***As The  50^th Anniversary Year Of The High School Class Of 1964 Rolls Along… “Forever Young” (Magical Realism 101)-Take Two

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

…an old man bundled up against the December weathers begins his eternal run along the Adamsville Beach shoreline, weather he has fought all his New England-born life, fought tooth and nail in some never-ending recreation of the man against nature epic that has stirred his life, weathers gone from ancient Maine shoreline, York Beach maybe, or Ogunquit, zero degree, forty-mile an hour winds blowing him hither and yon almost into the waiting arms of the steely white-capped Atlantic Ocean, the ocean from whence he came in his primordial chronology, to vapid spectral-like sweats in blown wind Death Valley and every weather in between but the seasonal weathers of his native New England worthy of the measure of his struggles.

This day, another windy, raw early winter shoreline run day and hence full gear against the elements, sweat pants (although they are not like in his youth actually called that name when you purchase them at some City Sport’s store, there they are called running togs to add to the glamour of the futile task, futile in the cosmic eternal never-ending fight against one’s own mortality), clad also with the classic running shorts of youth (although of less flimsy material than then which required a jockstrap to keep one’s male private parts private) outside of the togs in order to give him a look like the young studs do like to wear, except he will not let those shorts bag halfway down his ass like them and impede his running stride), a black tee-shirt, black now to comply with the royal command from his sweet bread lady companion ( and another as well from his new mistress but that conquest is a story best left for another time) that he like some Steve Job’s Job figure looked good in black. So black it is, and for him, for his vanity a tee-shirt not the old-time favored vee-neck in order to hide that turkey gobbler neck that not only women complain about and fear(think the late Nora Ephron please). A light-weight rain jacket that had done yeoman service on more rainy and windy days than that poor begotten jacket deserved, the AARP age-appropriate ubiquitous New Balance running shoes (complete with doctor-recommended re-enforced arch supports to cushion the hard blows of the asphalt he usually ran on, those damn supports acting like some metaphor to his life’s blows now in need of cushioning-no such luck in that department), and all of this topped off this day with an old seaman’s naval cap that had seen better days. Had seen days in stormy seas (on real oceans and in love’s unrequited oceans), had been on freighters to South America, had kept him out of harm’s way when those big gales blew hard and fast up in Maine, kept him from him from frostbite in Adirondack hills in zero degree weather and snow drifting hard. Yes, he is bundled up against the weathers this day.  

The old man had to laugh when he would yell out to his companion as he went out the door that he was going for a run (same if he was with that new mistress who we decided we would not speak of here). Run, who was he kidding, no, better, jog/shuffle these days, these days since the knee-replacement which has determined the stride he can reasonably take limited his range (or not take which what the orthopedist had ordered, no running, reason; how do you think you got that knee got in that condition, that bone rubbing against bone condition, in the first place. But the old man was never good at taking orders from anybody from parents to drill sergeants to well-meaning doctors, not when running, ah, jogging just made him feel good when lots of other things failed to do so.)

Who was he kidding again it was not just the knee problem, it was the age problem, or rather the age problem catching up with him, the years of drugs, cigarettes, and high and low- end whiskies, which had shrunken his stride so let’s call it jogging and be done with it. The shuffle part is that infernal beginning where he, tortoise-like, starts with baby steps in order to gauge his stride. A sight not worth seeing and a reason what normally he preferred, unlike this day, to run at dawn and in private. This day however he was running not at his usual pond runaround near his home but across town, across Boston, along his childhood growing up shoreline at Adamsville Beach. See he was on a mission, of sorts, a remembrance mission which these days always started with the old beach since most of the old hometown significant spots were gone, and all of his family ties been cast off.

His purpose this day to think through some thoughts provoked by the hard cold fact that in the upcoming year, in 2014, he would be commemorating his 50^th anniversary since graduation from old North Adamsville High and he was flooded with thoughts of the old days (aided by that new mistress who was an old classmate that he had connected with through a class website established by the reunion committee which was planning the reunion event in the fall of 2014). Despite some incessant badgering by that mistress/classmate to go to the reunion (and equal amounts of badgering by his long-time companion not to go) he was extremely hesitant to do so having had many bad childhood memories of the old town which he would have to work through.

So there he was as he began his run along the Causeway end of Adamsville Beach (by the CVS, formerly the First National, if you have not been in the old town in a while for those classmates who might read this sketch on that class website), huffing and puffing, head down and this day full of thoughts triggered by his up-coming 50^th anniversary class reunion. Thinking just then through those first huffs and puffs, arms pushing him forward, before his breathe got a little steadier as he picked up his stride of the irony of running along a section of his old high school cross-country course. The old course starting from the Squantum Street side of the high school down through Bayview Road and onto Adamsville Shore Boulevard that he was now jogging on up Atlantic Boulevard to Atlantic Street cutting over to Newbury and back where the course started, in the old days back with a sprint, of sorts. The course that he had run completely a few months before in commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of his last run for the old cross-country team (yeah he was that sort of guy, a symbolic guy, old age or young).

