Blasted Apes!!
"1912 West 7th Street"
by
Book Details
About the Book
Volumes, tons and tomes have been written on the
Great Depression; from “Studs Lonegan” by James Farrell to “Angela’s Ashes” by
Frank McCourt and “The Greatest Generation” by Tom Brokaw, all of which were
great books indeed, and necessary to the lore of the period; but perhaps not
sufficient. There is much more to be
told. Blasted Apes rambles
through the long years of the Depression, telling it like it was, as did Walt
Kelly tell the real truth in his “Pogo”.
Blasted Apes is an introspective, poignant rendition of the
Great Depression as seen, felt, tasted and smelled by two brother urchins and
their cohorts as they withstood, in oblivion and disdain, the odds and despair
of the times.
Blasted Apes treats in a local, typical neighborhood setting and
frame of reference, the boyhood responses, reactions, and solutions to the
destitution of the times, as did Frank McCourt in “Angela’s Ashes”. Blasted Apes, however is piquant
though poignant, and much more cheerful than moody, as it lives out the dour
days of “Depression”; and is far more comprehensive and substanital than
“Ashes”.
The “Greatest Generation”, which is the appellation
bestowed on the generation of the author of Blasted Apes, is perhaps a
proper Kudos, but the generation of adults who suffered WWI and the Great
Depression only to send their scions off to WW II, and pray for their return,
often in vain, must too, be told of.
Might they have been greater than “The Greatest”? After all, Joe Louis was really greater than
“The Greatest”!
My book; Blasted Apes (my brother and I)
rambles through the Depression from 1926 to 1942 and reports in clear, full
honesty and fidelity, the many anecdotes and cameos that marked the maturation
of the human elements comprising the cannon fodder of WW II. It shows and tells too, how that crucible,
The Depression, annealed the characteristics required to succeed in that
momentous deed. I remember well, The
Great Depression, I was there; did that.
I remember WW II – did that too; visiting such exotic places as Guam,
Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima--but that’s another story--
Above all, the book is fun, honest, accurate and
most edifying. The book is
autobiographical, but the author sees himself only as an honest reporter and a
representative, more so than as an “ego”.
About the Author
The author is a 78 year old man, who, after having
served four years in the Navy air branch in WW II went off to Washington and
Lee University, on a “football-baseball” scholarship and graduated (without
special honors, except for a .335 batting avg.) with a degree in Educational
Psychology and a “minor” in English Lit.
The author, Mr. John C. (Jake) Dillon, then played a season of
professional baseball, deep in the minor leagues, under the aegis of the
Philadelphia Athletics where, aside
from meeting Connie Mack, had nothing to brag about. The clock (or calendar) had run out. At the age of 28 he began a Teaching-Coaching career in the
public high schools in the North East, finishing with a ten year stint at the
Choate prep-school in Connecticut, where he taught mathematics, psychology and
philosophy. Specifically the Universal
Paradigm of Teilhard de Chardin.
After thirty eight years as a teacher of the full
spectrum of High School Math and Science, and an olio of social studies plus
coaching football, baseball and basketball, he retired at the age of 66 to the
New York “North Country” where he is a registered, “resident pest” (aiding, ad
hoc, in football and teaching hockey players how to box) at St. Lawrence
University (in Canton, NY). He ran the
educational gamut from “ghetto” and typical “suburbian” high schools to the
prestigious Choate School, where graduates are destined to become Doctors,
Lawyers, “Indian Chiefs”- and movie “stars”! (Meg Ryan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul
Giamati, et al.) and would be about as useful as all the public school kids,
despite the privilege. In retirement he
has become an award winning poet and now, hopefully, a published writer of
works significant, edifying and pleasing to society. He hopes that people will see his Father’s generation as “The
Best”--A notch or two better than “The Greatest”.