PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I have written of this in poetry, but, due to the significance of the day and date---the same now in 2021 as it was in 1976---I would like to acknowledge it again.

   On July 9th, 1976, BlueLevels and I acquired our Midland C.B., and it was installed for me by BlueLevels' brother-in-law that same evening.  I had defied my parents' restrictions by purchasing it; and I had threatened them that, were they to persist in forbidding me to own a c.b., I would deliberately shipwreck the three courses I was scheduled to take at college, when I matriculated in September, 1976.  In the negative excitement of this negotiation, and the positive excitement of the acquisition and installation, I had forgotten to even consider what my new handle should be.

    For the evening of July 9th, I was content simply to drive about on the rural roads that surrounded our small town, listening to BlueLevels---who gently insisted that, beginning on the tenth, I would be expected to talk on my own c.b.

    Just at dusk, on Saturday, the tenth, I was waiting for BlueLevels to walk to my home---no more than 1/20th or so of a mile---from which we would leave, in my car, to see some B-movie horror film, followed by pizza at an exclusive restaurant called The Pub, and then several hours of driving those rural roads.  Parting, at the end of any time we spent together that summer, was always difficult; our weekend evenings were always eagerly and delightedly prolonged until what the old persons around us called "the wee hours."

    While waiting for BlueLevels to arrive, I sat on the back bumper of my small car watching the very first stars of that evening as they began to appear in our eastern sky.  I found this process so fascinating that I was almost unaware of BlueLevels' arrival---with shoes in hand (midnight blue socks beneath the frayed cuffs of baggy bell-bottom jeans make no sound even on pavement).  BlueLevels asked me, in the most casual way, "Whatcha doin?"  I smiled---already bestirred by the prospect of our evening together---and said, "Oh, just starwatching?"  I think I even pronounced it like a clodhopper, "Starwatchin'."  The moment suddenly felt very "electric":  I looked at BlueLevels and said, "Starwatcher,  That's it, isn't it, that's my handle."  And BlueLevels, who knew channel 22 far better than I ever would said, "I don't know of anyone else using that."

     In the eighteen years, three weeks, and two days that I had been alive, my identity had always been defined by the mundane name I had been given after being adopted as an infant; by my parents' contemptuous pronunciation of that name when I did something forbidden, or of which they did not approve, or with which they did not agree; and used, almost as a curse, by bullies at school (from which I had, finally, just graduated).  But Starwatcher was apart from all that.  This was more liberating than anything I had yet experienced.

     Our Midland c.b. was factory defective in that the mechanical governor that prevented most radios from broadcasting more than five watts was not functional, allowing our radio to broadcast at ten watts.  Because this situation was not created by what was commonly called a "kicker," it was---although technically illegal---not prosecutable.  This kind of situation was described, by BlueLevels, as "running barefoot," a metaphor I found delightfully provocative.  The increased wattage also caused a certain distortion in my voice as heard on the air by others (I never, ever, heard my own voice on the c.b.).  I had spent most of my adolescence with a pipsqueak voice, and a stammer that expressed my inherent shyness:  I looked and behaved like a typical nerd/geek/dweeb.  Some of our peers---never BlueLevels!---called me "FairyJerry."  But all this vanished when I spoke, and was heard, as Starwatcher.  We would subsequently meet many people "in person":  not only those we already knew, on channel 22, but also new acquaintances during "walk arounds" at the drive-in prior to the presentation of the features.  Almost everyone who met me in person reacted, somewhat incredulously, with the question (almost always the same), "You're Starwatcher?"

     Decades later, the handle evolved into its present form, Starward.  And the Star of the first syllable, in both forms, represented, to me, the Star of Matthew 2:2 and Revelation 22:16.  I did not know in July that, on Saturday, Christmas Day, December 25th, 1976, our local newspaper would publish, as one of its few non-political editorial cartoons, a picture of the Magi, entering Bethlehem, beneath the light of the Christmas Star; and the caption, under the cartoon, would read, "The Starwatchers,"  I clipped that cartoon, pasted it in my small but expanding commonplace book, and took it with me when I returned back to college (reluctantly, of course, as that meant bidding a temporary farewell to BlueLevels for yet another eleven weeks).  Starting in September, 1976, each of my relocations to the college campus, followed by weeks of separation from my Beloved and the only home I had known, were made easier by that handle, which was mine, all mine, and was more than able to withstand any onslaught of parental disapproval or bullying mockery.

     Years before, on Easter Sunday of 1971. April 11th, the Pastor at the Lutheran church where I was enrolled for catechism classes, preached a message on John 20:16---emphasizing not the grandeur of the Resurrection, although that was definitely part of the experience (even some nineteen hundred and forty or so years later), but the personalization of the miracle by Christ's direct address to Mary Magdalene, using her first name.  That sermonr, I believe, had stirred up my discomfort with my own mundane name, and also held out the hope---to which I clung, sometimes desperately---that a solution would be forthcoming, in God's timing.  It came, five years and three months later, at dusk, standing on the pavement of my parents' driveway (summery warm beneath BlueLevels' dark socks; as the sight of those socks also warmed me interiorly), while the stars were emerging into the sky above and around us.  Starwatcher; which would evolve into its final form, Starward, decades later, became, and would continue to be, one of the mainstays, one of the chief comforts, and one of the most primary delights of my life.  I have had it embossed on the cover of my Bible; and my instructions to my daughter is that it will be inscribed on my tombstone. 

Starward