Harvard University linked up the struggle against nuclear weapons with the black struggle down South for voting rights that those in the North had been hearing more about lately. It was not until later, much later, that Peter Paul found out that this Dubois club business was really the name of the youth group of the American Communist Party (CP) at the time but by that time he was knowledgeable enough to say “so what.” And it was not until later that he found out that the little old lady with the tennis sneakers was a CPer, although she had said at the time he talked to her she was with some committee, some women’s peace committee, within the Democratic Party. Oh, well. But then he would also be able to say “so what” to that accusation in proper “family of the left” fashion.

 

But forget all that later stuff, and what he knew or did not know later. See, that day, that October 1960 autumn day, Peter Paul learned something about serious politics. If you are on the right side of the angels on an issue, a central issue of the day, you are kindred. And although there were more than a few catcalls from the passers-by about “commies”, “dupes”, and “go back to Russia” he was glad, glad as hell that he came over. Although nothing turned inside him, noticeably turned inside him that day, about his politics and his determination to see Jack Kennedy and the Democrats take the White House he thought about those brave people at the bandstand and what they were standing for a lot for a long time after the event faded from memory. Oh yah, it was good to be on the side of the angels. And it didn’t hurt that he won that Frankie bet, either.

*A Honky Tonk Man Encore- The Troubled Life And Musicial Genius Of Hank Williams

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Hank Williams And The Drifting Cowboys Doing "Cold Cold Heart".

DVD Review

Hank Williams-Honky Tonk Blues, Hank Williams and other artist and commentators, PBS Productions- American Masters Series, 2004

In a May 2009 review of a Hank Williams tribute album, "Timeless" , released in 2003(the 50th Anniversary of his death) I noted the following that is germane to a review of this very informative and balanced PBS "American Masters" production of the life and times of one of the legends of American roots music -country and western branch (and maybe more):

"A musical performer knows that he or she has arrived when they have accumulated enough laurels and created enough songs to be worthy, at least in some record producer's eyes, of a tribute album. When they are also alive to accept the accolades as two out of the four of the artists under review are, which in these cases is only proper, that is all to the good. That said, not all tribute albums are created equally. Some are full of star-studded covers, others are filled with lesser lights that have been influenced by the artist that they are paying tribute to. As a general proposition though I find it a fairly rare occurrence, as I have noted in a review of the "Timeless" tribute album to Hank Williams, that the cover artist outdoes the work of the original recording artist. With that point in mind I will give my "skinny" on the cover artists here."

And that is the essential point that separates the musical greats like Hank Williams from the transitory stars of the day. Over fifty years after his death his songs, heartfelt, tragic, depressive, and on a few occasions whimsical still "speak" to musicians and modern listeners alike. His life`s story, as told here through commentary by those who knew and worked with him, including various members of his "Drifting Cowboys" back-up bands, his widow, his son and grandson Hank II and III respectively, his stepdaughter and various other hometown folks (Montgomery, Alabama although I swear he is a Cajun boy), musical collaborators and music historians unrolls very much like a... Hank Williams ballad. And that again is the point-here is a case where life and art are not so very far apart.

Since the music is what is eternal in this troubled man's life let me finish up here with a reposting of that "Timeless" tribute album review mentioned above. It is that simple yet profound music that gives the essence of the man, his seemingly eternal marriage troubles (and some joys too, I think), his losing battle against drugs and alcohol and his search back for the happier days of his poor boy roots in Alabama after fame and fortune proved too narrow to satisfy whatever was eating at him inside.

"To The Original Honk-Tonk Man

Timeless; A 50th Anniversary Tribute to Hank Williams, various artists, UMG Recordings, 2001

In a review of a Hank Williams anthology in this space ("Gold", a two disc CD of most of the best known songs) noted that I have been listening to a local weekend folk, rock and contemporary music interview show here in Boston for years. The format of the show is to interview, in depth, contemporary well-known singers, songwriters and musicians as well as young unknowns looking to make their mark. One of the questions always asked of each interviewee is about formative influences on their musical development. Although I do not believe that I have ever heard what I would consider a country singer interviewed on the show the name Hank Williams has come up many more times than any other from young and old interviewees alike. That tells the tale of the importance of this man's work, beyond the obvious country influence.

