Page 6 THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, July 30, 2021 Malden Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday – Preacher Jack’s Dream By Peter F. Levine “W hat you are about to read is a matter of human record. Explain it: we cannot. Disprove it: we cannot. We simply invite you to explore with us the amazing world of the Unknown ... to take that One Step ... Beyond.” The late John Lincoln Coughlin aka Preacher Jack appeared to me in a dream just last week. Or was it a nightmare? I kid. The dream was short, as most are, and had a surreal feel to it, as most do. Think Twilight Zone meets The Outer Limits. So, we’re sitting on a park bench somewhere, anywhere. In the dream Jack looks 25 at times and 125 other times. He’s got a faraway look in his eyes also. He’s smoking a cigarette as usual, but this one never ends, it just stays lit. And he is letting me know that in the great beyond he’s “finally found some happiness.” He is no longer hungry all the time he tells me. His feet no longer cause him unbearable pain. Settipane Insurance Services FREE Gift for New Clients! Of Boston |Since 1969 Lowest Rates Available! “Experience Makes the Difference” Auto • Homeowners Tenants • Commercial Se Habla Español * Free Parking 207A Squire Rd., Revere 781-284-1100 FREE Gift for New Clients! He no longer has a “condition.” And, hallelujah, life’s greatest question has been answered for him. But he says that the place he expected wasn’t exactly the place he landed in or as explained to him by the ministers at the Maplewood Baptist in Maplewood Square. He told me It was more like The Three Stooges episode “Heavenly Daze” with Moe in charge, everything looking and feeling like he dropped Woodstock era “brown acid.” For real! He was relieved that upon arrival the “Big Guy” greeted him with a smile and huge hug. He told him that he took a rather unorthodox route to get here, but he was proud of me for always keeping the faith. One of his only criticisms of me was when I would co-opt and (mis) interpret some of his teachings to conform to my musical “state of mind,” as He called it. Especially when I would deep dive into my own composition, “Celebration of the Spirit.” He reminded me of the gonzo version that night at Frank’s Steak House that both “amused and displeased” him. My note: “Celebration” was written for Jack’s mom sometime in the early 1980′s and Jack usually treated the song with reverence. Except for that time at Frank’s when he went off to the craziest most insane place on earth with the help of a few gizmos on his trusty Yamaha. That night he added violins; a string section, some reverb and took us all to a place from really deep inside his overactive (sometimes dark) imagination; the incandescent and omnipresent Sacred Starship, the Forestdale Cemetery on a cold intoxicated wintry evening 35 years earlier, and the foot of the cross 2,000 years ago. He used the extended intro and stretched out the middle section, mad preaching Everett Aluminum 10 Everett Ave., Everett 617-389-3839 Owned & operated by the Conti family since 1958 • 57 Years! “Same name, phone number & address for family since 1958 • 63 over half a century. We must be doing something right!” •Vinyl Siding •Free Estimates •Carpentry Work •Fully Licensed •Decks •Roofing • Fully Insured • Replacement Windows www.everettaluminum.com Now’s the time to schedule those home improvement projects you’ve been dreaming about all winter! Preacher Jack acting as the Messiah at Malden Center Place Apartments at 181 Pleasant St. in the mid-1970s (Courtesy Photo) a bawdy diatribe on life and love all the while ranting on about the most bizarre, the most insane version of faith that has ever popped into anybody’s mind. He told me it was both profane and blasphemous, but it was fabulous theater. Oh, he also told me he acquired one of my “Kiss A Belly Button for Jesus” T-shirts which he still wears proudly to this day. Jack’s mom, “Lady Esther,” won’t let up, he tells me. She continues to harangue him while his father sits by impassively, just as it played out when he was young. But this time he tells me he now just makes his mother disappear like the Twilight Zone episode, “It’s a Good Life,” where Billy Mumy aka Anthony makes people who displease him vanish into the cornfield. His biggest thrill so far was Day 1 when he visited “Hillbilly Heaven” and had his long-anticipated one-on-one with the Hillbilly Bard himself, “King Hiram Williams” aka Hank Williams Sr. Having elevated Hank to iconic stature at an early age (1957), Jack was pleasantly surprised to find out, after only a short chat, that Hank was down to earth and charming without a hint of ego or aggrandizement. Jack told me he prepared for this recitation his whole life. Jack talked. Jack prattled. Jack rambled on, starstruck – how Hank inspired him; how, through the years, Hank led Jack hand in hand from honky-tonk to honky-tonk, Hank on one side, the savior on the other. Hank politely interjected, looked Jack in his steely blues, took him by the hand and simply said, “one bourbon, one scotch, one beer,” name your pleasure, my friend, it’s on the house. Jack was overjoyed to find out that nobody has a drinking problem in Heaven, and you can drink till dawn and not make a fool of yourself all night. He says he spends a lot of time hanging around a roadside honky-tonk listening to Meade Lux Lewis, “Papa” Jimmy Yancy and Pete Johnson trade licks on a house piano – too self-conscious about his playing to join in. I told him, as I told him many times when he was alive, that he may not have been the best piano player that ever lived but he was certainly one of the best entertainers that ever walked planet earth. And he should never be ashamed that he stole every one of Jerry Lee’s moves! Flat out I told him, you could shred the piano better than anybody else in Boston (well, maybe not David Maxwell but he got the point). He always got a chuckle out of that, and still does. He told me that Clara Ward remembered him from that time in front of Boston Technical High School after a performance with the Ward Gospel Singers. She said, with a hearty laugh, “How could I not remember signing that program for the only 6' 4" 140-pound white boy in the audience.” Liberace chuckled when they first met. He told Jack how “delighted” he was that his mother MALDEN: TODAY| SEE PAGE 13 Summer is Here!
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