(1A) CAUGHT ON TAPE

First of tapes circa 1973-1975                                                                           Spring, 1973

Jack and I  

J   It’s not recording?  How can you tell?  Do you know how to control the volume?  {whistles for mike)   What?  Start the story again?  Okay.  The other night Rosalie had her head on my shoulder.  She looked up at me and said, “I smell perfume from your sweater.”  I said, “No, you don’t.   She said, “Yes, I do.  She said it was “Fridgie” or something like that.That’s the name of it.  
B  What was the name?

J   It sounded like Fridgie.  So I said, “You don’t,” and she said, “Yes, I do, and it isn’t mine, I don’t wear it.”  I said,  “I can’t smell anything, and I’ve got a very sensitive smeller.”  You know what it was, Barb?  Deodorant!  [laughter]  Yeah.  I said, “Are you sure it isn’t deodorant?”  She lifted  my sweater and took a little sniff under there, and she said she was sorry.  She was very apologetic.  I said, “Well, from now on, whatever you say, be sure you’re right.”

 {I called my ex-husband’s wife to ask if she knew what perfume in the 70s could have sounded like “fridgie,”.  “Frescia,”Aliceann said promptly, giggling over Jack’s name for this exotic product.  bbm 3-9-02}

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J   It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’ve decided to record something on this . . . this thing.  I’m alone, as I wanted it to be. 

  {Much of what Jack says is so soft, it’s inaudible.  In notes I made in 1978, when my hearing was keener, I wrote that he spoke first of his kids, (Carol and Bobbie), his deceased wife (Marie) and then of me.  

      I know a lady.  I’ll never forget her.    

 {Fresh start, voice becomes clear, but with long, thoughtful pauses between sentences.}

      I find myself. . .  for the first time. . .  resenting your ex-husband.  It seems to me that I should be with you when you’re  . . when you’re not with me.  I don’t know if I should say that again and express it better.  The endless time spent without you. . . .  the swiftness of the time spent with you.  As the song goes, “If this isn’t love, it’ll have to do.” 

     I won’t call this recording something like your magazine article “Plane Deelightful.”  It’s plain truthful.  I’m not ashamed of the way I feel.  It’s difficult to be ashamed of anything when I associate me with you.  Whatever I do and think, it seems natural. . . . .  

     I don’t know what I’m going to do for the rest of the . . . well, from the time the sun is out until the time it isn’t. 

 {What Jack decides to do while I’m with Ed is to play his tape of sentimental songs.)

       “By the time I make Oklahoma, she’ll be sleeping.  She’ll turn softly and call my name out low.  She’ll cry just to think I could leave her, though time and time I’ve tried to tell her so.  She just didn’t know I would really go.”  (Ironic choice of music by Jack.  My husband used to make subtle references to this song before I understood why it was significant to him.  Two others that meant something in his double life:  “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “The Great Pretender.”  He didn’t say anything, but I sensed his inner reaction.

(more songs)   “. . . .And never said a word about tomorrow. . . But if I knew the magic it would take to love you good enough on the outside and make you feel it on the inside, maybe I could make you stay. . . “

 {The vocalist sounds overcome by emotion, and so am I, almost thirty years later.  Jack abruptly turns off tape.  bbm 3-6-02} 

4-11-73
Ed and I                                                                                                                   

B   Want to hear about my phone call today?

E   Go ahead, delighted to.  While I'm making my drink, I can do that at the same time, can't I? 

B   Sure.  Somebody called and gave his name and asked for Jean.  I was about to say he had the wrong number.  Then I remembered that was the name I had used when I called the Paul Benzaquin show the other day.

     So I said what Jean do you mean, and he said the one I've heard a couple of times on  Benzaquin's show.

E   How'd he get your phone number?

B   Because when I talked to Paul, he said How about leaving your phone number with one of our people, and we'll call you back and have you stay on the line so people can call in with questions and comments.

      So I gave somebody my number ‑‑ remember I told you I got kind of a halfway obscene call about five minutes after I was on the show, and I figured it must be somebody from WEEI having a little fun with me?  [Mmhm, yeah.]

     That's how they had my phone number.  But what this man had to say, I couldn't believe.  He said we're looking for someone to do a kind of talk‑show Saturdays and wondered if you'd be interested.  Somebody like you who's been trained to talk to people but not professional. . . .to discuss a variety of topics, politics or whatever, and play devil's advocate.

