In The Time Of The 1960 Be-Bop Baby-Boomer Jail Break-Out- My Baby Loves The Western Movies, Okay?” –Take Two

In The Time Of The 1960 Be-Bop Baby-Boomer Jail Break-Out- My Baby Loves The Western Movies, Okay?” –Take Two

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin: 

 

With an introduction by Sam Lowell

 

I first met Josh Breslin several months after my old corner boy high school friend, the late Peter Paul Markin, brought him around our hang-out, Jack Slack’s bowling alley, in the winter after the summer of love, 1967 (or is it Summer of Love, 1967 I have seen it both ways) out in San Francisco when Josh had gone up on to Russian Hill searching for dope, marijuana at the time the drug of choice among the newly liberated from uptight-ness about the evils of such pleasures, and ran into Markin asking him if he had a joint. Markin, freshly dropped out of college (Boston University) in order to “find himself” had been travelling on one of the ubiquitous psychedelically-painted converted yellow brick road school buses with Captain Crunch (road moniker which we would all take once we hit the road as some form of liberation from tired out old names) for a few months and had been staying in the park on the hill waiting, waiting for anything at all to happen told Josh “here light this one up, but ‘don’t bogart that joint’ when you are done because we save every twig to build up enough for the pipe.” And with that a 1960s-type friendship started, one that would have them travelling together over the next several years (minus Markin’s two years in the Army in Vietnam but that is a story for another time) until Josh lost touch with him before he took that last fatal trip to Mexico where he was murdered by parties unknown after a busted drug deal and is now resting in an unmarked grave in potter’s field in Sonora and moaned over to this day by his old friends, including Josh and me.

 

Markin often said, and it proved to be true, that despite a couple of years difference in age and despite the fact that Josh had grown up in Olde Saco in Maine, an old-time textile mill town, his life story, the things that drove him in his younger days were remarkably similar to ours down in North Adamsville, an old industrial town about twenty miles south of Boston. That was why they got along on the road out West and why we who took to the road with Markin later once we got the bug to move along got along with Josh as well. Josh is today an honorary North Adamsville corner boy when we, the remnants still living anyway, get together to speak of those times. (And always wind up with some mention of some madcap, maniacal thing Markin did which only gets us mistier about the bastard these days.)

 

Recently a bunch of us, Frankie Riley, the old corner boy leader now a big-time lawyer in Boston (“of counsel” these days whatever that means other than big dough for saying word one to a client), Jimmy Jenkins, Jack Callahan, Bart Webber, Lefty Malone, Josh and me got together at Jack’s Grille in Cambridge to have a few drinks and swap a few lies. Bart who still lives in growing up town North Adamsville mentioned that the old site the North Adamsville Drive-In Theater of blessed memory which got us through many a weekend night, sometimes successfully, sometimes with nothing but empty dreams which had been long abandoned had been turned into the inevitable million box condo units, called something like Granite Gardens. Naturally that triggered many stories about what did or did not at the drive-in, talk that seemed almost an exact replica of the kind of talk that went on in Monday morning before school boys’ “lav” talkfest about what happened over the weekend back then (including many lies, recollection lies too). Josh, who is a writer of sorts, a music reviewer mostly these days from what he says, wrote up something about his relationship to those now classic drive-in movies days triggered not only by the talk that night but by a recent visit to his old hometown of Olde Saco up in Maine which still has a functioning drive-in if you can believe that.       

 

Here is what he had to say:                         

 

A while back I was on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in of an extensive rock and roll series, you know those “oldies, but goodies” compilations pitched to, uh, a certain demographic, an ARRP-worthy demographic, okay. A lot of those reviews had been driven by the artwork which graced the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and rather truly reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation, the generation of ’68, who lived and died by the music. That “generation of ’68” designation picked up from the hard fact that that seminal year of 1968, a year when the Tet offensive by the Viet Cong and their allies put in shambles the lie that we (meaning the United States government) was winning that vicious bloodstained honor-less war, to the results in New Hampshire which caused Lyndon Baines Johnson, the sitting President to run for cover down in Texas somewhere after being beaten like a gong by a quirky Irish poet from the Midwest and a band of wayward troubadours from all over, mainly the seething college campuses, to the death of the post-racial society dream as advertised by the slain Doctor Martin Luther King, to the barricade days in Paris where for once and all the limits of what wayward students could do without substantial allies in bringing down a reactionary government, to the death of the search for a “newer world” as advertised by the slain Robert F. Kennedy, to the war-circus of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago which put paid to any notion that any newer world would come without the spilling of rivers of blood, to the election of Richard Milhous Nixon which meant that we had seen the high side go under, that the promise of the flamboyant 1960s was veering toward an ebb tide.

