From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-In The Juke Box Rock And Roll Night, Circa 1958

Jake LeFleur (nee Jeanbon, but no one called him that, except old country mere and grandmere called him that, not if you didn’t want as much corner boy trouble as you could handle, maybe more. Jake, like many French-Canadian (F-C) next generation guys wanted none of that old country patios-church bow down-poor boy from hunger stuff but to be a pure vanilla American be-bop daddy and bon this and bon that was not part of the program, not against the Downeast Yankee and Irish toughs) had it bad, had it bad as a man (young man, okay, twenty-three) could have it for a girl (oops, young woman, twenty-two) and still be able to breath, breath normally.

And she, Marnie Capet she, the object of one Jake LeFleur’s palsied breath, knew that hard fact, and depended on it for a time to keep Jake in that state.But before you say “dames what can you do with them, or without them” like all of Jake’s corner boys whom he hung around with in front of Jimmy Jake’s Diner I (run by Jacques Jean LeBlanc who had enough sense to anglo-up the names of his establishments, that one on Atlantic Avenue, number II, for the touristas and blue-haired lady luncheon specials and the one on Main Street, number I, that catered to the younger set, and that had a be-bop bop jukebox with every possible tune for the music hungry young to deposit their three for a quarter selections in) said every time they heard the latest installment of the Marnie leading Jake by the nose saga hear her side. Then, perhaps, you will not worry so much about the how and whys of Jake’s breathing.

Marnie, for all the world to know, for all the important world to know in 1958 in Olde Saco, Maine, and that meant her friends, her friends known since high school, if not before, now mainly working alongside of her in the front offices of the MacAdams Textile Mills which drove the town’s economy, her girls, whom she hung around on Friday and Saturday nights in front of, guess, Jimmy Jake’s Diner (the one on Main Street, naturally) , had been minding her own business when one Jake LeFleur came swooping down on her a few months before. And she would swear on a stack of seven, hell, seventy sealed bibles (as all her “corner girls” would attest to after they had heard the latest installment of the Jake leading Marnie by the nose saga) that she had no intention of finding herself riding in Jake’s ’55 two-toned souped-up Chevy after a few minutes of Jake smooth talk. But she did, although she would also swear, at least for public consumption, that she had a problem breathing when she found herself in that position (or later in more intimate positions, as she would slyly allude to when describing her latest tryst date with Jake.)

But at some point Jake, or maybe Marnie, it was never clear, discovered two things, one, that Jake was crazier about Marnie that she was about him, and, two, more importantly , Marnie was taking more than a few peeks at a new boy in town, Bernie Albert, who if one could believe this, had neither a car, hot or otherwise, nor had the least inclination to hang around Jimmy Jake’s Diner (I or II) because he was crazy for the sea, and crazy for writing stuff about the sea once he found the best spots over at Olde Saco Beach (naturally later including the exclusive lovers’lane hot spot at the Seal Rock end).

Bernie came in like a breath of fresh air and before long one did not see Marnie Capet riding, front seat riding, in any funny old ’55 Chevy. She was breathing the sea air down at the beach after walking there with Bernie. She had decided that she had one chance at getting out from under that secretarial job at the mill, getting out from under Jake-or-name-the-car-crazy-guy cruising Main Street, getting out from under hanging in front of Jimmy Jake’s (number and then, inevitably blue-haired number II like her mother and her weekly friends luncheon) with her girls discussing what to play next on that damn jukebox, getting out under from under about six kids and money enough to support only about two, and getting out, well, just getting out from under.

Now the tale turns back to Jake though, Jake of the thousand ‘chicken run’ victories(for the clueless that is two guys, two corner boys guys usually, and usually from different corners, going one on one in their respective automobiles at two in the morning, or thereabouts , down at that previously mentioned Seal Rock end of Olde Saco Beach to decide who was the max daddy of the boss car night, simple), Jake of the hard boy corner boy society in front of Jimmie Jake’s Diner I (who once chain- whipped a guy, a guy from the corner in front of Mama’s Pizza Parlor, just for being, no, breathing on his corner without permission), spurned Jake.

