Music, as you might imagine, was a big part of life for BOB! and me—but not in the way you might be thinking. I’m not talking about cool music—rock and roll blaring from some new sound system we installed in The Dart. Nope. We liked rock, don’t get me wrong, this was the ‘80’s after all. All of that “great” “classic” rock was brand new. But, with our individual tastes ranging from vocal jazz to John Philip Souza, BOB! and I met in the middle in the only obvious, natural place: Barbershop harmony. Let me explain (and if this shocks you, then perhaps you should just stop here, for I fear it will not get any better for you henceforth).
Owing almost entirely to BOB!’s aforementioned musical prowess, he pulled together a few friends to sing some old barbershop quartet tunes at the high school winter concert that year. (He was already playing in the band and singing in the jazz choir in that concert, of course.)
Then, on weekends at home, BOB! and I would experiment with four-part harmony—which may sound challenging for two people , and it was. But eventually we developed a low/no-cost method of multi-track recording using two tape recorders. (I mean, what else are you going to do on a weekend?) We would sing the first two parts while recording them on tape player #1. Then we would hit record on tape player #2 while simultaneously playing back tape player #1 and singing parts three and four. Boom. Four-part harmony. (This was, of course, before either the Mac, or Garage Band had been invented.)
The two of us used this method to record various four-part harmony messages for our telephone answering machine at the little house. (Telephone answering machines were, of course, an actual box that sat in your actual house, actually answering your actual phone and playing an outgoing message from an actual cassette tape, then recording any messages anyone chose to leave on a second actual cassette tape. This was before –and perhaps why—virtual voicemail was invented.)
The crowning achievement of this period was an outgoing message written to the tune of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.” We sang it in four-part harmony, but of course we changed the words to apply to the telephone answering machine context. When you called our house and the answering machine picked up, you heard a scratchy no/low-cost recording of BOB! and me singing, “tha-ank you for calling us/but sorry we’re not home/please do leave a short message/a-af-ter the tone/leave your name/your number too/and we’ll get back to youuuu/thank you for your pat-ron-age/and Merry Christmas too.” Yes, it was in full four-part harmony. And yes, it was Christmastime.
Word got out about the recording. And it got to the point where people who called would be disappointed when a human actually answered the phone. “Why did you answer?” they would ask, obviously annoyed. “I’m going to call back. Don’t answer this time.” And then the receiver would go dead.
Here's where the Dodge Dart Swinger reenters the story
The other thing that happened during that Christmas season was the exhaust system on the Dodge Dart Swinger developed some kind of leak. It’s hard to appreciate the work your exhaust system is doing for you until it stops doing it. Then you, and all your neighbors, are eager for you to fix it as soon as possible. It turns out local law enforcement may also encourage you to fix it. They might even pull you over just to tell you that your exhaust system has developed a leak—in case, somehow, you didn’t know. Then they might give you a thoughtful reminder of your little visit in the form of a moving violation for what they affectionately call, “equipment failure.”
Even at those cut-rate muffler places you see advertised everywhere, exhaust work does not come cheap. This is likely because, as everyone since Adam Smith has enjoyed reminding us, the cost of services is driven by an invisible hand that cares far more about “what the market will bear” than what Jim's wallet can afford. It turns out that most people will bear quite a lot to get their car to stop sounding like a DC 10 at takeoff.
Back in those days, the alternative to having the job done by a professional was to take a hacksaw to the broken section of exhaust pipe and replace it with a length of “flexible” tailpipe that could be bent to the requisite shape to connect the leftover pieces. As you might imagine, this was the option BOB! and I chose—not just because it was cheaper—but because this process was conceptually identical to a fuel line repair I had executed on the Beloved Corona following an engine fire. And because it was cheaper.
We chose what promised to be the balmiest day a Massachusetts Christmas Vacation might offer and got to work. I won’t bore you with the details but suffice it to say that we had neither the appropriate tools for cutting or bending the new exhaust pipe, nor the requisite car ramps to create any real clearance for working underneath the car. It was a long afternoon. There was a dull hacksaw involved. There was a telephone pole around which we “carefully” bent the new exhaust pipe. But eventually we got the job done. Very gratifying.
