A Message From One Of The Last Baby Boomers

The latest issue of "Boomer" magazine revealed something to me that I'd not considered before: I'm not just a bookend to the baby-boomer generation, I'm at the tail end of the bookend.  There will be no baby-boomer under fifty once December 31st passes and the year 2015 rolls out.  My 50th birthday is November 1st.  I will join the ranks of the 50+ folks and, while simultaneously saying goodbye to my youth and embracing "Golden Girls" territory, I will take some small pleasure in being at the end of a trend.  It's kind of like being the baby in the family.  I know that experience well--being the youngest of five children.  It's still not an easy pill to swallow.

We of my generation have witnessed the upheavals wrought by the "elders" of the baby boomers.  We were pre-K when they were marching against the war in Vietnam and burning bras.  We were playing with toy guns while they were shooting real guns--some in Vietnam and some as National Guardsmen right here, shooting those who thought we shouldn't be soldiers.  We were riding bicycles with training wheels (without helmets) while Richard Nixon resigned in shame.  Yet all these events had indelible effects on our collective psyches.  We saw our "greatest generation" parents recoil in horror to the "loose morals" and open drug use displayed at Woodstock.  We watched our older brothers and sisters wishing they could be there.  We listened to the music of our older siblings and tried to grab the meanings of lyrics we were still unable to process.  But we liked it.  Most of it.  

I guess I was kind of cut from a different cloth.  I did indeed witness all of the above within the lenses of childhood glasses, real ones which were of the Coke bottle thickness variety and would forever alter my self-image.  From a very early age--to the best of my recollection--I wished that I'd been born into a different era.  I was drawn to the movies of the 1930s and 40s and would prefer to sit indoors on a beautiful Saturday to watch them instead of playing outside.  I loved the way people from the earlier era dressed.  I had a keen sense of style, or at least I thought I did.  I knew that the Brady Bunch fashions of the 70s were tacky and I thought that published materials such as books and magazines from an earlier time were much better.  I couldn't at the time say that the "better" was a certain polished advertisement or typeface...but I just knew it was better.  As I've come to understand the younger version of myself more than ever before, I'm glad I was "different." I've only recently come to view the fashions and styles of the 60s and 70s as a bit nostalgic.

When I look at the bigger picture, I think about the influence of the older baby-boomers on my life--as they were not just my siblings, but also older cousins.  I'm reminded that they've already crossed that bridge I'm about to cross.  I'm also comforted to see many of them having made peace with and embracing age.  I am doubly blessed as I have beat the odds to survive far past an expiration date that was given me by a doctor some twenty-one years ago.  I'm glad to be a baby-boomer.  I'm glad to be alive.  I'm glad to be crossing that bridge.

Me. Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania. 1966.

Thomas Boylan · Babyboomer.WAV

Mothers-In-Law, The Twilight Zone, And Memory...In Living Color

I arrived on November 1st, 1964.  It was a Sunday...9:32 AM.  The high temperature on that crisp autumn day was 65 degrees.  It was partly cloudy.  I don't remember any of that, of course.  It's true for most people--I guess--that we don't remember many things from the first few years of our lives.  I'm fortunate that I can remember short snippets of time from my 2nd, and even more from my 3rd years on this planet.  It's weird what our minds choose to remember, though.  I can recall being in a crib.  This is my earliest memory.  It's really just a flash in time.  What I remember is crying and standing in a wooden crib.  I was uncomfortable and was crying because I was hot. 

It's interesting that so many of my earliest memories revolve around television programs.  As a bookend to the Baby Boomer generation, children of my era became perhaps the first generation in which the television served not only as entertainment but also as babysitter.

