On the other side of his duplex lived his maternal grandparents, in an extended family arrangement that is becoming increasingly rare or nonexistent. Bierck was obviously concerned that his daughter would be inheriting a world in which his values were fast disappearing, values such as self reliance, jack-of-all-tradesmanship, and the belief that families should engage in family activity. The book paints a memorable portrait of an era when kids played outside, the best shopping district was downtown, and men tinkered in their garage.

Bierck dabbled at many roles during his lifetime, including competitive swimmer, disk jockey, race driver, TV commercial actor, salesman, mechanical tinkerer, craftsman, and author. He did not make a B-line to a single career path but rather, took many side roads along the journey, still maintaining a continuity. For example, he began playing with toy airplanes to amuse himself while his parents bowled at the Pritchard, Hunt, and O’Grady bowling alley (now covered over by I-465 on E. Washington), which translated into his becoming a small aircraft owner and pilot. Bierck’s world is one of rich possibilities and one can’t help whether today’s world offers a good deal less freedom to dabble at careers and serious hobbies.

Bierck and his family were members of the shrinking American middle class. Money was tight growing up but he managed to find work at cutting lawns, then later as a lifeguard and disc jockey while attending high school. After starting out at Brebeuf high school, the Jesuit school for boys on the opposite side of town, which amounted to 12-hour school days for him, he switched to Scecina, the Catholic high school not far from his home, which was more to his liking. He entered Ball State University without a clear direction. He kept aloof from the dorm room drinking sprees and other mischief such as the phenomenon known as “streaking,” in which students stripped to their birthday suits and ran from one place to another. That spectacle lasted about two weeks on the Ball State campus, according to Bierck, but not before it peaked with a 3-hour episode involving more than 1,000 students, so many that police could do nothing more than watch (gawk?). He graduated with a degree in industrial technology but soon ended up in industrial sales. Characteristic of most Indy east siders, he did not amass great fame or fortune over his career, but the fact that he was able to dabble at so many job functions and endeavors is testimony to the nurturing soil of that time and place. In big cities such as New York or LA, it’s hard to imagine him working as a radio DJ at age 15 or acting in a TV commercial without experience, or jumping into automobile racing. This touches on one of the primary features of Indianapolis in general, that at least during the 60s and 70s it was undergoing something called the “Great Compression,” in which income levels were squeezed relatively close together and wealth was shared more equitably. Economists view this as somewhat of a golden period of American history, a one-time phenomenon. Bierck’s book is a wonderful illustration of how this trend played out at the family level. One could argue that Indianapolis got a double dose of the Great Compression, with its historically low property values compared with other regions. The Jennifer Letters seems to illustrate some of the added value that come with affordable property, without which Bierck could not have managed hobbies such as his Lotus 51A Formula Ford, his 2-seater aircraft, or his antique steam-powered boat, to name just a few.

Readers will notice some unusual features in the book’s writing style, which has no paragraphs. It’s spoken straight from the heart of a father to his only child. Each letter closes with a term of endearment and there are very few specific street names and no addresses given. Most people’s names have been changed, so that his grade school basketball coach (Terry Rodgers - I know because I was on the team) is changed to Keith, for example. Some readers would prefer more historic accuracy but this narrative device helps take us back into the child’s frame of mind, something many writers would grapple with. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Wonder Years TV show, with its vignettes of coming of age. Along the way, Bierck finds the time to refer to many practices that have completely gone out of fashion, such as milk trucks, hula hoops, manual cameras, walking to kindergarten alone, and corporal punishment (otherwise known as paddling). Bierck recalls the paddling continuing even into high school. In his freshman year at Brebeuf, for example, a history teacher of his gave the entire class three whacks for flunking a pop quiz. This is just one of the troubling school incidents that Bierck relates. To his credit, he avoids trying to make sense of them. Since he’s speaking to a 12-yr old, he can omit the kind of analysis that adults are prone to get lost in and which children inevitably tune out.

Bierck delicately treats subject of redlining and racism, which was prevalent up until the early 60s and beyond but seldom discussed even today. He had no problem accepting his black roommate at Ball State, whose afro required such care and attention that the dorm room on occasion became something of a “beauty shop … for afro maintenance.” At that time, race riots weren’t far removed, having occurred just five years or so earlier in most major cities. Indianapolis did not experience them but Bierck relates a time around 1967 when his swim team was attending a meet in Evansville. Killings had recently taken place and it was feared full-fledged race riots could break out at any time. The city declared Marshal Law and a strict curfew. During that tense time, Bierck’s swim meet was cancelled in progress, forcing a mass exodus of the teams, many of whom were staying at hotels in the dangerous downtown district. As they left the meet, the car in which Bierck was riding, the last in the caravan, suddenly broke down, losing its gas tank while crossing a railroad track. Bierck tells how he and the other kids were wearing nothing but swimsuits, it was after curfew, the repair shops were closed, and no one in the caravan had noticed they had broken down. At last the police found them, escorted them to safety and repaired the vehicle at the police garage. This is just one of several tight spots that Bierck finds himself in throughout the book, adding color to the narrative.

Bierck’s love of swimming figures prominently. He spent much of his early years at the now-closed but legendary Miramar swim club, possibly the city’s largest at the time. Other topics include family pets, vacations to Florida, the Catholic church, and the loss of loved ones. Bierck’s grandfather, a retired machinist for the Pennsylvania Railroad, is a major figure in the book. The grandfather doted on his grandson, making him toys and teaching him shop craft and the like. When president Kennedy was killed in 1963, he asked the 11-year-old Bierck to accompany him by train to Washington, DC, to attend the funeral. Bierck provides a fine recollection of that trip, from his mother giving him her best 35 mm camera to take along, along with a quick lesson in how to operate it (it was manual not automatic), to the cold and crowded train ride, which for a urinal had nothing but a hole in the floor (the Pennsylvania RR had put some older cars back in service for excursion trips to JFK’s funeral). The hours of standing in the cold waiting for the procession to pass was quite a challenge for the 11-year old Bierck, who nonetheless managed to snap some pictures of the casket passing by and people gawking from every vantage point including the trees on that cold, historic day in November. After a stint in Chicago, where Bierck got a job after college, he returned to his old Irvington neighborhood to raise his family. He was still there when he wrote the book in 1996-97, but what a world of difference. Many of the commercial buildings in Irvington were relatively unchanged, but virtually all of them had gone through several turnovers. The book reminds us of how little architecture changes over a lifetime compared to the deep changes that occur in society. The epilogue is a final letter to Jenny 10 years after the initial writing, in which we learn Jenny attended Ball State University to become an English teacher. Unfortunately, there is no word from Jenny and how she received the book.

The book is available at Amazon.com and Infinity Publishing, but being a self-published work, has a few typos. Readers will nonetheless appreciate it for what it is: a rare chronicle of a time and place that few have stopped to record. It speaks to much more than the people who came of age in Irvington in the 1950s-1980s.