Here some of those well-known musicians mentioned above pay tribute to Hank's influence by covering his songs for a 50th Anniversary of his death edition. A strange occasion for a tribute one might say, although no so for the fast-living, hard-driving, hard drinking Mr. Williams. The likes of Bob Dylan (a subject of many tribute covers himself) on a rocking " Can't Get You Off Of My Mind", Johnnie Cash reciting (recital or maybe, better, talking blues being a Williams speciality) the tearful "I Dreamed About Mama Last Night" and Beck on the mournful "You're Cheatin' Heart" do his memory honor with their own interpretations. I would note, however that, unlike a number of other artists such as the above-noted Dylan, that cover versions of Hank's songs do not usually measure up to the verve and imprint on the mind of his original renditions. The great exception here is Lucinda Williams (no relation, as far as I know) whose rendition of "Cold, Cold Heart" captured all the pathos, and more, of that tune. So long, one more time, Honky-Tonk Man. Listen on."

And watch this documentary.

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COLD COLD HEART Lyrics

I tried so hard my dear to show that you're my every dream.
Yet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme
A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart

Another love before my time made your heart sad and blue
And so my heart is paying now for things I didn't do
In anger unkind words are said that make the teardrops start
Why can't I free your doubtful mind,and melt your cold cold heart

You'll never know how much it hurts to see you sit and cry
You know you need and want my love yet you're afraid to try
Why do you run and hide from life,to try it just ain't smart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart

There was a time when I believed that you belonged to me
But now I know your heart is shackled to a memory
The more I learn to care for you,the more we drift apart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart

Cool Water Lyrics


All [C] day I've faced the [G7] bar - ren waste
With [C] out the taste of [G7] wa-ter..... cool, [C] wa-ter.
Ole [F] Dan and I, with [G7] throats burned dry ,
and [C] souls that [F] cry
for [C] wa-ter.... [G7] cool, clear [C] wa-ter.

The [C] nights are cool and [G7] I'm a fool.
Each [C] star's a pool of [G7] wa-ter.... cool, clear [C] wa-ter.
And [F] with the dawn I'll [G7] wake and yawn
and [C] car-ry [F] on
to [C] wa-ter.... [G7] cool, clear [C] wa-ter.

The [C] sha - dows sway and [G7] seem to say
To- [C] night we pray for [G7] wa-ter.... cool, clear [C] wa-ter
And [F] way up there He'll [G7] hear our prayer
and [C] show us [F] where
there's [C] wa-ter.... [G7] cool, clear [C]wa-ter.

[C] Keep a-movin' Dan. Don't you [G7] listen to him Dan.
He's the [C] devil, not a man.
He [G7] spreads the burnin' sand with [C] wa-ter.
Say [F] Dan can't you see that [G7] big green tree,
where the [F] water's runnin' free.
It's [G7] waiting there for you and [C] me
and [G7] wa-ter.... cool, clear [C] wa-ter.

Dan's [C] feet are sore he's [G7] yearnin' for
Just [C] one thing more than [G7] wa-ter.... cool, clear [C] wa-ter.
Like [F] me I guess he'd [G7] like to rest
where [C] there's no [F] quest
for [C] wa-ter.... [G7] cool, clear [C] wa-ter.


HALF AS MUCH Lyrics

Written by Curley Williams 1952
Used by permission of Brent L. Weldon, Curley's grandson

If you love me half as much as I love you
You wouldn't worry me half as much as you do
You're nice to me when there's no one else around
You only build me up to let me down

If you missed me half as much as I miss you
You wouldn't stay away half as much as you do
I know that I would never be this blue
If you only loved me half as much as I love you
repeat both verses

Hey Good Lookin' Lyrics

Say hey good lookin'
whatcha got cookin'
how's about cookin' something up with me
Hey sweet baby
don't you think maybe
we could find us a brand new recepie

I got a hot rod Ford and a two dollar bill
and I know a spot right over the hill
There's soda pop and the dancin's free
so if you wanna have fun come along with me

Say hey good lookin'
whatcha got cookin'
how's about cookin' something up with me

[ steel - fiddle - steel ]

I'm free and ready
so we can go steady
how's about savin' all your time for me
No more lookin'
I know I've been tooken
how's about keepin' steady company

I'm gonna throw my datebook over the fence
and find me one for five or ten cents
I'll keep it till it's covered with age
cause I'm writin' your name down on every page

Hey good lookin,whatcha got cookin
how's about cookin something up
how's about cookin something up
how's about cookin something up with meee




HONKY TONKIN' Lyrics

Words and music by Hank Williams, Sr.

