*** Of This And That In The Old 1960s North Adamsville Neighborhood-Those Pale Blue Eyes, Revisited 

 

If Sam had only listened to Lou Reed ....

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Not all adventures in social networking lead to good results and happy endings, although don’t blame the Internet or rather the fact of the Internet as a communication tool for bringing people together on that. People, men and women in serious and unserious relationships, have been screwing them up without that technological help ever since Adam and Eve, maybe before, so back off. I have a story to tell about how the Internet brought two fellow classmates from the North Adamsville Class of 1964, Sam Lowell and Melinda Loring, together, how they started out a relationship sparked by the Internet but were able to mess things up royally as if that instrumentality never existed. Needless to say the pair are no longer together after a short stormy affair, although they both have subsequently admitted to me individually that they still believed that it was written in the stars that they belonged together. But that good hope sentiment sometimes doesn’t mean a thing if the couple couldn’t survive in each other’s presence, couldn’t seem to connect the dots. Such situations happen more than one might think so let’s look at how things unfolded and how I got wind of what went down.         

Despite the sad story of Sam and Melinda, a story that Sam has bitterly called the damned 50 year never-ending North Adamsville curse that has plagued him since childhood, I have spent not a little time lately touting the virtues of the Internet in allowing me and the members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964, or what is left of it, the remnant that has survived and is findable with the new technologies (some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the “information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate), to communicate with each other some fifty years and many miles later on a class website fairly recently set up to gather in classmates for our 50^th anniversary reunion. I had noted in earlier sketches my own successes with this website in being able to tout a guy whose photos of my old childhood neighborhood send me spinning down memory lane, another about an old corner boy and our Adventure car hop misadventures looking for the heart of Saturday night, writing a tribute to our classmates fallen in Vietnam, and in answering a perplexing question about what I saw as my role as a commentator on the site. I admit I had to marvel at some of the communications technology that makes our work a lot easier than back in the day. The Internet was only maybe a dream, a mad monk scientist far-fetched science fiction dream then as we struggled with three by five cards and archaic Dewey Decimal systems.

I also admitted in one of those sketches that for most of these fifty years since graduation I had studiously avoided returning to the old town, having fully subscribed to my own version of the 50 year curse that Sam’s railed about to me one night, for any past class reunions but this one I had wanted to attend, the reasons which not need detain us here. Or I should say rather wanted to attend once the reunion committee was able to track me down and invite me to attend. Or a better “rather” to join a NA64.com website run by a wizard webmaster, Donna, who was also our class Vice-President to keep up to date on progress for that reunion.

Part of the reason I did join the class site was to keep informed about upcoming events but also as is my wont to make commentary about various aspects of the old hometown, the high school then, and any other tidbit that my esteemed fellow classmates might want to ponder after all these years. All this made simple as pie by the act of joining. Once logged in one is provided with a personal profile page complete with space for private e-mails, story-telling, placing various vital statistics like kids and grandkids, and space for the billion photos of that progeny, mostly it seems for those darling grandkids that seem to pop up everywhere.  Additionally, there is a section, a general comment section, the “Message Forum” page, where one and all can place material they think of general interest to the class as a whole. I have used that page more than once over the past several months.  

A while back, a few months ago now, I went on to the class website to check out a new addition to the list of those who had joined the site recently. We can use our personal settings to be informed of that kind of information on a more or less frequent basis. The guy who had just joined was a guy I did not know but I had seen around the school and so I was ready to click off the site (by the way you would have seen almost everybody in the four years you were there with one thing or another even though the class had baby-boomer times over 500 students). Then I noticed that Sam Lowell  had placed a comment in the “Message Forum” section about Melinda Loring and how she had recently as a result of slipping in an indoor swimming pool up in Epping, New Hampshire,  while exercising had broken her right hip requiring surgery. We were asked to send Melinda best wishes messages for a speedy recovery on her profile page.

