From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Victor Serge-Observations in Germany(1923)

 

Markin comment:

The Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia in October 1917 was consciously predicated by the leadership (Lenin, Trotsky, etc., some others pushing forward, some being dragged along in the fight) on the premise that the Russian revolution would not, could not, stand alone for long either against the backlash onslaught of world imperialism, or on a more positive note, once the tasks of socialist construction reached a certain point. The purpose of the Communist International, founded in 1919 in the heat of the Russian civil war, by the Bolsheviks and their international supporters was the organizational expression of that above-mentioned premise. To work through and learn the lessons of the Bolshevik experience and to go all out to defeat world imperialism and create a new social order. I might add that political, social, and military conditions in war-weary World War I Europe in 1918 and 1919 made those premises something more than far-fetched utopian hopes. And central to those hopes were events in Germany.

If the original premise of Marxism (espoused specifically by both Marx and Engels in their respective political lifetimes) that the revolution would break out in an advanced capitalist European country then Germany, with its high level of capitalist development and socialist traditions and organizations, was the logical place to assume such an event would occur. And that premise, despite the betrayals of the German social democratic leadership in the war period, animated Lenin and Trotsky in their planning for the extension of socialist revolution westward. The rise of a “peace” socialist wing (the Independent Socialists) during the late phases of the war, the events around the smashing of the German monarchy and the creation of a socialist-led bourgeois republic in the wake of military defeat, the ill-starred Spartacist uprising, the working class response to the later Kopp Putsch, the also-ill-starred March Action of 1921, and the possibilities of a revolution in 1923 in reaction to the French exactions in the Ruhr and other events that year all made for a period of realistic revolutionary upheaval that was fertile ground for revolutionaries. And revolutionary hopes.

As we are painfully, no, very painfully, aware no revolution occurred in that period and that hard fact had profound repercussions on the then isolated Russian experiment. That hard fact has also left a somewhat unresolved question among communist militants, thoughtful communist militants anyway, about the prospects then. The question boils down to, as foreshadowed in the headline to this entry, whether there was any basis for the notion that a revolution could have occurred in Germany in 1923. We know what happened because it didn’t, but there are sometimes valuable conditionals pose in absorbing the lessons of history, our communist history. The yes or no of a German revolution is one such question. I have given my opinion previously-if there was no chance of revolution in Germany in 1923, win or lose, then the whole notion of proletarian revolution was just a utopian dream of a bunch of European outcast radicals. The corollary to that proposition is that, in the year 2010, the socialist cooperative notion that we fight for, other than as an abstract intellectual idea, is utopian, and that we are the mad grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) of those mad Europeans. That idea, with world imperialism wreaking havoc and breathing down our backs relentlessly in all quarters makes that corollary ill-founded. So let’s take another look at Germany 1923 from the several perspectives I have gathered in today’s postings.

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm

Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.

Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.

The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff. 
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Victor Serge-Observations in Germany(1923)

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From Revolutionary History, Vol. 5 No. 2, Spring 1994, pp. 130–136.
Transcribed by Alun Morgan for the Revolutionary History Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

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The following text consists of extracts from Notes D’Allemagne (1923), a collection of articles by Victor Serge, edited by Pierre Broué, and published by La Brèche, Paris, in 1990. The extracts have been translated by Ian Birchall, who reviewed Notes D’Allemagne (1923) in Revolutionary History, Volume 3, no. 2, Autumn 1990, p. 49. Unhappy at certain developments within the Soviet Union, in late 1921 Serge decided to move to Western Europe, which he saw as the focus for future revolutionary activity. He settled in Berlin, and was on the staff of Inprekorr, the bulletin of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, and wrote under various pseudonyms for several Communist publications. He remained in Western Europe until 1926, and his years there are covered in Chapter 5 of his Memoirs of a Revolutionary (Oxford 1978, pp. 157–92).

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I: Towards the German Commune

Nothing is more false, nothing is more tragically pitiful at this moment of history than the situation of the leaders of German Social Democracy. It was they who, with Stresemann, imposed martial law on Germany – that is, they handed over dictatorial powers to seven generals under the orders of von Seeckt – in order, they claimed, to ensure that the Republic was respected by the Bavarian reactionaries. Of course! They wanted to avoid civil war at all costs. They still have three ministers, including the Vice-Chancellor, Robert Schmidt, in the cabinet of the Grand Coalition. And martial law is Bavarianising the whole of Germany, is turned exclusively against the working class, against the republican government led by the Social Democrat Zeigner, and is leading the country straight ahead, at full speed, into civil war. After a few weeks the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party has come round to asking – without having the power to enforce it – for the repeal of martial law. And Vorwärts is full of feeble, impotent protests … [1]

If they still had a vestige of political virility, the Social Democratic ministers should give Stresemann a clear ultimatum and resign. ‘But they won’t do it’, a Social Democrat assured me this morning, ‘They know only too well that they would be told: “Fine: Clear off!”’
Almost the whole party is abandoning them. Half the parliamentary fraction, which is by no means revolutionary, wants a clean break with the bourgeois parties. It’s the last chance of saving what bit of honour this wretched party has left. Whole regions are recognising where they have gone wrong, are agreeing that the Communists were right, and are forming a united front. After Saxony and Thuringia, it has been established in Hamburg, Solingen, and Frankfurt, and negotiations are going on in Berlin.
Trade union officials in Bonn have become advocates of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. [2] Twenty-two associations of cooperatives – not normally considered as trouble-makers! – are demanding the holding of a workers’ conference on food supplies, and are posing the question of feeding the masses in a revolutionary form. The Social Democratic regional congress for Berlin is due to meet shortly; it is no secret that it will give the opposition a solid majority.
Meanwhile the old scientific journal of Socialist thought, Die Neue Zeit, founded in 1885 and edited for 32 years, until 1917, by Kautsky, has ceased to appear, for want of money and readers, but also for want of thinkers. The most authoritative voice of reformist Socialism has been silenced … Is it possible to imagine a more complete bankruptcy? [3]

II: The End of German Unity

THE street in the grey light of morning. In front of the dairies, these never-ending pitiful crowds of poor women. They settle down, they bring folding stools, chairs and their needlework with them. They bring their children. One women, not fully hidden by the mist, in the corner of a doorway, is breast-feeding. It is cold, the damp pierces through the old clothes of the poverty-stricken. They have been there for whole days waiting to buy a bit of margarine. Facing them, the inevitable green uniformed policeman, miserable and bad-tempered because he is ashamed of his job. Perhaps his wife is there, with the others …