When [G] you are sad and lonely and have no place to go
come to see me baby, and bring along some dough
And we'll go Honky Tonkin', Honky Tonkin'
Honky Tonkin', Honey Baby
We'll go Honky Tonkin' [D7] 'round this [G] town.

When you and your baby have a fallin' out
Just call me up sweet mama and we'll go steppin' out
And we'll go Honky Tonkin', Honky Tonkin'
Honky Tonkin', Honey Baby
We'll go Honky Tonkin' 'round this town.

We're goin' to the city - to the city fair
If you go to the city then you will find me there
And we'll go Honky Tonkin', Honky Tonkin'
Honky Tonkin', Honey Baby
We'll go Honky Tonkin' 'round this town.

Repeat first verse


I'm a Long Gone Daddy Lyrics

All you want to do is sit around and pout
And now I got enough and so I'm getting out

I'm leaving now
I'm leaving now
I'm a long gone daddy I don't need you anyhow

I been in the doghouse so doggone long
That when I get a kiss I think that something's wrong

(chorus)

I'll go find a gal that wants to treat me right
You go get yourself a man that wants to fight

(chorus)

You start your jaws a-wagging and it never stop
You never shut your mouth until I blow my top

(chorus)

I remember back when you were nice and sweet
Things have changed, you'd rather fight than eat

(chorus)

I'm a-gonna do some riding on the midnight train
I'm taking everything except my ball and chain

(chorus)

JAMBALAYA Lyrics

1. [D]Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me oh [A]my oh
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the [D]bayou
My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh [A]my oh
Son of a gun, we'll have good fun on the [D]bayou

CHORUS:
[D]Jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and-a file [A]gumbo
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher a[D]mio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be [A]gay-oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the [D]bayou.

2. Instrumental Verse (Country Fiddle solo)

3. [D]Thibodeaux, Fontenot, the place is [A]buzzin'
Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the [D]dozen
Dress in style, go hog wild, me oh [A]my oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the [D]bayou.

REPEAT CHORUS

4. Instrumental Verse (Country Fiddle solo)

FINAL CHORUS:
[D]Jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and-a file [A]gumbo
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher a[D]mio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be [A]gay-oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the b[D]ayou.
Son of a [A]gun, we'll have big fun on the b[D]ayou.
Son of a [A]gun, we'll have big [A7]fun on the b[D]ayou.


YOU WIN AGAIN Lyrics

Recorded by Hank Williams, Sr.
Words and music by Hank Williams, Sr.

1st Verse:
[E] The [B7] news is [E] out - all over [A] town
That you've been [E] seen - a-runnin' [B7] 'round
I know that [E] I - should leave, but [A] then
I just can't [E] go - YOU [B7] WIN A- [E] GAIN.

1st Bridge:
This heart of [A] mine - could never [E] see
What ev'rybod - y knew but [B7] me
Just trusting [E] you - was my great [A] sin
What can I [E] do - YOU [B7] WIN A- [E] GAIN.

2nd Verse:
I'm sorry for - your victim now
'Cause soon his head - like mine will bow
He'll give his heart - but all in vain
And someday say - YOU WIN AGAIN.

2nd Bridge:
You have no heart - you have no shame
You take true love - and give the blame
I guess that I - should not complain
I love you still - YOU WIN AGAIN.


YOUR CHEATIN' HEART Lyrics

Your cheatin' heart,
Will make you weep,
You'll cry and cry,
And try to sleep,
But sleep won't come,
The whole night through,
Your cheatin heart, will tell on you...