Now I knew Sam Lowell from high school, had been a teammate of his on the indoor and outdoor track teams, and had hung around with him, had been one of his corner boys at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” most of junior and senior years. I had, when Sam joined the website in November of 2013 shortly after I had done so, sent him some private e-mails and we had for a time maintained an exchange of messages about the old days and about what had been happening since then. Then I had not heard from him or seen anything listed about or by him for a few months before his announcement about Melinda’s condition. Frankly I did not recall him knowing Melinda Loring back in school although I know we both knew who she was. I remember that we had both commented at one time back then in some after school boys’ locker room talk that she was a  definite “fox” in the language of the hormonal schoolboy 1960s night  but “unapproachable” to ragamuffin boys like us. Sam had not mentioned to me being in touch with her on the site in any of our communications. I also knew that he lived in Holden here in Massachusetts and that Melinda listed her home town as up near the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Most importantly I knew that Sam had been with the same woman, Laura, for about thirty years. (I was not sure then whether they were married or if so for how long or not since he never indicated their status. I did know that he had been married twice before and that the first one was he said “a disaster.”) So I sent him a private e-mail message asking “what gives with you and Melinda?” and how he came to be the guy who placed a notice about her condition on the “Message Forum” page. In return he asked for my Internet e-mail address because he wanted to explain some things without going on to the class site. I knew something was up.

I got more, much more, than I bargained over the course of several e-mail and cellphone exchanges and at a lunch where we arranged to meet to talk things over as his affair developed for so hear me out. To start it seems that Sam was really gung-ho, unlike me, about going to and being a part of this 50^th anniversary class reunion. He had gone to many of previous ones at 5, 10, 25, and 40 years but last fall he had not heard anything about planning for a 50^th reunion so he, like the relatively few in our generation, what I have always called the generation of ’68 reflecting the time when many of us came of social age, New Age or so we thought, who are the least bit Internet savvy these days, created an event page on Facebook looking for interested classmates and asking if anybody knew whether any plans were afoot. Melinda subsequently sent him a message on that event page asking what he knew of any doings. Sam sent her back a message about what little he knew and informed her that he was prepared to organize something if nothing was in the works but in that message he forgot to give his name. Melinda replied innocently enough, “Who are you?” And that was their start.

They exchanged another round of e-mails where Melinda   mentioned that, having access to her Manet, her class of 1964 yearbook, and she had not known him back then 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 in Sam’s case, who would throw that unanticipated, unsolicited comment a man’s way especially since she sent her class photo as well. He shyly (so he said) returned the compliment and made comment about her pale blue eyes from a photo on her Facebook homepage. (Sam by the way had long before “lost” his yearbook as had I and we had made jokes about their whereabouts. I did not tell him mine was at the bottom of the Neptune River thrown there shortly after graduation in a fit of hubris, and a desperate need to shake the dust of the old town from my boots.)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 began by telling each other about what they had been up to over the last 50 years. Both agreed after the first couple of exchanges that Facebook with those hungry eyes prying eyes was not the place for their messages and so they exchanged their Internet e-mail addresses. At first they wrote of the obvious stuff about work histories, educational accomplishments, and relevant facts about who they hung around with, and who they didn’t, back in school. Stuff that was easy to discuss since they had a common pool of knowledge about people, places and events from the old days.

 

 

 

Melinda told Sam that she had been a professor of education at various colleges after a number of years in public school education in various locations in Massachusetts and Connecticut, most recently at the University of New Hampshire and was still plodding away at that profession. Sam in return told her of his rather more checkered resume as he had done many things over the years, including teaching, but was at this time a lawyer working mainly out of his house on appeals cases and had been for the past few years. He also kept referring to a period in the 1970s after he had done his military service when he had been what he called a “vagabond.” Melinda, who confessed to having been rather more conventional during that “generation of ’68” time that Sam kept referring to by characterizing herself as a “worker bee,” was intrigued by Sam’s reference and kept questioning him about its meaning. He deflected her comments, saying he would go into that more if they got friendlier (which let Melinda to make a “flirty” remark which Sam would not reveal to me). During these early e-mails they both would press the issue of what to do about organizing a reunion. Melinda stated that she did not have much time given her professional commitments and distance from the Boston area to help organize anything from scratch but would help out as best she could. Sam rather quickly through a separate source that he connected with from the old school found out that there was already a North Adamsville class website in existence as well as an embryo of a reunion committee, informed Melinda of that, and they both joined the site over the next few days.       

