Franklin Street

My Dad also worked at the Franklin Street station but I can't remember when or for how long. They were a bit stricter about kids showing up there so it was not a playground like the Federal St. Station. The Rescue Squad was stationed there, the "Meat Wagon", the firemen with the jaws of life. The guys who do the car wrecks and pick up the pieces.

Fat Mac had an apartment close to this station, hell, he had an apartment close to everything in Lynn at one time or another. He moved a lot. Bob showed up in the neighborhood while everyone was in High School. He was just there one day. We, a group hanging out on Lawton Ave. greeted him by spitting on him. In a shower of adolescent phlegm, we welcomed him to the neighborhood. He was outside all the time, like me, so we hung out. Nobody liked him from my old crew, he was trouble and lived in an apartment and that seemed significant to our parents at the time, like he was from a lower Caste. The gang was breaking up as guys I grew up with moved into the world through school activities and jobs. Bob and I did a lot of things together as we were a year behind most of the others in school year and age.

We caddied one summer at Tedesco Country Club in Marblehead. He had caddied at Happy Valley in Lynn and told me what to do so we lied our way in. Tedesco was beautiful. It was also a private club so it was my first encounter with the elite, the privledged. I caddied in their tournament for a MD from Lynn. He had an office on Summer Street in the brickyard but he played his golf in M'head. I failed to watch another guys lie during the tournament so he stiffed me. No tip. 36 holes for base rate. Thanks, dude.

But truth be told, I just liked the walk. Caddying a double for 18 holes in a lightening round with a couple of the younger clients was very ok. And it was training for the hump, hump, hump of the Marine Corps. And cash at the end of the day.

Mac would lead me astray, branching out into pool halls and the nascent Combat Zone in Boston. But he was there for me, also. Mac and Richie Q. drove past the car containing the officer who informed my parents I was wounded. They assumed I was dead and went out drinking. Days later they found I was only wounded, and they drove to Philly Naval. It was fucking awesome to see them.

Mac was trouble though. He was found blown out onto the street, unconscious, if front of a blazing apartment building. He was never charged but..... My father would not have him around after that. He was pissed that I'd talk to someone who would put firemen in danger. That never changed for him.

And Mac didn't change either. When I finally got out of the hospital, Mac had a 400cc Honda and ran with an interracial crew. Rocky, Cedro and many others, college kids and guys from the GE. Drinking everynight and hustling High School girls. In the twilight between High School and being 21. Working, but at home with a car. Or 12 guys to an apartment in a rotating schedule with the interplay of new girl friends each season. Still subject to police harassment for underage drinking. Sgt. Bruce Hogan was an constant irritant. Fuck you, Bruce.

Nadine B. I still have your name written in the Volkswagen of my dreams!

This was 1968. Tet. King. Kennedy. Democratic National Convention.
Soon an interracial crew was impossible in Lynn. People fragmented along lines of race or choice of drugs. Drunks and druggies. Jocks and Hippies.

Olympia Square

Two old pictures of Olympia Square, the top one seems to be the older picture with the lines above ground. My focus is on the triangular building in the top photo. I knew it as Frenchies Liquors.

My Mother used to rave about the Olympia theatre. It was a parking lot for the Hawthorne restaurant by the time I was young. On the right of the triangle building is Washington Street and up at the next corner was the Old Post Office building, bottom left on the post card, which also served as the Marine Corps Reserve Building in the 60's. I once watched a movie there narrated by Jack Webb about the Mighty Navy/Marine Corps Fighting Team. I watched with Mike H who was enlisting at the same time. I later met him after Nam at one of the Cronin Brothers establishments up on Union Street, the name of that particular bar escapes me. We sat together one night and roundly savaged the Marine Corps. I had been nursing a beer, broke, he bought all night.

Sometimes Nam is like a dream. Ethereal. Unsubstantial. I wonder if I were there at all.

Sometimes.

That night drinking with H sticks with me like a Nam memory. It looms more imortant than it was at the time. Finding someone who went through the same shit was huge then. It still is. I had the same experience at the traveling Wall. Seeing peoples name in stone makes it real. It's not all a dream.

Thanks Mike. Semper Fi.