A lorry passes loaded with potatoes. A clamouring crowd converges on it from both pavements. Kids clutch onto the back of the lorry, and throw armfuls of the precious vegetables down into the road, to be picked up immediately. The driver speeds up. A policeman shouts himself hoarse, all in vain. I see quite a well-dressed gentleman, doubtless an office worker, calmly pick up a few potatoes and stuffing them in his pocket. I see a greying, bent old woman running out of breath to increase her share …
The street is hungry. The street has faces of despair, of anger and of hatred.
All day until midnight, at crossroads in the working-class districts, groups of men are discussing. The unemployed. I’ve often listened to their discussions: the Communist, the Social Democrat and the National Socialist are usually all there; and the Communist comes out on top.
Sometimes, suddenly, these groups come together, form an angry procession, push the police out of the way and attack the shops. This happened in the last few days in various districts of Berlin, and in a number of cities in Germany. An eye-witness told me about one of these instances of looting. He was astonished at the sense of order of the starving people. Methodical looting, no unnecessary violence against property or people. They didn’t take luxury items. They took bread, fat, shoes. Suddenly rising up to a primitive awareness of their right to life, men condemned to die of hunger took what they needed to live. It was only when the police intervened that the expropriation degenerated into a riot.
But the police are hesitant, they don’t shoot as readily as they did six months ago. They feel submerged in a mass movement – and they are hungry, too. In the brawls at Schönberg and near the Stock Exchange the changed attitude was very visible. Near the Stock Exchange the other day some unemployed stopped some bosses’ cars and set about pushing them towards the River Spree. A policemen harangued these hungry paupers, appealed to their reason and their human feeling – and since they have more of these feelings than Stinnes and Poincaré [4] – resolved the incident when it was on the verge of becoming tragic.
The big department stores have their iron grilles half closed; the small grocers don’t push them all the way back. The hungry streets make them afraid. They can feel it becoming a formidable revolutionary force.
Two days ago bread cost 620 million marks; today, 21 October, it costs 2,800 million. [5]

III: Fascists and Communists

THE swastika and the Soviet star have joined together … Count Reventlow and Radek are in perfect agreement … The corrupters of Moscow, the Machiavellis of the Third International, and the adventurers of German reaction have signed an abominable pact against democracy … Tatar Bolshevism, transformed into German nationalism, is sharpening its knife – you know, the one it carries between its teeth! – to cut the throats of the innocent republics of Léon Blum and Ebert, of General Degoutte and Citizen Noske … [6]

Communism is the living, flexible and logical thought of the vanguards of the working class, everywhere wholly committed to revolutionary struggle. Formulae based on safety first, the wondrous creeds of the Socialism of inactivity, high sounding phrases – fine pillows for idle minds – are not in its nature. Communism is born of the Russian Revolution, whose thought was always essentially action, the habit of plunging into the heart of reality, of adapting to it, of endlessly forging from it new weapons, tactics and strategies …

‘Weapons, tactics, strategies … a horrible military vocabulary!’

‘I agree, comrade. But it isn’t my fault or Moscow’s. Tell me, in today’s class struggles, should we have weapons, know, foresee, calculate what we’re doing, in other words, use tactics and strategy?’

German Social Democrats and French Socialists think they can rest on the laurels of the Treaty of Versailles. The former are concerned only with rescuing the capitalist order, which is very much under threat on this side of the Rhine; the latter have nothing in their minds but the ingenious alliances of the bloc of the left parties and the coming election campaign. As for the German Communists, they are facing up to famine, Fascist counter-revolution and Allied imperialism. Every day they have to listen to the irresistible cries of 20 million hungry people; every week, walking over the bodies of the poor wretches shot down in public squares by the Schutzpolizei, men from all parties make their way towards them. Every week repression strikes them. They have thousands of members in jail. They are a party of the revolution. In face of Fascism, they have to act.

Yesterday, a Berlin militant told me this:

Our tactics towards Fascism has already achieved positive success. Six months ago, Fascism was biting into the working class here and there. It was rising rapidly when the occupation of the Ruhr gave it the significant bonus of a legitimate awakening of national feeling. Now, though it’s far from being beaten, its progress has been checked. It’s no longer the demagogy of National Socialist anti-Semitism which has got a grip on some proletarian elements which have been demoralised by the wretched manoeuvres of Social Democracy, it’s our revolutionary arguments which are biting into the proletarianised and disoriented middle classes. Moreover, since German Fascism is divided within itself into two tendencies, one Pan-Germanic and one separatist [7], whilst working-class unity is more and more being achieved around the Communist Party – the events in Thuringia are one more proof of it [8] – the Soviet star has for the moment got the upper hand over the swastika. And that’s a good thing, because it’s not an easy time we’re living through …

The fact is that ‘Sedan Day’ (2 September) [9] was a fiasco for the Fascists; that after two or three debates with Communist speakers, the National Socialist Party has in its paper, the Völkische Beobachter (The People’s Observer), formally forbidden its members to enter into debates with the Communists; that the three public debates between Fascist speakers and our comrade Hermann Remmele [10] – at Stuttgart on 2 and 10 August and at Göppingen on 16 August – have, like Radek’s articles, gone right around reactionary Germany, which is on a civil war footing.

Let’s look through the little pamphlet containing Remmele’s speeches to the South German Fascists, and we’ll be looking at what idiots – or dishonest politicians – are calling National Bolshevism. ‘You’re fighting Jewish finance’, says Remmele to the Fascists, ‘Good! But also fight the other finance, that of Thyssen, Krupp, Stinnes, Klöckner and so on!’, and he makes these anti-Semites applaud the class struggle. ‘You are fighting the workers because your masters, the big capitalists, want to divide and rule, want to divide you people from the ruined proletarianised middle classes, from us proletarians!’, and he gets these reactionaries to applaud the united front of all the exploited. ‘Are you patriots?’, he asks, and he shows how big German industry is linked in many profitable deals with French capital, selling it its manufacturing secrets, like the Baden aniline trust, preparing the way for the colonisation of Germany, and getting rich from the falling value of the mark. ‘Which of you wants to get killed for capitalist Germany?’, and he gets the whole hall to shout out: ‘None of us!’
In its positive part, his line of argument is simple:

Hungry Germany cannot be free without first shaking the yoke of its national capitalism.

