Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing Hold On.
Hold On Lyrics-Tom Waits
They hung a sign up in our town
"if you live it up, you won't
live it down"
So, she left Monte Rio, son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
Hair like wind
She said don't look back just
Come on Jim
Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You gotta hold on
Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
But you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there's nothin left to do
Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you got to
Just hold on.
Well, God bless your crooked little heart St. Louis got the best of me
I miss your broken-china voice
How I wish you were still here with me
Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here, when
You're falling behind in this
Big blue world
Oh you go to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on
Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called
Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
And just hold on.
JLB Note: It really doesn’t take much these days, these old time memory be-fogged days, to have some snippet come swirling out of the air, some caught phrase in a passing conversation, some half-glanced word mentioned on some media outlet, some fragrance smelled from long ago soaps, perfumes, downy billows, to get me into that frame of mind to speak of old time Olde Saco (that is up in Maine for the unknowing heathens). The Olde Saco of the 1960s dying textile mills, of various working- class rites of passage, of teenage this and that, and most of all of the French-Canadian (on my mother Delores’ side, the side that counted, nee LeBlanc) ethos, pathos, and bathos that permeated the town. And of course, of F-C loves, lost and found.
The genesis of this particular air-borne swirl came via YouTube when I was searching for Tom Waits’ knows-skid-row-in-his-heart version of Yip Harsburg’s Brother Can You Spare A Dime? and I noticed his Hold On as part of his available playlist (the list of other stuff by an artist located on the right side of the screen if that is not what it is called). Upon listening that song brought to mind one Yvette Genet, her mad passion for men (boys really but I will get to that below), her mad passion for poetry and her mad passion for the “beats,” for the odd and unusual in grey old 1960s Olde Saco. She was to pay a dear price for those passions on October 23, 1964 (that date is important to the story, to my memory of her, and to her fate so I mention here first).
*********
They kicked Yvette Genet out of town, kicked her out calling her a social disease, kicked her out before she could give every boy (and maybe every man but that was left unspoken) in town some social disease [a sexually transmitted disease, venereal disease, the “clap” for the less sensitive-JLB] they said. They kicked her out and told her in no uncertain terms not to come back on that fateful October 23, 1964 day. The day, night really, they found her, well, buck naked in her big ’56 Chevy (bought courtesy of some old-time flame for her “favors” from what I had heard) down in back of the parking lot of Jimmy Jake’s Diner with an identically clad under-aged boy (meaning not out of high school) going at it hammer and tongs. [Having sex, big old sex, in some odd position, not missionary-style for the less sensitive-JLB]
Hey, I had better back up and clarify this kicking out, this Yvette kicking out thing, before you get the wrong idea, or maybe better half-wrong idea about growing up in Olde Saco. Before you thing I grew up in the Stone Age or something and not at the threshold of the sexual revolution here in America. Of course, as far as I know, sex, consensual (and unfortunately not consensual too) under-aged sex, illicit sex, sex with somebody not you betrothed, or anything like that has been going on since, well, since Adam and Eve. Even in Olde Saco, and maybe especially in Olde Saco (the “summer guest” part of the town near the ocean anyway when about forty bars and clubs lure every available taste).
What got Yvette Genet on the wrong side of things was that she, all of eighteen, all of Gallic beauty (thin, blonde hair, natural, natural as any blonde’s can be, no bosom like most all F-C [French- Canadian] girls and a come hither smile that said “welcome,” welcome not in a lewd way but in a you-are-a- man-and- I-like men way) did what she pleased, and where, as the incident at Jimmy Jake’s Diner (not exactly out in the boondocks) gives graphic expression to. And that was too much for the madames of the Atlantic section of Olde Saco (the men, if they said anything or thought anything probably were half-thinking about that buck naked scene), the F-C quarters. A place with its own ethos derived from generations of previous Gallic F-C Roman Catholics and on the surface very, very proper.
They, the good F-C mothers, the good merchants who catered to the F-C community, the good F-C priests (with their own lusts, or wanna-be lusts),
“froze” Yvette out just as surely as any medieval town did with their scorning parades, and their various physical acts of isolating of the “different.” So Yvette left, left with a tank full of gas (according to Stewball “Stu” who worked as a gas jockey at Jimmy Jake’s Gas Station [the one adjoining the diner, not the one of Atlantic Avenue]), left first for Portland where she could blend into the crowd, and then headed west. The reason I knew all this, and knew of her whereabouts for a while, was her brother Johnny (okay, okay Jean) was a good friend of mine at Olde Saco High School where we ran track together.