When tears come down,
Like falling rain,
You'll toss around,
And call my name,
You'll walk the floor,
The way I do,
Your cheatin' heart, will tell on you...

Your cheatin' heart,
Will pine some day,
And crave the love,
You threw away,
The time will come,
When you'll be blue,
Your cheatin' heart, will tell on you...

When tears come down,
Like falling rain,
You'll toss around,
And call my name,
You'll walk the floor,
The way I do,
Your cheatin' heart, will tell on you...

Yet Again Starting Over Again-Forever Young-The Bart Webber Saga

Yet Again Starting Over Again-Forever Young-The Bart Webber Saga

By Fritz Taylor

Jack Callahan had to laugh one again, and probably not for the last time, at the love foibles of his old friend from high school days at Riverdale High, Bart Webber, who apparently is organically incapable of not leaving well enough alone. He had initially cornered Jack one night in their favorite watering hole, the Dee Drop Grille in Gloversville a few towns over from growing up hometown Riverdale and where Bart now lives, and after not hearing from Bart for about a year found out in detail about his third divorce, this one from Linda Evans which had lasted the longest. Naturally since it was Bart he had to go into the downfall of his previous two marriages as well to complete the scene.    

Subsequently, maybe two weeks later Bart “shocked” Jack with the information that he was back in the love hunt. This time though since he had no lady friend waiting in the wings and having been with Linda about twenty years and very rusty and behind in the why and wherefores of “senior” dating he had joined a senior dating site on the Internet, paid his dough, and created his profile. The reason that Bart again cornered Jack in their favorite watering hole was that after checking out some profiles he noticed that the age range that most woman did not seem to want to go above was sixty-five. At least for the fifty to sixty year old women that he was interested in meeting. Jack and Bart are now both seventy so you could see the dilemma coming a mile away. He pleaded, begged really, for Jack’s opinion about whether he should shave a few years off his age on his profile page to increase his chances. Jack had answered “no, no way” stuff like that catches up with you and had in the past for old Bart. Moreover unlike the fickle young, including them when they were younger, age is not as great a factor for older, oops, more mature women who have been through a few storms themselves.     

Of course Bart refused to pay any heed to Jack’s very reasonable remarks. Then last week for some reason he began hitting pay dirt with several women on the site. One in particular, a fifty-two year old hospital administrator who also liked folk music, Bart had been in a folk music group back in the early 1960s when the folk minute blew through the American shores, listened of all things to the same folk music station that he did (both are members), liked going to the ocean which Bart had always craved and to art museums a newly acquired taste since his retirement. She had startled him after a several site e-mails chatting about this and that when she asked if he would like to accompany her to the Museum of Fine Arts where a new exhibit was to open over the new weekend. The long and short of it was that he accepted her invitation and they made arrangements to meet for their first “date.” But now Bart is afraid that the chickens will come home to roost on the age question although because he had recently taken up running, well, jogging really he could probably “pass” for sixty-five or so. So Jack will wait with baited breathe to see what falls out this time. Jesus, Bart and his lady love affairs.        

*****When The Fight To Turn The World Upside Down Was In Full Flower- With The Doors The Unknown Soldier In Mind

*****When The Fight To Turn The World Upside Down Was In Full Flower- With The Doors The Unknown Soldier In Mind

 

 

Wait until the war is over
And we're both a little older
The unknown soldier

Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over
For the unknown soldier
It's all over
For the unknown soldier
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Comp'nee, halt
Present, arms
Make a grave for the unknown soldier
Nestled in your hollow shoulder
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And, it's all over
The war is over
It's all over
War is over

Well, all over, baby
All over, baby
Oh, over, yeah
All over, baby

Ooh, ha, ha, all over
All over, baby
Oh, woah, yeah, all over
All over, heh
Add song meaning

