Close Relations
Introduction by Tom Magliozzi
Ah, the Seventies.
A lot of people (who weren’t there) think it all “happened” in the Sixties. Au contraire, piston puss.
To be truthful, none of it happened for me in the 60s, because I had an actual j-o-b for the whole decade. I actually got dressed every day—an accomplishment in itself—in suit and tie and commuted to Foxboro, MA.
It wasn’t all bad working for a multinational corporation, however. First, I was the Far East Administrator which got me to the “Far East” and all those magnificently putrid places that everyone wants to see. (I saw them and hardly ever got sick. I said “hardly” ever). And, of course one had to get back—for example—through Rome or maybe Hawaii
Later I became the company’s Long-Range Planner. I studied long-term trends, while looking for opportunities for diversification. Basically, it was my job to predict the future. Thank God, it was someone else’s job to worry about the consequences of my prophecies.
So, what happened?
Well, one day—after I had been working for a decade--while making that forty-five minute drive to work one morning in my MG-A (the car may have been small, but its size was justifiable because it was a convertible), I was cut-off by a giant semi. He never even noticed my tiny vintage auto.
I swerved to avoid being smooshed. He missed me by inches. Stunned and palpitating, I pulled over to the shoulder. I was shaking like a leaf.
Gathering myself, I realized that I had nearly bought the farm and had a moment of introspective clarity.
“Self,” I asked, “how would I feel if that had really been it—the end of life as we know it?”
Going to and from work for ten years, I had hardly done any of the things that I had dreamed of. In the moment, I tried to recall specific “things.” But, it was a nervous moment, and I decided the details would come to me later.
I put that little MG in gear and kept to the right lane all the way to Foxboro. When I got there, I walked into my boss’s office and quit on the spot!
He immediately assumed that I was going to work for a competitor. After convincing him that wasn’t the case, I actually managed to persuade him to lay me off (otherwise, I couldn’t have collected unemployment).
“Okay, so what are you going to do with yourself?”
I gave this question real thought for a moment, before answering, “I’m going to do nothing.”
And, nothing is exactly what I did. I hung out in Harvard Square, where I sipped coffee and met other errant souls. I lived in a big apartment building and supplemented my “income” by painting apartments of other residents—most of them attractive women. I also fiddled around fixing cars in the parking lot. Life was good!
Then, I was “visited” by my “close relation,” my dear brother, Ray, and his wife, Monique. They had spent a year in Vermont teaching kids and trying to live the simple life. But, it didn’t work out how they had planned. (Ray mentioned that the gas station was only open “by appointment.”)
Once they were back in Cambridge and freeloading in my apartment, it became quite apparent that my brother was unemployable. (He had studied Humanities at MIT: what did he expect?)
At that point, I made a big mistake. In a casual conversation one day, I happened to mention to him one of the ideas I had come up with while pondering the future in my former (employed) life. The idea was simple. Costs of auto repair were going up and the throngs of moneyless “hippies” in Cambridge (all driving old VW Buses) would want to do some of those simple repairs—tune-ups, brake jobs, oil changes, etc.—themselves! My idea was to provide the space, tools, and occasional advice for these people in a Do-It-Yourself (DIY for short) repair shop. While they toiled, I would cart the wheelbarrows full of cash to the bank.
My brother loved the idea. “Let’s do it!”
“Oh, no!” Says I with my best Maynard G. Krebbs impersonation, “It requires wo-… wo-… wo-… the dreaded W-word.”
I didn’t want to work. I was plenty happy painting apartments and hanging out in Harvard Square all day, but my brother wouldn’t give up.
“This is such a great idea,” he persisted.
Eventually he won and I caved. We put together the few dollars we had (mostly some severance pay I had received), bought a bunch of tools, and started the world’s first DIY repair shop.
We ended up working ten hours a day helping hopeless customers who didn’t know which end of a wrench to hold, but we had a million laughs in the process. It didn’t feel much like work.
Plus, we still managed to do plenty of lounging around in Harvard Square. Only now, it took place at night in a small music bistro called Club Passim (it’s still there, and we still go), where we were introduced to bluegrass music via a group called Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys. Joe was a fantastic guy and since we spent so much time in and around Passim (I think the name is Latin for “freeloading customers”), we became relatively close friends.
Pretty soon, Ray and I talked two of our friends into starting a blue grass band of our own. Stanley decided he wanted to learn the mandolin, Ron was partial to banjo, and my brother and I both knew the guitar. After some cajoling, I let him have the guitar and took what was left: the stand-up bass!
We usually met on Friday nights at my brother’s apartment, where we ate Chinese food, practiced some music, and laughed like hell. We were bad, but not so bad as to stop us from performing in front of people. If not impressed, our talented-musician friends were nice enough to keep their critiques and rotten tomatoes to themselves. Our sister was the exception, however. She never failed to tell us how badly we stunk on any given night. (One night we were actually performing in a packed movie theater in Boston! We finished our first number to raucous applause. But there was my sister, sitting in the third row—holding her nose!)
Basically, close family, friends, and other relations were pretty important to all of us in the 70s. My brother “saved” me from a lifetime of unemployed bliss and Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys (Joe on mandolin, Dave Dylan on guitar, and Bob French on Banjo, and Bobby Tidwell the best stand-up bass player I’ve ever heard) became our friends and musical inspiration.
It was at one of their shows that I met Henry Horenstein, who also became a great buddy. He shared our understanding of unproductive leisure time and was always willing to join us for a poker game, mainly because he always seemed to leave richer than when he arrived.
So, have a good time with this book. You’ll probably see some of the people I’ve mentioned. And, maybe it’ll inspire you to slow down, sit back, and think of your own “close relations.”
—Tom Magliozzi |