The Treaty of Versailles cannot be cancelled until there is no longer a capitalist Germany.

One people has already shown you how to liberate yourselves: look at the example of the internationalist Soviets!

Together we are between 16 and 18 million proletarians whose wages have fallen by at least four-fifths; and between nine and 11 million small business people who have been ruined. They used to tell you that Communism would take everything away from you: it’s capitalism which has taken everything away from you. The proletariat will liberate you by liberating itself.

The national unity of Germany cannot have any other support but the international working-class movement.

This Communist speaker, addressing Württemberg Fascists, made them cheer André Marty [11] and working-class France which ‘would produce thousands of Martys if the French armies marched against the German revolution’. He thus reminded Germans, fooled by the chauvinistic incitement of Stinnes’ press, made hateful by the exploits of Degoutte in the Ruhr, embittered by poverty, that there is a red France, which made the Commune, which has made or attempted four revolutions in a century, and will never serve as the executioner of a great liberation movement. Perhaps for the National Socialist supporters this is merely cheap demagogy.

The German Communists want to offer discussions to the Fascists, with their full programme, with all the mighty intransigence of their revolutionary ideology. Examine these speeches of Remmele in detail; you’ll find no concession, no hesitations. In order to arouse the virtuous indignation of the Social Democrats of France and Germany against this remarkable propaganda campaign, it has been necessary to mash up texts, to do violence to some of the facts, and to ignore others out of sheer prejudice – for example, the huge effort of organising armed resistance to Fascism that has been achieved throughout Germany by the Communists – and to use the crudest agitational devices. ‘Radek shakes Count Reventlow’s hand’, writes Vorwärts. (And Remmele replies: ‘We’re offering a united front to you who killed Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, to you whose Noske has the blood of 15,000 revolutionaries on his conscience!’) [12]
The Fascist movement is born of the wretched condition of the middle classes impoverished by the struggles of the imperialist epoch, and disillusioned with the democracy, pacifism, reformism and the milk-and-water Socialism they indulged in at a time when they seemed assured of preserving their comfortable position. It is lining up against the proletariat millions of men determined to risk everything because they have lost almost everything, enemies of the Socialism which has disappointed them, ready for that very reason to go right against what they believed yesterday. In Germany, it is the last defence of the capitalist order; and since it could rely on social layers of more than 10 million men, it would, when the day came, be side by side with high finance and heavy industry, enrolled in the ranks of the police and the Reichswehr, and led by the best strategists from the Kaiser’s general staff – in short, a terrible force for reaction.
The German Communists have approached it, and have struck it in its most vulnerable places: its absurd ideology, the conscious duplicity of its leaders, the anti-capitalist and anti-democratic feelings of its rank and file. The occupation of the Ruhr swept a wave of nationalism over the whole of Germany. Sometimes they have neutralised it, and sometimes they have transformed it into an additional revolutionary element. Instead of letting Hitler and Ludendorff [13] divert the forces of the working class towards a repressive civil war, they have succeeded in neutralising a section of the middle classes in favour of revolutionary internationalism which wants – which is – peace between peoples.
Where people were expected to applaud Hindenburg [14], they succeeded in making them applaud Marty. [15]

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Notes

1. In October 1923 Streseman (cf. n25, August Thalheimer’s article in this issue of Revolutionary History) obtained presidential consent for a national state of emergency in response to nationalist disturbances in Bavaria, which meant that General Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936), the Commander in Chief of the Reichswehr and the prime mover in the rebuilding of Germany’s armed forces, effectively had dictatorial power. The Social Democratic ministers in the government, including Robert Schmidt (1864–1937), endorsed both this and the dismissal of the Socialist and Communist coalition governments in Saxony and Thuringia, but resigned when Streseman refused to act likewise against Bavaria. The term ‘Bavarianising’ is a reference to the increasing use of repressive action against the working class, as was increasingly the case in Bavaria. For Zeigner, cf n10, Mike Jones’ article in this issue of Revolutionary History.

2. When Serge was writing, Bonn was a tiny backward town, and not the capital of a powerful state. To get the flavour, imagine the sentence: ‘Trade union officials in Uttoxeter have …’

3. An extract from Correspondance Internationale, no. 83, 19 October 1923.

4. For Stinnes and Poincaré, cf. n8 and n23, Mike Jones’ article in this issue of Revolutionary History.

5. An extract from Correspondance Internationale, no. 84, 25 October 1923.

6. Count Ernst Reventlow (1869–?) was a rabid German chauvinist who later joined the Nazis. Léon Blum (1872–1950) was a leading French Socialist and opponent of the Communist movement, although in the late 1930s he became Premier of Popular Front governments which were supported by the Stalinists. General Jean-Marie Degoutte (1866–1938) headed the French occupation forces in the Ruhr. For Karl Radek, cf. n9, Jakob Reich’s article in this issue of Revolutionary History. For Friedrich Ebert, cf. n3, Arthur Rosenberg’s article in this issue of Revolutionary History. For Gustav Noske, cf n2, Arthur Rosenberg’s article in this issue of Revolutionary History.

7. A Rhineland republic was established by separatists in October 1923, with a provisional government in Koblenz, but it soon collapsed. The republic established at the same time in the neighbouring Palatinate was more successful, as it received recognition from the French occupying forces, but it collapsed once they withdrew their support.

8. A reference to the formation of the joint Socialist-Communist government in response to the nationalist disturbances in neighbouring Bavaria.

9. This celebrated the victory of the Prusso-German army over the French in 1870.

10. For Hermann Remmele, cf. n64, Jakob Reich’s article in this issue of Revolutionary History.

11. André Marty (1886–1956) played a leading role in the mutiny in the French Black Sea fleet during the Wars of Intervention, and subsequently became a leading member of the French Communist Party.

12. The SPD made much of the KPD’s debates with the German Fascists, and especially the concessions that the KPD’s speakers made to the anti-Semitism of their fellow debaters. Remmele’s speeches in Stuttgart went a lot further than Serge admits here, and he also used the vernacular of the ultra-right when he criticised the SPD members at the meetings as ‘November Traitors’. On his return to Moscow, Radek admitted that his Schlageter Speech and the other concessions to the ultra-right were not effective in winning over its adherents to the Communist movement. Cf. C. Fischer, The German Communists and the Rise of Nazism, Basingstoke 1991, pp. 51ff.

13. Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937) was Quartermaster-General of the German army in the First World War, and virtual military dictator of the country for the last two years of it. He was a co-conspirator with Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch, but unlike him was not found guilty in the trial that followed.

14. Paul Von Hindenburg und Beneckendorff (1847–1934) was titular head of the German army during the latter part of the First World War, and from 1925 onwards President of the Weimar Republic.

15. From Bulletin communiste, no. 77, 26 September 1923.

 

Urgent Medical Appeal for Ex-Political Prisoner Lynne Stewart Workers Vanguard No. 1041	7 March 2014

 

 

Seventy-four years old and suffering from Stage IV breast cancer, radical lawyer Lynne Stewart may have only months to live. The government is dedicated to making that time as painful as possible. After being denied compassionate medical release for nearly a year, Stewart was finally let out of prison on December 31 by a U.S. district judge who cited her “terminal medical condition and very limited life expectancy.” Stewart, whose cancer has metastasized to her back, lung, bones and lymph nodes, discovered after her release that she had been stripped of Medicare coverage while in prison. She will not be enrolled again until July. Medicaid will not cover her because Stewart and her husband’s combined Social Security benefits exceed the monthly income limit. She must now pay the sky-high costs of treatment and medication herself—or go without!

Stewart should never have spent a day in prison. In 2005, she was convicted of giving material support to terrorism for her vigorous defense of an Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist cleric who had been imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. Stewart’s purported “material support” was to communicate her client’s views to Reuters news service. Her Arabic translator Mohamed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Abdel Sattar were also convicted. These watershed convictions gave the capitalist government a green light to prosecute lawyers as co-conspirators of their clients—a frontal attack on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In 2010, at the instigation of the Obama administration, a federal appeals court instructed the judge who had originally sentenced Stewart to reexamine her sentence. Appeasing his superiors, the judge jacked up the original 28-month sentence to ten years.

Lynne Stewart dedicated her adult life to keeping Black Panthers, radical leftists and others who are reviled by the capitalist state out of the clutches of its prison system. Tens of thousands worldwide supported Stewart’s fight for a medical release. She must not face this new attack alone. The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee has issued an appeal for funds for Stewart’s medical needs. The Partisan Defense Committee, a class-struggle defense organization associated with the Spartacist League, has contributed funds. We urge our readers to contribute now! Make checks payable to “Lynne Stewart Organization” and mail to: Lynne Stewart Organization, 1070 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216.

Please contribute to Lynne's Immediate Medical Needs! As Valentine's Day approaches, show your continued love and support for Lynne Stewart and her tireless efforts to fight for justice. And if you donate now, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous friend of the fight for justice for Lynne Stewart. TO DONATE GO HERE: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lynne-stewart-s-medical-fund

In Honor Of Russian Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s Birthday (April 1870-Janaury 1924)-The Struggle Continues-Ivan Smilga’s Political Journey-Take One     

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman 


For several years I have been honoring various revolutionary forbears, including the subject of this birthday tribute, the Russian Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin architect (along with fellow revolutionary Leon Trotsky) of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 in each January under the headline-Honor The Three L’s –Lenin, Luxemburg , Liebknecht. My purpose then was (and still is) to continue the traditions established by the Communist International in the early post-World War I period to honor revolutionary forbears. That month has special significance since each January leftists honor those three leading revolutionaries who died in that month, V.I. Lenin of Russia in his sleep after a long illness in 1924, and Karl Liebknecht of Germany and Rosa Luxemburg of Poland in 1919 murdered after leading the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin.

I have made my political points about the heroic Karl Liebknecht and his parliamentary fight against the German war budget in World War I on some previous occasions. I have also made some special point in previous years about the life of Rosa Luxemburg, the “rose of the revolution.” This month, the month of his birth, it is appropriate, at a time when the young needs to find a few good heroes, to highlight the early struggles of Vladimir Lenin, the third L, in order to define himself politically. Below is a sketch of a young fictional labor militant, although not so fictional in the scheme of the revolutionary developments in Russia the Tsar toward the end of the 19^th century and early 20^th century which will help define the problems facing the working-class there then.
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Ivan Smilga, “Big Ivan” to his friends, and rightly so since he was large, six feet six and two hundred and sixty pounds, large by Russian hunger standards in the winter of 1893 had come out of the Ukrainian farmlands not many miles outside of Odessa to Moscow when he had heard that John Smiley and Sons, the big English textile firm was given a license to set up a factory in that city to produce cloth for the home market. The farm life was so barren, so desolate that Ivan had walked on foot or taken a sleigh ride most of the way that hard winter in order to as he said (roughly and politely translated from the Russian) “get the stink of country life blown out of his nostril.” He was not alone that first day when the first Smiley plant went on line. Thousands of young farm boy Ivans (although perhaps none quite as large) were standing impatiently in line for a chance at employment. And more than one farm boy was crestfallen to see that if he had to compete against thousands of Ivans there were that many more thousands of Ivanas, young farm girls, girls  as always attracted to textile work in every budding capitalist country in order to get off their own desolate family farms and make their ways in the world before marriage. Although perhaps they would be too polite and pious to use the words that Ivan used to indicate his reasoning for getting off the land, and not look back.                

Fortunately Ivan, with his bulk and strength, was chosen very quickly by a watchful foreman who needed the strong back and hands of a young man who could lift the rolls of fabric as they came off the machines. And so Ivan started his new life, or part of his new life as a working-man, as a man of the city. For about a year things went well, although he worked many long sixteen hour days six days a week being young he was capable of doing the work. And loved to pocket his wages at the end of the week. Being somewhat frugal (as he had been taught in the peasant manner) Ivan was able to save for his dream of owning a small shop, maybe a blacksmith’s shop to service the needs of the fine horse that he saw daily on the streets of Moscow. He also sent, as a dutiful son, kopeks home to his family to help tide them over as the grain harvest that year was sufficiently short to bring the threat of severe hunger back to the Smilga door once again.