As the old man passed Bayview Street into the heart of the beach anchored by the two yacht clubs, the North Adamsville Yacht Club and The Adamsville Boat Club, he thought about how this was where he and his companion, Brad Badger, futilely hung out, knowing that throughout history, summer school vacation history the only kind of history that counted on that beloved beach, that was where the frails, foxes, chicks, babes whatever you called them back in your generation day hung out (knowing too that those names were just familars for young women but what did he know then, or maybe care since all of them, all the boys full of hormonal lusts just wanted them to notice - and as he found out later they-those frails, foxes, chicks, babes, whatever just wanted to be noticed). The old man settling into his slow ponderous but determined pace laughed when he thought about how many ways his and boy, Brad, tried to get to first base and were rejected out of hand for what-being too poor, too raggedly, too-car-less or too plain to make the cut. Jesus, a lot of things he would like to over again, go back in time and redo, or better age to, but not that sixteen and sex hungry madness.

But that shuttered thought passed now, like it did when he got older and found that young women liked him, liked him for his smarts, his off-beat sardonic humor, and his ingrained sense of irony. As he ambled along  the old man began  thinking too of those mist of times Adamsville Beach days when he longingly looked out at the sea, its mucks, its marshes, hell, even it fetid smells and mephitic stinks, as if it could solve some riddle of existence. Found himself as fond of the old beach as the first time that he saw it as a very young child and his parents took him and brothers for a cheap workingman’s visit, complete with one of those too infrequent family barbecues over on Treasure Island (not its real name, not now anyway but what he, and every kid that he knew called the place).

Found that fondness still held him in its thrall although he had travelled many more beautiful beaches (thinking of Big Sur, much on his mind these days what with re-reading recently Jeanbon Keroauc’s Big Sur and remembrances of sweet Midwestern Angelica days when the sound of their love was drown out at Big Sur by the cascading crashing white-flecked wave, thinking too of LaJolla, Malibu, Acapulco and a hundred other delight beaches). And many more fierce beaches as he noted the tepid waves splashing lazily to the waiting shore (thinking of that time up in Nova Scotia when all hell broke loose and the sea almost washed him and his sweetie of the time whose name he could not remember off the rock they had placidly been sitting on or that really dangerous wind-swept night off the rocky beach at Scoodic Point up in Maine.

Thinking too now that he approached the mile mark on his journey of times when he was young and flexible and if not fast then able to run the distance in about half the time it would take him on this day. The days when he would run, run out of the house, run over on some sultry sweaty summer night to the oval at the high school and run until he was exhausted just to get that forty-two pounds of teen angst and alienation out of his system, run beyond exhaustion when he had some off-hand beef with his late mother.  Here was the ironic part, ironic this day when he just couldn’t seem to get a head of steam and the pace was slow-ish in the old days, the days when he ran for the high school red and black, the days when he was either good or horrible (not knowing until later that allergies kicking in accounted for some of the bad days). His fast, state championship fast,  running friend back then, Brad, said he had "the slows," well okay Brad had a point, then. What would his old long missing friend say to the pace this day.  

As he settled into a pace for his second mile (the length from the Causeway to Adams Shore was 2.7 miles one way and of course he was going round trip so a little over five miles altogether he began thinking about hanging out places in the old neighborhood, places like Harry’s Variety over on Sagamore Street trying to cadge pin-ball games from the rough and tumble corner boys (very rough and tumble led by Red Kiley, his cousin who gave no quarter and expected none when he and his corner boys went up against some other corner or did their midnight creep to keep them in clover); hanging  out at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor with his own corner boys led by  his be-bop daddy Frankie Riley known since junior high begging girls to play some latest song on the jukebox (and learning a very useful skill back then when he sweet- talked some girl into playing his song selections on her quarter); and, hanging out on sweaty summer nights on the front steps of North, no money in pocket, with that same Brad Badger, also penniless, speaking of dreams, small dreams of escape and big puffed-ball cloud dreams of success (success in getting out from under the frantic respective houses where the noise level of perdition started at one hundred decibels, success in getting out of the too small for big dreams North Adamsville night, success in working for oneself, for putting together some small independent contractor dream).

