the snow begins to fly.
Beneath the smoky roofs-
I watch the planes go by.
The children running home
beneath a twilight sky.
Oh for the fun of it,
When I was one of them.
And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see October go
I should be over it now I know
It doesn't matter much
How old I grow
I hate to see October go."
This lyric belongs to Johnny Mercer, who died before he could put it to song. His friend Barry Manilow put the lyrics to music and recorded it in 1984.
I was introduced to the song via a redubbed mixtape from the pen pal of a good friend at the time named Michelle. (What it didn't have was a label, so I didn't know the titles or artists of the songs. You couldn't just look things up back then. Some 25 years later, I heard a song on one of my Pandora stations and tried to place where I knew it? Turns it was Joan Armatrading singing "Love & Affection," and it was one of the songs on the mystery mixtape. And with that, by then in my forties, I discovered a new love, even though Joan had been around for decades.
Remember pen pals? Did you ever have one? I had one named Betsy from Cleveland Heights, which at the time I imagined must be even bigger than Cleveland, being all skyscrapers--"heights." Funny how the young mind is so literal. Michelle had something like 100 pen pals. She got mail every day. The envelopes were always elaborately hand-decorated, and the stationary was always covered in glitter, drawings, and calligraphy, and other types of "mixed media" that a budding artist/writer could find lying about the house.
Pen pal-ing was a fairly organized yet non-governed subculture with its own traditions and acronyms, mostly perpetuated by girls, who longed to learn and share and step outside their zip code. Life was a lot more insular back then. TV, with its generic omnipresent "California" backdrop (all filmed on sets and back-lots) offered few clues to those of us whose curiosity about our world needed to be filled on a personal basis.
A pen pal would share with you their culture, and yes, I do believe that cities had more distinct features and culture back then than they do now because we simply were not so easily exposed. I think social media has homogenized everything from fashion to slang. We also shared a lot of music! My little city had several radio stations, but they consisted of current/top 40, stoner rock--i.e. stoned guys playing entire albums by bands, such as Head East and Rush, country, 50s, talk radio, and generic stations that played random pop and rock--a precursor of those "Jack FM" stations that would play Lynard Skynard, Bee Gees, Madonna, John Fogerty Band--just random stuff.
Under Betsy's tutelage, I was way ahead of the curve in music tastes. She'd tell me all the latest bands, and I'd ask Michelle if any of her friends had sent her tapes, and we'd listen in her bedroom, while thumbing through her rock mags. The things my friends would rave about years later when they went to college....pishhhhh....I'd heard of that old stuff ages ago! I remember living in England in 1990, and Depeche Mode had just released their first "pop crossover" album Violator. I recall feeling a bit righteous and nervous about my small town back home hearing this band for the first time on Rock 107, and in my mind, ruining my edge! How dare the cool kids try to do something that I already liked! Hahaha!
Pen pal-ing created the first iteration of FB. It's true. We used to send FBs--Friendship Books to a pen pal. These were handmade little books, made with construction paper and staples and photos and drawings and lyrics and poems and a little bit about ourselves. We'd write our address on the last page. We'd send it to a pen pal, and she would fill out a page and her address and send it to a pen pal, and so on. Then maybe several months or a year later, you'd get your book back, full of all new pen pals. I loved seeing the creativity and thoughts of strangers. Sometimes they'd send you a special wish or just include a poem. ("Stay Gold" by Robert Frost was huge at the time due to the fact that most girls our age had read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.)
Here' a picture of a random FB I found on the internet. Trust me, ours were elaborate and so cool!
I wonder if young girls who are creative and curious about the world they will soon enter still have pen pals. Even when I was growing up, Michelle and I were the only people I knew who had pen pals. I don't have any of those letters or Friendship Books. I wish I'd kept just one. My guess is that Facebook has taken over FBs, and Twitter has overtaken actual letters. And maybe girls would get bored waiting weeks or months to get a letter back. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they would see that letter writing is not only an artform, but also a type of travel! You get to "travel" to another person's life--another person you would probably never meet in real life. You have a new and exciting friend! Michelle did get to visit one of her pen pals--in BOSTON--by TRAIN! I remember being regaled by her solo travel adventure across the country, and how much fun she had!
For fun, I'd like to imagine what my first pen pal letter might have looked like. For starters, I would have carefully chosen paper. I always liked lined paper. Second, I would write several drafts and work on my cursive writing and drawings before sending the final draft. Third, I would have to include song lyrics that spoke to me.
Hi Betsy!
I'm Amy, middle name Suzanne, from St. Joseph, Michigan. I'm thirteen years old, and I'm in 7th grade, and I go to Lakeshore Junior High.
I live on a farm. My dad is an engineer and my mom is a newspaper reporter. My dad always wanted a farm, so he bought this place when I was six. I have two older brothers and one older sister, and we all take care of the animals and the gardens. We have horses, cows, rabbits, geese, turkeys, chickens, a raccoon, sheep, and goats, but they are actually more like pets. We also have dogs and a cat. We have a big barn, and upstairs we have a hayloft and a basketball court and a stereo and punching bags. I had a party for my twelfth birthday up there, and it was fun. In the fall, we have bonfires, and my dad takes us on hayrides. We have forty acres and there is a forest behind us, and I walk there every day after school.
We live close to the beach on Lake Michigan. There are huge sand dunes, and we play hide and seek, an in the winter we go tobogganing down the steep dunes. Sometimes we ride our bikes there.
I play softball and run track. My best friends are Michelle, Caroline, Sheila, Janis, Janan, and Amy. We play volleyball (I am team manager), softball (I play third base), and run track and cross country. In the summer, I show animals in the fair.
We don't have a TV, but I love to buy records and listen in my room. I like Fleetwood Mac the most, plus the Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Olivia Newton-John, ELO, Pat Benatar, Commodores, Earth Wind & Fire, Journey, Styx, plus so many others!
Who is your favorite singer?
In school I like science, art, and anything with writing! I also play clarinet in the concert and marching band, but I wish I played the drums.
When I grow up, I want to be a psychiatrist or a cruise director or own a record store! I want to live on the Atlantic Ocean when I grow up. What do you want to be when you grow up?
We went to an amusement park called Marriott's Great America last week. It's near Chicago, which is just ninety miles from where we live. We went on a roller coaster called The Demon and all the water rides. We ate Belgian Waffles.
I like to go visit my aunt on the shore in Delaware. We play on the beach and hang out on the boardwalk. We play pinball and drink birch beer and eat grinders! We went to Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens and stayed in a motel with a pool!
Now, tell me about you! Do you like your school? I like mine. We are the Lakeshore Lancers. I like my friends. We are always getting in trouble for laughing. We are all in wood shop class together, and Mr. Husek does not like girls! I like drafting but not the saws.
Well gotta do homework!
AWB!!!!
(Always Write Back.)
But, I wonder what a first letter from me today would look like? How about I write that tomorrow?
Well, I started this blog thinking I'd simply recount what I've been up to in October, but instead i went down memory lane and visited an antiquated and charming past time.
Even back then I was taking a Journey in Place!
