When I Was Young – A Memoir Memory
As a young man
I went to see
What lay beyond
Our one-horse town’s
City streets
And the outlying
North coast trees
Hitchhiked to the
Seaboard east
New York City
Where the
Monsters feast
And skyline
Gleams
Spent some time
In a ‘hippie commune’
Living off tips from busking
In Washington Square
And a biker bar
I took my nightly
Meal there
Decided the
Commune life wasn’t
For me
Little to no
Privacy
So, back to my old haunts
I eventually arrived
And settled in
Bide my time
In school and
Ford plant working
Wait for destiny
And opportunities
Flourish in my
‘Artsy fartsy’ career
What my dad
Called it
Think I was one
Of his biggest
Disappointments
–LE – 9/14/25
PS: This poem alludes to the late 1960s and the New York Commune chapter in my memoir…
CynOp 
3 responses to “When I Was Young – A Memoir Memory”
Well that’s just sad…to think you were a disappointment to your father.
The only time I recall feeling I disappointed either of my parents was when I told them—with my boyfriend and future husband at my side—that I was pregnant. At sixteen. It really hurt my mother, but my dad grinned great big, and said, “Looks like my baby is going to have a baby.” I had that baby two weeks after my seventeenth birthday, and since that time, he has been the light of my life. His dad, who died fairly young, and I were both always proud of him.
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Sad? Maybe, but I was equally disappointed in him, an authoritarian philanderer, who gleed in piting my brothers and I against each other… always telling us how useless we were… and very colorfully at that…
My oldest daughter married at 16, with her mother’s consent. I was not consulted, just informed that she’d married. She was pregnant the following year. All I could do was give my love and support to her and her new family… Her mother and I grew even farther apart over that one.
I’m pleased that your Dad supported your decision…; -)
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Liam, I know I have been so blessed in having two wonderful parents who did their best by their children. And loved each other, were married 65 years before Mama died. Daddy’s heart broke, and he followed her a little over a year later.
Not many people grew up with the love I did. And my siblings too.
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