Here's where pizza and Squmibo Pie (finally) come into the story
As you might imagine, our winter experiments with barbershop harmony blossomed into springtime love. And as luck would have it, these first tender blossoms emerged just as Tommy (BOB!’s best friend from high school) saw a posting seeking barbershop quartets for an audtion. It turned out that a talent agency was seeking acts for the summer amusement park season. Tommy called BOB! who immediately decided their old high school quartet needed to audition. He called to tell me about the audition, which excited me. And then he actually said the following sentence to me verbatim:
“See, normally, I’d just call on Tommy, Pattie Cake, and Squimbo Pie. But Mattie is at school in New York and he can’t get back for the audition.”
First of all, you should know that it’s common in the Northeast U.S. for people to have nicknames, often multiple nicknames, not unlike a Russian novel. And among my siblings and our friends, nicknaming had risen to an art form. The people BOB! was describing were in fact his “normal” quartet from high school. Tommy/Tom was the aforementioned best friend. He was studying at another of Boston’s fine colleges just down the street from Berklee, so he was a no-brainer to sing lead. Squimbo Pie was, inexplicably, a young man named Jimmy Grover—a natural tenor. He was still in high school, but that was close enough given the ubiquitous public transportation I’ve previously mentioned. So, the tenor and lead slots were taken care of. Pattie Cake was, unaccountably, a young man named Matt Sullivan—the group’s baritone. Matt was attending college in New York. He was also becoming a stockbroker. (And, worst of all, a Yankees fan.) That left the quartet without a baritone.
“So, here’s what I was thinking,” continued BOB!. “How about if you step in just for the audition? You drive out here in The Dart, we pull together a couple of tunes, we do the audition. Then, when we get the job, Pattie Cake can step in for the summer.” (There seemed to be no question in his mind about the “when we get the job” part.)
“Sounds great,” I said, “but there’s only one problem.”
“You’re not a baritone,” said BOB!, always ahead of me in matters of music.
“Yup.” I said in my mellifluous basso profundo.
“I got it all figured out. I’ll move from bass to baritone. Tommy and Squimbo will stay on lead and tenor. You’ll sing bass. It’ll be great. Just get out here.”
I retrieved The Dart from its remote campus parking lot and drove down Route 2 to Boston. If you are familiar with the area, you may be wondering why I didn’t take the (more direct) Mass Pike. But if you know the area then you’ll likely have guessed the answer: tolls. Back in the day, the cost to get from Amherst to Boston was only $.90 each way. Even so, it took its toll, so to speak. I avoided it as often as possible.
We all gathered at Tommy’s apartment the day before the audition. We worked up a couple of songs, the kind that are affectionately called “pole cats” in the Barbershop world. They are the most common and often simplest of tunes in the Barbershop genre. The next day we sat for the audition. The word “sat” with respect to an audition is common parlance in these things, but technically we were actually standing in a semi-circle singing directly at an audience of two people. I’m not gonna lie, we sounded good. As we left, the talent agency said they would be in touch.
A few days later, after having driven The Dart back to UMass, I got a call from BOB!. “We got the job!” he said. And all of a sudden I realized I was in a complex emotional position. I was excited for BOB! and the guys, but jealous at the same time. After all, Pattie Cake would now be cashing in on all my talent and labor. It was a hard pill to swallow, I mean, he was a Yankees fan now. But it was only fair. That was the original agreement. And I am a man of my word.
“Hey, that’s great,” I said, perhaps a little too flatly.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing,” continued BOB!, “we talked about it, and we want you to sing bass permanently. I’ll permanently take over Matt’s baritone part. The quartet sounds better that way.” This both surprised and flattered me. But it also left me with an obvious moral dilemma.
“I’m in!” I said instantly.
Barbershop is a cutthroat world.
