After school was out, it was time to get a haircut and start swimming in Kiwanis Lake. Dad would take us all to the barber shop in downtown Upton. There, we were given an option: Butch, Crew Cut, or Flat Top. The Butch was too boring, just an even short cut all around. The Flat Top was too much work, and I never understood how they were able to get it to stand so straight and so tall. I personally liked the crew cut because it left a little on top that you could play with — comb it up, to the side, or down to your forehead. It was a option that gave you a little control over your “look,” whatever that might be. Back in those days, Brylcreem and Vitalis hair product were quite the hip thing to use (Edd “Kookie” Byrnes and Elvis) and we always had an inventory of it in our house. Kent had the really curly hair, but Brad had straighter hair like me, so I looked to him for guidance. He parted it on the opposite side of me and usually did a little Vitalis curl in the front. I was never as adept as he was as making it stand right, but I did my best. The barber shop was the first time I ever went to a place that was strictly male-oriented. While we were waiting, they had periodicals we could peruse. For kids it was comics, but men had special magazines that we boys weren’t allowed to see. I know now it was probably Playboy, but at the time we figured it was a car magazine or business journal. It’s funny, but now that I think about waiting room magazines, I never saw a Highlights Magazine at the barber shop, nor did I ever see a comic book at the dentist office.
Expansive fresh-water Kiwanis Lake was where we all learned how to swim. We started with learning how to float. Once we mastered that, we moved on to the the doggy paddle. After that we tried the back stroke, breast stroke, and finally the Australian crawl. Since this sport did not require spacial ability, I did pretty good, at least I held my own. From that experience I have always felt at home in the water, relaxed, and, unlike other places in my life then, in control.

NEXT UP – Watermelon Felon

Raising a family in the 1950’s was not like what it is today. In the summer or the weekends we kids would all feed ourselves breakfast, go out in the morning, play, and be back by dark or dinner time, which ever came first. In almost all cases my parents had no idea where we were and what we were doing. They weren’t considered bad parents, it was just the way many adults parented in those days. Even after school, it was every man for himself until dinner. Regarding discipline, both parents practiced spanking as a last resort if yelling didn’t work. We used to act upset when Mom slapped our behinds, but when Dad was on spanking duty, we started screaming before he laid a hand on us. The ex-Marine did not hold back. Even our teachers were allowed to hit us if they saw a need. I recall several times seeing my classmates getting slapped hard on the arm by an angry teacher’s ruler. Mom was not a fussy, fastidious, or overly protective parent. I remember getting off the bus once with Johnny Page who had a great idea. He said, “let’s soil the knees of our pants so we don’t have to change. That way we can play right away.” So we ground our knees on some freshly cut grass, and he ran inside to his mother and told her he got dirty on the playground and she gave him permission to go out and play without changing or washing up. Jubilant now, he rushed back outside to tell me the plan worked perfectly and encouraged me to try it on my mother. I knew of course, Mom never asked me to change or wash up after school. In fact I didn’t know what “wash up” meant. But I didn’t want to rain on his parade because he looked so wildly excited by his devious brain child, so we went anyway. I ran inside, with him within earshot right outside the door, and said, “Hey Mom, I got dirty on the playground, I don’t need to change do I?” She looked at me like I was some sort of alien child and managed to say while shaking her head, “only if you want to.” I said, “great.” Johnny’s eyes popped with anticipation as he asked, “Did it work.” “You bet!” To Johnny it was a perfect crime, to me is was a way I could make Johnny feel good about himself. After all, what are friends for?
Because we lived in the country, there was no end to the possible ways we could’ve killed ourselves. There was a dump and a number of junk cars on our property, rattle snakes, mountain lions, granite quarries, ponds, tall trees, a major road, poison ivy, abandoned houses, wells, roaming dogs, and a any number of crazy in-bred neighbors and hobos. At the same time there was an abundance of nature that I really appreciated: blueberry bushes, apple, pear, and peach trees, wild roses, and lilacs. But the thing I remember most was the change of seasons. In New England it was a vivid and striking transformation. Snow was on the ground the entire winter season, followed by a rainy, relatively short spring, and a warm summer. The fall in New England was my favorite. The sharp lighting boosted the color saturation of the world, making the changing leaves more orange, the grass greener, the sky bluer. And when you add the smell of burning leaves, I am back there in Upton walking down Wood Street with Johnny Page, ready to play.