In the spring of 1895 all that changed though. Ivan had worked his way up to head hauler, directing others to load and unload the rolls of fabric produced from the never-ending machines. He had a good reputation among his fellow workers, although not a few saw his dreams of a little shop as somewhat awry. Moreover he was a moderate drinker by Russian and Ukrainian standards and so the young women of the factory floor would flirt, or at least cast an eye his way, especially Elena Kassova, who worked one of the machines which Ivan was in charge of keeping up to speed. Then one day James Smiley, the company owner’s son and manager of the plant   announced to young Ivan Smilga that his services (and that of the crew who worked under him) were no longer necessary since the company had purchased a machine that would automatically take the rolls from machine and place them on a wagon, a wagon so simple to operate that one of the girl machine-tenders could do it periodically.   

So there Ivan was, out in the cold, without a job, and with no particular prospects. Ivan stewed over his plight for about a week, maybe ten days, with solace only from endless bottles of vodka. Then one night he rounded up his now unemployed work crew, a group of four young farm boys who like Ivan did not want to go home to that desolate farm land, and explained to them his plan to get his and their jobs back. Of course each crew member had also sought solace in the bottle and so collectively their minds may not have been quite as sharp as they should have been of when Ivan unfolded his scheme. To hear Ivan tell the story the plan was simplicity itself. They would sneak into the factory on Saturday night when the machines were shut down and smash that hauling machine to smithereens. Then the Smileys would have to hire them back, maybe give them higher wages to boot.

Needless to say greedy for work and plied with liquor the crew bought into the plan with every hand and foot. That next Saturday they pulled off the caper. Snuck into the factory undetected by a dozing night watchman and did their dirty work. All day Sunday the working-class quarters of Moscow was abuzz with the news, spread by the night watchman who claimed he had been knocked out by whoever did the dastardly deed, that parties unknown had smashed the machinery. There were newspaper reports that the culprits would be momentarily apprehended. That the “Luddites”  would be captured and dealt with summarily. (Nobody knew exactly what a Luddite was but they all knew it could not be good to be one, or, worse, accused of being one) Of course they never were. On the other hand come that Monday morning as Ivan and the crew waited around in front of the factory doors expecting to be re-hired coming up the road on a horse-drawn wooden flatbed carriage was an exact replica of the machinery destroyed the previous Saturday night.            

***Those Pale Blue Eyes -For Sweet Melinda

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Sometimes a story cannot be told except that some technological advancing event occurred to drive the action. For example in a number of Dorothy Parker’s short stories where some bereft female is waiting by the telephone for some ill-disposed or vagrant lover to call you need that gadget or that whole scene does not make sense. That is true for the story below-the beauties of the Internet, e-mail and cell-phones made it possible and would otherwise have been impossible without those communication advances.

Sam Lowell had been thinking about his 50^th class reunion at North Adamsville High School since he had received an invitation to go to his 40^th reunion back in 2004. Although he had not been, as he perhaps had been at previous times, exactly “hiding” still he wondered how the class reunion committee had gotten his Wayland address. (He later found out that it was easy as pie either through his membership in a state-wide professional organization or a zip through the “white pages” where he was publicly listed both via the Internet and Google searches). At that time Sam had dismissed the invitation with so much hubris because then he still thought that the bad luck that had followed him for much of his life had been caused by his growing up on “the wrong side of the tracks” in North Adamsville.

Subsequently through some family-related deaths that took him back to the old town he had reconciled himself with his roots and had exhibited the first stirrings of a feeling that he might like to see some of his old classmates. In late 2013, around Thanksgiving he, at least marginally savvy on such user-friendly sites, created a Facebook  event page in order to see if anybody else on the planet knew of plans or was interested in making plans for a 50^th reunion. One day, a few days after setting up the page, he got an inquiry asking what he knew about any upcoming plans.  He answered in a short note his own limited knowledge of any such plans but that his intention in setting up the page had been to seek others to help out with organizing an event if nothing had been established as yet. In that reply he had forgotten to give his name. And that is how the girl with the pale blue eyes came into view.  

“Who are you?” asked Melinda Loring, a name that Sam immediately remembered from his high school days although he did not know the woman personally. He shot back a blushed reply about being sorry for forgetting to include his name, gave it,   and casually remarked that he had remembered from somewhere that she was a professor at a local public university. He asked if she was still there. She sent an immediate reply stating that no she was no longer there but that she had been and was still professor at a state university in an adjacent state, New Hampshire, and had been for the previous twenty-five years. She also mentioned that, having access to her Manet , her class of 1964 yearbook she had looked up his class photo, and said he was “very handsome.” Naturally any guy from six to sixty would have to seriously consider anybody, any female, who throws that unanticipated, unsolicited comment a man’s way especially since she sent her class photo as well. That got them started on what would be a blizzard of e-mails over the next several weeks but just then got them together via Facebook as he “friended” her and she accepted. They quickly decided, both agreeing that given her profession (and those ever nosy students who live and die to troll that social networking site) that e-mail was the proper vehicle for their correspondence.   

During the early stages of their correspondence Sam told Melinda that his vicarious knowledge of her had been perked up a few years earlier when he had as part of his reconciliation with the old town looked up and found his old high school running and running around buddy Brad Badger through a school-related Internet site and he had gone over to Brad’ house to look at his Manet and talk over old times. As part of that “look see” Brad had some material about the 25^th class reunion when Sam noticed Melinda’s name (and profession). That got both of them commenting on what a “fox” she was in high school, although Brad did not know her personally either.

 Sam, having had a few drinks and feeling expansive, related the following story to Brad and which he subsequently related to Melinda to her delight if disbelief. It seems in his junior year at high school Sam had noticed Melinda around school (they later confirmed they had had no classes together, although having been in the same schools for five years or so they must have run into each other or been in the same room sometime if only the auditorium, gym or cafeteria) and had an interest in meeting her after seeing her around a few times.

Of course in high school, at least back then, maybe now too, a guy didn’t just go up to a girl and start making his moves. He got “intelligence,” found out if she had a guy already, stuff like that. Usually this information was gathered in the boys “lav” (especially the Monday morning before school session when all the “hot” news of the weekend was discussed) but in this case since Sam was a trackman this happened after school in the boys locker room where he inquired of two guys he knew who knew her what she was like. Both agreed instantly that she was a “fox” but told him to forget it because she was “unapproachable.” Meaning low-rent raggedy guys like Sam forget it. Meaning, as well, that Sam as is almost always true with the young just moved on to his fantasy next best thing. And so they did not meet then. Melinda said she laughed when he related that story to her and related lots of information to Sam about what she was really going through back with an extraordinary tough family life, lots of low self-esteem, and other problems too intimate to detail in an e-mail. 