That settled they resumed their more personal e-mails. Melinda made Sam privately gulp at first when she told him that she had been a “Glendale” girl. That word brought back memories of a bevy of girls around school who were, well, “stuck up” with their in-style cashmere sweaters and smart skirts and shoes and their total distain, or so he always thought, for ragamuffin guys like him (and me) from the Atlantic “wrong side of the tracks” section of North Adamsville. When he asked her about that Glendale girl stuff and the social gap he perceived between them then she replied that she had to laugh since her family was as poor as church mice (his term, not hers), gentile poor in that lowly professional white-collar way like ministers and such. A lot of their early e-mails were filled with such reflections about what had really gone on in their very much white working-class town. Sam, and Melinda too from what he mentioned to me later,  began to feel more at ease talking to each other as they shared cyber-laughs about youthful misconceptions. The long and short of it was that both of them had come up the hard way, including physical and mental abuses by parents that turned out to be a lot more common than either of them had realized back then. They began discussing some very personal and hard to speak of things about their respective childhoods. In one e-mail exchange both had noted how they had much in common after all and that they were at ease with each other in these exchanges. They talked of becoming friends, although neither seemed to be above being a little “flirty” (Sam’s term) along the way.   

In one e-mail Sam, after having had a few drinks that night and feeling expansive, related the following story to Melinda to her delight if disbelief. A story that I well remember from back in the after school boys’ locker room and so can verify the truth of what he said. In the spring of his junior year at North Adamsville Sam had noticed Melinda around school (they later confirmed they had had no classes together, although having been in the same junior high and high 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 in their further exchanges related lots of information to Sam about what she was really going through back then with an extraordinary tough family life, lots of low self-esteem, and other problems.

They both agreed later that something seemed to  “written in the stars” for them especially after an exchange when they had asked each other what elementary each had gone to. Melinda replied that she had, of course, gone to Glendale Elementary (along with that bevy of girls who stuck, and were “stuck-up”  with each other through North Adamsville Junior High and then the high school) and Sam answered that he had not gone to a feeder school for North but had gone to a feeder school for cross-town rival Adamsville High, Snug Harbor Elementary down in the Adamsville “projects,” before his family returned to North Adamsville where he also attended the same junior high as Melinda and then North. Melinda freaked at that statement which Sam wrote about later, later after the flames had died. Let him tell it his way, or part of it anyway something he wrote and called A Simple Twist Of Fate:        

“…One exchange, the one that matters here, involved the question of where we had gone to elementary school, she to Glendale and he to Snug Harbor. That Snug Harbor response by me brought out the fact that Melinda’s mother, Margaret, had been a swimming instructor down at the Adamsville South Beach during the 1950s summers and had during her career there saved a drowning boy. Melinda, nine at the time, had been present at the event.

 

I flipped out when I heard that information. See, I love the ocean but I live in fear of it, fear to go too far out when swimming because I had almost drowned when I was nine down at the Adamsville South Beach one summer. Typical boy story: as the ocean was rising I had spied a log, an abandoned telephone pole, and had grabbed onto it. I drifted out for a while and then I realized I had gone too far but instead of holding onto the log I decided to try and swim for shore. Not a good swimmer and just too far out I started going down. My brother who was on the shore called for help and the swimming instructor came out and saved me in a nick of time.

So what lesson did I draw from that today. Anything about fate, karma, or just plain good luck. No. I told Melinda that since we had already “met” maybe we should get together and discuss the matter more fully. And guess what, she agreed. Jesus.”               

And so it went.  Somehow this blizzard of e-mails morphed into some insipid cyberspace kindred spirit torch-bearing. Something cosmic was driving them forward. Eventually the e-mail system became too slow for their eight million questions for each and their attraction to each other so the ubiquitous cellphone became their mode of communication. 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.