I wondered, wondered for a time (a long teenage time, a couple of years before I graduated from high school and lost track of Yvette, and Johnny, as I made my own trek west) why she had to leave. Sure she liked sex, liked showing the boys a good time. But no boy that I knew (or man when I later got to that stage) ever complained, privately anyway, about that charm. About that certain charm in connection with any girl/woman. She also was something of a “beatnik,” or what passed for beat in far-removed and last news Olde Saco in 1964 when that was getting to be old hat elsewhere. Johnny said she loved poetry. Howling into that good night Allen Ginsberg, Olde Saco South mill town (Lowell, Massachusetts) million word on the road Jack Kerouac, zen buddha wordsmith Gary Snyder, mad street gangster saint out of some Catholic Worker shelter Gregory Corso. Names that I was starting to recognize and “dig.” (Along with a madness for T.S Eliot modern wastelands and John Milton ancient paradise losts, figure that out for yourselves). She also didn’t go to Ste. Brigitte’s like she should, and that had those very catholic rite watching madames in a tizzy (and the priests too, once the madams gave their marching orders) . But mainly, I guess, she made a point, a very big point of being independent, enough to make her stand out way before women learned to run amok and have nobody (or almost nobody think twice about it).
Enough of Olde Saco, its witchcraft traditions, its fake exorcisms, and its babble. This is after all about Yvette. I told you about her going to Portland (hey, I just thought, the Maine Portland not the Oregon one. They don’t consider it proper to have sex there either from what I heard, at least non-politically correct sex.). There she worked in a topless bar for a while for coffee and cakes, took a couple of classes in poetry at Bowdoin (quoting Ginsberg’ Howl from memory I heard later, much later, when I ran into an English professor from there at some anti-war march and he mentioned her after he made the Olde Saco connection), and met some wrong gee, some grifter, some Faro Jack, some five- card stud player, and headed west.
The heading west part was harder to pin down, as Johnny got fewer and fewer phone calls and letters from her (more often just some postcard from some Podunk town like Olde Saco as she, they, passed through). What we pieced together (and this was pure speculation on our part) was that she was “showing the boys a good time” for dough to keep them in coffee and cakes when Faro Jack hit a rough patch with the cards. [Read: worked as a prostitute, hooker, whore, for the less sensitive.]
But Yvette was also working on her own poetry. She sent Johnny (and mentioned to him to show it to me) a poem one time that had gotten published in some now forgotten poetry journal. And when you think about it our speculation wasn’t that far off, she loved sex and poetry. Like I said I lost contact with Johnny and thus her later story but I like to think that her charms (she really was beautiful in that “who was that woman who just passed by subtle Gallic way” that has you thinking, hell, that drove to distraction, some later sleepless night about some unnamed, maybe un-nameable, fragrance) and her poetry allowed her to hold on.
Oh, yes, and that boy, that under-aged buck naked boy sitting (actually lying down) in a big old two-toned ’56 Chevy, brought courtesy of some guy for Yvette’s favors, down in the back of Jimmy Jake’s Diner, that was me, Josh Breslin. But that is a story for another day. Yah, I hope she held on.