Frankly, after the first few exchanges Sam was more than a little intrigued. And as it turned out Melinda was as well. They discovered they both had much in common academically, professionally, politically and personally (you will have to ask either one of them for the specifics of those “things in common” because in looking over my notes that would take more time than necessary to make the point).

Oh alright I will give one such e-mail message from him since he wanted to show me how at ease he was in writing to her sight unseen:

 

“Sweet Melinda-easy for you to say sweet dreams when a certain foxy lady (I am thinking of that FB photo of you at the train station) is disturbing my sleep. Has me thinking about her a lot. Thinking good things. But maybe you are “bad” for me while being good. We’ll figure that out. Needless to say I am looking forward to Friday.

Last night I looked up on the NA FB site when you first sent a message and it was on November 21^st. Can you believe we have known each other less than a month and are already, well, holding hands. Doesn’t it seem much longer and deeper.               

 I will let you off the hook today on phoning since I have a lot to do including taking my poor brother to lunch (and Kohl’s) as a Christmas thing. I tell you Christmas was not good around our house, no way- Christmas kind of missed us. I was telling him last night about my being on the reunion committee (remember he would have graduated with us if he had not dropped out in 10^th grade) and he started telling me lots of things he remembered. I forgot that his and my relationship over the past several years since his has been out of jail has basically stopped around 1963. That what we talk about. We are going to go to the library after lunch and I will get him going by showing him the on-line “Manet” (the real one I am sharing with you although I “confess” that was only a ruse to meet you since I had already seen the thing several years ago with Bill. I hope you are not mad)

I want to go many places with you (Big Sur number one), good and not so good (NA) and hold your hand. I keep having this overwhelming desire to just do that. And for you to hold mine too. I think we are on to something- Forget about what I said about you being “bad” for me now that I think about it.  Later Al     

The key point in any case was they were kind of Internet-enforced “smitten” after a time and both agreed that the “so much in common” required more than a blizzard of e-mail traffic. So they exchanged cell-phone numbers. One cold December night Sam, from his car sitting in an isolated parking lot, called Melinda and they talked for a couple of hours. Laughing, giggling and being somewhat shy while they were doing so.

A couple more cell-phone calls and another round of e-mails got this pair to the idea of meeting in person, a “date” like some hormonally-driven teen-agers (Sam could not remember who suggested the idea first but neither flinched at it). They both admitted to nervousness as they planned to meet in Portsmouth up in New Hampshire at a restaurant that she selected (he was to be at a conference in Maine and that locale was the closest convenient city), Needless to say they hit it off remarkably well. She even had thoughts that early on that finally, after two divorces and untold liaisons, she might have met her “forever” man 

And Sam, with two divorces under his belt and that also untold number of liaisons, was also in his less lucid moment thinking along some just such lines. Except. Oh yeah, except Sam was, ah, married, had been married for many years to Laura, although for a number of years past they had been living as “roommates.” He had told Melinda that and while she had some serious misgivings about that status being a serially monogamous woman from the start of her love life she went along with Sam’s characterization then. Yes, she was smitten. And he by his lights was too.

So they went along for a while, meeting occasionally at various restaurants along what they called their “Merrimack River romance trail.” That river holding towns large enough to do things in and also somewhat equidistant from their respective New Hampshire and Massachusetts homes. Naturally as things went along sex came into the picture (which in the end would complicate things unduly but what is one to do when boy meets girls and they are “smitten”). Naturally too future plans came into the picture, especially from Melinda’s end, Melinda of the ten thousand plans. Those included the possibility of trips together, maybe even living together. But always underneath a little edge, a little wariness on Melinda’s part, and a little stealth on Sam’s part. Not an unusual story, in high or low tech times but their infatuation carried them along so far.

 

Who knows how some relationships turn from spun gold to dreaded dross in a short time, a few months, in time for a “forever” man to turn into a “never” man (the first designation an inside joke as it turned out since she had started to call him that in the early days when she was still smitten with him and expected to share her time with him that long, and everything was possible. In the event “forever” turned out to be, ah, significantly shorter). Maybe it was that rushed good-bye and movement at the airport after returning from Washington D.C where she had an odd exchange of luggage problem. Seems that she took somebody else’s luggage which looked very much like hers. The airline in an attempt to solve the problem called his house (he had purchased the plane tickets) where Laura had answered the phone and was told about the confusion. That set off a firestorm between Sam and Laura around Laura’s demand that Sam not “bring his Protestant whore’s affairs into her house.” Maybe it was the next day when Sam refused Melinda’s request of him when she was confused by an e-mail that he sent earlier that day because he had his hands full with Laura and her furor as fallout to the luggage problem.

Probably though it started to crumble about a month before the end when Melinda took a big spill, a serious fall at a pool in Portsmouth where she swam to get exercise that broke her hip bone. Hospitalized as a result their budding romance came to a crashing halt as she convalesced and he took on the unaccustomed role of care-giver general. Not so much that incident itself since it was an accident but what it did to enforce her idleness which left her too much time to think about how she wanted him with her, wanted him to leave Laura, wanted to make those 208 plans (roughly) that she spent her waking hours doing in order to have him come closer to her. And meanwhile he needed to be in Boston, or wanted to be, and not stuck in some winter wonderland town in Podunk New Hampshire at the beck and call of her highness.

Not a meeting between them in that period went by without some variation of the on-going argument. Although there were some nice times, (one time he drove her to their North Adamsville youth homes and they had many laughs, and some sorrows, over that). Even when he had driven up in order for her to teach a seminar at UNH and then drove her the next day over to the Portsmouth General to get her cleared to be able to drive she/he/they argued over that same old, same old material. Now that he thought of it that was clearly the case since he just from his end got tired of the arguments that were leading nowhere.             

The few days before the end had not been better (really a few weeks Sam thought since that damn accident put her out of commission placed a damper on their affair as he became a care-giver and she a patient). The inevitable Melinda war cry of when was Sam going to leave his wife, when he was going to leave Laura, and what, get this, constructive steps he had taken to break with her had led to a series of arguments starting with the day that she was finally given the okay by the doctor in charge of her case at Portsmouth General to drive. They had driven to Newburyport and then to Plum Island where when Sam had expressed his concern about the change in their relationship from romantic to care-giving, that the “spark” had gone out somewhere along the line (she took his remark, the way he said it as his displeasure with giving her care) Melinda had exploded that she wished he had never taken care of her during that month if she was such a burden. They talked but the fires had not been put out. Newburyport was significant for that was where he had brought her a trinket on their first trip there and they could hardly keep their hands off each other (and had their first “lean-in” kiss).