       I kept saying to him, you can't be for real.  I can't believe this.  He got to be more and more convincing, so finally I said, Well I really don't feel I'd be adequate for anything like that, but why don’t you ask Thayer Williams who runs Community Sex Information. Either she might be interested in trying it, or out of all our volunteer trainees, she might think of someone who would be.

       So then I got to thinking about it afterwards and thought it's easy enough to call and check to see if there is such a person.  Why turn down the chance to meet this person if he is for real and see the studio and sit and see what he has to propose.

       I called back and learned  the man was in conference, but then he called me back late this afternoon, and he was for real, and I'm supposed to go to the Prudential Building Friday at 2:00.  He said we'll sit and chat and see how you sound on tape and have you read some commercials and news announcements.

      And I said I thought for anything like this that there must be courses you have to take.  And he said well, that's not how we get our people.  We usually get them from small, out‑of‑town stations and they've been getting a pittance, and the only way you really learn how to do this, how to put things across with vibrancy in your voice is to keep doing it.

       But I still feel, I have this funny feeling that they just want to get a look at me, that they're interested in. . .[Is this a TV thing?]  No, it's radio, but Paul's pitch had been for anybody who had had a radically different change in their lifestyle to call, so I called and used the name Jean because I didn't want to advertise for my friends in Cohasset.  I thought they might recognize my voice, but I would just deny it.

       I was trying to get in a plug for Community Sex Information.  [Yeah, I know, this was your big thing].  So I told Paul my marriage had reached a low state and I was so miserable I could hardly even get out of bed in the morning, and finally I had asked for a trial separation, and since we had been separated I felt much more friendly and kindly toward my husband, to the point where we were seeing each other twice a week, and I enjoyed seeing him, and I also had another friend I was seeing. That's when Paul said, This is really, really interesting.  What do your friends have to say about this?  And that's when he asked me to stay on the line.

       Funny, I was thinking this morning about how the producer at Channel 5 had perked up her ears when I told her about Carol Gray and how she and her husband were thinking of getting His and Her apartments in the same building, and each taking a child. She had said, That's the kind of interview we like to do.

       I had this little fantasy about somebody wanting me to be on the program, too, and I thought it through and I thought Well, I wouldn't want to do that.  I wouldn't want to . . . .

[End of tape]  

[excerpt from tape of Paul Benzaquin radio show]                                                   4-23-72

Paul:  Had a call from a woman last week.  She’s about middle age.  She realized she had been walked on, she had been just the doormat there, and her husband didn’t have any particular interest in her, so she said, I’m not going to do this any more.  She asked for a trial separation and signed on as a volunteer with the Community Sex Information Center.

        She met a man, liked him very much.  Her husband all of a sudden showed great interest in her.  She sees him two, three times a week, she sees the other guy three times a week, and she does the sex information thing in between.  Now that’s a real revolution.  {Laughter from female authors on show who had been discussing women and middle-age with Paul}

 First guest:  I think she’s a very happy lady.

 Second guest:  For being middle-aged?

 First guest:  For being anything.

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 [Argument with Jack about the pending law allowing girls under 18 to get an abortion without telling their parents]

 B   What do you want me to say, Jack?  Whatever I say you’re gonna repeat in a sarcastic way.

 J    As long as they don’t get pregnant, as long as they’re able to keep from getting pregnant and keep having all the sex they want, that’s the important thing.  That’s what they should have.  It makes for a terrific life.

B    It’s a learning process.  [Oh yeah.]  I wish I had been able to have sex without getting pregnant at 18, being pushed into a marriage before I really knew anything about character or men.  I wish I’d had the experience with him and then dated other guys.  

J   You have no tolerance for the other side whatsoever.  You don’t.

B   You mean the way things were in the past?

J    Do you think kids have to sleep with guys?

B   I only know that they’re doing it, Jack.  THEY ARE DOING IT!

J   Do you know why they’re doing it?

B  Because I said they could?

J   Because it’s accepted, that’s why.

B   It’s because of the pill, that’s why.

J   Well, that’s part of the acceptance, yeah, the pill. 