Right outside of Frenchies is the last place I saw Jimmy B. He was waiting for the liquor store to open. At eight in the morning you could already feel the heat in store for the day. I was standing in front of Cal's after the night shift at the Boston PO. Jim was attached to a working I.V. complete with mobile stand and his stomach distended in the full malignant ripeness of liver failure.

Yet there he was at opening time.

One time, I watched him work a dentist on the phone for percodans. He was a Zen Master of bullshit, a National Treasure. In a half hour, he had miraculously persuaded the dentist to order 30 percodans and have them delivered, by cab, to our door. Jimmys shit was that good. He had superb upper middle class modulation and grasp of dental pain that was very persuasive. He gave great phone.

He was always hiding out, always on a scam. The Edward Norton character, Worm, in Rounders comes to mind. He died not long after that day in Olympia Square. RIP.

Federal Street

My dad worked for the Lynn Fire Department from approximately 1949 until the late 70's when he retired on disability. The first fire station he worked at was Federal Street in West Lynn. It no longer exists. I remember getting to slide down the fire pole in the station. I became adept enough that I could come down the pole upside down.
Federal Street was a huge barn of a place. It smelled of canvas and rubber. I liked watching the apparatus for the fire alarms and the arcane bell system it used.

He worked there probably 10 years as I remember sneaking crosstown to peek in the car to get a hint about Christmas presents. I had to be 11/12. Federal Street was almost entirely made up of parts of the GE, General Electric. At that time they were tearing down buildings so I had to low crawl through the empty lot used by the firefighters.

Everyone worked at the GE at one time or another. My father worked for GE, my Mom, my Grandfather, my Uncle, my cousins, my friends. Bob C. used to amaze me with tales of goldbricking on the 3rd shift. I knew Hell's Angels, Tommy A., who ran huge machines at the River Works. Lynn is a company town.

I was shanghaied into Advanced Engineering for my one and only GE job. I went there applying for a sweepers job so I could hang with my friend, the Cros. But, it was off and away to doing stress analysis on helicopter rotor blades with the elite. The job didn't last long. I was doing table hockey and half gallons of Bali Hi wine with me droogs all night. I wasn't ready to settle down at 19 and do my 30 at the GE.

This was within 3 months of getting out of the Naval hospital. Under the constant nag of me Mom. Her answer to every problem was a job. A job for you, that is. She was constantly sending me out on cold calls for a job in High School. On her nag, I worked for Mike A. at the lunch spot on the corner of Washington and Essex St. My job was to empty the swill bucket out back in the city container. I did this my senior year. I emptied Mike's swill and my breakfast 5 days a week before I went to school. But I digress.

Only in Lynn-redux

I went back to look at the Lynn Item this afternoon. There was an article about the Lynn Police Special Investigations Unit which sounds like the old Vice Squad. Since the article quoted their responsibilities as, "...cracking down on vices including sex, drugs and gambling."

I knew names and faces of the Vice Squad back in the day. They had their eye on me and I evaded them as best I could. Once, I was with an old time junkie and thief aptly named "Rat" Ryan on a pilgrimage for junk when an unmarked screeched up, disgorged two cops who started firing warning shots in the air. Rat was gone before they could take a bead. Through a yard, over a fence and poof. The cops took off down the street. It's always been the Wild West.

Apparently, nothing has changed but the price. In this same article, Lynn detectives crack down on prostitutes, johns By Jill Casey Monday, February 6, 2006, the police bemoan the facts that:

"It's very cheap here, because unfortunately (Lynn) is a source spot for it,"

When asked if it was disconcerting that they have not seen drug levels go down, the three officers interviewed said it is almost beyond control.

At $4 a bag, the most prevalent drug on the street continues to be heroin.


$4 a bag. 35 years ago it was $15 a bag. The price has decreased as the purity, we all know, has increased. I'd say Lynn lost the Drug War.

What is it about Lynn? Is there some crime overlord who owns this town? I don't know anything about the politics in this place at this time but something is wrong. Does the geography breed junkies? Is there some kind of communal cesspool of despair? Is it the waters? Or is there some hidden mechanism supplying and creating the need?

I'm not particularly proud of my part in reducing the quality of the civic life of my birthplace. Like I've said elsewhere in this blog, I was small time and a bad thief and for the most part bought my own drugs. I was crazy from Nam and from losing my leg. Nobody knew what to do with me and I didn't want help. But I regret contributing to the decline of this place by my own actions.