 

Most of the artwork, at most, simply alluded to that backdrop. Rather what that work suggested was who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may be, to the themes of those artwork scenes. One, a 1963 cover was a case of the former, of fitting in. And that fitting in was triggered by a real life example, as I was passing by the still operating Olde Saco Drive-In up in my old hometown, up in Maine to be exact as I was there on a recent visit.

 

On that CD cover, a summer scene (always a nice touch since that was the time, the no school time, no carping teachers, no curly-eyed cops wondering if we were playing hooky , and no nagging Ma, always Ma, in those days, except for big stuff since Dads were working their butts off trying to keep their families’ heads above water, when we had at least the feel of our generational break-out minute ) we are at the drive-in, the drive-in movies for those of the Internet/Netflicks/YouTube generations who have not gotten around to checking out this bit of Americana on Wikipedia, with the obligatory 1950s-early 1960s B-movie monster movie (outer space aliens, creatures from the black lagoon, blobs, DNA-damaged dinosaurs, foreign-bred behemoths a specialty) prominent on the screen.

 

Oh sure, everyone of a certain age, a certain baby-boomer age, a generation of ’68 age, has plenty of stories to tell of being bundled up as kids, maybe pre-set with a full set pajamas on to defend against the late sleepy-eyed night, the sleepy-drowsy late movie night, placed in the car backseats and taken by adventurous parents (or so it seemed) to the local open air drive-in for the double feature. That usually also happened on a friendly summer night when school did not interfere with staying up late (hopefully through both films). And to top it all off you got to play in the inevitable jungle jim, see-saw, slide, swing set-laden playground during intermission between the film while waiting, waiting against all hope, for that skewered, shriveled hot dog, rusty, dusty hamburger, or stale, over the top buttered popcorn that was the real reason that you “consented” to stay out late with the parents. Yah, we all have variations on that basic theme to tell, although I challenge anyone, seriously challenge anyone, to name five films that you saw at the drive-in that you remembered from then-especially those droopy-eyed second films.

 

In any case, frankly, I don’t give a damn about that kid stuff family adventure drive-in experience. Come on that was all, well, just kids’ stuff, fluff. The “real” drive-in, as pictured in the cover art I am speaking of is what I want to address. The time of our time in that awkward teen alienation, teen angst thing that only got abated, a little, by things like a teenage night at the drive-in.

 

Yah, that was not, or at least I hope it was not, you father’s drive-in experience. That might have been happening in the next planet over, for all I know. For one thing, for  starters, our planet involved girls (girls, ah, women, just reverse the genders here to tell your side of the experience), looking for girls, or want to be looking for girls, preferably a stray car-full to complement your guy car-full and let god sort it out at intermission. (And see, I can finally, in the year of our lord, 2015, reveal the hidden truth, that car-full of girls had worked on the same premise, they were looking for guys to complement their car-full and let god sort it out at intermission, the common thread intermission.) 

 

Wait a minute. I am getting ahead of myself in this story. First you needed that car, because no walkers or bus riders need apply for the drive-in movies like this was some kind of lame, low-rent, downtown Saturday matinee last picture show adventure. For this writer that was a problem, a personal problem, as I had no car and my family had cars only sporadically. Fortunately we early baby-boomers lived in the golden age of the automobile and could depend on a friend to either have a car (praise be teenage disposable income/allowances) or the use of the family car. Once the car issue was clarified then it was simply a matter of getting a car-full of guys (or sometimes guys and gals) in for the price of two (maybe three) admissions. This was in the days before they just charged a flat fee for the whole carload.