B   It’s just as easy for a girl now to enjoy sex as it always was for men.

J   That’s not what we’re talking about.  Why should men have it so beautiful?  Women end up with the pregnancy, they end up with the abortion.

B  Yeah, they used to, but they don’t have to if they—

J   Oh, that makes you extremely right, I can see.  There’s a difference between men and women, but you don’t choose to believe it.

B   Of course there’s a difference.  Women have always paid the penalty, and the man didn’t have to, he got off scot-free.  Now neither one has to pay the penalty.

J   Scot-free?  Jeez, there’s more guys paying out dough for things you call scot-free—they never get off scot-free.

B  Well, then hopefully not so many of them will be paying for unwanted babies that they fathered.

J   Somebody has to pay for unwanted babies.

B  You mean like abortion?  [Yeah.]  Well that’s preferable to having a baby before you’re equipped to care for it.

J   So that makes the first part of it okay—as long as they can get rid of it.

B  What’s the first thing?  Is it the screwing that bothers you?  That’s your puritanical background.  Is that what sticks in your craw?  You just hate to think of those young people going to bed with each other, don’t you!  You think that’s terrible.  Well, then, it’s just one more thing we can’t agree on.  I don’t think it’s so terrible.

J  You think anyone who wants to go to bed, whether they’re 15, 14, or 13, anything goes.

B  No, I think that’s unfortunate.  I think parents should do all they can to explain to children that this is something they should—

J   And then forget it, forget it.

B  No, not forget it, just keep trying as long as they can, the way we all keep trying as parents.  We do the best we can, and no matter what happens about this law, you keep on doing the best you can.

J   Do you agree with this?  Do you think there should be a law that kids should be able to have an abortion without their parents knowing about it?

B  I do. I don’t think kids should have to  be trembling and worried sick, wondering, What am I going to do?  If I go to a doctor and say, Look, I’m pregnant, they’re gonna tell my parents and I know my parents are going to hit the ceiling, and it’s gonna be terrible.

 J  What would the parents—you say hit the ceiling, but what’s the outcome?  What do you think the parents would do?

B   Some mothers feel so strongly that they might force this child to have a baby she didn’t want.  And I don’t think anybody has a right to force something like that on a young girl.  I don’t think making love before marriage is such a terrible thing.  It’s a way of getting experience and getting to know the person that you may want—

J  They’re kids, Barbara, they think the guy is in love with them.

B   Jack, you try to keep them from smoking before a certain age, right?  [Oh shit, we’re not even talking about the same thing.]  You wish to God they wouldn’t smoke, you wish to God they wouldn’t get pregnant.  You do everything you can to influence them about things that—

J   Why do you talk about smoking?

B   Smoking?  Smoking could kill them.  Smoking could be a heck a lot worse for them than sex.  It could really do them in, in the end.

{long silence, then change of subject}

B   Listen to this, Jack.  I was looking through my old diaries and found this page dated July 1935.

      “He’s awfully tanned and he’s a little taller than I am.  Oh, I love him, I love him, I love him!”  That’s crossed out.  “I wish I knew whether he liked me or not. Mother probably wonders why I formed this sudden passion for golf, but I really do like the game a lot, although I like my caddy much, much much better.  I like him even better than Nelson Eddy.”

J   How old were you then?

B   A little under 14.  Then skipping ahead to August 11^th, “I scratched out what I wrote on July 27 because it was so silly and childish.  Now my Big Moment is John Rush.”

     Jack, I can tell you’re not listening.  I don’t think you’re as fascinated with my 14-year-old self as I am.

J    Of course I’m fascinated.  Are you going out with Paul Benzaquin?

B   I don’t know.

J   What do you mean, you don’t know.

B  When he called me a while ago, there was only one night either one of us had free for the next two weeks, and for all I know, the whole thing might fall through.

J   Oh, wouldn’t that be terrible.  Gee, my heart bleeds for your problems.  He doesn’t have time in the day?

B   Well, how much time do you have in the day?

J    You’re comparing me to him?

B   I’m comparing any working man.

J   Oh.  {Unclear sound}

B   (laughing) I never heard that kind of sound from you before.

(Back to abortion argument)

J   I think I should be the one my daughters would turn to, but you think somebody else should take care of it.  If they become pregnant, don’t tell the parents, let the doctors take care of it.  Give them an abortion.