And before you wonder what chain-whip, slice and dice, run over with his car hell our boy Jake was going to rain down on one Bernie Albert for “stealing “his Marnie (a serious matter in po’ boy Olde Saco where your property girl meant something, especially twenty-something which meant marriage and those six kids Marnie was fretting over was your fate) you should know this. Not only did you not see Marnie riding in that Chevy, that boss Chevy as anyone in town, anyone that counted would have told you, meaning the habitués of Jimmy Jake’s I but you did not see Jake riding around either. If you can believe this, Jake was still carrying a big torch for Marnie and had taken to his room to write her a letter begging her to come back. And since he was not a scholar like Bernie, and since he wanted to note her upcoming birthday he played the Tune Weavers’Happy, Happy Birthday Baby to help him through task, and settle his uneasy breathing.

P.S. Marnie made good career choice, well eventually she did, in the short term she fell back to the Olde Saco F-C ethos and ten generations of same old, same old and let Jake’s birthday letter sway her. So for a few weeks you again saw Marnie Capet tight-ass against Jake in his Chevy. And Bernie walking solo down at Olde Saco Beach. Then mad Jake go the smart idea that Bernie, like that other unfortunate mentioned previously, needed a chain-whipping to restore order the universe. Bernie took his beating like a man everyone agreed, and Jake took his nickel’s worth up at Shawshank. Bernie and Marnie were married in 1960 after Bernie finished graduate school at Bowdoin.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-In The Juke Box Rock And Roll Night, Circa 1958

                            

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-In The Juke Box Rock And Roll Night, Circa 1958

Jake LeFleur (nee Jeanbon, but no one called him that, except old country mere and grandmere called him that, not if you didn’t want as much corner boy trouble as you could handle, maybe more. Jake, like many French-Canadian (F-C) next generation guys wanted none of that old country patios-church bow down-poor boy from hunger stuff but to be a pure vanilla American be-bop daddy and bon this and bon that was not part of the program, not against the Downeast Yankee and Irish toughs) had it bad, had it bad as a man (young man, okay, twenty-three) could have it for a girl (oops, young woman, twenty-two) and still be able to breath, breath normally. And she, Marnie Capet she, the object of one Jake LeFleur’s palsied breath, knew that hard fact, and depended on it for a time to keep Jake in that state.

But before you say “dames what can you do with them, or without them” like all of Jake’s corner boys whom he hung around with in front of Jimmy Jake’s Diner (run by Jacques Jean LeBlanc who had enough sense to anglo-up the names of his establishments, that one on Atlantic Avenue for the touristas and blue-haired lady luncheon specials and the one on Main Street that catered to the younger set, and that had a be-bop bop jukebox with every possible tune for the music hungry young to deposit their three for a quarter selections in) said every time they heard the latest installment of the Marnie leading Jake by the nose saga hear her side. Then, perhaps, you will not worry so much about the how and whys of Jake’s breathing.

Marnie, for all the world to know, for all the important world to know in 1958 in Olde Saco, Maine, and that meant her friends, her friends known since high school if not before now mainly working alongside of her in the front offices of the MacAdams Textile Mills which drove the town’s economy, her girls, whom she hung around on Friday and Saturday nights in front of, guess, Jimmy Jake’s Diner (the one on Main Street, naturally) , had been minding her own business when one Jake LeFleur came swooping down on her a few months before. And she would swear on a stack of seven, hell, seventy sealed bibles (as all her “corner girls” would attest to after they had heard the latest installment of the Jake leading Marnie by the nose saga) that she had no intention of finding herself riding in Jake’s ’55 two-toned souped-up Chevy after a few minutes of Jake smooth talk. But she did, although she would also swear, at least for public consumption, that she had a problem breathing when she found herself in that position (or later in more intimate positions, as she would slyly allude to when describing her latest date with Jake.)

But at some point Jake, or maybe Marnie, it was never clear discovered two things, one, that Jake was crazier about Marnie that she was about him, and, two, more importantly , Marnie was taking more than a few peeks at a new boy in town, Bernie Albert, who if one could believe this, had neither a car, hot or otherwise, nor had the least inclination to hang around Jimmy Jake’s Diner because he was crazy for the sea, and crazy for writing stuff about the sea once he found the best spots over at Olde Saco Beach (naturally including the exclusive lovers’ lane hot spot at the Seal Rock end). Bernie came in like a breath of fresh air and before long one did not see Marnie Capet riding, front seat riding, in any funny old ’55 Chevy. She was breathing the sea air down at the beach after walking there with Bernie. She had decided that she had one chance at getting out from under that secretarial job at the mill, getting out from under Jake-or-name-the-car-crazy-guy cruising Main Street, getting out from under hanging in front of Jimmy Jake’s with her girls discussing what to play next on that damn jukebox, getting under from under about six kids and money enough to support only about two, and getting out, well, just getting out from under.

