Category Archives: “Dog Days” Diversions

Friends Music Camp Stories #3: The Voice of God

I haven’t always been a flop at dancing. A few years later I learned to do the Twist pretty well; girls liked that. But that future achievement was no help in 1958. Even today, the bop remains a total mystery to me; I can’t even fake it decently. In fact, I sometimes imagine facing a solemn-faced judge, looking down from the bench, banging his gavel and declaring, “The defendant, Mr. Fager, having been found guilty, has a choice for his sentence: he must do the bop, right here and now, or face the firing squad.”

And in that nightmare scenario, I’d have to reply, “Your honor, may I have a last cigarette and that blindfold?” (And I hate smoking. But at least I know how.)

The Road to Columbine – A True Story (Some names are changed)

We headed down the hall and out the door, going as far as we were allowed, to the plowed field, toward the creek. As we walked, watching out for muddy spots, a couple of things became clear to me: one was that Justin wasn’t kidding. He would want his revenge on Eddie, and it would be a bloody one. Another was that when the time came, I had to stand with him, just as he had stood with me in my face-off with Father Vince.
But how could I do that so it made a difference? Justin could flatten Eddie with one fist and me with the other; and where would that leave either of us?
Still feeling shaky, I spotted something in the grass by the creek. It was a length of two by four lumber, about two and a half feet long. It was damp from laying out there in the dew and rain, and that made it heavy. A notch had been cut out of one end, giving my hand a good grip on it, and it swung with a real heft to it.

I whacked it against a tree a few times. The blows were solid, tearing big gashes in the tree’s bark, and making my palm and fingers hurt. But I didn’t drop it. In fact, with each blow I felt stronger and swung harder, and harder at the tree.

And like an electric shock, an idea came to me.
This two by four was not just a piece of wood. It was an equalizer. Looking down at it, I stopped shaking. It could solve our problem with Justin: In my mind’s eye I could see how it would go down, as clearly as if it was actually happening:

A Labor Day Memory: The Big Eclipse?? Wake me When It’s Over

I learned a few things along the way, which lightened the tedious miles: particularly that many of the Canadian towns we passed through had been founded by “United Empire Loyalists.” After some cogitation, I realized these were the tyrannical Tory scum the victorious colonials ran out of the new United States after our revolution. That explained, among other things, the guy in the red coat on the sign for Shelburne; a “Redcoat.”

But their progeny, after these eight intervening generations, seemed not preoccupied with this old quarrel, happy to take our few US tourist dollars. And on the morning of July 10, 1972, though road-weary, we were headed out toward the far eastern end of their oddly-shaped island, looking for a spot to park and watch the day turn to night.

Dog Days Tale: Honesty Is the Best Policy – Mostly

I was ready to cut up columns when Mike nodded at me over the phone receiver again. ”It’s Judy Drake,” he said. “At the Phoenix.”

“Chuck! I got an idea for you!” she said. Judy was one of those people the word “perky” was invented for; but I was glad to be distracted. Judy was the culture editor at the Boston Phoenix, the big downtown weekly paper where I used to work. She got to cover the really big events in town, like new movies, plays, the symphony, and above all, the big-name rock concerts.

When I worked at the Phoenix she doled out free concert tickets like lottery prizes, and we all lapped them up. Boston had a lot of big events. I had seen Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, even Johnny Cash this way.

Those giveaways also worked great for the owner of the Phoenix; as long as we kept humming the latest concert tunes around the office, we forgot to notice that he didn’t pay us decent wages or benefits. But heck, who needed health insurance when we had a chance to see Frank Zappa, or The Who, for free? (Ah, youth.)

I was still a sucker. “Do you know,” Judy asked, “about the concert at Boston Garden tonight?”

Did I? Didn’t everybody? It was Sly and the Family Stone, who were still hotter than a firecracker after their many hit records, like “Everyday People,” “Dance To The Music,” “Life,” and their show-stealing gig at Woodstock.

Boom-chocka-locka-lockaI hadn’t made it to Woodstock, but I had watched the movie more than once, and their pulsing rendition of “I Want To Take You Higher,” with its “Boom-chocka-locka-locka” refrain was engraved on my brain cells. “Oh, Sly!” was all I could say.

“Sooooo, how’d you like to go?” Judy teased. I could hear her grinning all the way from town.

“Me?” I shouted. “But, Judy, I’m not worthy! So, who do I have to kill?”

About Puerto Rico: Hurricane Betsy and the Twenty-Five Dollar House

August, 1956 –The night before the hurricane, I listened to the bugle calls before I went to sleep, as usual. The calls weren’t played on a real bugle, of course, but from a record, blasting out of big loudspeakers somewhere in the barracks on the other side of the base, where the airmen lived. They played one call at nine o-clock, another long one, called “Tattoo,” at nine-thirty, and the last one, Taps, at ten.

Unless there were a lot of planes taking off or landing, the bugle calls carried on the still night air over the tall palm trees and all the way to the family housing, where they echoed down our curving streets, which ran along the edge of the base facing the ocean.

That ocean, the Caribbean, was only two blocks from our house at 131 C Street. That is, it was two blocks to the edge of the land; from there to the water was another two hundred feet or so, down a cliff.

The side street by our house ran right up to the cliff, and there was no fence. But even though lots of kids lived in our neighborhood, we didn’t worry about falling over the cliff. It didn’t drop straight down, and it was covered with thick bushes and vines, which would catch and hold anything as small as a person.

We had other things to worry about at Ramey Air Force Base, though, things like mosquitoes and huge roaches two or three inches long, and the fact in 1956 there wasn’t any TV station with programs in English to watch. And since I was thirteen, I also worried about whether any of the pretty girls at school would ever like me, and whether I could stand up to the tough boys if someday I had to.

But none of that was worrying me on this particular night. All that was small-time compared to Hurricane Betsy. Betsy was big and dark and full of dangerous high winds and driving rain. After wandering aimlessly around out in the ocean for several days, the storm was now bearing down on the island of Puerto Rico, and on Ramey Air Force Base, due to hit us any time.