The next day walking on Hampton Beach the smoldering fires erupted (slightly) again when an issue came up about Melinda doing a favor for her just ex-husband. They kissed a statutory kiss and parted company, she to Epping and he back to Boston.

Naturally the e-mail and cell-phone traffic (actually the diminished traffic, significantly down from the days when they would sent blizzards of e-mails to each other when he thought about it later) reflected those unresolved tensions. She needed to spent that first week of liberation catching up on work, house, social chores and could only spare that next Thursday evening for them to get together and since she was going to be in the Salem (NH) area they decided to meet in Amesbury for dinner. Before that though Sam made what would be a mistake, a fatal mistake, of putting into writing some of his feelings about where they were at in their relationship. Thus he sent the following e-mail which was the final piece of evidence that things had gone drastically wrong.

“Dearest Melinda -Where have those hands grabbing at each other across the table in delight/need/want at Moxy’s (and elsewhere) gone. Where has your hand grabbing my arm while walking outside of Rudi’s (and elsewhere) and me glad to have you do it gone. Where have the little stolen sweet kisses of Portsmouth parking lots gone. Where have those endless phone calls where we hated to sign off talking about great adventures ahead gone. Where have those roundabout hours of blissful silliness gone. Where have those shy but meaningful moments when our feelings for each other blossomed gone. I could go on with a million more examples when were on the same page and were relaxed and confident about our relationship and where it might head but you get the idea.

I sensed from this e-mail that you are beginning to get the feeling like me that you/I/we are not in a good place these days. Think about the first time at Newburyport in precious December and last week. I had already spoken about this last week and now I think you sense that too from your side. Our talk today where we got all theoretical about the future without any sweet talk kind of epitomized that. Frankly, and you can speak for yourself, I am unhappy with the drift of things now. I/you/we spent too much time thinking about the future, future plans, about the relationship itself and not enough about how to get out of the rough patch we are in. How to get the romance back and just relax with each other.  Why don’t we take a step back, maybe two, today and tomorrow and think about things we can say and do when we meet on Thursday to break the impasse. Why don’t we step back and just forget about the future for a little bit and just think we are “dating” for right with all its sense of mystery in the now with no future goals. Or maybe that we should think about just being friends for a while. I always want to be friends with you that is for sure. These are only suggestions. The main thing is that you/I/we think about this and not rush into a blizzard of e-mails. This rough patch requires thinking not writing-

From a guy who misses those delighted hands across the table, that grabbing hand on my arm, those endless funny phone calls waited for in anticipation and nervousness, those sweet shy stolen kisses, that bubble silliness when the outside world didn’t matter for a bit, those intimate moments when you and I both blushed a teenage-like blush at how close we were, those all night talkfests, those candles flittering in the dark, serious Melinda and Sam just being foolish and off-guard, the kindnesses we did for each other just because we were special to each other, the sense that our thing was written in the wind, and lots of other things you remember as well as I do.”

They had a short cell-phone exchange but again agreed to meet in Amesbury the next day to figure things out. That next evening things started well enough, after Melinda had ordered wine with her dinner. The net result was that they would go on as friends for a while and see where that led. Of course to go beyond the friend stage Melinda gave no uncertain terms to the proposition that she could not go on, was “ashamed” to go on under the circumstances unless Sam got a place of his own. Melinda ordered another wine, unusual for her, and that must have given her courage to speak again of the e-mail. She said it read like a lawyer’s argument, that she had been hurt and that he was basically like every other guy she had known- a bum of the month. He became incensed, yelled at her and threw money on the table for dinner and walked to the men’s room to fume. When he came back he tried to tell his point but he was tired of arguing by then and just said “let it go for now.” They left, she put her hand in his arm as usual and he muttered that “they were in very bad place” as he walked her to her car. He looked down at her shoes, the shoes she reminded him that she had worn in sunnier days down in Washington and he commented “that seems like a long time ago” as they arrived at her car. Rather than the usual kiss good-bye he yelled out “I’ll be in touch,” as he walked back to his own car.     

                 

 

Since Melinda was not good at directions (and the Google Map ones were helter-skelter on this one) Sam had during dinner consented to have her follow him out of Amesbury on Route 27 which she did until they got to the U.S. 95 South entrance. She continued to follow him for a couple of exits until she veered off onto Route 133 for home. As he shifted gears from fourth to fifth to push on up to speed in the U.S. 95 night after he saw her automobile veer off to the northern route home he breathed a sigh of relief and of sadness. And they never saw each other again.

      

***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night-When Love Blossomed In The Clintondale Memorial Park Night

 

 

Scene: Brought to mind by the snapshot photos that graced the CD compilation in a commercial 1950s rock and roll that I recently reviewed here. Clintondale Memorial Park, early 1960s, a traditional city-maintained park with the usual kiddies playgrounds, various sports fields, picnic and barbecue facilities, rest rooms and, most importantly, teenage most importantly, many off-the- beaten path secluded spots for teen night sports. Although by the 1960s it was suffering from some neglect since it has been at least a generation since it had been a “hot” spot for teenage love in the night. Those “hot” spots in this car-driven age are now down at Adamsville Beach a few towns over by the bay, and more recently the new rage at the Gloversville Amusement Park a few towns over going inland out toward farm country.

*******

Let me tell you about Clintondale Memorial Park first, although that might seem funny for a guy who usually starts out describing all the gossip around town, or at least the North Clintondale part of town, about who at North Clintondale High is, or isn’t, trying to get some girl’s (or more rarely some guy’s) attention. Or about who broke up, or didn’t break up and I wish she would, with what overreaching guy after what he tried to do down at Adamsville Beach. Or about some other lovelorn bits of trivia that really, now with big issues like war and peace and black civil rights stuff down south staring us in the face, should take a back seat. But what are you going to do when you are stuck, stuck forever it seems, in the backwater of Squaresville, oops, Clintondale, the same thing.

