Once Again….Then-With The Carver High School Class of 1962 In Mind  

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

Jack Dawson as he prepared to get ready for his 50^th high school class reunion (or rather prepared to think about going to the event) in the early days of January, 2012 wondered out loud to his old friend Josh Breslin, a guy from Olde Saco whom he had met out in the California great blue-pink American West night back in the mid-1960s after he had graduated from high school himself, whether their parents or grandparents had in their 50^th anniversary times wondered, wondered out loud about all the changes, social changes that had taken place in their lifetimes. Since for both men that was a moot question as both sets of parents and grandparents had long gone to earth they could only speculate. Josh thought that his own Irish-French-Canadian (mother nee LeBlanc) parents and before them his F-C grandparents (he never met his paternal grandparents) pretty much acted like social change was a social disease and kept to the various old country ways (and old America ways too). Maybe, Josh thought, it had to do with the isolated existences in mill-towns, both Olde Saco and Carver being such worn-out towns, working hard and keeping their own counsel (no “airing dirty linen in public” the order of the day) and that particular Catholic fatalism which they were both exposed to as kids that attached to everything and drove both men crazy when they were trying to jail-break out of the old time mold.         

One night over high-shelf scotches, gone were the days of heavy drug use which got them acquainted back in the day and prior to that cheap low-shelf whiskies and lower shelf rotgut wines, in the Sunnyvale Grille in downtown Olde Saco across from the famous Jimmy Jack’s Diner on Main Street they decided to play a game about the changes they could recall from back then. First off was the change in attitude toward drugs which back then were seen as the province of dead-beat junkies and odd-ball New York hipsters (read jazz musicians, read black people). They had to laugh when Jack said they probably ingested more drugs all the “beats” combined. Another was the change from fag-baiting guys who seemed girlish and dyke-baiting once they had understood the idea of different strokes for different (none of their forebears would have understood the whole gay marriage phenomenon). Josh mentioned attitudes toward cigarettes, especially since that was “cool” in searching for girls and both having been long-time heavy smokers who had only quit after many tries shook their heads at that idea. Of course the whole thing with women (then girls) had gone topsy-turvy with woman now in professions like the law and medicine that were unheard of and while both their mothers had worked (in the respective town mills) and so had been working Moms that was a necessity then to keep the families afloat and had been the cause of many caustic comments by guys whose mothers did not work, did not need to work.

Jack and Josh went on that way for a while until they ran out of broad-based big ticket social subjects to think about, ran out of  booze too as the hour got late and Jimmy the bartender wanted to close up. So as they walked up the street to Josh’s house about ten blocks away they started on the silly stuff. Stuff in high school like why did the boys and girls have separate gym classes, why were there separate sex bowling teams for Christ sake. Why girls could not run track like they had done (before that “cool” smoking stuff shifted their priorities). Why girls could only play half-court basketball. Big question: why even on a friendly date was the guy, them, poor as church mice guys, supposed to pay for everything and “dutch treat” was considered bad form, very bad form even when the girls had plenty of dough. It went on like that until they got to Josh’s house and then they having exhausted the subject started talking about whether Jack was going to his class reunion. Yeah, there was plenty of wondering going on that night, wondering too about whether when their kids were getting ready for their 50^th anniversary high school class reunions they would be wondering about their what their respective fathers made of their times.

[In the event Jack Dawson decided for a host of good reasons not to go to his class reunion which really is a story for another day. Josh, Class of 1965, is still up in the air about the question from last report.]