Songwriters
Robbie Krieger;John Densmore;Jim Morrison;Ray Manzarek

From The Pen of Zack James

There was no seamless thread that wrapped the counter-cultural dominated 1960s up tightly, wrapped it up neatly in a pretty bow all set for posterity except for the media types who lived day by day in those merciful times for scraps to feed the teletype hot wires and by on-the-make politicians who to this day attempt to make capital making sport of what in the final analysis was a half-thought out desire to create the “newer world” that some old-time English poet was harping about. That seamless thread business had been distracting Frank Jackman’s attention of late now that a new generation of media-types are at hand who want to refight that social battle and the politicians are whipping   up the raw meat good old boys and girls and the staid as well to provide the troops for that new battle against some phantom in their heads. Despite all the rhetoric, despite all the books written disclaiming any responsibility by those who led the march, despite all those who have now “seen the light” and have hopped back into the fold in academia and the professions (in fact that march back to what everybody used to call bourgeois society started the day after the whole movement ebbed or the day they got their doctorates or professional degrees) there was some question even in Franks’ own mind about whether “the movement” for all its high gloss publicity and whirlwind effect dominated the play as much as he and his kindred had thought then or can lay claim to these forty plus years later.

Place plenty of weight on Frank’s observation, maybe not to take to the bank but to have some knowledge about the limits to what a whole generation in all its diversity can claim as its own mark on society and history. Place plenty of weight for the very simple reason that he went through the whole thing in almost all of its contradictions. Had been raised under the star of parents who slogged through the Great Depression although that was a close thing, a very close thing for some like Frank’s parents who were desperately poor. His poor besotted mother having to leave home and head west looking, looking for whatever there was out there before coming back home with three dollars in hand, and maybe her virtue how can you ask that question of your mother when you wouldn’t think to look at her when young, later too, that she was capable of sex, not the sex you had at your pleasure with some sweet Maryjane. His father out of the Southern winds, out of tar-roof shack of a cabin, half naked, down in the coal-rich hills and hollows of Appalachia, the poorest of the poor, leaving that desperate place to seek something, some small fame that always eluded him. They together, collectively, slogged through the war, World War II, his father through Pacific fight, the most savage kind, had his fill of that damn island hopping and his mother waiting, fretfully waiting for the other shoe to drop, to hear her man had laid his head down for his country in some salted coral reef or atoll whatever they were. Get this though, gladly, gladly would lay that head down and she if it came right down to it would survive knowing he had laid that precious head down. That was the salts they were made of, the stuff this country was able to produce even if it had very little hand in forming such faithful servants so no one would, no one could deny their simple patriotism, or doubt that they would pass that feeling on to their progeny.

Made that progeny respect their music too, their misty, moody I’ll see you tomorrow, until we meet again, I’ll get by, if I didn’t care music, music fought and won with great purpose. But Frank balked, balked young as he was, with as little understanding as he had, the minute he heard some serious rhythm back-beat absent from that sugary palp his parents wanted to lay on him and he would, young as he was, stand up in his three brother shared room (when they were not around of course for they older “dug” Patti Page and Rosemary Clooney, stuff like that) and dance some phantom dance based on that beat he kept hearing in his head, and wondered whether anybody else heard what he heard (of course later when it was show and tell time in the 1960s that beat would be the thing that glued those who were kindred together, funny they were legion). Caught the tail end of the “beat” thing that those older brothers dismissed out of hand as faggy, as guys “light on their feet” and gals who seemed black-hearted blank and neurotic. But that was prelude, that, what did somebody in some sociology class call it, the predicate.                      

As the 1960s caught Frank by his throat, caught him in its maw as he liked to call it to swishy-dishy literary effect he got “religion” in about six different ways. Got grabbed  when the folk minute held sway, when guys like Bob Dylan and Dave Von Ronk and gals like Joan Baez preached “protest” to the hinterlands, reaching down to places like Frank’s Carver, nothing but a working poor town dependent on the ups and downs of the cranberry business. At one time the town was the cranberry capital of the world or close to it. That up and down business depending too on whether people were working and could afford to throw in cranberry sauce with their turkeys come Thanksgiving and Christmas or would be reduced to the eternal fallback beans and franks. But see Carver was close enough, thirty or forty miles south of Boston to Beacon Hill and Harvard Square to be splashed by that new sound and new way of going on dates too, going to coffeehouses or if times were tough just hang around the Harvard Square’s Hayes-Bickford watching with fascination the drunks, hipsters, dipsters, grifters, winos, hoboes, maybe  an odd whore drinking a cup of joe after some John split on her, but also guys and gals perfecting their acts as folk-singers, poets, artists and writers.

