A Boy Called Tommy
Tom Brewer is technically what you call a “washashore,” having recently moving to Cape Cod. He doesn’t really feel like one, though, having traveled to the Cape many times before joining the Navy and then vacationing here annually until retirement was approaching. At that time, he and his wife traveled up and down the East Coast looking for a warmer climate but with the look and feel of Cape Cod. Be assured, there is no other place like the Cape.
Have you ever wanted to, or did you, grow up on a farm in a small country town in the 1950s and 60s? Well, Tom did exactly that. In his recent book, a memoir, “A Boy Called Tommy: Growing up in Sudbury,” he shares lots of things that they did in the freedom of those days. Like shooting an arrow straight up in the air and losing sight of it, or jumping back and forth between various outbuilding roofs, or crawling through stacked hay bales with a lit candle, or just walking down the tracks with a friend. It’s a wonder to think of what happened; other than some bumps and scratches, we all lived to tell about it.
It was a time when children could travel all around town and not worry about getting into any major trouble. In those days, we all looked after each other and were welcome to enter anyone’s house. The doors weren’t usually locked anyway. We rode our bikes without a care in the world, all over town and even down the railroad tracks.
Built into this story is the heartbreak of abandonment. You see, Tommy did not grow up with his biological family. He grew up in a sort of foster care situation, which came about for the convenience of his mother as she advanced her career, while there was no one in his natural family to care for him. She would often visit, but visiting and living with your mother are two very different things. Every time she left, he would cry his little heart out, needing her to stay or to take him with her. You might wonder where his father was in all this. So, to further Tommy’s issues, he grew up basically without a mother or a father figure.