Reflections in a Boomer's Eye

Book excerpt: After a multi-faceted career, M.L. (Mike) VanBlaricum has turned his attention to writing poetry and musing on his life as a Baby Boomer. The author is a prototypical Boomer. He was born in 1950 and went off to college to study engineering in the explosive year of 1968. He grew up in small towns in Illinois where he developed a fascination with science, the trombone, nature, and girls. This collection of poems, essays, and musings includes memories and reflections of being a free-range child in the Fifties, a restrained teenager in the Sixties, a college student in the Seventies, and a rambunctious retiree in the Tens. VanBlaricum's accessible writings are laced with wry humor, musical references, and surprise endings. The subject matter ranges from lost loves, the importance of puppy love to the wonderment of real love, what it means to be a Baby Boomer, teenage angst, ruminations on kite-flying and teeter-totters, a fascination with clouds, toads, and moons, and observations and sideways ponderings on natural phenomena. The internal dialogue between engineer and poet bookends this collection.