Grabbed on the basis of that protest music to the civil rights movement down South, putting Frank at odds with parents, neighbors and his corner boys around Jack Slack’s bowling alleys. Grabbed too the dope, the hope and every girl he could get his hands on, or get this to tell you about the times since he was at best an okay looking guy, they could get their hands on him, on those bedroom blue eyes of his they called it more times than not, that came with the great summers of love from about 1965 on.

Here’s where the contradictions started get all mixed up with things he had no control over, which he was defenseless against. So grabbed too that draft notice from his friends and neighbors at the Carver Draft Board and wound up a dog soldier in Vietnam for his efforts. Wound up on cheap street for a while when he came back unable to deal with the “real” world for a while. That failure to relate to the “real” world cost him his marriage, a conventional marriage to a young woman with conventional white picket fence, a little lawn, kids, and dogs dreams which only had happened because he was afraid that he would not come back from “Nam in one piece, would never get to marriage for what it was worth. Grabbed the streets for a while before he met a woman, a Quaker woman, who saved him, for a while until he went west with some of his corner boys who had also been washed by the great push. Did the whole on the road hitchhike trip, dope, did communes, did zodiacs of love, did lots of things until the hammer came down and the tide ebbed around the middle of the 1970s. So yeah Frank was almost like a bell-weather, no, a poster child for all that ailed society then, and for what needed to be fixed.      

That decade or so from about 1964 to about 1974 Frank decided as he got trapped in old time thoughts and as he related to his old friend Jack Callahan one night at his apartment in Cambridge as they passed a “joint” between them (some things die hard, or don’t die) was nevertheless beginning to look like a watershed time not just for the first wave immediate post-World War II baby-boomers like him, Jack, Frankie Riley, the late Peter Markin, Sam Lowell and a lot of other guys he passed the corner boy night with (the ones like him born immediately after the war as the troops came home, came off the transports, and guys and gals were all hopped up to start families, figure out how to finance that first white picket fence house and use the GI bill to get a little bit ahead in the world, at least get ahead of their parents’ dead-end great depression woes) who came of social and political age then washed clean by the new dispensation but for the country as a whole. More so since those of the so-called generation of ’68, so called by some wag who decided that the bookends of the rage of the American Democratic Convention in Chicago that year and the defeat of the revolutionary possibilities in France in May of that year signaled the beginning of the ebb tide for the whole thing, for those who are still up for a fight against the military monster who is still with us are continuing to fight a rearguard action to keep what little is left of accomplishments and the spirit of those time alive.

Thinking back a bit to that time, Frank as the dope kicked in, a thousand things, or it seemed like a thousand things, some things new in the social, economic, political or cultural forest came popping up out of nowhere in many cases, came together in pretty rapid succession to draw down in flames the dread red scare Cold War freezes of their  childhoods (that time always absurdly symbolically topped off by the sight of elementary school kids, them , crouched under some rickety old desk arms over their heads some air-raid drill practice time as if, as the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are still alive from that time can attest to, that would do the slightest bit of good if the “big one,” the nuclear bombs hit.

Yeah, the Cold War time too when what did they know except to keep their obedient heads down under their desks or face down on the floor when the periodic air-raid shelter tests were performed at school to see if they were ready to face the bleak future if they survived some ill-meant commie atomic blast. (Personally Frank remembered telling somebody then that he would, having seen newsreel footage of the bomb tests at Bikini, just as soon take his  chances above desk, thank you, for all the good the other maneuver would do them.)

For a while anyway Frank and the angel-saints were able to beat back that Cold War mentality, that cold-hearted angst, and calculated playing with the good green world, the world even if they had no say, zero, in creating what went on. Not so strangely, although maybe that is why people drifted away in droves once the old bourgeois order reasserted itself and pulled down the hammer, none of those who were caught up in the whirl thought it would be for only a while or at least thought it would fade so fast just as they thought, young and healthy as they were, that they would live forever. But if you, anybody when you really think about the matter, took a step back you could trace things a little, could make your own “live free” categories of the events that chipped away the ice of those dark nights.