Now the tale turns back to Jake though, Jake of the thousand chicken run victories, Jake of the hard boy corner boy society in front of Jimmie Jakes Diner, spurned Jake. And before you wonder what hell our boy Jake was going to rain down on one Bernie Albert for “stealing “ his Marnie you should know this. Not only did you not see Marnie riding in that Chevy, that boss Chevy as anyone in town, anyone that counted would have told you, meaning the habitués of Jimmy Jake’s but you did not see Jake riding around. If you can believe this, Jake was still carrying a big torch for Marnie and had taken to his room to write her a letter begging her to come back. And since he was not a scholar like Bernie, and since he wanted to note her upcoming birthday he played the Tune Weavers’ Happy, Happy Birthday Baby to help him through task, and settle his uneasy breathing. Stay tuned. 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Juke Box Rock And Roll Night, Circa 1958

CD Review

The Golden Age Of American Rock ‘n’ Roll: Volume 5, Ace Records, 1995

Jake LeFleur (nee Jeanbon) had it bad, had it bad as a man (oops, young man, boy) could have it for a girl (oops, young woman) and still be able to breath, breath normally. And she, Marnie Capet she, the object of one Jake LeFleur’s palsied breath, knew that hard fact, and depended on her ability to keep Jake in that state. But before you say “dames what can you do with them, or without them” like all of Jake’s corner boys whom he hung around with in front of Jimmy Jakes Diner 9said every time they heard the latest installment of the Marnie leading Jake by the nose saga hear her side. Then, perhaps, you will not worry so much about the how and whys of Jake’s breathing.

Marnie, for all the world to know, for all the important world to know in 1958 in Olde Saco, Maine, and that meant her friends, her teenage friends, her girls, whom she hung around with in front of, guess, Jimmy Jakes Diner, had been minding her own business when one Jake LeFleur came swooping down on her. And she would swear on a stack of seven, hell, seventy sealed bibles (as all her “corner girls” would attest to after they had heard the latest installment of the Jake leading Marnie by the nose saga) that she had no intention of finding herself riding in Jake’s ’55 two-toned souped-up Chevy after a few minutes of Jake smooth talk. But she did, although she will also swear, at least for public consumption, that she had a problem breathing when she found herself in that position (or later more intimate positions, as she would slyly allude to when describing her latest date with Jake.)

But at some point Jake, or maybe Marnie, it was never clear discovered two things, one that Jake was crazier about Marnie that she was about him, and more importantly ,two, Marnie was taking more than a few peeks at a new boy in town, Bernie Albert, who if one can believe this, had neither a car, hot or otherwise, and had not the least inclination to hang around Jimmy Jakes Diner because he was crazy for the sea, and crazy for writing stuff about the sea once he found the best spots over at Olde Saco Beach (naturally including the exclusive teen hot spot of Seal Rock). Bernie came in like a breath of fresh air and before long one did not see Marnie Capet riding, front seat riding, in any funny old ’55 Chevy. She was breathing the sea air down at the beach after walking there with Bernie.

Now the tale turns back to Jake though, Jake of the thousand chicken run victories, Jake of the hard boy corner boy society in front of Jimmie Jakes Diner, spurned Jake. And before you wonder what hell our boy Jake is going to rain down on one Bernie Albert for “stealing “ his Marnie you should know this. Not only do you not see Marnie riding in that Chevy, that boss Chevy as anyone in town, anyone that counted would tell you, meaning the habitués of Jimmy Jakes but you do not see Jake riding around. If you can believe this, Jake was still carrying a big torch for Marnie and had taken to his room to write her a letter begging her to come back. And since he was not a scholar like Bernie, and since he wanted to note her upcoming birthday he played the Tune Weavers’ Happy, Happy Birthday Baby to help him through task, and settle his uneasy breathing. Stay tuned. And while you are waiting check out this volume to see if Bernie has a chance to select something to counter Jake’s move.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-Time Is Not On Our Side

 

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

He, Peter Paul Markin to give him a name although many of the generation of ‘68 had been on the same quest, for a whole number of reasons both personal and political, had been on the trail of his roots, including trips to the old working- class neighborhoods where he came of political age. Through various methods, including extensive use of the glorious Internet, he was able to track down a couple of guys from the old neighborhood whose family story had gripped him in olden times.

