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Features

November 24, 2006

‘Abominable Firebug’ is a story of making in spite of obstacles

By Susan Woolsey

Are you really a firebug if the flames are the result of miscalculating the angle of a rocket’s descent?

And if that rocket lands on a barn and burns it to the ground, do you really deserve to go to reform school until you’re grown?

Richard Johnson was barely in high school when, after giving in to a fascination with rockets, he set off a homemade one and listened in horror as animals screamed and flames roared.

Because it wasn’t his first fire, Johnson was automatically, under Massachusettes law in the 1960s, labeled incorrigible and sent away from his family.

But actually, his family didn’t much care that he was gone. His mother, he writes, never allowed him in the living room except once a week to clean it, wouldn’t let him come in through the front door, and was always terrified he would do something to hurt his two sisters.

Even so, he said, he loved her dearly and often wished he could live at home. But at the same time, he was grateful that reform schools existed because otherwise, “Where would I have gone?”

Before he turned 18, Johnson had lived in two foster homes, a detention center, and a reform school. Sometimes the food was good, sometimes it was bad. Sometimes there were good adults around, and sometimes there were bad people who attacked him.

He was beat a lot, and molested several times by staff and fellow inmates alike. And still he persevered, growing up to live what he terms “a successful life” as an engineer, a musician and a pilot.

There’s a bit of technical jargon in this book, as Johnson talks about his fascination with ham radios, rockets, coiled plastic-covered antennae and such, but as he says, the book is written by “a high-school dropout, and is easy to read.”

The lengths he went to in order to educate himself are well worth reading about. How many people in reform school have an FCC second class radiotelephone license, an elevator operator’s license, a journeyman’s projectionist’s license and a driver’s license before the age of 18?

Johnson took note of his life, which was hard and lonely, and made something of it, something that brings him pride. Read the book and revel in one boy’s gift to himself of a worthwhile life filled with hope.

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