Joe McCarthy

i.
Preparing the brown bags
At the Manawaw Cashway
Smiling Irish to
The old Wisconsin ladies

Joe McCarthy in 1929
Put on his charm and fanfaronade
To wangle out of here
To college to get away

Forget that he had to do
High school at night –
well he was a dairy farmboy
pullin the tits – milkin’
This is after the hens
2000 of them
On the McCarthy farm
The hens that made him
A big egg man
Almost
The hens that would die
When he came down sick
ad the boys that he had hired
were Appleton slow to
grok the details

Sure and the ckens croaked
And that wasn’t the way out
Did he think once
Lord what’s the use

But Joe kept on
not beat yet
At the night school high school parsing
At the day job Cashway bagging
The scratch to get
To go to Marquette...

By Jack Vaughan, Oct 2009

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A fuller look at Joe would include: Circuit Judge Joe in between sessions playing cards at the Racine elks club – Drunk on the road with the list of communists – The jig is up: taken down by Boston lawyer Welch – last days of drinking, feeling small.