I can’t help but wonder what life would have been like if social media was in full force back in the 1960s.

More specifically, if The Beatles could have used the internet as they released each new album. Just the thought gives me a bit of a shiver …

But that was then and this is now. And every time I hear or see the name of Taylor Swift’s new album: The Tortured Poets Department, I think about my poet mother. And I wonder if she would have ever considered herself among history’s “tortured poets.”

When I searched for the word “torture” among Mom’s writings, this prose popped up. It was published in her high-school newspaper in the spring of 1948.

Given the current state of the world, I think we’re all somewhat tortured at this point in time.

Here’s Mom’s story:

And The Wind Is Like A Rebel

There had never been a night to equal this one. A man was as safe in its obscurity as if he tread the earth alone. The streets were shrouded in black and darker alleys dared to tempt curiosity’s child. There was little illumination, a pale moon had long shrunk from sight to avoid intruding. I walked swiftly with short determined steps. I passed shops, dingy warehouses, staggering tenements. Once or twice I nearly stumbled over a prostrate inebriate, sobbing in his own inertia. On I pattered into the labyrinth, until a solitary light announced my destination. This was it.

I found him huddled in the doorway as they said I would. But they had not told me he would be like this – quivering and sputtering with the babble of a child. No, they had only informed me that he was a man of moods and pretentions, a bit eccentric, but then only a bit.

“He has endured much,” they warned …

” … and will no doubt be a little strange to you at first. You will become used to him however, and grow to appreciate his chatter for he has much to tell and you have much to learn.”

His piteous gaze stirred me only mildly. How right they were, I concluded, how right they were. How shall I approach him? Will he respond to an intelligent greeting or must I resort to infantile prattle? But he solved the problem for me himself.

“Ah! You did come. I wondered if you would. I have been waiting for you a long time and it is getting cold now. See, my hands are trembling with the chill. If I were young my cheeks would flame with ruddy health, but I am old and only shudder with the wind. Yes, I am very old …”

I was momentarily at a loss for words.

His bulging eyes searched my face in question and I faltered.

“Yes, I have come. It took me a little time, but then I am not familiar with these parts. If you are cold, perhaps we can go inside somewhere where there is heat -“

“No, I think not. You see, I have no home. I had one once but it is gone, and I want no other. It is better this way. Only bear with me.”

I felt uneasy now. What was I getting into? But I nodded assent and he began:

“How shall I start? An autobiography is not a simple thing to dictate. There are so many things you forget, so many things you want to remember. It is always the hard times that prevail, the anguish and trials that dominate your thoughts. You are not concerned with my youth, you have no right to be. It is only what happened to me when they came that affects you. I cannot blame you. People tend to believe only when they hear from the lips of those who have escaped. You are no different.

“They crept upon us on a lazy summer eve and we did not know they were there. We continued to laugh and scoff at the warnings; they alone instructed and we were fooled by their disguises. They praised and honored us and stirred us to rebellion. And when we realized our folly, it was too late! Then the choice was ours, life with “glorious” Communism, or death, polluted with Christian shame.

I chose the latter.

“I am not a brave man, I wish I were. But I wanted to die for the God Who created me. I would have but for an unexpected change of events. Oh, I had my share – the lashings, the salt in my wounds, the searing of my lacerated flesh, the imprints of spiked boots on my twisted back. But I lived to escape. Only God and I know how and we shall never tell. Perhaps a comrade should attempt similar means and I must never be guilty of this plight.

“And now you have your story. I beg you, tell your editors this is not the ramblings of a distorted mind. Yes, I know I was weeping and mumbling as you approached. If you had witnessed your family being tortured until your nerves were taut and your blood ran dry with their shrieks, you would not rest easy. They are still dying over there; the crude graves are choked with mounting bones. They have fear but they have God. And there is fear for the others, those who have succumbed to treacherous promises, those who have rallied with the satanic beasts of Communism. They strut on a puppets’ stage and their faces are gray with sudden age and with fright. I watched them shiver and they say the wind is like a rebel.”

I heard no more.

He turned from me and hobbled out into the night. My fist, stiff with tension and stiff with cold, dug deep into my pocket. The warm hearts of a dozen Hail Marys revived me. With a prayer on my lips I waved in tribute to the vanishing figure of the old man.

Yet the burning words stung in my throat – “And the wind is like a rebel.”

~ Joan Cassidy April/May 1948 edition of Orange Peal newspaper, Saint Mary’s Catholic High School, New Haven, Connecticut

I’m guessing this was a class assignment from Mom’s senior year in high school. I can’t imagine the fear she and other children experienced growing up during the 1940s as World War II raged. Then in 1952, she and Dad married while he was on leave from Army training, just months before he was shipped overseas.

Here’s one of the photos Mom sent to Dad while he served in Korea:

Apologies to any Swifties who wandered here looking for analysis and praise. It seems her tortured poets are very different from the tortured poets – like Mom – who wrote their way through the pain of war and its aftermath. May they all find peace, and may our world do the same.

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“And The Wind Is Like A Rebel” © 1948 Joan Cassidy. All rights reserved.

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