With the recent advent of NETFLIX and HULU into my life, I've discovered a truly interesting phenomenon.  I've been able to revisit and review both popular programs and obscure shows that never really made it into heavy circulation or even syndication for that matter.  One of these shows was called "The Mothers-In-Law", which aired on the NBC television network from September, 1967 to April of 1969.  I don't think that this program was a favorite of my parents because I can only remember watching one episode.  I don't recall the details of the episode.  What I clearly recall is the title, the performers and the graphic colors.  I think we had only recently acquired a color television set and NBC was really exploiting this feature as more and more families obtained these color sets.  I distinctly remember the ads that were played before many of the programs.  It was just a seventeen second spot that showed a peacock logo erupting with all the colors of the rainbow while the announcer said, "The following is brought to you in living color on NBC."  What I remember distinctly are the exaggerated facial features of one of the key characters, played by Kaye Ballard, who portrayed one of the meddling mothers-in-law.  As an adult, my mind tries to connect to the memories surrounding this program as it aired in primetime. 

It's happened with other programs and episodes as well.  I can recall watching syndicated "Twilight Zone" re-runs, black and white--on that color set.  One particular episode that I recently re-watched on NETFLIX originally aired in April of 1964.  Since this was approximately seven months before I was born, and since that was in fact the last season that the series aired in primetime, I can guess that I was watching this episode in syndication sometime in the late 1960s.  The title of the episode was "Stopover in a Quiet Town" and it was about a married couple who wake in a strange town after a night of drinking only to find out that they are now the "pets" of a giant little girl from another planet.  As a small child I was wide-eyed and fascinated by this--so it stuck with me.  Seeing it on NETFLIX so many years later, I can see how time distorts memory, as many of the details my child mind remembered didn't correspond. But surprisingly, many of the details were intact. 

These "television moments" of my youth, of which there are many, serve me as I try to put the childhood memories to paper.  I am sure that, just as memories of the television shows I watched are slightly distorted, my memories of actual life events may be slightly distorted as well.  I think it's important to acknowledge that.  It's not going to stop me, however, from writing about my pre-journal keeping life.  Fact checking and photographs will help, and so will mom's recollections.  Everything will be true as I remember it.

Kaye Ballard (Scene from "Mothers-In-Law")

Opening title from the show "Mothers-In-Law"

The Twilight Zone

Scene from 1964 episode of "The Twilight Zone" --"Stopover in a Quiet Town"

The NBC color peacock

Me (center) in front of the TV. 1969.

You CAN Find It On A Map!

Looking at a map of the United States pre-Google Maps (you remember how they used to have maps...on paper?), a person wouldn't find the town of Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania.  The more detailed state maps and highway maps always listed it in very fine print.  Today, one can easily locate it on Google.  Go ahead.  I know you want to.  Just search "Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania" and you can zoom in as far as it will let you.  They even let you do street views now.  Just a few years ago, when Google Maps was still taking all the pictures, before they started blurring license plate numbers and peoples faces, you couldn't even zoom in on Johnsonburg.  But now you can.  And it's pretty amazing for me to examine it from above.  I can see myself as a kid, wandering the streets on foot or on my bicycle.  Not much has changed from a distant view.  When you zoom in closer however, you would see a very different town than the town where I spent my childhood and early youth. 

I guess one could say that Johnsonburg, like so many rural towns in the northeast and Midwest, is a town in decline.  But that's a generalization.  It doesn't sit well with me and I'm sure it wouldn't sit well with a number of people who still call it home.  But you'd be surprised--when speaking with folks one on one--how many people from this special place might pull you aside and let you know that they don't like what they see.

There are times when I breathe a silent prayer of thanks for being allowed to experience a childhood in this place in the 1970s.  In my mind I'm often transported back there...

