Retired HFC professor publishes memoir about his childhood

Unlike his previous three books, which were not organized in a chronological pattern, retired HFC English professor Dr. Rick Bailey’s latest book, Tumbling Up: A Memoir – The Freeland Years, is much more linear and tightly organized.

“I wanted to capture early memories. It’s a book about my origins, the small town where I grew up, family dynamics, school and friends, adventures, and misadventures,” said Bailey, of Bloomfield Hills. “I reached a point in my life where I really wanted to write down what growing up was like. Compared to my wife’s life story – Italian immigrant coming to the United States at 8, who came from a family of great storytellers – my story has always seemed ordinary, unexceptional. Which I guess it really was. But for my kids and grandkids, I wanted to capture small-town life in the Midwest, the ‘Protestant work ethic,’ the looming presence of the natural world (farm, fields, woods, river, weather) and, of course, that crucible of youth: Parents, siblings, friends, challenges, temptations, errors, and corrections.”

“It was easy to get dizzy”

The youngest of two, Bailey grew up in Freeland, MI, which is located on the banks of the Tittabawassee River in Saginaw County.

“Even as kids, I think we had the perception that this small town was a special place. One stoplight. No one locked their doors. Everyone knew everyone. There was a lot of freedom. We spent summers down by the river, fishing, building forts, living an imaginative life. It was very Huck Finn. When my brother was through with it, I took on his newspaper route. I bought and played an electric guitar through high school. The music was amazing, as were the movies, the funky clothes and all the temptations, the war and peace movement, and budding environmental politics. In a decade we went from The Beverly Hillbillies to MASH, from (singing duo) Jan and Dean to Jimi Hendrix. It was easy to get dizzy.”

Bailey remembers where he was on April 22, 1970 – the first Earth Day – as well as how a 1971 car accident profoundly changed his life in ways he couldn’t anticipate. And no memoir occurring in the 1960s and 1970s would be complete without talking about the Vietnam War and politics.

“I write about reckoning with war politics in our family,” said Bailey. “My father was a World War II vet. My brother and I neared draft age in a culture in which guys burned their draft cards and chanted, ‘Hell no, we won’t go!’”

Desire to be a hippie

If Bailey couldn’t be a Beatle, he figured he could be a hippie. But that didn’t happen.

“I wanted the long hair and beads and the higher consciousness. A little free love would have been okay, too. But I was raised Methodist in a strict home,” he explained. “While other boys were wearing tight pants and growing their hair out in the 1960s, I was still going to Alex Strecker’s barbershop in town and getting a Princeton (haircut). By graduation, my Princeton was becoming shaggy, and I was starting to smoke grass. But dropping out (of school) was never in the cards.”

Bailey is an alumnus of Freeland High School. He has a bachelor's degree in English from Eastern Michigan University; a master’s degree in English from Duke University; a teaching certificate from the University of Michigan-Dearborn; and his PhD in English, language, and literature with a focus on teaching writing from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

For nearly 40 years, Bailey taught English at HFC, retiring in 2015. He’s written nine textbooks in addition to his four books of creative non-fiction. He has been married to Tiziana Canducci for 44 years. Together, they have two children and two grandchildren.

Written during COVID-19

Bailey wrote the majority of Tumbling Up in the fall of 2020 and the winter of 2021 – the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Those were the hard months of the pandemic,” he recalled. “My wife and I didn’t go anywhere. Except for daily walks, we were almost totally isolated. I woke up every day very early – around 4:00 a.m. – and wrote 2-3 hours, seven days a week. This work took place against a constant backdrop of uncertainty and dread. If it weren’t for the pandemic, I’m not sure I would have written this book.”

For Bailey, the best part of writing this book was the capturing the spirit of that era.

“Eating breakfast before school in ninth grade, I listened to AM radio – the Dixie Cups’ ‘Chapel of Love’ and Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve of Destruction,’” he said. “I make fun of myself in everything I write. In this book there was an element of truth-telling that wasn’t done in fun. I felt like I was coming clean.”