Start in with the mid-1950s if you like, which is where Frank liked to start dating his own sense of the new breeze coming through although being a pre-teenager then he told Jack he would not have had sense enough to call it that, with the heat of the black struggle for some semblance of civil liberties down South in the fight for voter rights and the famous desegregation of buses in Montgomery and the painful desegregation of the schools in Little Rock (and some sense of greater  equality up North too as organizations like the NAACP and Urban League pushed an agenda for better education and housing). Also at that same time, and in gathering anecdotal evidence Frank had found that these too are a common lynchpin, the first break-out of music with the crowning of rock and roll as the wave of the future (black rhythm and blues, scat, rockabilly music all mixed up and all stirred up), and the “discovery” of teen alienation and angst exemplified by sullen movie star  James Dean, who lived fast, and died fast a metaphor that would work its way through youth culture over the next generation. (And throw in surly “wild one” movie star Marlon Brando in The Wild One and a brooding Montgomery Cliff in almost anything during those days, take The Misfits for one, to the mix of what they could relate to as icons of alienation and angst .)   

An odd-ball mix right there. Throw in, as well, although this was only at the end and only in very commercial form, the influence of the “beats,” the guys (and very few gals since that Jack Kerouac-Neal Cassady-William Burroughs-Allen Ginsberg mix was strictly a male bonding thing) who listened to the guys who blew the cool be-bop jazz and wrote up a storm based on that sound, declared a new sound, that you would hear around cafés even if you did not understand it unlike rock and roll, the guys who hitchhiked across the American landscape creating a wanderlust in all who had heard about their exploits, and, of course, the bingo bongo poetry that threw the old modernists like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound out with a bang.

Then start to throw in the struggles against the old authority in places like Frisco town where they practically ran the red-baiters in the HUAC out of town (what Frank, and some of his friends although not the Carver corner boys except Markin, would learn to call “bourgeois authority working hand in hand with the capitalists”), the old certitudes that had calmed their parents’ lives, made them reach out with both hands for the plenty in the “golden age of plenty.”

Of course the biggest event that opened the doors for liberals, radicals, hell, even thoughtful conservatives was the sweet breeze coming down the road from Boston with the election of Jack Kennedy. Ike, the harmless uncle, the kindly grandfather, was for parents Frank wanted guys who set the buzz going, let them think about getting some kicks out of life, that maybe with some thought they would survive, and if they didn’t at least we had the kicks.

That event opened up a new psyche, that it was okay to question authority, whatever the limitations and shortness of the Camelot times with the struggles against some hoary things like segregation, the death penalty, nuclear proliferation, the unevenness of social life which would get propelled later in the decade with fight for women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the fight against the draft, the damn war in Vietnam that drove a nail into the heart of Frank’s generation. A river of ideas, and a river of tears, have been, and can be, shed over that damn war, what it did to young people, those who fought, maybe especially those who fought as Frank got older and heard more stories about the guys who like him didn’t make it back to the “real” world after “Nam, didn’t have a sweet mother Quaker lady like Frank to save them, those guys you see downtown in front of the VA hospitals, and those who refused to, that lingers on behind the scenes even today.

There were more things, things like the “Pill” (and Frank would always kid Jack who was pretty shy talking about sex despite the fact that he and Chrissie, his high school sweetheart, had had four kids when he asked what pill if you need to know what pill and its purpose where have you been) that opened up a whole can of worms about what everyone was incessantly curious about and hormonally interested in doing something about, sex, sex beyond the missionary position of timeless legends, something very different if the dramatic increase in sales of the Kama Sutra meant anything, a newer sensibility in music with the arrival of the protest folk songs for a new generation which pushed the struggle and the organizing forward.