I can see Market Street just as clearly as I saw it as a 3rd grader at Holy Rosary School.  I've often thought about how, as a child, I was filled with wonder about everything.  The buildings of my hometown's "downtown" really fascinated me!  At the time, the only bank in town was called Warren National Bank.  It was a solid stone structure built on a steep incline, directly below the imposing Romanesque Holy Rosary Church.  The stunning red brick of the church contrasted well with the large grey stones of the bank building.  Across the street from the bank stood the Johnsonburg Community Building.  My earliest recollections of this impressive structure were speech lessons given to me by a Mrs. Schreiber.  I could be wrong on that name but I'll fact check later.  I would walk from Holy Rosary Grade School to the second floor of this building and I think our meetings would last maybe an hour.  I was pronouncing my "s" sounds with a "th" sound.  I guess that would have been considered a lisp?  Anyway, it was corrected.  The lisp, that is.  My other earliest recollections were the countless hours I would spend on the second floor in what was the library.  There were three rooms: The grown-up library, the children's library and the study/reference room.  If I close my eyes, I can still see these rooms.  I memorized them.  In my pre-teen to earliest teen years, I would volunteer at this library as a page for the head librarian.  Her name was Wilburta Nelson.  I adored this mildly eccentric lady.  If there ever was a librarian stereotype, I guess you could say she fit it.  She always wore her hair pulled up in a bun.  At various times, this hair bun would serve as a pin cushion for several pencils.

Across from the bank--at the opposite corner from the Community Building, there was a long row of stores known as the "Brick Block" and the second floor of this large brick structure were apartments.  There was a newsstand, a hairdresser and several other small businesses.  Next to this was a five and dime store.  We used to call it "the five and ten" but it was officially G.C. Murphys.  It was always a treat to go into this place to buy candy.  On one occasion however, me and one of my fellow students (his name was Rich) decided that we would steal a candy bar.  We were promptly apprehended and our parents were called.  It was decided that a lecture and a lesson on the perils of theft (addressing morals and sin) would suffice.  And it did!  I never stole another thing until many years later.

Across from the Brick Block and Five and Ten was the Elks Club.  I spent many wonderful hours there as well.  These are especially cherished memories because my dad didn't spend a lot of time with me as a small child.  But, since he would always be attending to some business at the Elks, I would tag along.  He served in various capacities in the Elks hierarchy.  I suppose that, because his line of work as a railway clerk was a specific skill, they utilized those skills for some recordkeeping duties at the club.  I would sit and play with all of the office supplies--especially the rubber stamps--while he attended to paperwork.  Later, when he'd finish his work, he'd always stop in for a beer or two and chat with the bartender who was on duty.  I was free to explore all of the nooks and crannies of this old building.  There was a massive (or what seemed to me as a child to be massive) staircase that lead to a ballroom on the second floor.  I would play on that staircase or run around in the ballroom--also the scene of many memorable weddings from my youth.  Everything was accessible.  I can still smell the stale cigar smoke and beer.  I can still see the mysterious windows on the door to the office--scalloped and fuzzy so you couldn't see what was going on inside.

The backdrop to all of this was like a set from a movie.  The constantly billowing smokestacks and massive brick buildings of the Paper Mill loomed behind all and churned out not only paper, but the livelihood of so many of the people who patronized and inhabited these buildings.

This was the town of my youth.  It's still there.  It's in my mind...in my heart.  Through the eyes of a child, it wasn't such a bad place, but I knew I didn't want to be there for the rest of my life.  These memories are what I want to preserve, before I forget them.  They are largely inhabited by ghosts and even those players still living are not the same people they used to be.  One thing's for sure.  Words will never be sufficient to describe it.

The Brick Block (April, 2013)

The Bank Building. Has been home to many banks through the years, but was Warren National for most of my youth. (April, 2013)

The Johnsonburg Community Building (April, 2013)

All photographs copyrighted TAB Photography

Finding A Voice

There were times in my early youth when I truly felt as if I'd be better off dead.  Strange thoughts coming from a ten year-old.  The thing is, there wasn't any significant abuse I suffered (other than hurt feelings from time to time) nor was there any significant lack.  I mean, we were pretty standard middle-class.  I was never hungry.  I was always clothed.  I was always given medical care when necessary.  But something was missing.  It's taken years of therapy to even begin to understand what it was--is.

The little town I grew up in (and grew to hate, then love--for the first time) was for years my black beast.  I could comfortably ascribe blame to it whenever anything went wrong in my life--long after I escaped from it's belching smokestacks and putrid smells.  It was an easy out.  On the worst days of my adult life, I could loudly proclaim that being raised in a small town ruined me.  It deprived me.  It scarred me.

