BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE WEDNESDAY Sept. 28, 2022) — Today, THE PLANET presents three photographs.

Here’s the first. Photos two and three appear at and as the finis to this column

The translucent squares, somewhere on North Street, but where?

Let us begin with the reason for posting them.

What the cause here? Only THE PLANET can answer.

The cause is the past. Memory, that wistful region where experience has fossilized into bedrock upon which we build our personal lives.

Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote one of the most memorable endings in literature when he concluded The Great Gatsby thus:

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

We always live in the present moment, that entity that occupies the ungraspable “blip” between past and future. A photo pictures a once-was “now,” allowing a chance to reflect on it.

FIRST PHOTO

A slice of Pittsfield pavement that as a kid I traversed hundreds of times. But where? My instincts place it at the Pop Corner at the intersection of East and North streets, where my mom did the family’s banking and also where we would board the bus to take us home. She’d always let me pull the “stop” buzzer.

What was the function of such pavement? Why the windowed squares? Did they serve to admit light to the bank’s basement? Does anybody know?

These glass pavements were around in the 50s , early 60s and well before. I don’t recall the glass being that fractured, so my guess is that this picture was taken in the late 60s — 1967 in my mind, Summer of Peace and Love, a Red Sox championship, urban riots, and sophomore year at at PHS after 9th grade at St. Joe’s. K through 9 of Catholic education, the first eight at Mt. Carmel School on Fenn Street. Public school came as a shock.

SECOND PHOTO

Once upon a time, long ago in a distant universe, Pittsfield had a thriving drum-corps subculture. This LP album features a recording of a corps called The Monarchs. Other names THE PLANET remembers: The Cavaliers, The Imperials, The Kingsmen. Any others?

Drum corps wasn’t part of my past, although I used to enjoy being in the drill team at the CYC during winter. We remember a 1962 sleepover at buddy Mario Panetti’s house. In the early evening, he had rehearsal with the Cavaliers at the Boy’s Club. We can still get chills recalling the power of “Has Anybody Seen my Gal?” echoing in the gym.

A highlight of our family summer was the drum-corps competition at Wahconah Park. We would picnic at the park with my aunts, uncles, and cousins and make the day of it. One of the favorite black-and-whites in the family album is little Dan Valenti proudly marching with cousin David. We are marching to our own music. The day is sunny and warm, recollected decades later in the mind of a man who hasn’t forgotten what “4” feels like.

THIRD PHOTO

Fenway Park. Ted Williams in left in front of the Gray Monster, at the ready. Yes. The Monstah was once slate green-gray, shades darker than the battleships that won the war but lighter than charcoal prior to its future as spent ash.

The scoreboard tells the story of the game, Sox leading the A’s 4-3. 1954. With the information on the scoreboard, THE PLANET could determine not just the day this game was played but at what time the photo was taken.

Why bother, though? That specific “now” long since passed, merged into the ocean of timelessness, the “having once been and never to be again.”

Three-score and two years ago today, The Kid played his last game, hitting a home run in his final at bat.

Implausible.

———- ooo ———-

The boat moves backward against the current, but …

It’s not the past that matters but the fact that we’re in the vessel.

Currents change. We remain.

Here.

Now.

—————————————————————————————-

“Now that I think about it, why DID kamikaze pilots wear helmets?” — Hideki Hockaloogie.

A vinyl from a day in the life of the Monarchs.

It’s the top of the 6th, Philadelphia A’s v. Boston Red Sox. Ted Williams gets ready in left.