As an unintended result of that research he have also come in contact with some helpful old high school classmates, North Adamsville High School (that’s in Massachusetts) Class of 1964 . One such helpful person, a class officer back in the day, had asked him to answer some questions that her committee was putting together for his high school class with an eye to the upcoming 50^th anniversary reunion. You know the “what the hell have you done with your ill-begotten life for the past half century,” how many kids, grandkids, egad, great-grandkids do you have; don’t lie about anything in any answer because we have ways of finding out the truth of your silly life. How do you think we found you after all these years anyway? (Although, as simple matter, a glance a local telephone book would have provided the answer.)

Got it. Peter Paul got it alright. He had answered some of the more pertinent questions, the dream questions, like how did things actually work out as against one’s totally inflated and obscenely optimistic teenage dream goals, as truthfully as possible, or as any of the old gang needed to know and gave forth with the expected fair percentage of lies, half-lies, and bizarre falsehoods that they should have expected for him, despite the fore-warnings. And they, in turn provided their inflated estimates. No foul, no harm. He dutifully posted those on the class website, although not without noting that this “memoir” excursion was getting to be a seemingly endless task as the more questions he answered the more they (really she, she unnamed she, just in case legal action becomes necessary) kept sending him. Such is life. But, through some of the interchange correspondence he uncovered more information about his roots coming from an earlier period, the dark “projects” coming of age period. Such is life, indeed.

He told me, one melancholy barroom veranda afternoon, some of the details of his “discovery.” How his family had started life in a housing project in Adamsville with all that implied, then and now. By the beauties of the Internet social networking he had come in contact with someone who remembered him (or rather his brother, his older brother, Prescott- she was sweet on him in elementary school), a woman named Sherry. She had lived in that housing project during his family’s stay there and for many, many year after his family had left (to move to the other side of town in a broken down single, well, shack was the only work he could think of to describe it) , and saw its transformation from a temporary way station for returning World War II veterans as had been its original intention to a classic drug-strewn crime-ridden ‘den of iniquity’ as portrayed in subsequent media accounts, She agreed to be his ‘hood historian. Moreover she had brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren who had memories from that place and she agreed to pump them for their remembrances.

And that is where I came in. Peter Paul, my old yellow brick road magical mystery tour brother from the 1960s summer of love (summers of love?) generational break-out since we met on the West Coast one sunny year called on me to work out some of the kinks in the stories, something he felt was too close to believe that he could do them some small measure of justice. He presented the concept as something that could very well be a slice of life series on the trials and tribulations of members of the marginally working poor, a section of the working class with which I am also very familiar coming from old time mill town Olde Saco up in Maine. See too from my vantage point the thing could have produced a study, with all its inherent limitations, of the decline and disintegration of working class political consciousness in America since World War II. I had (have) written other stories from the Olde Saco days that played out one way with a section of the working class that was slightly above the one that Peter Paul came from, but just above, the steadily employed working people who dotted the coastal Maine landscape back then. That saga did not paint a pretty political picture. Nor would this one, I feared. But, damn, we both agreed, why shouldn’t these people have their stories told, warts and all.

Again, like that Olde Saco series (with a ponderous series title of History and Consciousness, H&C, I have gotten better with my titles since then, thank you), this series would really narrate a very prosaic working class set of stories. I planned, however, to organize these stories differently because now I know what I am looking for and each story will be able to stand on its own. In H&C the stories as they unfolded piecemeal, frankly, got out of control and I do not believe that when I put all the parts together at the end that it had the power that I wanted it to have, and that it did have for me as they unfolded.

That said, if this time last year somebody asked me, including Peter Paul, if I would be doing another series like H&C I would have said they were crazy. I then wanted to discuss the finer theoretical points of organizing to push for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan Iraq or building a workers’ party in this country. But this series seemed like finding the philosopher’s stone. This was the “real deal” down at the base of society; from a time when with a little tweaking things could have gone in another direction.

