Customer Reviews

Pinhead: A Love Story

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Yes, PINHEAD is the third of Timithy Bazzett's memoirs, chronicling the period in his life at College and just prior to his marriage in 1967. As usual, the prose is familiar and even intimate. This writer presents himself easily; he has the gift of the gab. His story of the years from 1965 to 1967 is lucid and detailed. Noteworthy are the recurring references to popular music of the time, noteworthy partly for the absence of Bob Dylan. I think it may have been Dylan who remarked that anyone who remembers the 1960s wasn't there. Well, Timothy Bazzett certainly was there, as his account, generously sprinkled with photographs of family, friends, and documents indicates. The 1960s here are the 1960s of love, lust, and desire. The desire on record here is the desire for home and family. Not everyone at the time desired simply to get stoned. Bazzett's story is the story of hard work, dedication, frugality, and love. He writes of such things as purchasing his first brand new car, working odd hours to earn money just to get by, discovering the joys and anxieties of genuine love, locating his first apartment, exploring the world of young men seeking young women, and consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol. This book is honest, forthright, and compelling. It is a book not only about Timothy Bazzett, but also about the foibles and the heart of humanity.

Reed City Boy takes Tim Bazzett from his birth (and earlier) through high school; Soldier Boy describes his life in the Army Security Agency--basic training, advanced training, on assignment in Turkey and Germany. Pinhead continues the sequence. Bazzett got out of the Army in 1965 and shortly thereafter started in at Ferris State College, which was about 15 miles from Reed City, so he could commute from home. Reed City Boy was about youth, Soldier Boy about the transition into manhood, Pinhead is about college and love, and continues Bazzett's tale up to 1967.

These memoirs are a delight to read. Bazzett is articulate, writes well, and has a wonderful memory for details. As with the previous two books, this is also loaded with black-and-white photos. So here Bazzett recounts taking courses at Ferris, his part-time work as a janitor (and later, other kinds of work). He describes how many of his friends his own age were married (in 1965 Bazzett would have been 20 or 21, by my calculations)--things were different back then. Bazzett himself wanted to meet the right girl and settle down. He does, in the book, meet Terri, and describes how he was instantly smitten. Terri was a fellow Catholic, and also a student at Ferris. Bazzett is always forthright and frank about things--so it's fascinating to think that their kids have (I presume!) also read these passages.

You get a very enjoyable story of real affection, respect, and love here between two good people. Having the wealth of old photos is a great addition--there are dozens of photos of Terri, Terri and friends, Terri and Tim. There's a chapter on "Discovering Terri's Dark Secret"--Terri's real first name is Treva. I had been disconcerted a bit when I browsed ahead through the photos and saw "Tim and Treva", and I wondered whether Treva was a second wife and what had become of Terri. But obviously I need not have worried. There will, I hope, be further memoirs in the series--they have been a real pleasure to read!

PINHEAD is the third of three (so far) installments of Tim Bazzett's life story. Like the first two, this one was a book I could not put down. It is very well-written and it brought back memories of my life in the 1960s. He brings up things such as old TV shows, drive-in movies and just small town life in general when things were much more innocent than now. Also, Tim has a way of writing in which the reader feels that he is sitting in the same room telling a story. Hopefully, there will be a volume four coming out soon. I can't wait!

This is the third volume of the author's memoirs, and covers the period after he was discharged from the Army, the two years he spent at Ferris State, and his time at Central Michigan till he was married to the love of his life on Nov. 24, 1967. I found the book well written and fast-moving, and well-told. There are expletives undeleted, but in that regard it is still an improvement over the preceding volume (Soldier Boy)--reflecting a more vocabulary-improved life at college compared to Army life. The ending pages of this volume are especially poignant, and the book is so engaging that one looks forward to the account of the years after his marriage. The illustrations in the book enhance the story well.

Well, this book is just downright precious. Number three in an autobiographical trilogy, Pinhead is the tale of the lonely college boy, looking for love in eventually the one right place. Since I happen to have first hand knowledge of Mrs. Pinhead, I can tell you that everything he says about her in this book is absolutely true and that all the parts she made him leave out would have just helped to prove that he undoubtedly made the right choice. However, the real story isn't about the choice, but the quest and, as usual, Tim holds back nothing in relating all the aches and pains of a young college man who is looking, looking, looking. The descriptions of longings, shyness, dates and, ahem, urges are so vivid that the old humiliation and awkwardness of young adulthood all came rushing back at me in every page. Even once the two love birds finally fulfill destiny and find each other, their story of events tumbling over each other in a snowball fashion is one that will make many readers laugh and cringe with familiarity at the same time. As with all of Tim's books we are faced with how much society can change in a couple of generations, and yet, how much never changes.