NEXT UP – Summer haircuts

I spent a lot of time trying to emulate my older brother Kent. He was a good artist and really encouraged my love of automobiles. He was quietly strong, stoic, and confident — characteristics I sorely lacked. Because he was three years older than me, I was able to watch him from afar, and see his successes and challenges. He led the way for all of us by being courageous enough to find the land mines before we could blow ourselves up. He had his own insecurities, I’m sure. He was taller than most, had good features, and had extremely curly hair. This would come in handy as a natural Afro in the late 60’s. He was athletic — a good runner, and was fearless. What ever he was interested in, whether it was a certain kind of music, an automobile model, or some sort of activity I could participate in, I was there, ready and willing to learn as much as I could. Kent taught me how to create a drum set with my hand, with my fingers being the snare, and the heel of my hand played the bass. It was my first introduction to creating a beat. Kent also was meticulous with drawing. I remember him being very exact with his work, and signing every copy. He was usually a good dresser and took great pains to make sure he looked good all the time. To me, he was like Beaver Cleaver’s big brother Wally. Super cool with a dorky little brother.

NEXT UP — Brother Brad

Despite the many personal obstacles and the fact that I was a very emotional child and would cry or get frustrated pretty easily, I found beauty in music, nature, and art. As an young child my early influences of the aesthetic nature were artists Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth, musicals like Damn Yankees and Peter Pan, and the comic strips. The Boston Globe, our regional Sunday newspaper had eight full pages of them. My early favorites were Peanuts, L’il Abner, Popeye, Pogo, Mark Trail, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, and Nancy. I also found great satisfaction in looking at photographs in magazines like National Geographic, Life, and photo collection books published by Time-Life on World War Two and nature topics. I used to listen to and watch symphonic music early in the morning on TV. My favorite was Peter and the Wolf, with each instrument representing a character in the story. The things I began to enjoy doing were drawing and making models, but I really found a special connection with music. I found that it was the one thing I could do well, and it was an activity that didn’t require me to stutter, or be coordinated, and I could do it by myself. And from a very selfish standpoint, I had a shot of doing something better than my brothers. I think my mother knew this about me, and she even thought that at six, I might even have perfect pitch. She encouraged me to sing in the children’s choir at church and arranged for me to get piano lessons. I was too bored with the lessons and wouldn’t practice, so I only made it to the 2nd grade level of John Thompson’s piano course. I found out later, the rote memory technique used to train pianists then was not the way I learned best. I’ll never forget the first time I sang a solo, Silent Night, with the men’s choir at age six at the Christmas Eve service at the Unitarian Church located in West Upton. I was so nervous that my armpit twitched, a phenomenon I had never felt before. The men and the choir director were so supportive and encouraged me to shake my nerves and do a good job. Unfortunately my family never saw the performance. They arrived too late to the church to see it. Upton was hit by an ice storm and they couldn’t get to the service on time. This was the first time I could’ve shown my family that I was more than that stuttering klutz they put up with everyday. I’d have to be patient and find that opportunity another day.

NEXT UP – Big Brother Kent

I remember running through the screen door glass several times, falling down the stairs often, and spilling my milk at the dinner table nearly every night. “Mom, Marc fell down the stairs again,” Brad would call out. At dinner Dad might say, “I can’t believe we got through an entire meal without Marc knocking over his milk.” Those events along with my frequent splitting headaches should have tipped off my parents that I was having some serious depth perception problems caused by esotropia, or inward turned crossed eyes. Just looking at photos at that time might have given them a clue. This is how I describe the condition: When both of my eyes are working I see two images that overlap. For something that is three feet away, they might be about three inches apart. I have the ability to turn off my right eye if I want, changing it to a single, but not 3D image. So, I couldn’t figure out Viewmasters or binoculars. I would just look at one of the sides because I found looking through both sides was confusing – I saw two images. I later found out my mother had a similar condition, she called it a lazy eye, which made it impossible for her to be good at sports. Here I was, an able bodied young boy who loved sports, but couldn’t play baseball, basketball, football, tennis, anything that involved determining the trajectory of a ball.
To make matters worse, I had another major issue with my stuttering. I couldn’t get through a sentence without a severe stammer. It was so frustrating to speak and equally frustrating to listen to, I’m sure. This is how I would describe stuttering: you have a word or phrase you want to say. It is in your head, but your mouth can’t say it because it’s clogged up. So like a high pressure fire hose, your mind pushes the phrase through anyway to clear the log jam. At first it just sputters and then finally it comes out. Scientists say it has to do with your mind working too fast for your mouth to catch up. One of my CEO’s later in life, Jack Welch at GE, stuttered as an adult. Growing up his mother claimed it was a side effect of being a genius, so he was actually proud of it. Well, I’m no genius, and I still have times when I catch myself stuttering.
My only solace was my blanket and my thumb – just like Linus from Peanuts. I must have been someone everyone wanted to be around — a stuttering, stumbling, impatient, thumb-sucking kid, who was an easy target for teasing, who really just deep down wanted to fit in and be normal. I was still trying to find my place in the world. I would ask myself, “Why can’t I play in Little League?” The fact that my brothers were good at sports made it all the more frustrating and no doubt affected my demeanor and self image. I did find escape in my imagination, our pets, and of course TV. But I was searching for something I could well. Something that would allow me for once to feel special.