I prepared the first story (since published) that dealt with how this poor woman Sherry, Peter’s ‘hood historian, was humiliated by other students (girls mainly) at his elementary school for the mere fact of being from “the projects.” This writer was painfully aware of that type of humiliation as he faced the same thing up in Olde Saco. I expected to use that introductory story to draw some political conclusions, if possible. Again, as I had in H&C, I asked the question- will there be political lessons to be learned? I did not believe so, directly. However, real stories about the fate of the working class down at the base can help explain the very real retardants to working class political consciousness that we face as we try to organize here in America to take back the republic. I have spent a lifetime quoting radical socialist principles, chapter and verse, elsewhere. These stories desperately need to be told. Sadly, after that first story though Sherry passed away and we, Peter Paul and I, have been left a little rudderless. Time is not always on our side. Sherry from the ‘hood, RIP.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-From The “Growing Up Absurd In Olde Saco” Series “Franny LeBlanc Makes Do”

Click on the headline to line to a YouTube film clip of the Inkspots performing their classic To Each His Own.

Lyrics: To Each His Own:

A rose must remain with the sun and the rain
Or its lovely promise won't come true
To each his own, to each his own
And my own is you

What good is a song if the words just don't belong?
And a dream must be a dream for two
No good alone, to each his own
For me there's you

If a flame is to grow, there must be a glow
To open each door there's a key
I need you, I know, I can't let you go
Your touch means too much to me

Two lips must insist on two more to be kissed
Or they'll never know what love can do
To each his own, I've found my own
One and only you

If a flame is to grow, there must be a glow
And to open each door there's gotta be a key
I need you, I know, I can't let you go
'Cause honey, your touch means too much to me

Two lips must insist on two more to be kissed
Or they'll never know what love can do
To each his own, I've found my own
One and only you

************
She, Francine Lorraine LeBlanc, Franny Leclerc she to everybody in Old Saco, that is up in Maine, thank you, ever since she could remember, before she traded in her name in for LeBlanc on that blessed June 1945 day when she and Jimmy swept, while he was on weekend Army leave, into Ste. Brigitte’s to take their vows, was in no hurry, a conscious no hurry, to get down to the Olde Saco Housing Authority offices before they closed on that frost-fighting November 1947 afternoon. Conscious reason number one surprise baby Jacques Louis LeBlanc had had her up half the night with colic, or some other one year old childhood disorder that she could not figure out. Conscious reason number two was that one planned baby Jean Laurent LeBlanc, a mere three months old, had had her up with his screaming for the other half of that night. Conscious reason number three though was the potential stopper, rather more the real reason that she was out of sorts that day. She was heading to those offices to line up with many other young mothers and wives of ex-servicemen in order to sign up for the public-assisted housing that the city of Olde Saco was planning to provide for returning veterans pushed out of the local single family housing market by the post-war crush demand.

The city, under pressure from many appreciative locals and not just those with servicemen, was trying to give retuning servicemen and their starter families a leg up, a way station was the way it was put, on their way to some nice single family home a few years ahead in the Ocean View section or maybe out in Dunesville. But Franny didn’t see it that way. She didn’t see it that way at all as she had been freely telling one and all, family and friends, for days (although conspicuously not the other young mothers and wives lined up with her that November afternoon).

See Franny had started out life with her own family in the now long gone Acre “projects” (really just paper and wind shacks little better than Hooverville cardboard boxes put up in a rush and taken down as quickly) back in the early 1930s when Meme and Papa Leclerc had come back down from the old country up in Quebec around Quebec City where they had been looking for work but there was no work. They had planned to work again in the Olde Saco textile mills but there wasn’t any work in those booming Depression days and so the Leclerc family had had to go on the public dole, including that cardboard shack housing over in the Acre. There had been no lack of embarrassment from school friends and family about their reduced circumstances and Franny had been ashamed to bring anyone over for fear that she would be laughed right out of school, pretty as she was. So Franny had had enough of that kind of tar paper housing with its silent whispers and fearful hatreds although it had only been for a couple of years until the mills started up again and the family just before the war moved over to Ocean View like all the other F-Cs into the extended Leclerc family.