When, as a seventeen year-old, I first moved to Texas, I was to discover that an escape was impossible.  Of course, at that time I thought that what would change everything was a physical escape from the clutches of a place I could barely bring myself to talk about.  I didn't realize then that the place I needed to escape from resided in my own mind.  I conveniently lied to any new "friends" I made--telling them I was from Pittsburgh.  The small town of my youth faded and I rarely looked in the rearview mirror.  Self medication with drugs and alcohol took care of the rest. 

I'm coming to terms with this now as I approach the half century mark.  I need to write about this place, but what I'll actually be writing about is two places.  One is the geographical spot on a map, nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.  The other is a place in the confused head of a little boy.  I've been chatting quite a bit with him of late.  He has so much he wants to say.

Thomas Boylan · Findingavoice.WAV

The Hazards Of Journalkeeping

As many of my closer friends and family already know, I've been keeping journals for the past thirty-five years.  The journals have changed form over the years as I've learned what works and what doesn't in regards to portability, convenience and such minutiae as line width and paper quality.  My penmanship is actually pretty good (though it is getting less so as I age) so it's still pretty practical for me to do my most personal writing in this way.

One of the hazards of writing so much about my feelings is that I'm pretty protective of what I share and with whom I share it.  Also, because there are so many handwritten journals now, it's getting a little difficult to keep track of them all and it's finally become apparent to me that I will need some system of cataloguing as I move forward.  I'd long ago made a decision to not keep my writings under lock and key.  It would have been impossible and even if at times it had been possible, not practical.  I try to be discreet about where I place them...but there's always a chance that someone who's very curious can just pick one of them up and start reading.  That's what happened when I was fourteen with my first journal.

My mother was nosey.  There's really no nice way to put that.  Dad often accused her of it.  She was regularly opening his mail.  Dad made it into a big joke and would call her things like "Miss Nibby Nose" or just "The Nose."  This grated on mom's nerves as it struck at her in two ways.  First, it was true in the sense that she often looked at things that didn't belong to her and second, she had a prominent physical nose that he often cruelly joked about.  He would make snide comments when she would smell natural gas that he couldn't (often from a extinguished pilot light) smell.  But, by the summer of my fourteenth year, it would be her nosiness that would cause me enough anguish to destroy my first journal.

I had purchased the journal at the Bradford Mall.  There was a bookstore there called Paperback Bookland.  This journal had lined pages and was about the size of a thin hardcover.  The cover itself--I can still see it--was fabric and shades of deep red and maroon plaid.  I laboriously detailed my innermost thoughts on it's pages and was quite proud when I had almost filled it.  At that time, I discovered that mom had read portions of (if not all) of it.  I'm not exactly sure how that conversation went down but it did--and I was furious!  Mom and I weren't exactly on good terms at this point in my life and this certainly didn't make matters much better.  In fact, just a year later would be my failed runaway attempt (see my blog titled January 21, 1980) and my strained relationship with both of my parents would have me seeking confidence in other sources.  The way that I disposed of the journal was quite ritualistic.  I had decided that knowing that my mom had read my innermost thoughts could be erased by burning them.  We had a rusty old trash bin located in the farthest part of our backyard by the alley.  Dad would burn rubbish in it.  I took the journal and folded the two covers back to expose the pages and cover the spine.  I took a lit match to them and held it as long as I could until fire consumed most of the flowing pages.  I dropped the still burning book into the trash can and watched as the covers eventually burned as well.

When I was not quite yet sixteen, I began to keep another journal.  This time, I chose a big, multi-subject ruled paper notebook and I decided right then that if anyone were to ever read my private thoughts again, I would never destroy my writing.  I've kept that promise to myself over the years...and there have been plenty of people who've violated my privacy over the years as well.  I'm so glad that I didn't destroy anything else.  This doesn't mean that I don't cringe occasionally as I read words from a younger me that I no longer recognize.

I've been thinking about sharing some of these writings in this blog.

(An ad for Paperback Bookland, a place where I could spend hours as a kid)

(A photo of my current journal--not a good choice but it works for now)

Thomas Boylan · Thehazardsofjournalkeeping.WAV