Remembering too, an old man’s harmless flash remembering, of standing in high school corridors (hell, junior high corridors if the truth be known) between classes day-dreaming of, well, you know, certain now nameless girls (okay, okay first names Diana, Joyce, Ruth, Cindy, Mary Beth, Joyell did I forget anybody), of giving furtive glances to a few which they totally ignored.  The art of the glance, the perfect glance, being of course a quick flash of the eyes and slight turn of the head as that certain she passed by and then turnaround to see if she turned around. Thinking too of how he had given that mistress/classmate many furtive glances which she totally ignored. And when the glances did not work with her how he surreptitiously checked out to see if she was “going steady” and told in no uncertain terms by guys he respected and to give him good intelligent in the matter that she was “unapproachable” (finding out only now that her home-life was so bad she just put on the ice queen act to keep from having to deal with any outsiders. But that was another story).

And remembrances of sitting in classes, maybe some dank seventh period study hall, wondering about what would happen Friday night when he and his corner boys cruised Adamsville  Beach looking, looking beyond hope it seemed for some girl to give him some small glance. HoJo’s on the strip a must stop on hot summer nights, make his cherry vanilla when he busted out, the Southern Artery (Marley’s, Pisa’s Tower of Pizza, Adventure Car-Hop, not the real names but memory fails), and in a pinch going “up the Downs” to Doc’s Drugstore, looking, looking for adventure, looking for some magic formula to wipe away the teen angst and alienation blues that crept up on him more than was good for him. Those flash thoughts got him through those next miles and back.

But get this, get this sweaty resolve. No, no way in hell, was he going to recreate that youthful bummer  by going to that reunion, somebody come by and smack him if he did (he would have to offer that mistress a trip to California in lieu, or some such arrangement, maybe let her go to the reunion by herself…                   

...an old woman begins to walk along the Adamsville Beach shoreline from the Adams Shore end having parked her car in the parking lot at what is now Creely Park named after some fallen Marine but when she was a child, when she still lived in the town called by every kid she knew Treasure Island the site of her too few family picnics while growing up. (Jesus, better not say that old woman thing, make that a mature woman, better yet to avoid any misunderstanding in a world, her world, where she had taken pains to prove her worth let’s just leave it at “a woman.”) She too bundled up against the December weathers, windswept weathers that she normally would not be out in not caring to challenge nature on its own turf, although she too knew of high gust Rocky Mountain white-outs, fast drifting snow weather, and ice patches too making four-wheel drive the beginning of wisdom; knew sea weather from sunny, sultry to wind-splashed against a too human seawall that she could barely see now across the bay from where she was walking having grown up as nature’s own “girl on the rocks,” the sea the only respite from holy hell father’s wrath and mother’s indifference, and from sullen hurricane swirls when she had lived on the islands with that second husband who promised the moon and she paid  weathers. So she too New England born and bred and from ancient Anglo-Saxon stock was no stranger to the wraths of Mother Nature, and the pleasures too when she relents.

Today she is bundled up in the seemingly obligatory AARP-worthy running suit fit for walkers too (bought at sensible store Kohl’s although she, having defied all the odds and predictions of failure that ran through her head and made a success of herself, made herself her own woman, for a long time could have afforded the upscale clothing fashionable among the yoga set before they enter the yoga state), the sensible walking shoes that she was required to wear ever since that foot operation a few years before required sensible shoes (in truth she always wore sensible shoes, under that same frugal rule of buying what was less expensive, if serviceable, practiced at that down at the heels household that she grew up in where everything was hand-me-downs from older beauty sister until she got too big to wear sister’s stuff and had to frugal buy at discount stores), a sleeveless purple vest (purchased on-line from L. L. Bean up in Maine a number of years before and while not fashionable still in good condition to face today’s weathers), and on her head a ski mask, well not a ski mask but a skullcap with eye slits that could be used for that purpose (or she chuckled when Frank made fun of her- for a bank robbery) if the weather got fierce that an ex-husband (not Frank the first one, Harry) had left behind.

Suitably dressed she walked, haltingly due to those poor feet which required a bit of slow step walking to work out the kinks, haltingly, but with head up (proper posture just like her mother taught her long ago was necessary for proper girls, proper girls seeking worthy husbands just like mother’s  mother had taught her back to it seemed some colonial times their name long-standing in North Adamsville although the family fortunes had been dissipated by a spendthrift father and so she of thrift, she of Kohl’s, she of sensible shoes), along Adamsville Beach from the Adams Shore end thinking thoughts triggered by her up-coming 50^th class reunion. So this day she walked if haltingly with purpose, with a thrill that come next fall she would once again be going to a class reunion to rekindle old North Adamsville memories usually held in the back of her mine between times.