Here is an e-mail that Sam sent after that first cell phone talk:

“Melinda –Well now I can truly say that I am “talking” to Melinda Loring and wouldn’t all those boys in that “phantom” locker room be jealous. And rightfully so. I hope that you got from the sound of my voice that I was, well, excited to talk to you (after that schoolboy weak-kneed, and dry mouth, anticipation nervousness).Now we can go easy with only one more “nervous” thing, actually meeting. I think we are going to be okay whatever happens. I haven’t felt like this since my last serious relationship ended about ten years. We both carry whatever baggage we have accumulated and will discuss that but we shall see. All I know for now is forward. BTW I am in favor of keeping our “talking” and whatever very private for now-meaning I am not going to be “boasting” to one and all about what we are up to-let’s say to the reunion committee or those long-ago locker room boys as I help prepare for the reunion and come in contact with those remaining. Later Sam”             

And her response:

“Hi again Sam, 

Me too, very positive about our first conversation. You have a very youthful voice, without our old Boston/North Adamsville  accent! Felt bad you were sitting in your car sorta late in the evening, not even haven't gotten home; but it sounds like you have a lot of energy, jogging very early in the morning on those "astroturf "soccer fields.

Okay, no bragging about our pre-reunion stuff! I did mention our connecting over the 50th to Kathy before I got that message, but will keep it private from here on in.

So much zigzagging over our lost histories! Of course I want to hear more about your having been chained to the White House fence! And these various volunteer groups for assorted war victims; and especially about how you train for nonviolent resistance and the philosophies that go with that (King, Gandhi, Thoreau & those wonderful Irish women from the 70s & you & so many more).

Ha ha, at least we have sound bodies, and it looks like pretty strong minds too!

Looking forward to our chat on Thursday evening, and I hope that the 50th committee work goes well and you have fun reconnecting with some of our classmates too!”

Along with that new communication arrangement Melinda began to inquire more fully about Sam’s marital status. She had been married twice for relatively short periods but was now free and single and had been for a while although she was still hopeful about meeting the “right guy.” She had noticed on one of his Facebook photos what looked like a wedding ring except it was on the wrong hand. Sam quickly deflected her question by (truthfully) telling Melinda that ring, a ring given to him by old girlfriend who got it from her grandmother, was worn by him for symbolic reasons which he did not want to disclose. But, no, he was not married. And, yes, he had been married twice when he was younger and they were both short-lived. Sam kind of, no, he definitely fudged on that question though saying he was “separated” from Laura in order to see which way the winds were blowing with Melinda. Melinda accepted that explanation at face value, then. During this period they began discussing meeting in person somewhere for dinner. The long and short of it was that after a blizzard of calls they finally arranged to meet for dinner in Portsmouth and discuss things. But before that meeting Sam had a pang of conscious, had to tell Melinda what the score was about Laura. Hell, let him tell the story the way he wrote it in an e-mail just before they were to meet: 

“Hi Melinda –Well we have been on a roller-coaster so far and we have not even met in person yet. That is what is so surreal about this whole thing that had developed between us. That business from last night about me tracking your record down got me thinking though. Kind of has forced my hand about something that I had intended to bring up tomorrow as the first order of business to clear the air and give our friendship a proper footing. I was struck by the way you said you have been honest with me and that got me motivated to write this now instead of wait until tomorrow. I have, unlike you, not always been honest in the past. For example, not to brag or anything like that but to deal with the honesty question, a couple of times way back I have had five girlfriends at one time so there was no way I could be honest and juggle all that. So I was lying to beat the band. I have gotten better and tried to be honest with you and have been doing so. But sometimes you can be honest and still omit things and that is what this e-mail is about. I take it as something that we will work through as we go along and I hope you agree.

You know as well as I do that we both carry a lot of baggage, busted marriages, affairs, and so forth. On the other hand we are both old enough to have whatever level of friendship we want from just friends to an affair because we both as far as I know have no ties that would prohibit that. And even if we did in this day in age we could still have whatever relationship we wanted. As long as we both have our eyes open and know the score. That “know the score” part is what I want to talk about. It is nothing bad but it is a complication. And even if we decide to be just friends it is part of what is unfolding. I have decided to do the rest of this as a narrative so here goes.