Showing posts with label growing up absurd in the 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing up absurd in the 1960s. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- All That Glitters Is Not Gold
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the American short story writer, O.Henry
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment :
The substance of this tale, the details of which were recently related to me, is worthy of the great American short story teller O. Henry. Or, hopefully, it will be in that ball park by the time I get done with it. O. Henry, for those who do not know, made a literary career out of short stories, stories about working people and other down and outs of society in the early 20th century and putting a little twist, ironic, sardonic or tragic on them, the stories that is, although now that I think about it maybe the people too. Probably the most famous one, The Gift Of The Magi, is, as I recall from the distant past, about a young down and out married couple at Christmas time who are so broke they can’t put two dimes together. But they are in love and love has this funny habit of making you do, well, off-hand, off-the-wall stuff, praise be. In their case they sold what was most precious to each (she, her big hair, he, his watch) in order to buy each other Christmas presents (she a chain for his watch, he a comb for her big hair). Nice twist, right? I hope I can hit that mark here:
I have spent reams of cyberspace telling one and all that I grew up and came of age in old-time New England textile mill working class Olde Saco up in Maine at a time when, unfortunately for my father, Prescott, those mills were heading south (and from there, uh, off-shore) in the 1960s American night. No question as the mills headed south, ironically in my father’s case, that was where he was from originally before World War II got in the way, after he enlisted in the Marines, saw his fair share of bloodshed in the Pacific, and subsequently was stationed at the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Naval Base just down the road from Olde Saco mother’s home, it left a huge gap in the local version of the American dream. Left a very big hole in the Breslin American Dream as we (all five of us) moved downward in the housing spiral eventually winding up in a small cramped Olde Saco Housing Authority apartment. The price poor Prescott Breslin paid, paid for being an unskilled textile worker, in a world where such skills were being greatly discounted.
For those three people who do not know what “the projects” are (forget that formal name) I will just tell you they are places, public housing, good, bad or indifference, but mainly in the long haul, bad, at least for my family and some others that I knew of, for the poor, the working poor and the drifters, grifter, and midnight sifters of the world to “make due” in. The particular one that I grew up in started out as a stepping stone, kind of a half-way house, for returning World War II veterans like my father who couldn’t afford that little white house with the picket fence of post-war dreams without some help. That was the idea anyway, if not the reality. But enough said of that, I will speak of that another time, because this is not really meant to be a “treatise” on class injustices and societal indifference but a “love story.”
The love story part, just like in O. Henry’s The Gift Of The Magi could have happened to rich or poor alike, although perhaps the circumstances for the rich would work out differently. I have never been close enough to that social class and their predilections to make any definite comment here. What I can comment on is that “projects” boys, and in the case of the subject of this story a “projects” girl, have as much right to dreams of getting out from under as anyone else. Literature, great literature and pot-boiler alike, is filled with dazzling tales of such escape by the timely presence of a “prince charming,” or some other good fortune. And so it transpired here.
The way that the story came to me is that our “projects” princess, Cathy, just graduated from Olde Saco High, somehow caught the eye of a rich gilded youth, Robert, from the other side of town, the other side of the tracks, from the famous (locally famous, anyway) textile family, the MacAdams', who made a ton of money during World War II on government contracts and were now mainly heading south. Apparently (I am a little sketchy on the details, but no matter) this young princeling was so smitten with his “princess” that he wanted to buy her expensive gifts to show his devotion. One of the first things in his seemingly endless arsenal of gifts was to present her with a bottle of Chanel No. 5. Not the toilet water or eau-whatever stuff but the real stuff, and a big bottle of it as well. Not bad right?
Now I don’t know much about perfume and I prefer, much prefer, not being put in a situation where I have go into a store and buy such an item but as a fellow “projects” denizen this is a young man that I would not give the air to out of hand. No way. And if Cathy had asked my counsel I would have said the hell with poverty, go for it. But our fair working- class maiden was betwixt and between on this, and we will leave her that way for a moment.
Why? Oh I “forgot” to tell the other part of the story. Oops, sorry. Seems our Cathy had another boy, a poor boy, Jimmie, who was “courting” her as well. Not a projects boy but a kid (young man actually since he also had just graduated from Olde Saco High as well) whose father toiled on one of the hard scrabble lobster boats that worked out of the nearby harbor. Poor though. So while our young prince was showing his love with barrels of gifts her poor boy was hard pressed to give her a simple Woolworth’s 5&10 cent store bracelet. This was definitely a “no-brainer.” Order the tuxedos and gowns for the royal wedding now. Robert and Cathy together sound right, right?
But wait just another minute. What if I told you, as was told to me at an earlier time and that I have related elsewhere, that that poor boy, that mad man Jimmie, that cheapo bracelet- giver had shown his love in another way. And suppose I told you that this was the very guy who in that other story I called “bicycle boy” and that he actually swam across a dangerous river channel, against the odds, to be with his “projects” princess. Well, now all bets are off. Throw that ne’er do well, grasping, shallow, callow gilded youth Robert to the sharks in that channel. And his cheap jack Chanel No. 5, 10, 15 or 20 too. Bicycle boy it is. And guess what, although that love was a long time ago and, in the end, nothing came of their love, our “projects” girl, through thick and thin and in honor of that long ago flame, and his deeds, still has that bracelet snuggly wrapped around her wrist. Take that, O.Henry.