UP NEXT – Singing Solo

Another traumatic event from Upton involving animals was when my mother euthanized some of our pets. We were getting ready to move to New Jersey and we found out one of the cats we took care of had kittens. Mom, who always wanted to make a lesson out of things, explained we can’t take care of the kittens, and as responsible pet owners, we had to put them all to sleep. So she got some shrimp and put it on the gound, got the mother to start to eat it, gathered the eight one-week-old kittens around her and put a cup of liquid (I’m not sure what it was) next to them, and placed a large galvanized tub upside down over them and pushed dirt around the edges to seal them in. After about 30 minutes we opened it up to see them all dead inside. Mom now says she really regretted doing it. I wonder why my parents didn’t try to just give them away, take them to a shelter, or just set them free. Unlike my parents back then, I’ve always made an effort to spay my pets first thing. The image of those little dead kittens around their mother still haunts me today.

NEXT UP – Personal Obstacles

One day Dad decided to go out and buy some sheep for our spread. He bought three, one for each kid. I think perhaps he thought they might mow the lawn for him and look good at our “farm.” One day the Johnsons came to visit and they had a nasty little dachshund who chewed one of the sheep’s legs. The leg got infected and it was decided that the sheep needed to be put down. Not owning a working gun, Dad decided to call police Chief Dan Bates to put him down. The officer put the sheep against the house and fired a shot that ricocheted off his skull and landed in the siding of the house right underneath where Brad and I were watching the situation unfold through a window. My father got really angry and told the officer to do it right. Finally he was able to kill the sheep. With Mom’s insistance, Dad gave the other two sheep away to a local farmer. After all, Mom was the one who ended up feeding them and caring for them. The next year Dad brought home thee ducks, Huey, Louis, and Dewey. They were not ideal pets. They would chase us and try to bite us. They ended up being given to a local farmer as well, who provided us with a cleaned and beheaded duck to eat as payment. I think it was Dewey. We didn’t eat well that night. But the dog sure did.

NEXT UP – Kitten Killer

When I was seven, we got this small collie-mix puppy and named him Kookie, after Edd Byrnes of the 77 Sunset Strip TV show. He and I were constant companions and I loved him so much. We had another dog later we called Gizmo, named after Professor Gizmo of Ruff and Ready cartoon fame, and several cats – I remember a tabby named Smokey, after the bear, and a gray and white cat I named Fliptop after the Marlboro cigarette box design that matched the markings on his face. My mother at the time was very involved in the Boy Scouts and as a den mother, was taking her troop, which included my two brothers on a hike into Gizmo Park. Kookie and I tagged along. Gizmo Park was a privately owned wooded property across from our house off of Route 140 that was built by a rural neighbor Axel Akerson. I recall there being a lot of wild flowers called Lady Slippers we were told were rare and couldn’t be picked. After the hike and approaching the busy road, Kookie started to chase the speeding cars – a bad habit he had. While I was watching, a car hit and ran over Kookie. The driver stopped and I started crying. Mom and the rest of troop quickly caught up to see the poor dog panting and lying down on the side of the road, blood coming out of his ears and mouth, taking his last breaths. It was terrifying to me and one of the saddest times of my life.

NEXT UP – Gentleman Farmer

Nearly every Thanksgiving we would drive to the town of East Dennis in Cape Cod. There we would visit Dad’s Aunt Murial McGuire, her husband Oswald McGuire, his cousin Priscilla McGuire, and his Aunt Hazel Butler. It was a two bedroom Cape Cod style home with weathered gray cedar shakes. We were bored to death there and mostly played in their back yard or went down the street to buy some rock candy. Even though it was only a three hour drive, it seemed like it took forever to get from Upton to the elbow of Cape Cod. Back then, we three boys and our dog Gizmo slept where ever we could. Entertainment for us was reading and rereading comics, looking out the window, playing the license plate game or I Spy, or teasing one another. There were no seat belts, and both parents lit one cigarette off the other while listening to Frank Sinatra or Perry Como on the crackly radio. There was no ventilation system in cars then, so the little vent window usually allowed some smoke to escape. But for the most part, the car was like being in a cloud. Back in those days, all cars only received the AM band. The speaker was mounted dead center on the top of the metal dash because stereo wasn’t available then. You basically had three choices of programming then, Sports, news, or music. The music options in the late 1950’s was swing (Make Believe Ballroom), classical, or popular music. Popular music at the time was Chubby Checker and Dion and the Belmonts. At Christmas the Grandparents would usually visit us from Kansas along with Uncle Dean. Dad always insisted we all get dressed up at these events. A jacket and tie with dress shoes were required. I suspect this came from his time in prep school where I’m sure he had to wear jackets and ties all the time.

NEXT UP – Kookie the dog