That spring I spent a lot of time in The Dart traveling from UMass back to Boston. We learned and rehearsed a bunch of tunes as we got ready for the summer gig. BOB!, the clear musical genius behind the group, figured we needed some experience performing together. So, we worked out a system. I’d come out for a weekend, we’d rehearse most of the day on Saturday. Then on Saturday night we’d pile into The Dart and head to Harvard Square. I’d find some cheap parking, and then we’d set up shop in front of the Harvard Coop. The Coop, by day, was the famous student bookstore for venerated Harvard university. But by night, The Coop became a coveted busking venue. There we’d put out a hat, blow a pitchpipe, and sing for the passersby in the acoustically friendly storefront alcove.
Busking was not only fun, and it was not only great practice for our summer gig, it could be downright lucrative. On a good night large crowds would gather to listen to the spectacle of four young men singing old-timey acapella songs. (You are forgiven if all along you’ve been thinking that Barbershop is more of an old-man’s game. You’re right.) At the end of the night sometimes we’d have over $100 to divide among us. A windfall like that can make a man start thinking about taking the Mass Pike on occasion.
These nights would usually end at a place we affectionately called “The Slice.” This was a Pizza place on Boylston Street a couple hundred yards from Berklee. We’d share out the earnings, eat pizza and revel in the stories of our busking prowess. Though we always ended late, I always drove the two hours back to UMass after these busking sessions. I was fueled by inexhaustible youthful energy in those days.
And finally, back to The Dart
It was during this period that The Dart began to reveal more of its foibles. I’ve already mentioned the starting problem. Sometimes the car would just crank and crank—forever. You’d have to sit and wait. Pump the gas. Crank it some more. Sometimes you would pump the gas too much and flood the engine. Sometimes it would start. The Dart was coy that way.
Beyond this charming little quirk, sometimes the right rear wheel would decide to lock up for no reason. Fortunately, this only seemed to happen when The Dart was parked. The first time we noticed this little oddity was outside The Slice. Finally ready to leave in the wee hours of the morning, I got in The Dart, cranked it over and put it in gear to drive away. No go. I gave it a little more gas but it was clear that something was wrong. I gave it more gas, and finally it started to move. But BOB!, who was standing on the sidewalk outside The Slice, noticed that the car was dragging the right rear tire—which wasn’t rotating at all. Clearly this was a problem.
Needing to jack the car up, we rooted around in the enormous trunk for the necessary equipment. To our shock and dismay, the trunk yielded a tire iron and a bald spare tire, but no jack. How could we have never noticed the trunk didn’t have a jack in it? What were we, a couple of amateurs?
Undaunted, I stepped back into the slice and grabbed a chair—one of those sturdy, industrial strength metal-and-plastic restaurant chairs—and brought it outside. BOB!, Tommy, Squimbo Pie, and I all stood around the right rear end of the car. I counted to three and we lifted in unison. We were also good at unison. As the back of the car rose gently off the pavement, I slipped chair under the right rear and we eased it back down. I’d imagine a lot of different kinds of people have sat in those chairs at The Slice over the years—a wide variety of different butts. But I’m willing to bet this was the first time a Dodge Dart had put its rear end down on a chair at The Slice.
The chair took the load and remained solid as a rock. We went to work pulling the lugs off the rear tire. With the tire on the sidewalk we discovered that what could only be called the break “drum” underneath. This chunk of metal seemed to be fused in position. We tried to force the drum assembly to rotate forward, backward—nothing. The only direction we could get the drum to move was by wiggling it violently back and forth. Gradually this motion caused the drum to work its way incrementally off the axle itself. Having no idea whether this was a positive or negative development we, of course, continued. With the drum finally off and beside the tire on the sidewalk, it was easy to see that what could only be called the break “shoes” were the problem.
The shoes were fully extended and would not retract into the position they should be in when the break was “off” so to speak. By slowly working each shoe in and out we managed to get them to retract over time. And we rejoiced when, having put the break drum back over the assembly, it spun freely. We re-mounted the tire, surrounded the rear end and lifted to extract the chair. Wiping it off with a few spare napkins (for good measure), I returned it to The Slice where no one seemed to be batting an eye.
I jumped back in the driver’s seat, cranked up the engine, and pulled out of the parking space. I waved good-by to the quartet and The Slice and headed back to Amherst.
Next time: The Best Summer Job Ever!
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