Category Archives: youth

THE UMPTEENTH COMING by Peter Nolan Smith

January 31, 2022 – 9:03 am

“This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius” Those words were sung by the cast of HAIR in 1969 and millions of hippies dropped acid to touch the Aquarian sky. Nirvana was attainable via LSD and on the Fourth of July 1970 my friends John Gilmour, Tommy Jordan, Mark McLaughlin and I scored a […]

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Damn Les Habitants

January 29, 2022 – 11:38 am

My introduction to French was via the heavy accent of a cartoon skunk, who appeared on TV every Saturday morning during the 1950s. Pepe Le Pew never got the girl. Skunks smelled bad and supposedly the French also never bathed with soap. I knew little else of France. That country lay across the Atlantic Ocean, […]

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STUTTERING SIAM by Peter Nolan Smith

December 20, 2021 – 10:24 am

In the 1950s stuttering was considered a possible sign of mental retardation. At age 2 I spoke like a stuck record. My parents thought this disability would pass and I fooled them by mot speaking other than in single syllables. My family became accustomed to my aberrant speech habits, however upon entering Underwood Primary School […]

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1 + 1 = 2 Circa 1972

December 18, 2021 – 10:47 am

The simple addition of 1 + 1 is the first math learned by children. Addition is followed by subtraction, division, and multiplication. The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills believed in the power of rote education and each student was expected to memorize the math tables from 1 to 12. Fingers and toes aided […]

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Bah Fucking Scumbug

December 16, 2021 – 3:14 pm

I remain true to the old school despite my non-believer status. Today we were hanging ornaments on the tree at the residence in Luxembourg. I came down in a Scrooge-like night garment. The young people regarded me strange and I explained that I was Scrooge. They had no idea what I was talking about. “Don’t […]

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