I have great memories of High Rock, the Martin Estate, the beach. I have friends who went on to great careers. Charley went on to be a Superintendent of a toney school system on the North Shore. Richie served 25 + years in the Marine Corps, he saw action at Khe Sanh and Desert Storm. Bob is an accountant somewhere, his brother still coaches High School baseball.These are guys who grew up on the block. They swam in the same water.

But I know the other side also. Mr. "Most Likely to Succeed", the National Merit Scholar, with his 12 felony convictions for possession of heroin. And his wife and their friends and their friends and on and on.

Lynn, Lynn. City of Sin.
You never come out,
the way you went in.

You ask for water,
they give you gin.
Craziest place
I've ever been in.

Rolling Stones do Lynn...from the Globe

Rolling with the Stones: 30 years of concert notes
By Steve Morse, Boston Globe Staff, 10/20/97




"My first Rolling Stones show was in 1966 in Manning Bowl in Lynn. I was a
high school student whose dream come true was scoring a Stones ticket.
Forget the Beatles at the time. Gimme shelter with the Stones. I've since
followed them everywhere, from Hartford to London, from Syracuse to
Washington, from Chicago to Foxborough during 30 years of often primordial
devotion...

I'm going both nights, though perhaps nothing will match the adrenalin rush
of that '66 show in Lynn, where the Stones rocked for 20 peak-filled
minutes before fans pushed toward the flimsy stage and the police got
nervous and fired tear gas. The Stones jumped into limos and were gone. The
crowd was left to fight off the tear gas and throw wooden chairs around the
field."

''It was a bit of an outdoor crazy,'' Mick Jagger said of that Lynn show.
''It wasn't well secured. A few people got a bit drunk. There were a few
cops and that was the end of it.'' Added Keith Richards recently: ''Things
got a little blurry in the '60s. Tear gas, yeah, that was the other
continuous smell of the '60s. I can't say I miss it.''

I heard about this first, while painting my helmet liner at Camp LeJeune, NC. I had just returned with "D" Co. 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd MarDiv, FMF Atlantic from cruising through the caribbean. I looked down onto the paper I was using as a blotter and, Voila, Rolling Stone Riot in Lynn,MA. I miss all the good stuff.

Later, I would hear that the cops had used gas without having masks for themselves so it really turned into a chinese fire drill. My thug friends had used the chaos to thieve everything in sight. There were copious handbags and other personal affects to salvage. It was the talk of the town.

I saw the Stones in the Garden in '72. Mayor White of Boston begged us not to wreak the town as the Puerto Ricans were rioting cross town and the Stones were late. My date and her girl friend were trying to fellate their way backstage to see Mick and the Boys. I was in the first balcony with three seats to stretch out on. The Stones were excellent. I became acquainted with a fine blond stranger who I had been dancing behind all night when she began bumping and grinding against me behind her boy friends back. The night ended with "Midnight Rambler" and her hand rubbing my now taunt jeans. When the lights in the Garden crashed on, she gave me a smile and disappeared.

"I know it's only Rock and Roll, but I like it."

Poem for Nan

Expiation
for Frances Kiley

Drawn by habit,
like a mill horse circling,
my grandmother would bolt out the door,
in just her squat black shoes
and her slip, heading
for the eight o'clock Mass.

Dispatched by my mother, a grinning sister
would lead Nanny away
from God and back to us.
My brother and I had habits
that God couldn't satisfy.

But an old womans' savings, stuffed
in socks and shoes, secreted
in old coats or layered
in matresses would ease
the aching knees
stop the running nose, satisfy
the greedy god who demands
worship on a daily basis.

Dope sick junkie geologists, we were,
picking through her dresser drawers.
Down into the handkerchiefs where
dollars lay like ore deposits
between the succeeding fabrics,
from cotton to linen to the bright sheen
of sheer Belfast hankies.

Back we went through time,
ransacking the brittle yellow envelopes
from Costigan, Maine 1933
Halifax, Nova Scotia 1926
and a letter from a Mr. Phinas Cudihy
Portpatrick, Ireland 1909.

