In Defense Of The Truth-Not Alternate Facts- The Long March (No, Not Mao’s Famous One To Yenan Back In The Day)-From North Adamsville High To Atlantic Junior High-No Kidding-A Rebuttal  

By Bart Webber

[The piece Jack Callahan did on his so-called role in the “long march” from North Adamsville High to our new digs at Atlantic Junior in the winter of 1959 was the last straw. In that article he implied, hell no he bragged that without his leadership we may have had many more casualties, that some fellow students might still be among the missing. That really was the last straw for me after all the years of know-towing to that silly bastard just because he subsided this publication and help keep it afloat financially in a few troubled times. I talked it over with others who have also been miffed the piece but who continue to “defer” to Jack’s wisdom. I may be panhandling again after this spiel but what the hell I have been there before, been out on the mean streets with no protective cover.     

Some guys, guys seemingly like Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Shelley Lewis, Jazz McCoy and Jack Callahan seem to be protected by some mysterious Velcro coating in their lives. Everything god or bad comes up roses. Jack has lived that life among the North Adamsville corner boys for a while. In thinking about this expose I have been trying to figure out why, with the exception of this effort nobody has taken down this bastard when the bullshit on a stick is flying from his direction.       

Maybe it really is like I have mentioned previously people are worried about their pay checks if Jack gets his knickers in a bunch. It is not like he has not done that before over anything that bothered him from our panning his goddam Toyotas made of tin and not much else. Maybe it is the aura of his being that perennially Mr. Toyota of Eastern Massachusetts which seems like he had been forever. Maybe, and this one requires a little more introspective it really is a hangover from the glory days of Warrior football when he led the team to our only state championship in school history. But I am getting to start to put some juice into the idea that it has nothing to do with Jack himself nut with Chrissie Callahan, nee McNamara. Chrissie, now Mrs. Toyota of Eastern Massachusetts for over forty years was the subject of more than one young male crush in junior high school, high school or both until she put her foot down and claimed Jack for her own one sophomore night at Tonio’s Pizza Parlor by jumping on his lap and daring him to pull her off. Needless to say it never happened. And every other guy fell down in the ditch after that.

With all that speculation about why we sucked up to Jack for so long here is the real deal on the “long march” back in 1959. Bart Webber]     

Some unsuspecting readers who read Jack Callahan’s short, very short piece published here on September 2, 2019 with a similar title to this one except minus the idea of speaking “truth” about the “world historic” move during seventh grade from august North Adamsville High School to our new digs at what was then called Atlantic Junior School and now North Adamsville Middle School might have gotten the erroneous idea that if he had not led the damn thing there would still be students stuck out in the tundra some place. All of his noise about this event is just that, what we today rightfully call alternative facts, lies okay. As my late sainted mother used to say, say about me as well as a ne’er do well older brother “the truth was not in him.” Her rant ran down some crooked Roman Catholic theology hill from there and I blew it off as so much dust.     

Now Jack may take umbrage at all of this and cut off funding to this publication as he has done before when he gets his knickers all bunched up. I remember he went crazy when Seth Garth said the 2017 Toyota Camrys Jack forced us to buy to jack up his sales record was a piece of tin and had the acceleration of a go-cart and cut us off for a couple of months. Fortunately, Allan Jackson had “angels” up the kazoo, real devotees to the literary life and not money-grubbing bastards looking to look good while selling silly cars lined up to sponsor us and give us some ready cash. Still although I might be working the panhandle to get next month’s rent now is the time for a little truth before another sixty years goes by and nobody is around to straighten out the record. Not everything Jack uttered was a lie. Yes, Jack is right in this part, the town fathers in their wisdom decided to ease the overcrowding at the high school caused by the surfeit of kids produced by our sex-starved parents right after World War II. And yes, there were delays due to construction hassles, the usual low bid government shoddy noise with people’s noses bent out of shape when they didn’t get their timely payoffs which meant that the new school would not open until January of 1959 but beyond that the rest is hogwash.

Maybe this is the point to start a little expose that probably should have occurred those many years ago. Maybe we would not be so scared of Jack’s wrath now when he is one of the great hoary elder beasts of the planet. Let’s draw a distinction though.  No question, later, Jack Callahan, Mr. Toyota of Eastern Massachusetts these days and cash heavy from the mark-ups on his cheapjack cars pulled some weight, but in seventh grade he was nothing but a shy dweeb although I do not believe that word was in use then. According to Jack mythology and that is really what it is, total myth,  the reason that Mr. Walsh who had been the junior varsity football coach and who was to be the headmaster at the new school which tells you something about town politics as much as about anything had asked him to lead the troops (Walsh’s words if I recall) was that he was some superstar football player and would naturally gather in the adorning fellow student fans and make things easier. Bullshit. We all know and were crazy to appreciate that Jack did turn into a star football player when he bulked up, learned a few juke moves and got some devious speed who lead the Warriors to the state class championship senior year but in seventh grade he was from nowhere, a second maybe third string wannabe center weighting in at maybe one hundred and fifteen pounds and had to double clench his belt on his uniform pants to hold them up if I recall. I think Jack maybe got in a couple of times when the game was decided and got trampled by fiery opposing linebackers who left his ass in the mud. (I want to say they went around him but I am not sure that was true and since we are talking alternative facts, lies, let’s just say he was down in the mud and leave it at that.)   

    

The reason, the real reason, Jack got the assignment from Mr. Walsh was that Jazz Turner, the real star running back of the junior high era, and his backup Buzz Alcorn refused to do anything to help a bunch of snotty students move their dopey asses in cold ass winter. Walsh who would always go to his football bagmen all though his long tenure at Atlantic begged Jack to lead the way knowing that Jack had his corner boys, us, to help him out. Naturally Jack, scared out of his mind that if he didn’t do as Walsh asked he would be doing water boy service the next fall rather than his dream starting center job, said yes sir, something like that.        

Again, later, by the numbers, Jack would be a great football player and a great salesman but back then he was a boot lick, a brown nose, stuff like that. Here is where the hard part of alternative facts come in. Jack in total disrespect for the sacred memory of our later brother Pete Markin stated that when he went to organize his leaders, us, he skipped Markin since he knew he was a holy goof. Here’s how funny the tale is sixty years later. The day we moved, the cold as a witch’s tit day we moved and it started snowing Jack lost it, or rather lost his bearings and fell down the hill that he was taking for a shortcut to get to the new school before everybody else. Nobody knew where the hell he was. Guess who stepped into the breech, who played Colonel Hale if you want to use the Valley Forge reference or General Te Ho if you like the Mao long march Yunan idea. Yeah, Markin, beautiful balled up Markin who took the gaff that day. Got everybody safely into the new schoolhouse that day. So watch out for who is telling war stories and why.

In the meantime has anybody got any spare change just in case Jack goes whacky and I need a few shillings to get by next month’s rent.