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment :
The substance of this tale, the details of which were recently related to me, is worthy of the great American short story teller O. Henry. Or, hopefully, it will be in that ball park by the time I get done with it. O. Henry, for those who do not know, made a literary career out of short stories, stories about working people and other down and outs of society in the early 20th century and putting a little twist, ironic, sardonic or tragic on them, the stories that is, although now that I think about it maybe the people too. Probably the most famous one, The Gift Of The Magi, is, as I recall from the distant past, about a young down and out married couple at Christmas time who are so broke they can’t put two dimes together. But they are in love and love has this funny habit of making you do, well, off-hand, off-the-wall stuff, praise be. In their case they sold what was most precious to each (she, her big hair, he, his watch) in order to buy each other Christmas presents (she a chain for his watch, he a comb for her big hair). Nice twist, right? I hope I can hit that mark here:
I have spent reams of cyberspace telling one and all that I grew up and came of age in old-time New England textile mill working class Olde Saco up in Maine at a time when, unfortunately for my father, Prescott, those mills were heading south (and from there, uh, off-shore) in the 1960s American night. No question as the mills headed south, ironically in my father’s case, that was where he was from originally before World War II got in the way, after he enlisted in the Marines, saw his fair share of bloodshed in the Pacific, and subsequently was stationed at the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Naval Base just down the road from Olde Saco mother’s home, it left a huge gap in the local version of the American dream. Left a very big hole in the Breslin American Dream as we (all five of us) moved downward in the housing spiral eventually winding up in a small cramped Olde Saco Housing Authority apartment. The price poor Prescott Breslin paid, paid for being an unskilled textile worker, in a world where such skills were being greatly discounted.
For those three people who do not know what “the projects” are (forget that formal name) I will just tell you they are places, public housing, good, bad or indifference, but mainly in the long haul, bad, at least for my family and some others that I knew of, for the poor, the working poor and the drifters, grifter, and midnight sifters of the world to “make due” in. The particular one that I grew up in started out as a stepping stone, kind of a half-way house, for returning World War II veterans like my father who couldn’t afford that little white house with the picket fence of post-war dreams without some help. That was the idea anyway, if not the reality. But enough said of that, I will speak of that another time, because this is not really meant to be a “treatise” on class injustices and societal indifference but a “love story.”
The love story part, just like in O. Henry’s The Gift Of The Magi could have happened to rich or poor alike, although perhaps the circumstances for the rich would work out differently. I have never been close enough to that social class and their predilections to make any definite comment here. What I can comment on is that “projects” boys, and in the case of the subject of this story a “projects” girl, have as much right to dreams of getting out from under as anyone else. Literature, great literature and pot-boiler alike, is filled with dazzling tales of such escape by the timely presence of a “prince charming,” or some other good fortune. And so it transpired here.
The way that the story came to me is that our “projects” princess, Cathy, just graduated from Olde Saco High, somehow caught the eye of a rich gilded youth, Robert, from the other side of town, the other side of the tracks, from the famous (locally famous, anyway) textile family, the MacAdams', who made a ton of money during World War II on government contracts and were now mainly heading south. Apparently (I am a little sketchy on the details, but no matter) this young princeling was so smitten with his “princess” that he wanted to buy her expensive gifts to show his devotion. One of the first things in his seemingly endless arsenal of gifts was to present her with a bottle of Chanel No. 5. Not the toilet water or eau-whatever stuff but the real stuff, and a big bottle of it as well. Not bad right?
Now I don’t know much about perfume and I prefer, much prefer, not being put in a situation where I have go into a store and buy such an item but as a fellow “projects” denizen this is a young man that I would not give the air to out of hand. No way. And if Cathy had asked my counsel I would have said the hell with poverty, go for it. But our fair working- class maiden was betwixt and between on this, and we will leave her that way for a moment.