My Grandmother complained
of missing money,
and ghosts.
She began howling
through the house
That the Black and Tans
were in the street and
the wolf was at the door.

My parents parceled her off
to a nursing home.
At my lone visit she confided
that the staff was out to kill her,
and what nice teeth I had.

The Neighborhood

Pictured is the neighborhood in the early 20th Century. Rogers Ave ran from Essex Street, west to Lawton Ave. Essex Street ran from Rogers Ave to City Hall Square. On the way to St. Mary's we would pass the Court House and of course City Hall.

First picture is a view looking from City Hall Square up Essex Street towards High Rock Tower. Nanny would head down this street every single day for either the 7 or 8 O'clock Mass. My Mom sent a sister to fetch Grandma back as she was headed to the 7am at 2 in the afternoon in her underwear at 92 years old. Saints preserve us.

Way off to the left, above the factory, is the house that was Post 507 VFW on the now forgotten Martin Estate in the Highlands. After this building burned it was a magnet for the local vandals. The fire scene was not secured and I was with a raiding party that liberated a WWI Lewis machine gun that had been overlooked in the attic. We were almost away when the police arrived and had to drop the prize to escape.



I would later do most of my underage drinking there, at the new post, as a member after Nam. My first night was a drizzling May night. I was alone in the woods drinking on weekend Liberty. After I finished what I had been drinking I just strolled over and joined. Someone brought me home, over their shoulder at closing time. I was there three years before being banned for bringing in Al Hogan with his Hells Angels prospect rocker to buy cases warm beer over the bar at 1am on a Sunday night. A no-no. But I digress.

The factory in the picture on the left is the place the police brought me for a beating one night.
I came home to my parents house after a afternoon of drinking, it was about 7/8 O'clock. I remember coming in the front door and seeing my sisters, in their bathrobes and bunny slippers, all happy and doing homework together at the kitchen table. And I flipped. I didn't belong there and I had nowhere to go.

I turned and put my right fist through the front door window. I then hit the other door window with a left. I did the side window. It wasn't enough. I went to the adjoining living room and punched that. Then I was gang tackled. Dad,Mom three of four kids all yelling and screaming. Piling on their brother, the war hero, punching out his home. Well this would not do, as I kept struggling to kill another window or two, and the cops were summonded.

Well I must have had a plan, because I calmed down enough to leave without cuffs on. When the cops stepped on the ice in front of the house, I pulled both of their arms and down they went, and off I limped.

The backup held me for the two I put down. They cuffed me this time and one came in the back seat with me. They turned onto Essex Street and then pulled around the back of the factory.
There they put claws, or come-a-longs as they were called, on both my wrists, and turned. They worked the back of my legs with a club. It would take a year for me to feel my right thumb. Then they put me in the Sutton Street Hotel for the evening. For protective custody.



It was in this way that I learned, you never fight one cop, you fight them all. This applied to the HA also.




This middle photo is the district Court for Southern Essex further down Essex Street.

Oyez, Oyez!!

I was in here once to give false testimony in a B&E case. This building is long gone.





Last picture is St. Mary's with the old church pictured. My father graduated from here, as did my Mother and most of my sisters. The building to the right is the Grammar School, home of many tortures. One of the most exquisite was the "May Fantasy", an all afternoon, theatrical production with costumes, lights, music and dance. It was, obligatory every year. Each class had a few singing numbers with some nerdy little cretin upfront who got the lead because he was taking singing lessons.

In my circle of Hell, it was J. C. the lead son of a big family of Irish shitheads up on Pine Hill. His dad was scoutmaster and every fucking one of them had a talent. The talent I thought they should have developed was pyrotechnics, as one of the brood killed himself with a homemade explosive.

You could have checked out J. C.'s musical styling at the Leaning Tower of Pizza in Saugus. Right out there on Route 1. It was a 30 year gig for Big J. I'm happy to say I was there at the beginning.

I'm still not rational about this. But in an effort to cleanse the past, I may post pictures. One year, I had to walk three blocks in a cheesy sailor suit with fucking rouge on in the 6th grade so I could do a hornpipe for Columbus on the ocean blue on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

And as promised. Three eager participants in St. Marys "May Fantasy". Taken in front of the house my family lived in. The house to the left is the Kiley Rest Home.



