I GREW UP during the 1950's in a suburb of Chicago - Des Plaines. Maybe it's just that the rest of my life has been dull, but those few years in junior high and high school seem to pre-occupy my thoughts in writing. Considering the popularity of coming-of age-fiction, I guess I'm not alone in dwelling in the distant past. As my thoughts have slogged along, stuck in those innocently exciting days, I have come to realize not much ever really happened. In fact, most of those days went by slowly, almost painfully. I remember my high school teachers telling us how we'd better really enjoy these carefree days, that they'd be the best of our lives, without worries or responsibilities. I recall sitting in class. I didn't have a girl friend. I did have a car in the parking lot with four bald tires and an empty gas tank. These were gonna be the best days of my life? I don't think so!
Fortunately all those teachers were wrong - they weren't the best days of my life. But those days did etch their way into my ambitions, my ethical balance, my attitude toward achievement, the future. I've gathered speed successively since those days and still feel-despite the cliché - that the best is yet to come.
I earned a pretty good living writing and producing magazines in the business world. When I started back in 1963, it was a field called industrial journalism. Over the period of 30 years, it developed into corporate communications and public relations. Back then we occupied a little office across from the janitor's closet; today some would say public relations drives the performance of major global entities. A huge change.
Perhaps it's change that makes me yearn for the uncomplicated days when you could see the wheels on the big, smoke-belching locomotives that pulled into the Des Plaines train depot several times every day. They chugged off to mysterious places that I knew I'd one day see. What I didn't know was how nearly impossible it would be to forget growing up in Des Plaines.
If my writing helps any of my contemporaries recall their experiences growing up in those days full of sweet promise, I'll feel I've done my job.
Check out my website featuring info on "The Tunnel of Death": and one for Grannies' Deadly Reunion
Well, it's time to write,
Take care and read my books!
Cliff McGoon