 

What? Okay, I think that I can safely tell the story now because the statute of limitations on this “crime” must have surely passed. See, what you did back then was put a couple (or three guys) in the trunk of that old car (or in a pinch one guy on the backseat floor the rest in the trunk) as you entered the drive-thru admissions booth. The driver paid for the two (or three tickets) and took off to your parking spot, that secluded area far from kiddie pajama night madnesses (complete with a ramp speaker just in case you wanted to actually listen to the film shown on that big wide white screen). Neat trick, right? (I think the record was either ten or eleven in one car, but I only know this second-hand, from some Monday morning before school boys’ “lav” talk when one of the participants touted the feat, so I don’t know the gender mix, or whether there were midgets to fill in since it seemed improbable that many growing teenagers could squeeze into that standard sedan of the period, or anything like that.)  

 

Now, of course, the purpose of all of this, as mentioned above, was to get that convoy of guys, trunk guys, backseat guys, backseat floor guys, whatever, to mix and moon with that elusive car-full of girls who did the very same thing (except easier because they were smaller) at the intermission stand or maybe just hanging around the unofficially designated teen hang-out area. Like I said no family sedans with those pajama-clad kids need apply (nor, come to think of it, would any sane, responsible parent get within fifty paces of said teens). Occasionally, very occasionally as it turned out, some “boss” car would show up complete with one guy (the driver) and one honey (girl, ah, woman) closely seated beside him for what one and all knew was going to be a very window-fogged night.

 

And that was, secretly thought or not, the guy drive-in dream. (Although unlike at Seal Rock, the local lovers’ lane, down the far end of Olde Saco Beach, that one-on-one scene, and speculation about what went on, was not the subject of any comment, none, like some unwritten law precluded such discussion in the sacred drive-night.) The reader should however not get the wrong idea about what actually went on at that secluded, reserved end of the drive-in. Sure, car loads of boys were looking for car loads of girls to mix and match, preferably from some other town, for a change of pace (and because the one-on-one no talk rule didn’t apply in that milieu and hence Monday morning chatter, plenty of it, I wish I had taken notes).

 

The collective drive-in scene though was more like surveillance than anything risky (or risqué). Let me give you an example, a good example, and then you can judge for yourself what it was all about. One Friday night, a 1963 summer night of course, a car load of farm girls came over from Arundel after they heard about what went on at Olde Saco (we found about the “urban, ah, rural legend of the Olde Saco Drive-In” later when it seemed every teenager in Southern Maine with anything going for him or her was plotting almost daily to storm heaven). Since they didn’t know the social etiquette (the “casing the joint” ethos we had well-tuned to a science) as soon as they pulled into their spot, saw me and my corner boys, they just starting preening and giving those sly glances that meant only thing once we gave our own sly glances right back -this was the combo mix and match for the evening. Like I said these were farm girls, Maine farm girls, although nice- looking and fun to talk to, they were a little behind the curve as for “making out” (if you don’t know the term figure it out, teen boy, teen girl, back seat of a sedan, okay). Truth, what happened that night was that we (and they too) made some mental notes, like Sandy was cute but didn’t let you touch her bosom, stuff like that, for future reference, for that future reference “one on one” at the drive-in or, more probably, Seal Rock.

 

That was how it was with this Donna that I eyed that night (although she might have been a farm girl she wound up at Colby and some other place for graduate school I heard later). Since it was hot we kind of slow-danced to some music coming from a car radio, she kind of nestled her body very close to mine. I took a note. A few weeks later when we were at Seal Rock I expanded on that note and we would up at point number sixteen on the first day back at school before school boys’ talkfest. Got it.                       

 

As for the movies shown at said drive-in? Did they show movies there? Enough said.

 

Oh, except that at said drive-in, before the first show started at dusk, between shows and on the way home, girl-matched or not, you were very liable to hear many of the songs from this old CD on the old car radio. Stuff like : Heat Wave (not as good as Dancing In The Streets but good), Martha and the Vandellas; Just One Look (make that look my way, please, even if you are munching on popcorn) Doris Troy; Wild Weekend (just in case you wanted to dance during intermission rather than watch the screen clock ticking off the time until that next film began), The Rockin’ Rebels ; and, Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad About My Baby (yah, you have got that right, sisters), The Cookies. Yah, that was the frosting on the cake in that good night.