Why? Oh I “forgot” to tell the other part of the story. Oops, sorry. Seems our Cathy had another boy, a poor boy, Jimmie, who was “courting” her as well. Not a projects boy but a kid (young man actually since he also had just graduated from Olde Saco High as well) whose father toiled on one of the hard scrabble lobster boats that worked out of the nearby harbor. Poor though. So while our young prince was showing his love with barrels of gifts her poor boy was hard pressed to give her a simple Woolworth’s 5&10 cent store bracelet. This was definitely a “no-brainer.” Order the tuxedos and gowns for the royal wedding now. Robert and Cathy together sound right, right?
But wait just another minute. What if I told you, as was told to me at an earlier time and that I have related elsewhere, that that poor boy, that mad man Jimmie, that cheapo bracelet- giver had shown his love in another way. And suppose I told you that this was the very guy who in that other story I called “bicycle boy” and that he actually swam across a dangerous river channel, against the odds, to be with his “projects” princess. Well, now all bets are off. Throw that ne’er do well, grasping, shallow, callow gilded youth Robert to the sharks in that channel. And his cheap jack Chanel No. 5, 10, 15 or 20 too. Bicycle boy it is. And guess what, although that love was a long time ago and, in the end, nothing came of their love, our “projects” girl, through thick and thin and in honor of that long ago flame, and his deeds, still has that bracelet snuggly wrapped around her wrist. Take that, O.Henry.
Friday, October 28, 2011
***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When "Stewball" Stu Stewart ’57 Chevy Ruled The “Chicken” Roads
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Chuck Berry performing his classic School Days to give a flavor of the times to this piece
CD Review
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
Scene: Brought to mind by the cover artwork that graces the front of the booklet that accompanies this CD. The artwork contains, in full James Dean-imitation pout, one good-looking, DA-quaffed, white muscle-shirted young man, an alienated young man, no question, leaning, leaning gently, very gently, arms folded, on the hood of his 1950’s classic automobile, clearly not his father’s car, but also clearly for our purposes let us call it his “baby.”
And that car, that extension of his young manhood, his young alienated manhood, is Friday night, Saturday night, or maybe a weekday night if it is summer, parked (priority parked, meaning nobody with some Nash Rambler, nobody with some foreign Volkswagen, no biker even , in short, nobody except somebody who is tougher, a lot tougher, than our alienated young man better breathe on the spot while he is within fifty miles of the place) directly in front of the local teenage (alienated or not) "hot spot." And in 1950s’ America, a teenage America with some disposal income (allowance, okay), that hot spot is likely to be, as here, the all-night Mel’s (or Joe’s, Adventure Car-Hop, whatever) drive-in restaurant opened to cater to the hot dog, hamburger, French fries, barbecued chicken cravings of exhausted youth. Youth exhausted after a hard night, well, let’s just call it a hard night and leave the rest to your knowing imagination, or their parents’ evil imaginations.
And in front of the restaurant, in front of that leaned-on “boss” automobile stands one teenage girl vision. One blondish, pony-tailed, midnight sun-glassed, must be a California great American West night teeny-bopper girl holding an ice cream soda after her night’s work. The work that we are leaving to fertile (or evil, as the case may be) imaginations. Although from the pout on Johnny’s (of course he has to be a Johnny, with that car) face maybe he “flunked out” but that is a story for somebody else to tell. Here’s mine.
********
Not everybody, not everybody by a long-shot, who had a “boss” ’57 cherry red Chevy was some kind of god’s gift to the earth; good-looking, good clothes, dough in his pocket, money for gas and extras, money for the inevitable end of the night stop at Jimmy John’s Drive-In restaurant for burgers and fries (and Coke, with ice, of course) before taking the date home after a hard night of tumbling and stumbling (mainly stumbling). At least that is what one Joshua Breslin, Josh, me, freshly minted fifteen- year old roadside philosopher thought as for the umpteenth time “Stewball” Stu left me by the side of Albemarle Road and rode off into the Olde Saco night with his latest “hot” honey, fifteen year old teen queen Sally Sullivan.
Ya, Stewball Stu was nothing but an old rum-dum, a nineteen year old rum-dum, except he had that “boss” girl-magnet ’57 cherry red Chevy (painted that color by Stu himself) and he had his pick of the litter in the Olde Saco, maybe all of Maine, night. By the way Stu’s official name, was Stuart Stewart, go figure, but don’t call him Stuart and definitely do not call him “Stewball” not if you want to live long enough not to have the word teen as part of your age. The Stewball thing was strictly for local boys, jealous local boys like me, who when around Stu always could detect a whiff of liquor, usually cheap jack Southern Comfort, on his breathe, day or night.
