***Out In The Be-Bop, Be-Bop 1960s Night- The World Turned Upside Down-The Great Teenage Triangle

 

 

A YouTube film clip of Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry, with lyrics provide below, in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Yeah, no question I had trouble, big trouble, holding on to girls when I was a kid in high school. Or maybe I better be more honest and say that I was tongue-tied around them, didn’t understand them, and got all sweaty-palmed around them and therefor did not need to worry about holding out to them because they vanished in the night like some fog rolled in. Of course now the other problem was that I seemed to always be behind the curve in the teenage “intelligence” department. You know finding out via the ubiquitous teenage grapevine which held forth first thing Monday morning before school in the boys’ “lav” who was “spoken” for and such. I was forever picking girls who were “going steady” or had large boyfriends or stuff like that. Now that kind of thing is done with, no more worries. Except recently I was looking at a 1960s record compilation, you know one of those “greatest hits” things that record companies are hustling to the AARP-worthy generation when I spied a telling song, Dale Ward performing his classic 1960s teen angst Letter From Sherry. Just seeing that song listed had me fully engaged in a sweaty-handed re-run of my teen angst and alienated youth. I have provided lyrics provide below in order to give a flavor of the times to this piece. The story below will tell you why.

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Nobody said being a teenager was going to be easy now, in 1860 or whenever they invented teenagers, 1960 the time period of this piece, or, hell, 2360. Teen angst, short term or long, comes with the territory. However sometimes something, in this case a song, will sum up just exactly how hard teen life really is. I admit this one had me a little weepy for a while over the fate, a common fate, of one of the characters. That is until I realized, wait a minute this is teen stuff, next week the configuration will have totally changed, or the boys (or girl) in this teen triangle will have sworn off girls (or boys, for the girl). Yah, right.

Rather than leave the reader in any more suspense let me give the details of the heart-rending dilemma. It seems that Robert, well let’s call him Robert because Roberts always seem to be the kind of guys who draw the short end of the stick in teen life, was head over heels in love with Sherry, and had been ever since they met a couple of summers back down at the far end, the teen far end, of Olde Saco Beach up in cold climate Maine so it must have been July, no later. Needless to say they were both “enjoying” the rite of passage teen bored-to-death vacation with their ever-loving families when the family dogs they were walking met, and presto Robert and Sherry met. (By the way dogs are optional in this kind of story, although included here since they met while walking the respective family dogs) Things went fine for a while, as such summer romances go, and they wrote during the winter with all kinds of expectations of another high school teen romance summer, with maybe a little more than just kissing this time.

As luck would have it though Robert, studious, shoulder to the wheel if smitten Robert, had an opportunity to work at Ben’s Market in Olde Saco that next summer in order to help with his soon to be impeding college tuition. Naturally he had to “jump” at the opportunity (with a very big “friendly” push from his parents). And that is when things started to fall apart.

Nature, and teen nature is a pure scientific example of that law, abhors a vacuum. Especially a foxy Sherry on the beach alone, no Robert alone, (and no dog along for introductions this time) when Eddie, let’s call him Eddie, not Edward, not, Ed, not Eduardo, just Eddie because it is always Eddies who scoop up the foxes in teen life came swaggering up the beach, sat right beside Sherry and started, well, started in his version of fast Eddie love talk. Just like that. And Sherry, well, Sherry was just in the mood to hear such talk, if not from "shoulder the wheel" Robert then Eddie, kind of hunky Eddie, would do just fine. After all a girl has to look out for herself in this wicked old world.

The long and short of it was that Sherry made a date with Eddie, a happy date when she found out that Eddie had a “boss” ’57 Chevy for that date. Robert’s was working at his silly old market job anyway so he would be none the wiser. That night, it might have been the stars, it might have been the moon, it might have been Sherry mad at Robert, or it just might have been the time of her time, but Sherry let Eddie have his way with her down at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco beach. The place where only teenagers with something on their minds other than throwing pebbles in the surf go, no one else goes there not even the cops.

So far still nothing remarkable, right. A million teens lost in the moon-beam night learning about the ways of the world, the adult sex world that they keep hush-hush about but which every teen since Socrates, maybe before, gets hip to, one way or another. But here is where it gets dicey. See Eddie already had a foxy girlfriend back home, Laura, who outfoxes Sherry six ways to Sunday. And is rather possessive of her man. Switchblade-like possessive if it came to it. And Eddie, frankly, while he enjoyed Sherry was in it for kicks, for just doing it when the opportunity arose, and moving on. So that is exactly what he did. Sherry though, after the short summer tryst was over, started writing Eddie asking when he was coming back and all that kind of stuff, girl crush stuff.

Still not that remarkable though. What was though was that Eddie and Robert attended the same regional high school together, Arundel High over the other side of Sanford (although they do not live in the same town) and were both on the football team. (Robert the steady plebeian pulling guard, Fast Eddie, well, the fleet-footed halfback, naturally) So one afternoon Eddie, Eddie acting like a peacock, showed Robert, in the presence of his best friend, Josh Breslin, and so that is how this situation became public knowledge, well school knowledge anyway, since Josh is a friend of mine as well one of Sherry’s letters.

Eddie went on a little about what he and Sherry did and what a cluck she was for writing a breeze guy like Eddie such stuff. And Eddie said right then and there that he bet Robert five dollars, five serious dollars, that he could write a couple of lines to Sherry about not having enough dough for postage stamps to write her before, or something, as his reason for not writing and he could be right back down there at the far, far, far end of Olde Saco Beach with Sherry anytime he wanted. Well, maybe not anytime because on hearing that Robert reared back and gave Eddie a punch that dropped him to the ground in nothing flat. So floor-fast Eddie and his jaw were on the bench for a while if Sherry wanted to know his whereabouts just then.

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Letter From Sherry lyrics-Dale War

A letter from Sherry

Oh boy, what a girl

But to the boy who really loves her

Its the end of the world.

A letter from Sherry

Brings teardrops to my eyes

A letter from Sherry

Oh why, Sherry, why?

My best friend named Eddie

Came by just yesterday

With a letter from Sherry

Heres what she had to say

Dear Eddie Dear Eddie, I love you I love you

With all my heart with all my heart

Vacation last summer

Was grand

And though you

You never write

I pray I pray

Each day and night

For Im yours

And yours alone

And dear Sherry, shes comin home

A letter from Sherry

Oh boy, what a girl

But to the boy who really loves her