Phil Terrana Writes: Did you ever take a trip, baby, on the Mobile Line?

The Laconia--Lowell's Most Beautiful Bar

Scraaatch

Scraatch

Scratch

Whooowhoool

This was the sound of thimbles on the fingers sweeping across a washboard to create the noise of the train wheels gaining traction against the rails serving the Mobile line. It was also the call to put the books away and scrape up a few dollars for the nightly train to the Laconia, Lowell’s Most Beautiful Bar.

The Laconia probably was Lowell’s most beautiful bar at one time—back in the 40’s during the war. But in the 1960’s it was just one bar out of a couple dozen on Moody and Merrimac that made up what was then referred to as “The Acre,” possibly the sleaziest real estate on the east coast east of New York City’s East Side and north of Boston’s North End.

A few words about the Laconia:

I suggested in Hell on Earth, a love story that the train leaving most every night from the Phi Psi fraternity house was one of the reasons Hank had to enlist in the army right after graduation.
But not every train destined for the Laconia left on a weekday when the time would have been better spent studying. One of the big attractions of the Laconia was the Sunday dinner.

The earliest that the doors could open under the existing Blue Law statutes was noon and there were usually at least a half dozen of us waiting on the sidewalk to get in. Dinner cost 75¢ and consisted of a meat entrée, potatoes, vegetables, salad and rolls. And you could get seconds.

How could you get all that for less than a buck?

The rumor going around was that the cook worked at Fort Devens during the week and left on Friday with a lot of No. 10 cans, a sack of potatoes and about 20 pounds of whatever meat was going to be featured the week—or perhaps a better way of saying it, the Sunday dinner at the Laconia featured whatever meat he could get off base with.

A few beers while we waited for dinner to be served, a few more with the meal and by then the football game would be on and before we knew it, it was nighttime and there was no sense going back to the house, because, hell, that night’s train would be arriving any moment.

The nightly trains would get underway when a brother put Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band’s Unblushing Brassiness on the stereo, set the needle on the “Mobile Line,” track and turned the volume up as high as it could go. The song began with sharp sweeps across the washboard that created the slow chugging sound of the train building up steam and then picking up speed until finally the blaring train whistle would usher in the full band.

Did you ever take a trip, baby on the Mobile line?

Hey lordy mama mama, hey lordy papa papa hollerin’ ’bout the Mobile line

It’s the road to ride to ease your troubling mind

While the train in the song was picking up speed, the train to the Laconia was doing the same thing as brothers would be going from room to room to see who would be taking the ride that night. I was a regular passenger on that train.

By my senior year, my fifth year at Lowell Tech and my third year living in the frat house, I had moved up to the room where this nightly call emanated from and had assumed all the responsibilities that came with the territory. I now had my own copy of the album.

At the end of that year I did graduate, enlisted in the army, eventually was discharged, met Foo Ling and did all the other things I wrote about in the book including moving to Virginia Beach. I also put the album in the attic for a while.

And then Jessica and Danielle came along and sometimes you need some good jug band music when two naughty sweeties are giving you the blues. I’d pick them both up and twirl them around to “Washington at Valley Forge” and “Sweet Sue.”

Eventually they got too big or the songs suddenly got longer and I put the album away again. I held on to it even when I didn’t have a stereo to play it on. A few years ago I started buying the CDs of some of these old bands so I could listen to them again.

In 2010, Jessica’s daughter Gina arrived and it was time for a Jim Kweskin revival. I tried “Washington at Valley Forge” and a few of the others and they went over okay but to my surprise the one that really got her attention was “Mobile Line” and the good news was I didn’t have to carry and twirl her around. We could just turn the volume up and ride that train all through the house. Three generations—Gina, Jessica and me, and anyone else who wants to climb on, all listening to the scratching of the washboard, holding our hands to our ears in anticipation of the shrieking whistle signaling, all aboard.

Gina has a brother now, Roman, and while he isn’t exactly into the washboard sound he does like “Ukulele Lady” and naturally, if you like—well, let’s let the song say it—

If you like a ukulele lady, ukulele lady lika you

If you like to linger where it’s shady, ukulele lady linger too

If you kiss a ukulele lady and you promise always to be true and

she sees another ukulele lady foolin’ round with you

Maybe she’ll cry (an awful lot),

maybe she’ll sigh (or maybe not),

maybe she’ll find somebody else, by and by,

to sing to when it’s cool and shady,

when it’s really wicky, wacky woo.

If you like a ukulele lady, ukulele lady lika youulll.

Like Hank in my story and myself, Jim Kweskin and the other members of the Jug Band all went to school in and around the Boston area at around the same time. I’m glad we were all able to hook up with each other along the way and that it was jug band music that brought us together.

Way down south, Memphis, Tennessee,

jug band music sounds so sweet to me.

Cause it sounds so sweet, aaahh haa,

it’s hard to beat.

Jug band music certainly was a treat to me.