B   No, but see, I really do think you thought her abortion was the result of one little random trip to bed.  She just got carried away one time, wasn’t that what you thought?

J   Well, don’t say it like that, dear.  That’s where you spoil yourself, you know?  You’re perfect up to a point [Nobody’s perfect.] but then you say, Do you really think that, as if you’re so on top of things in comparison to me.

B   I’m sorry.

J   You should be.  You assert yourself.  There’s no bounds to you sometimes.

B   I’m sorry, dear.  I did think that was what you thought at the time.  [No, it’s not what you think, it’s how you say it, Barbara.]  I thought you were naïve not to realize she has probably been having—

J   Oh, I know you think she probably was, and you’re more than likely right.

B   So I think when you find your daughter has had an abortion, you don’t assume it was just one little slip—

 J   You fluff it off, as if it were nothing. You fluff it off, like that’s life, Jack.

 B   I don’t fluff it off!  I would have a serious talk with her, and I’d say, Carol, if you are going to have an intimate relationship in the future with a boy, call Community Sex Information and find out how you can protect yourself from getting pregnant so that this will not happen again.

J   Oh, I’m sure she knows how.  Are you trying to get me down?

B   I’m sorry, Jack, but a lot of unfair things do happen in life.  [Are you really?]  Well, you keep —will you quit making me say I’m sorry every two minutes?  Honestly!

J    Oh no, you’re not sorry.

B   It can’t be me.  It’s you and all that liquor you’ve been drinking.

J   Are you going out with Paul?

B   He’s not taking me out to dinner or anything.  I figured he could come out here, and we’d have a drink and—

J    Is this where the date is -- here? 

B   I don’t know, we haven’t arranged it yet.  He’ll probably come out here and—don’t guys usually pick dates up at their houses?  Didn’t you used to?  When you went out with that model, did you pick her up at her house or did she meet you somewhere? What difference does it make where we meet?  I don’t know how you could possibly think there’s anything to worry about, Jack.

J   Why don’t you go out for lunch?  Why are you having him meet you here?

B   So I can waltz him into the bedroom.  [laugh]  Okay, I’m glad you realize that’s ridiculous.

J   Well, why are you?  Why does he have to be here?

B   BECAUSE HE’S PICKING ME UP AT MY HOUSE.  [He is?  Is that a fact?]  It isn’t, but it seems like a possibility.  Or maybe he’ll say, will you meet me at such and such a place.

J   Well, how did—what was said?

B   He just kept talking, and I said I can’t do it, no, I can’t do it then either, and—

J    Can’t do it?  What do you mean?

B   I said I can’t see you this date or that date.  This night I see my ex-husband, this night I go to a lecture, this night I’ll be seeing Jack.  He said, Your schedule sounds as busy as mine.  How are your Mondays?  I said Mondays are usually the most open.

J   What was the call for?  What was the reason for it?

B   It was just a call.  I told you exactly what he said.

J    No, you didn’t.  You never told me exactly—

B   Jack, you’ve forgotten.  He called and he said, “This is Paul Benzaquin.”  [Very interesting.]  And I had to believe it because his voice is so distinctive.  And he said, You shouldn’t have let me get a look at you the other day.

J    Like you could avoid him.

B   He said I shouldn’t have come in there to see this program man at the station.  He said, I’m very impressed, you strike me as a woman who really has her head on straight.  I’d like to talk to you and get to know you a little better.  When could we get together?

J   When could we get together, he said.

B   Something like that.  I don’t remember what he said or how he said it.

J    I’ll bet he’d like to get together.

B   Now you’re being paranoid.  Jack, I’ve never had much in my life except the routine of being a mother and bringing up children and doing the mending and the carpooling and—

J   This is a big thing.  This is a big thing for you because he’s Benzaquin, and he thinks like you.

B   No, not just Benzaquin, the whole everything.  Meeting all those people at the studio and —

J    I don’t know why I make a big deal of it.  The bigger deal I make out of this, the more you’ll be attracted to him.

B   No!  Not physically.  I’ve always been attracted to his way of thinking, and he really is funny.

J    I never thought he was funny.

B   You didn’t hear him telling about the Chihuahuas.

J    I don’t want to talk about it. . . .