Boomer Times

By Courtney Pierce

I can think of a hundred places in time that I'd want to pay a visit, but I generally stick with what I know. I'd go back to 1969, my favorite year when I lived in the small New England town of Cohasset, Massachusetts.That year signified a turning point, not just in my life, but in the lives of so many of my fellow baby boomers. With a tight grip on our 1950's innocence, we became enlightened by the extremes of violence and freedom, and also of radical music and social responsibility. Doris Day had been replaced by The Who smashing their guitars, and I’d go back there in a heartbeat. I was 10 years old and bursting with inspiration as I rode my bike. Like a sponge, my mind absorbed everything that happened around me—good and bad.

The end of the sixties was a time of discovery for me: first loves and crushes, physical changes, and "duh" questions of why the government did what it did. As it turned out, that government thing wasn't so straightforward. Amazing advances in technology aligned with my interests, such as portable record players, toys that moved in interesting ways, and little screen televisions that jumped out of big cabinets to sit on the kitchen counter. A roll of tin foil was indispensable for messing with the rabbit-ears antenna. Cartoons in prime time were a dream come true with my family’s first color set.

More than the cool electronics, though, the world presented itself to me in new ways. As I watched a man land on the moon for the first time, I believed that I could do anything, be anything, achieve anything. After all, I wanted to stay on earth, which seemed a whole lot easier than achieving stuff in space. Girls could have choices after doing the dishes and vacuuming. I yearned to spin on the ice like Peggy Fleming and flip on the balance beam like Cathy Rigby. 

The sounds of my piggy bank transformed from jingles to quiet paper money with my grasp of a work ethic. When I took the initiative to exceed expectations with my chores, I received an unexpected reward. If I saved, a whole new road of possibilities could be paved. Saving yielded non-cash rewards, too, the most valuable being self-respect and a sense of pride in my achievements. 

Herman's Hermits

The Herman's Hermits were the perfect companion on my journey. Indulgences were earned, not given, which made me appreciate them all the more. While my parents took care of the basics, I was expected to pay for my optional extras. And boy did I work hard for those, like the rabbit-fur purse I just had to have and the delicious lemony scent of Skinny Dip perfume. There was nothing like opening a new record album and playing it for the first time, the vinyl disc's surface free of scratches.

The summer months of 1969 were all too brief as I rafted, swam, and sung away my days at a girl’s camp in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. No televisions. No phones. The stars at night were flawless diamonds in the sky; the sounds in the woods let me know they were crowded with life. And life was perfect.

Photo: NPR

Then that window of my personal Camelot snapped shut when I came home to start fifth grade. My prime-time programs of The Flintstones, Bewitched, and Addams Family had been replaced with confusing gore: the Vietnam War, Robert Kennedy’s assassination, Stonewall riots, and the Manson murders.  Walter Cronkite had been like my grandfather when he'd relayed the day’s events in a way that I could understand. Now, he had a worried look on his face, and Huntley and Brinkley had lost their optimism too. I never thought about people in terms of race. Boys were boys and girls were girls. Who knew there was an in-between? My friends were just my friends, and I didn’t care if they looked different from me. What the heck was going on? For the first time, my parents wanted to watch the news during dinner. And the newscasters didn’t just report what was happening; they told me their opinion of it.

They say that history repeats itself, but I’m not so sure. Every year becomes more complicated, more disrespectful, and further polarizes us in our views. I think our leaders would see the world differently if they governed through the eyes of a ten-year-old child, a wondrous time when everyone is still created equal.

Come to think of it, maybe I should change my target time period. Next go round, I'd like to visit a day in 1787—September 17th—the day the U.S. Constitution was signed.

Photo: Micah Brooks

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her husband. stepdaughter, and their brainiac cat, Princeton. Courtney writes for the baby boomer audience. By day, she is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Audiobook now Available!

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and

windtreepress.com 

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Available Now!
Book 3 of the
Dushane Sisters
Trilogy

The Dushane Sisters Trilogy concludes with Indigo Legacy, available now. There's love in the air for Olivia and Woody, but will family intrigue get in the way? Ride along for the wild trip that starts in a New York auction house and peaks in a mansion on Boston's Beacon Hill. 

The Dushane sisters finally get to the truth about their mother.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Super Boomers

By Courtney Pierce

I create baby boomer characters who embrace their middle-ageness with gusto, of which I am one. We have superpowers―we’re invincible, embrace change, and are immortal―in our own minds. These qualities make for rich layers of emotion that reflect our polarized history of innocence and disillusionment. The conflict sits under the skin like embedded shrapnel. 

Growing up, I wrestled with foiled rabbit-ear antennae to pick up signals of a black-and-white, perfect world. Color bloomed in my imagination. Assassinations and racial violence were quickly turned off in favor of spinning vinyl that snapped, crackled, and popped.

Simplicity. It becomes a superpower in the digital age, a power riddled with the buckshot

of change that comes too fast. Sixty years of generational history shaped our baby boomer uniqueness: Civil Rights, space travel, dropping in and dropping out . . . and Bewitched. Anything was, and is, still possible with the twitch of the nose.

As I finish the final installment of my trilogy about the Dushane sisters, Indigo Legacy, a new tale is beginning to take shape. Future Past will be the story of a middle-age woman, whose gift of future sight is clouded by the past. When her visions turn from benign to dire, only reconciling her baggage will thwart the reality of her own impending death. A vision worthy of a good fight. Of course, this new book won’t be as dark as it sounds. A spunky Jack Russell terrier named Rudy serves as the lightning rod for supercharged predictions. This little hero’s insight surpasses that of humans. As is my style, the humor in the story carries a poignant message: “Make the most of every minute because none of us knows what will happen to change our lives in the future.” Could be good. Could be bad. And sometimes, a baton is grabbed with only trust and determination as a guide. Then we run as fast as we can.

It's an author's right to project fact into fiction. My books reflect layers of personal experience in real time. Characters get to discover a new beginning at the same time I do. At the ripe age of fifty-seven, I will marry a man who'll restart my life. And with the utterance of a vow in June, I’ll become a mother, for the first time, to an eleven-year-old stepdaughter and four grown stepchildren . . . with kids of their own. Me? A mother and a grandmother without paying all those dues? It’s as if I twitched my nose and the love of my new life appeared in front of me, complete with the richness of a family. How do I even begin to write on the page of what I'm experiencing inside? None of this was even a glimmer on the horizon just six months ago.

Even an attempt at capturing on the page makes me feel like a superhero. 

No matter what extraordinary gifts I give my characters, I believe the ability to risk everything to step into the unknown, purely on faith, is the true superpower that shines through the prose.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her bossy cat. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, She Writes, and Sisters in Crime. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

The Dushane Sisters are back in Indigo Lake. More laughs, more tears...and more trouble.

Protecting Mom's reputation might get the sisters killed―or give one of them the story she's been dying to live.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's trilogy about the Dushane sisters. Beginning with The Executrix, three middle-age sisters find a manuscript for a murder mystery in their mother's safe after her death. Mom’s book gives them a whole new view of their mother and their future. Is it fiction . . . or truth? 

Get out the popcorn as the Dushane Sisters Trilogy comes to a scrumptious conclusion with Indigo Legacy. Due out in 2017.