Figure this too. How does a guy who lives out on Tobacco Road in an old run-down trailer, half-trailer really, from about World War II that looked like something out of some old-time Hooverville scene, complete with scrawny dog, and tires and cannibalized car leavings every which way have girls, and nothing but good-looking girls from twelve to twenty (nothing older because as Stu says, anything older was a woman and he wants nothing to do with women, and their women’s needs, whatever they are)? And the rest of us get his leavings, or like tonight left on the side of Route One? And get this, they, the girls from twelve to twenty actually walk over to Tobacco Road from nice across the other side of the tracks homes like on Atlantic Avenue and Fifth Street, sometimes by themselves and sometime in packs just to smell the grease, booze, burnt rubber, and assorted other odd-ball smells that come for free at Stu’s so-called garage/trailer.
Let me tell you about Stu, Sally, and me tonight and this will definitely clue you in to the Stu-madness of the be-bop Olde Saco girl night. First of all, as usual, it is strictly Stu and me starting out. Usually, like today, I hang around his garage on Saturdays to get away from my own hell-house up the road and I am kind of Stu’s unofficial mascot. Now Stu had been working all day on his dual-exhaust carburetor or something, so his denims are greasy, his white tee-shirt (sic) is nothing but wet with perspiration and oil stains, he hasn’t taken a bath since Tuesday (he told me that himself with some sense of pride) and he was not planning to do so this night, and of course, drinking all day from his silver Southern Comfort flask he reeked of alcohol (but don’t tell him that if you read this and are from Olde Saco because, honestly, I want to live to have twenty–something as my age). About 7:00 PM he bellows out to me, cigarette hanging from his mouth, a Lucky, let’s go cruising.
Well, cruising means nothing but taking that be-bop ’57 cherry red Chevy out on East Grand and look. Look for girls, look for boys from the hicks with bad-ass cars who want to take a chance on beating Stu at the “chicken run” down at the flats on the far end of Sagamore Beach, look for something to take the edge off the hunger to be somebody number one. At least that last is what I figured after a few of these cruises with Stu. Tonight it looks like girls from the way he put some of that grease (no not car grease, hair-oil stuff) on his nappy hair. Yes, I am definitely looking forward to cruising tonight once I have that sign because, usually whatever girl Stu might not want, or maybe there are a couple of extras, or something I get first dibs. Ya, Stu is righteous like that.
So off we go, stopping at my house first so I can get a little cleaned up and put on a new shirt and tell my brother to tell our mother that I will be back later, maybe much later, if she ever gets home herself before I do. The cruising routine in Olde Saco means up and down Route One (okay, okay Main Street), checking out the lesser spots (Darby’s Pizza Palace, Hank’s Ice Cream joint, the Colonial Donut Shoppe where I hang during the week after school and which serves a lot more stuff than donuts and coffee, sandwiches and stuff, and so on). Nothing much this Saturday. So we head right away for the mecca, Jimmy John’s. As we hit Stu’s “saved” parking spot just in front I can see that several stray girls are eyeing the old car, eyeing it like tonight is the night, tonight is the night Stu, kind of, sort of, maybe notices them (and I, my heart starting to race a little in anticipation and glad that I stopped off at my house, got a clean shirt, and put some deodorant on and guzzled some mouthwash, am feeling tonight is the night too).