Thinking thoughts this day about now nameless old flames and what had happened to them. Okay, okay names, Dave, Dave of the junior prom and some silly stuff after (and Dave of sad memorial over near the marina his named etched there as a town fallen in that hellish Vietnam War that wreaked her generation, name etched too in black marble down in Washington) , John, who wound up with Penny and married for fifty years now (he of that first attempted kiss but he gave up just when she was ready the next time and so she was called around the school “unapproachable),” Rich who lost interest way before she did (her first serious “crush” and the subject of many Monday morning before school lies in that mandatory girls’ lav talkfest), some guy whose name she could not remember, damn she could not remember, who gave her furtive glances in the hallway between classes and who always turned around after he passed her to see if she looked back, silly boy, didn’t  he know she was “unapproachable” (due not only to John disappointment but to that wickedly bad home-life which she wanted no one, absolutely no one, including her best girlfriend to know about) 

Funny too creeping in thoughts of old time flames about that first kiss sitting in the back seat of her girlfriend's boyfriend's  car with him, some old flame now also un-nameable (she had only dated him a couple of times and he was not from North so she absolved herself from not remembering but that hallway guy she should have remembered since they had gone to the same schools together for six years), at this very beach and about, she blushed as she thought of it, that first French kiss and how she felt awkward about it. Blushing as she thought about how her new flame (she refused to call him her boyfriend, Jesus, at their ages no way that sounded right, no way its sounded anything other than about sixteen year old school stuff and so flame, or in public “companion”), her new flame who she went to school with back in the day but who she did not know then reacted with a funny remark about how he wished it had been him back then when she mentioned the French kiss thing, made her feel nice when he commiserated with her on her plight.

Later in her walk, as she pulled her vest collar up as the wind stiffened, thoughts flashed by, funny thoughts, emerged about all the lies she told about those same steamy nights just to keep up with the other girls at talkfest time -the mandatory Monday morning before school girls '"lav" talkfest, boys had theirs' too she found out from a later flame after high school. Laughing now but then not knowing until much later that the other girls too were lying just to keep up with her. And of all the committees she had been on; dance committee (and she did not even go to her senior prom since, well, since no one asked her thinking she was all dated up, jeez); North Star (when she thought she was going to be a journalist rather than the professor she eventually became), Magnet (for another chance to write), whatever would keep her busy and make her a social butterfly. (And as she confessed to new flame since he was kindred to keep away from home as long as possible without father wraths for being late.)

Then a mishmash of  thoughts flooded her mind as she passed Kent Park near the now vanished bowling alleys of the girls’ bowling team and wondering, now wondering, why they kept the boys’ team separate (remembering too how she liked it, liked the sexy thrill of it when a boyfriend, a corner boy although she did not know that at the time and when she did she dumped him before her punitive father found out, took her to the Downs Bowling Lanes known as a hang-out for corner boys, drop-outs, drifters and midnight creepers, and for some back rooms where hanky-panky went on and drinking too although she timid refused his offer to take her back there); of reading in that cranky old Thomas Crane Public Library up the Square where she first learned to love books and saw them as a way to make a success of herself and had done so (falling in love with Russian novels, long drawn out and romantic novels with plenty of characters and action to fill her lonely got-to-get- out- of- the- house hours when her father was home afternoons-thinking it funny when her new flame started rattling off all the Russian names, rattling off the whole history of the Russian revolutions and of his mad monk hero the much vilified old Leon Trotsky murdered down in Mexico by some crazed Stalinist assassin); and, of hot sweltering  summer afternoons with the girls down at the beach trying to look, what did Harry call it, “beautiful,” for the guys, blushing when guys called her beautiful but refusing them when they asked for dates, innocent dates they called them (and she shy refusing to wear a bikini for fear that she was showing too much, fear too that her father might see her in that skimpy outfit and take a fit, or whatever he felt like doing).                

Somewhere between the Adamsville Boat Club and the North Adamsville Yacht Club the old man and the woman (you know who I mean) crossed paths. He, she, they gave each other a quick nod of generational solidarity and both thought they knew the other from some place but couldn’t quite place where. She had half a thought that they might have gone to high school together from the furtive glance he gave her (all slightly ajar eyes and tilt of the head her way) but he did not turn around when she turned her head to look at him jogging into the distance figure.  He thought he might have known her from over at Harvard when he took courses there for his master’s degree since she looked like one of those proper Yankee woman that populated the place, still do, and that despite his Irish mother’s warnings he was fatally attracted to but he was too unsure to give a second glance back.

Of this though there was no doubt. After they passed each other the old man’s pace quickened for a moment as he heard a phantom starter’s gun sounding the last lap of some race and the woman’s walk became less halting as she thought once again about that first kiss (whether it was the French kiss that stirred her we will leave to the reader’s imagination) as each reflected back to a time when the world was fresh and all those puffed-cloud dreams of youth lay ahead of them.        

Forever Young-lyrics by Bob Dylan 

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

Copyright © 1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music