Up until a few weeks ago for the past ten years or so since the end of my last serious relationship I was just rolling along writing, doing legal work, doing politics, playing golf and all the rest. Doing all of that while living in the same house as the woman that was my last serious romantic relationship, Laura, who is still my closest woman friend. I have known her for over twenty- five years and about twenty years ago we bought this modest house in Holden. As time went on though we had, as couples will, our problems until about ten years ago we decided that it wasn’t working. But we both wanted to keep the house (and the cats, Willie Boy, my Willie Boy and her Sasho) and be friends (I won’t go into all of that but you can ask me about it). So that is what we did. And nothing wrong with that people make such arrangements all the time. And so time moved on. I did my thing-she did hers and we do things together. For example we still go out to Saratoga to Laura’s family for Thanksgiving and Christmas since I don’t have family that way. Stuff like that. At some level we have deep affection for each other but it is just easier and more comfortable to be friends.         

Then out of the blue you came along. You know how we “met” and all so I don’t need to go into that but what happened is that I was not sure where we were heading (at one point if anywhere) and so I made a point of keeping that information to myself. Remember I made a point about just concentrating on us and not on other baggage stuff. Part of it obviously is that if we were not going anywhere then such information didn’t matter and if we were then that would just be an awkward situation that we would deal with. That is what a lot of my concern about expectations, the way we have met and all of that has been about. I have told her about you in general terms (the only way to put it since we still have not met) and since this whole thing has been topsy-turvy that is where things stand right now.

If all of this seems like too much then so be it-but as for me I still say forward- if you don’t that is okay and we can work on some other way to be friends. I think we both strongly want to be friends and should be damn it if that is what we want. Later Sam”         

That issue momentarily resolved they met at a fancy restaurant in Portsmouth, restaurant of her choosing since she knew the area. Sam was attending a conference in Portland, Maine so that town was symbolic half- way point. They met and some spark began right from the first, hands touching and smiles glowing immediately as they chatted away like two magpies. Maybe it had been that they had gone to the same high school together, maybe it had been  the same tough growing up poor and hungry profiles which they exchanged, maybe it had been  the six million things they had in common like an interest Russian literature and history, maybe it had been their connections in the education field, and maybe knowing Sam it had been Melinda’s pale blue eyes but a spark had been lit. They agreed that after fifty years of “missing” each other they had to play the thing out.

And so they did meeting for dinner many times, going to Washington together for a few days, and fatally winding up at Melinda’s house in New Hampshire one night, one cold night, one night when the wine flowed and, well, you can figure it out. But for Sam, almost from the start there was always that nagging lie about his relationship with Laura (and also the need to lie to her about his whereabouts on many occasions when he was with Melinda) which as time went on he began to kind of half tell Melinda about.

Needless to say Melinda, a woman according to Sam, who was serially monogamous and sought exclusive possession of her men became furious about Sam’s more complicated relationship with Laura. As Sam gave more details to Melinda while both developed strong feeling of affection for each other Melinda more and more pressed the issue of Sam’s fully leaving Laura. He would hedge, saying he needed more time. Then Melinda’s pool accident and subsequent surgery occurred and hence the notice provided by him on the site.

That is where I entered the picture and contacted Sam. But as I learned from Sam later as things unwound this recovery time was also a time when Sam, who would go up to New Hampshire frequently (telling Laura he was helping out an old classmate), to help Melinda out around her house, take her to appointments and get her out of the home felt more like a care-giver than a lover. He made what became the fatal mistake of telling Melinda that change in feelings and she because furious despite her condition. Here is the fatal e-mail which Sam claimed was a “love letter” and Melinda declared in no uncertain terms sounded like nothing but a closing argument, a way out for him:

“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 now 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. Sam”

 

See Sam also told me he was getting cold feet about his future with Melinda who was talking more and more about them living together. Shortly after Melinda had recovered enough to be able to drive on her own they agreed to meet one night for dinner in Newburyport and discuss where they were going. That night the sparks flew, there were acrimonious arguments, and finally Sam walked out furious at some of the things Melinda said. That was the last they saw of each other in person although there were a few bitter e-mails and cellphone calls before Melinda closed the curtain  down on the affair. So there is the story, the sad story and no happy ending.