But tonight is not the night, no way. Not for me, not for those knees-trembling girls. Why? No sooner did we park than Sally Sullivan came strolling (okay I don’t know if she was strolling or doo-wopping but she was swaying in such a sexy way that I knew she meant business, that she was looking for something in the Olde Saco night and that she had “found” it) out to Stu’s Chevy and with no ifs, ands, or buts asked, asked Stu straight if he was doing anything this night. Let me explain before I tell you what Stu’s answer was that this Sally Sullivan is nothing but a sex kitten, maybe innocent-looking, but definitely has half the boys, hell maybe all the boys at Olde Saco High, including a lot of the guys on the football team drooling over her. I know, because I have had more than one sleepless night over her. See, she is in my English class and because Mr. Murphy let’s us sit where we want I usually sit with a good view of her. So Stu says, kind of off-handedly, like having the town teen fox come hinter on him was a daily occurrence, says kind of lewdly, “Well, baby I am if you want to go down Sagamore Rocks right now and look for dolphins?” See, Sagamore Rocks is nothing but the local lovers’ lane here and “looking for dolphins” is the way everybody, every teenage everybody in town says “going all the way,” having sex for the clueless. And Sally, as you can guess if you have been following my story said, “Yes” just like that. At that s why I was dumped, unceremoniously dumped, at my street while they roared off into the night. So like I said not every “boss” car owner is god’s gift to women, not by a long shot. Or maybe they are.
CD Review
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era: 1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
Scene: Brought to mind by the cover artwork that graces the front of the booklet that accompanies this CD. The artwork contains, in full James Dean-imitation pout, one good-looking, DA-quaffed, white muscle-shirted young man, an alienated young man, no question, leaning, leaning gently, very gently, arms folded, on the hood of his 1950’s classic automobile, clearly not his father’s car, but also clearly for our purposes let us call it his “baby.”
And that car, that extension of his young manhood, his young alienated manhood, is Friday night, Saturday night, or maybe a weekday night if it is summer, parked (priority parked, meaning nobody with some Nash Rambler, nobody with some foreign Volkswagen, no biker even , in short, nobody except somebody who is tougher, a lot tougher, than our alienated young man better breathe on the spot while he is within fifty miles of the place) directly in front of the local teenage (alienated or not) "hot spot." And in 1950s’ America, a teenage America with some disposal income (allowance, okay), that hot spot is likely to be, as here, the all-night Mel’s (or Joe’s, Adventure Car-Hop, whatever) drive-in restaurant opened to cater to the hot dog, hamburger, French fries, barbecued chicken cravings of exhausted youth. Youth exhausted after a hard night, well, let’s just call it a hard night and leave the rest to your knowing imagination, or their parents’ evil imaginations.
And in front of the restaurant, in front of that leaned-on “boss” automobile stands one teenage girl vision. One blondish, pony-tailed, midnight sun-glassed, must be a California great American West night teeny-bopper girl holding an ice cream soda after her night’s work. The work that we are leaving to fertile (or evil, as the case may be) imaginations. Although from the pout on Johnny’s (of course he has to be a Johnny, with that car) face maybe he “flunked out” but that is a story for somebody else to tell. Here’s mine.
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Not everybody, not everybody by a long-shot, who had a “boss” ’57 cherry red Chevy was some kind of god’s gift to the earth; good-looking, good clothes, dough in his pocket, money for gas and extras, money for the inevitable end of the night stop at Jimmy John’s Drive-In restaurant for burgers and fries (and Coke, with ice, of course) before taking the date home after a hard night of tumbling and stumbling (mainly stumbling). At least that is what one Joshua Breslin, Josh, me, freshly minted fifteen- year old roadside philosopher thought as for the umpteenth time “Stewball” Stu left me by the side of Albemarle Road and rode off into the Olde Saco night with his latest “hot” honey, fifteen year old teen queen Sally Sullivan.
Ya, Stewball Stu was nothing but an old rum-dum, a nineteen year old rum-dum, except he had that “boss” girl-magnet ’57 cherry red Chevy (painted that color by Stu himself) and he had his pick of the litter in the Olde Saco, maybe all of Maine, night. By the way Stu’s official name, was Stuart Stewart, go figure, but don’t call him Stuart and definitely do not call him “Stewball” not if you want to live long enough not to have the word teen as part of your age. The Stewball thing was strictly for local boys, jealous local boys like me, who when around Stu always could detect a whiff of liquor, usually cheap jack Southern Comfort, on his breathe, day or night.
Figure this too. How does a guy who lives out on Tobacco Road in an old run-down trailer, half-trailer really, from about World War II that looked like something out of some old-time Hooverville scene, complete with scrawny dog, and tires and cannibalized car leavings every which way have girls, and nothing but good-looking girls from twelve to twenty (nothing older because as Stu says, anything older was a woman and he wants nothing to do with women, and their women’s needs, whatever they are)? And the rest of us get his leavings, or like tonight left on the side of Route One? And get this, they, the girls from twelve to twenty actually walk over to Tobacco Road from nice across the other side of the tracks homes like on Atlantic Avenue and Fifth Street, sometimes by themselves and sometime in packs just to smell the grease, booze, burnt rubber, and assorted other odd-ball smells that come for free at Stu’s so-called garage/trailer.