Cultural things too like the experimenting with about seven different kinds of dope previously the hidden preserve of “cool cat” blacks and white hipsters (stuff that they only knew negatively about, about staying away from, thru reefer madness propaganda, thru the banning of some drugs that were previously legal like sweet sister cocaine and taunt Nelson Algren hard life down at the base of society in films like The Man With The Golden Arm), the outbreak of name changes with everybody seemingly trying to reinvent themselves in name (Frank’s moniker at one time was Be-Bop Benny draw what you will out of that the idea being like among some hipster blacks, although with less reason, they wanted to get rid of their  slave names)  fashion (the old college plaid look fading in the face of World War II army surplus, feverish colors, and consciously mismatched outfits and affectation (“cool, man, cool” and “right on’ said it all). More social experiments gathering in the “nation” through rock concerts, now acid-etched, new living arrangements with the arrival of the urban and rural communes (including sleeping on more than one floor in more than one church or mission when on the road, or later on the bum). They all, if not all widespread, and not all successful as new lifestyles all got a fair workout during this period as well.     

Plenty of Frank’s kindred in retrospective would weigh the various combinations of events differently in figuring out how the uprising started just as plenty of them had their specific dates for when the tide began to ebb, when the mean-spirited and authoritarian began their successful counter-offensive that they still lived with for not taking the omens more seriously. (Frank’s ebb tide, as he had  described to Frankie Riley one time, was the events around May Day 1971 when they seriously tried, or thought they were seriously trying, to shut down the government in D.C. if it would no shut down the war and got nothing but billy-clubs, tear gas, beatings and mass arrests for their efforts. After those days Frank, and others, figured out the other side was more serious about preserving the old order than they were about creating the new and that they had better rethink how to slay the monster they were up against and act accordingly.)

Then Frank passed Jack a photograph that he had taken from a calendar put out by the New England Folk Song Society that his wife, Sarah, who worked to put the item out to raise funds for folk music preservation (see above) that acted as another catalyst for this his short screed, and which pictorially encapsulated a lot of what went then, a lot about “which side were you on” when the deal went down. This photograph Frank pointed out to Jack was almost impossible to imagine without some combination of that hell broth anti-war, anti-establishment, pro-“newer world” mix stirred up in the 1960s.

Three self-assured women (the “girls” of photograph a telltale sign of what society, even hip, progressive society thought about women in those slightly pre-women’s liberation time but they would learn the difference) comfortable with the loose and individualistic fashion statements of the day from floppy hats to granny dresses to bare legs, bare legs, Jesus, that alone would have shocked their girdled, silk stocking mothers, especially if those bare legs included wearing a mini-skirt (and mother dread thoughts about whether daughter knew about the pill, and heaven forbid if she was sexually active, a subject not for polite society, not for mother-daughter conversation, then she damn better well know, or else).

They are also uncomfortable about the damn Vietnam war, no, outraged is a better way to put the matter, that was eating up boyfriends, brothers, just friends, guys they knew in college or on the street who were facing heavy decisions about the draft, Canada exile, prison or succumbing to the worst choice, Frank’s choice if you could call his induction a choice what else could he have done gone to Canada, no,  military induction, at a heavy rate and they unlike their mothers who came through World War II waiting patiently and patriotically for their military heroes to come home, come home in one piece, have a very different sense of the heroic. A sense of the heroic going back to ancient times, Greek times anyway, when one group of women like their stay-at-home-waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop World War II mothers demanded that their men come home carried on their shields if they had to rather than speak of defeat. Others, the ones that count here, refusing their potential soldier boys any favors, read sexual favors, okay, if they went off to war, providing a distant echo, a foundation to make their request stand on some authority, for these three women pictured there.

Frank wondered how many guys would confess to the lure of that enticement if they had refused induction. His own wife, quickly married at the time was if anything more gung-ho about stopping the red menace than his parents. Frank did not refuse induction for a whole bunch of reasons but then he did not have any girlfriends like that sweet mother Quaker woman later, who made that demand, his girl- friends early on, and not just his wife if anyway were as likely to want him to come back carried on a shield as those warrior-proud ancient Greek women. Too bad. But Frank said to Jack as Jack got up ready to head home to Hingham and Chrissie that he liked to think that today they could expect more women to be like the sisters above. Yeah, more, many more of the latter, please as Frank and his comrades in Veterans for Peace continue to struggle against the night-takers in the nightmare world of endless war