Alfred E. Neuman flanked by Annette and the Archbishop of Cork.

Frances Kiley

My maternal Grandmother, Frances Kiley was an amputee. She had her
baby, ring and a portion of her middle finger crushed in a industrial
laundry wringer at Whytes Laundry, Salem, MA in the 1920's.

She parlayed the insurance settlement into the Kileys Rest Home on
Rogers Ave in Lynn which she operated until the late 1960's.

She was an indomitable woman with a penchant for gambling. She ran the
home, a low level nursing home, with her children
.
She would also use her grandchildren who were wont to steal the thick
slices of cheddar off the supper trays they delivered on the helps night off.

She suffered no fools and could curl her remaining fingers into a bony
crudgel which could stun the tardy and recalcitrant. She was a two
boater, arriving in Canada first from Ireland and then literally
walking to Massachusetts.

When I came home from Nam, she looked at how I was getting along and
she commented, "It weren't so bad."

She had seen her amputation as a way out of
poverty and an opportunity to a better life. It would take me awhile
to be that optimistic.

She was good to me and we shared a unusual bond at the end of her
life. I love her and miss her.

USS Guadalcanal LPH-7

Iwo Jima Class Amphibious Assault Ship (Helicopter):

Laid down, 1 September 1961, at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia, PA.

Launched, 16 March 1963

Commissioned USS Guadalcanal, 20 July 1963

Decommissioned, 31 August 1994, at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia, PA.

Laid up in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Philadelphia

Struck from the Naval Register, 31 August 1994

Final Disposition, initially retained by the Navy for use as a museum. Presently laid up in the James River Reserve Fleet,

Fort Eustis, VA, scheduled to be sold for scrapping. Several attempts were tried to use USS Guadalcanal again.

Initially the Navy was considering converting her to a mine countermeasures support ship (MCS) to Complement

Inchon (MCS-12). This was canceled before any work was started. New York City and Quincy, MA. have

considered converting the ship into a floating museum/memorial but these efforts have also fallen short.

Specifications:
Displacement 11,000 t.(lt.) 18,474 t.(fl)
Length 592'
Beam 84'
Flight Deck Beam 105'
Draft 27'
Speed 22 kts.
Complement 667
Troop Accommodations 2,157
Aircraft 25 helicopters
Armament(as built) four 3"/50 AA guns
(modified) two 3"/50s removed and replaced with 8 cell Sea Sparrow BPDMS launchers, two Phalanx CIWS added

Propulsion two 600 psi boilers, one geared steam turbine, one shaft, 22,000 shaft horsepower

GUADALCANAL was finally sunk as a target in May 2005.

I was aboard the Guadalcanal all of spring 1966. I went with D Co. 1st Battalion 6th Marines 2ndMARDIV FMFLANT as BLT 1/6. It was the best time I had in the service. Alot of my platoon mates from Platoon 157 at PI ended up in Delta. Bruce Chaput, Frank Mazza, James Araby and Linsey H fucking Nye are guys I remember. Chaput and Araby even came to see me after Nam, but they ended up scarfing all the women avaliable Christmas 1967, but that is another story.

We cruised the Caribeean with Liberty Calls at Gitmo; Kingston, Jamaica; San Juan,P.R.; St. Thomas, V.I. I missed liberty at St.Toms, I was restricted to ship due to a off limits violation at Isabella Segunda, PR. But I stood firewatch for those blessed with liberty and made a bundle for Kingston.

One sunset, after we had been to Jamaica, I stumbled upon my first marijuana at the bow of the ship. Three guys were lying in the safety net over the bow smoking and watching dolphins crash through the surf, racing the bow. Being young and dumb, I joined right in. It was really magical watching the bow cut through the glass surface of the ocean from about 60 feet above. The sun set on my straight life that day, I think I'll always be chasing those dolphins.

In 1993, I attended a paralegal School in Philadelphia, a school which was a ripoff supreme, to obtain a certificate in Litigation Management. While there I crawled all over places I had visited while at Philadelphia Naval Hospital in 1967. The Guadalcanal was docked at the Navy Yard there and I got as far as the gang plank to say goodbye. She was eighty feet high and almost two football fields long, a huge, brooding, grey hulk. Goodbye Big Girl.