It wasn’t fair though; she fumed, and fumed again every time she thought about it. Here her Jimmy had practically single-handedly saved the world from Hitler and she still had to stand in line for public housing. It just wasn’t right. (By the way that Hitler reference was her take, not Jimmy’s. Jimmy, if he said anything about it and like a like a lot of guys in town he usually didn’t say much, said he just did his “bit” and left it at that. It was the women, the home front “slackers,” and the rear echelon soldiers who wanted to talk endlessly about their sacrifices.)

What really wasn’t right though had more personal sources. Some personal that she was more than willing to announce to one and all (although usually carefully skirting the issue when one of her “targets” was present, or within earshot). It wasn’t right that her best friend from high school, Lilly Genet, a girl who barely graduated and who had done nothing to help the war effort by volunteering at the War Ration Board like she had) was right then moving with some heathen husband from Portland (meaning non F-C) over to the new Dunesville housing tract. Into a house complete with dishwasher and the new washer and dryer combinations. And silly Margot Deauville, who didn’t even finish high school, had been “knocked” up, but had met a forgiving proper F-C, Jean La Croix, was moving there too. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault the MacAdams Textile Mills, where he worked before the war and had returned right after the war, had started short-shifting as it planned to head south for cheaper labor. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault that they had had to seek refuge with her parents, two babies and all, in her small former girlhood room. It just wasn’t fair, that’s all.

But the personal frustrations, or better the hurts, that Franny could express to no one, not family or friends, no one, was that her dreams for her and Jimmy and their little family might not work out, might not work out at all. When Jimmy and Franny had met over at the Old Orchard Ballroom near the beach that stardust September 1939 night when Benny Goodman had held sway for two be-bop nights only he had swept her off her feet with his moonlight-sized dreams, his simmering desire for her, and his steady ways which she appreciated after those hated rationed 1930s years. She stuck to him like glue and when war came, well war came and she promised, no vowed is better, to wait, to wait on Jimmy’s dreams.

Jimmy had promised her the moon, and while she was realistic enough to know that half the stuff he said was just stuff, just stuff guys say to girls when they want something, the other half should have come out okay. And she would have accepted that. Accepted that gladly. But something was gnawing at her that day, something that even playing “their song,”’ the Inkspots' To Each His Own, that had gotten her by many a war-torn evening had not worked its magic as it usually did. Yah, something was gnawing at her that day and standing in line with other young mothers with their own dreams, and their own half-dream surrender acceptances didn’t help. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair

After what seemed like an eternity in line and then at the red-faced desk of Marvis Dubois, a girl she went to Olde Saco High with, she had her paper-work processed and her application, due to Jimmy’s war record, was approved right then. They would be moving into their “apartment” (four small rooms and an alcove, jointed together with three other such apartments to make one unit and each of the fifty units made “the projects”) sometime in early 1948. That night, alone because Jimmy was working second shift just to keep his job at the mill, Franny, the babies fed and put to sleep, went over the record player, a wedding gift from her parents, and once again put on To Each His Own. She listened intently to the words this time and this time they brought back the old time fervor for Jimmy and for his mad dreams. Yes, they would make it through somehow.

[Life was not kind to the LeBlanc family, despite the fervent Jimmy dreams, and the Franny half-acceptances. Another unplanned child came in early 1949 to add to the woes. Jimmy lost his job at the mill when it closed in the early 1950s and the company headed south. He decided (pushed along by Franny and her parents) that he couldn’t take his young family down there and rejected the proffered job offer from the mill owners. The economy of the town dried up after the closings however and whatever you might have heard about the golden age of America in the 1950s there were no working class jobs in the area to see him through so he was reduced to odd job catch- as- catch- can jobs as they came along. Worst, worst for a proud war decorated 1950s F-C man (or, hell, any man in go-go times America) Franny had to go to work serving them off the arm, working mother’s hours, over at Jimmy Jakes’ Diner on Atlantic Avenue, the one that catered to the senior citizens and summer time touristas. It was many, many years and many sorrows before the family escaped “the projects” for a little shack of a single family house over in the Atlantic section of town, adjacent to the Acre. Franny stopped playing To Each His Own in the early 1950s and Jimmy did not say anything about it.-JLB]