I will get to the people part, the Jeannie Curran and Walter Pitts part, which fills out this saga as soon as I tell you about the park. See, for one thing, I actually had to go to the park in order to able to tell you about it. That may seem odd in a small town, a backwater square town like Clintondale, but I hadn’t personally been there since I was a kid, maybe seven or eight years ago. And ever since the Gloversville Amusement Park opened up around that same time there has been absolutely no reason to go there. Period. And when I got older, old enough to ride in a car cruising for girls and other stuff down at Adamsville Beach, which became even truer. This park, whatever it meant for my parents who kept going on and on about how much fun they had there as kids, was strictly nowhere. Or at least I thought so and my opinion didn’t change when I took the two-mile walk across town to get over there.

Funny when I was a kid the place seemed like a huge primeval forest that a kid could get lost in pretty easily and we were reminded of that hard fact constantly when we played in the woods there. Now it seemed pretty small since I could walk around the whole thing in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Sure the old swings, seesaws and slides from childhood were still there, although they seemed to have a little rust on them and didn’t look like they had been repaired in a while. And the picnic tables, now a little weather-beaten and standing in serious need of some paint, were still tableau-like in the same places they were back then as were the barbecue pits. The rest rooms had seen better days, could have used a very thorough fumigation, and appeared to have become the “property” of the town’s increasing population of winos. For that matter the whole layout could have used some serious landscaping or at least something more than a quick summer job student mow and permanent city worker grim reaper swathing. But back in some corners, near the old granite rocks, and a couple of other places off the bridle paths I could see where there might be some very cozy places to bring a date for some serious workouts in the old days. So what my parents, although they neglected to mention that part of the old time teenage “fun” night, and Benny Rosen’s older brother, David, told us about when the place was a “hot” spot might have been true after all. Still this place ain’t coming back anytime soon as a serious teenage scene. No way.

Like I say this Clintondale Memorial Park was strictly from hunger. Except, and here you will have to take my word for it, maybe, just maybe, as a meeting place for those who could not meet in public any other place. And that is where Jeanie Curran and Walter Pitts finally get to enter this story. No, hell, no they didn’t do any wrong. Anything legally, morally, politically, economically, culturally, or socially wrong. Well, maybe they did on the last one come to think of it. Clintondale, now that people have started moving here from Boston in droves, has gotten over the past several years too big to have just one high school. So now there are two. Jeanie’s Clintondale High (the old high school) in the older part of town and Walter (and my) North Clintondale High in the newer section where the housing developments have sprung up. And that is where Jeanie and Walter’s “problem” takes center stage. See in Clintondale it is taboo, wrong, evil, or whatever you want to call it, but just don’t do it, for a student from one high school to date, hell maybe even to talk to, a student from the other high school. Oh sure they can ride on the same buses and stuff like that. It’s not like down South with one school riding in the back of the bus or anything like that but no dating. Not done, okay.

But Jeannie and Walter, are dating, definitely dating, as I will tell you about later. Now the reason I know this is that Walter is none other than a corner boy with me over at Doc Sprague’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain. So he kind of confided his story to me. Now everyone in town, well in North Adamsville, well, okay at the high school, knows that once I get a story it is going to be around in nothing flat. So I think Walter’s idea was to tell it to me and then I would spread it around and then people (read: fellow teenage high school students) might learn to accept his (and Jeanie’s) status. And if that was his idea he was right because I am holding you to no vow of silence. Not only that but I half agree that Walter and Jeanie, although they attend those two antagonistic high schools, should have the right to date if they want to and let the town be damned. But I only half agree so far because I can see where these “mixed” relationships are hard on everybody and then again, as well, where do you draw the line.

Now this Jeannie Curran, if you know Walter as I do and his tastes in girls, is nothing but a fox. A sandy blonde, nice shape in all the right places, nice face and, so Walter tells me, someone you would never tire of talking to (a big plus, for sure). In other words someone the gods created on one of their good days. Thanks, gods. And Walter is a good-looking guy although not too bright if he both confided in me seriously and was bold enough to go against convention. How they met though will give you an idea as to their problem.

Pete’s Platters Record Shop is the only place in town where kids can go to get rock ‘n’ roll music, the latest stuff anyway. So it is kind of “neutral” territory in the high school wars since every kid recognizes, like some Geneva Convention Accords protocol, that teenagers NEED their 45s and LPs and quick, quick as they come out sometimes. So one day, after school Walter was downtown at Pete’s looking for Ben E. King’s boss sound Spanish Harlem and Roy Orbison’s great crescendo-wave Running Scared when he spotted Jeannie. Like some primordial force he was “driven” to go over and ask her what she was looking for in records and she answered Patsy Cline’s I Fall To Pieces and, almost like it was the power of suggestion, Elvis’ dreamy and sad Are You Lonesome Tonight? And that was that. Click. For one thing Walter has just recently broken up with Susie Riley and for another, well, like I said Jeannie was a fox. A fox who, by the way, was wearing front and center her Clintondale High School cheerleader sweater so Walter should have backed off immediately. But such is smitten-ness.

Well one thing led to another after Walter got Jeannie’s phone number at that first meeting. And as a symbol of friendship he bought her The Drifters’ Please Stay right there and then. But things for teenage romance, especially Clintondale never the twain shall meet teenage romance, are never easy. Part of the problem was that Walter did not then have a car and even if he used his father’s he couldn’t take Jeanie to the Adamsville Beach although she expressed extreme interest in “watching the submarine races.” With him. Nor could they go the Gloversville Amusement Park. Nobody from either high school would have stood for that. So Jeannie (like I said Walter is not too bright in the idea department) said why not meet at her house and walk over to the Clintondale Memorial Park and find some quiet spot to “make out.” Well, where there is a will there is a way. And so one fine early October night before it got too cold one Jeannie Curran of Clintondale High and one Walter Pitts of North Clintondale High found a nice spot near the old granite rocks and “did it.” Here is the funny thing; funny to Walter anyway, while they were “doing it” the ubiquitous WMEX rock ‘n’ roll station was playing The Shirelles Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. They both laughed about that one.

Now that I think of it I could see where “cruising” old Adamsville Beach is finally played out. And how many kewpie dolls, rabbits' feet, and leis can you win for your favorite girl over at the amusement park? Those granite rocks over at the memorial park sure were a quiet spot. Now if I could only find a Clintondale High girl to go there with me. And maybe, just maybe WMEX will be playing Brenda Lee’s I Want To Be Wanted and we can laugh over that.