Let me tell you about Stu, Sally, and me tonight and this will definitely clue you in to the Stu-madness of the be-bop Olde Saco girl night. First of all, as usual, it is strictly Stu and me starting out. Usually, like today, I hang around his garage on Saturdays to get away from my own hell-house up the road and I am kind of Stu’s unofficial mascot. Now Stu had been working all day on his dual-exhaust carburetor or something, so his denims are greasy, his white tee-shirt (sic) is nothing but wet with perspiration and oil stains, he hasn’t taken a bath since Tuesday (he told me that himself with some sense of pride) and he was not planning to do so this night, and of course, drinking all day from his silver Southern Comfort flask he reeked of alcohol (but don’t tell him that if you read this and are from Olde Saco because, honestly, I want to live to have twenty–something as my age). About 7:00 PM he bellows out to me, cigarette hanging from his mouth, a Lucky, let’s go cruising.
Well, cruising means nothing but taking that be-bop ’57 cherry red Chevy out on East Grand and look. Look for girls, look for boys from the hicks with bad-ass cars who want to take a chance on beating Stu at the “chicken run” down at the flats on the far end of Sagamore Beach, look for something to take the edge off the hunger to be somebody number one. At least that last is what I figured after a few of these cruises with Stu. Tonight it looks like girls from the way he put some of that grease (no not car grease, hair-oil stuff) on his nappy hair. Yes, I am definitely looking forward to cruising tonight once I have that sign because, usually whatever girl Stu might not want, or maybe there are a couple of extras, or something I get first dibs. Ya, Stu is righteous like that.
So off we go, stopping at my house first so I can get a little cleaned up and put on a new shirt and tell my brother to tell our mother that I will be back later, maybe much later, if she ever gets home herself before I do. The cruising routine in Olde Saco means up and down Route One (okay, okay Main Street), checking out the lesser spots (Darby’s Pizza Palace, Hank’s Ice Cream joint, the Colonial Donut Shoppe where I hang during the week after school and which serves a lot more stuff than donuts and coffee, sandwiches and stuff, and so on). Nothing much this Saturday. So we head right away for the mecca, Jimmy John’s. As we hit Stu’s “saved” parking spot just in front I can see that several stray girls are eyeing the old car, eyeing it like tonight is the night, tonight is the night Stu, kind of, sort of, maybe notices them (and I, my heart starting to race a little in anticipation and glad that I stopped off at my house, got a clean shirt, and put some deodorant on and guzzled some mouthwash, am feeling tonight is the night too).
But tonight is not the night, no way. Not for me, not for those knees-trembling girls. Why? No sooner did we park than Sally Sullivan came strolling (okay I don’t know if she was strolling or doo-wopping but she was swaying in such a sexy way that I knew she meant business, that she was looking for something in the Olde Saco night and that she had “found” it) out to Stu’s Chevy and with no ifs, ands, or buts asked, asked Stu straight if he was doing anything this night. Let me explain before I tell you what Stu’s answer was that this Sally Sullivan is nothing but a sex kitten, maybe innocent-looking, but definitely has half the boys, hell maybe all the boys at Olde Saco High, including a lot of the guys on the football team drooling over her. I know, because I have had more than one sleepless night over her. See, she is in my English class and because Mr. Murphy let’s us sit where we want I usually sit with a good view of her. So Stu says, kind of off-handedly, like having the town teen fox come hinter on him was a daily occurrence, says kind of lewdly, “Well, baby I am if you want to go down Sagamore Rocks right now and look for dolphins?” See, Sagamore Rocks is nothing but the local lovers’ lane here and “looking for dolphins” is the way everybody, every teenage everybody in town says “going all the way,” having sex for the clueless. And Sally, as you can guess if you have been following my story said, “Yes” just like that. At that s why I was dumped, unceremoniously dumped, at my street while they roared off into the night. So like I said not every “boss” car owner is god’s gift to women, not by a long shot. Or maybe they are.
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