Loved the 1980s, But Can’t Go Back

The recent performance of “A Musical Reunion” at Pontine’s schoolhouse theater in the Plains was like a ride in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine. It’s been half a lifetime since singer and actor Scott Weintraub packed off the Prescott Park stage for life in Los Angeles. He reappeared in Portsmouth this month with super-singers Randa McNamara, Jay Spears and other stars of the Seacoast arts scene from the late 20th century.

It was a warm and sentimental journey for a gray-haired audience who fondly recall what some have dubbed the “golden years” of Portsmouth music and theater in the 1970s and ’80s. That era actually began with the arrival of Theatre-by-the-Sea in a converted grain warehouse on Ceres Street in 1964. Strawbery Banke Museum opened the next year, followed a decade later by Market Square Day and the Prescott Park Arts Festival. By the 1980s, the national media were referring to the incredible “renaissance” of what had been a deteriorating seaport.

Following the recent concert, I dragged out plastic tubs filled with yellowing articles I wrote for newspapers back in the early ’80s and reread a few. I knocked out a couple of articles each week for the Rockingham Gazette, a long-defunct free paper. I often did a front page feature and a blog-like personal column at the back. I rarely wrote about history, but knocked about with articles on politics, food, business, crime, healthcare, the economy and the arts.

Most features were accompanied with an original illustration by artist Reggie Logan or a clever photograph by Ralph Morang. I’d toss out a topic–the parking crisis, nuclear power, or women’s rights–and the artwork would magically appear. For a story on the selling of the local hospital, Ralph built a Lego model and photographed it. He might create a tabletop clay figure or do some darkroom magic long before Photoshop. The illustration above was for my 1983 article “Portsmouth is Going Condo.” Reggie could always read my mind.

People were concerned about encroaching condos back then. We were also wary of rising property taxes, corruption in local government, crime, no parking, drugs, too many tourists, national politics, big business, and the high cost of medicine. Some residents lobbied for historic preservation, affordable housing, women’s rights, civil rights, and higher wages. Some didn’t.

In many ways, Portsmouth’s golden era was a lot like today. And if you read enough Portsmouth history, a lot like the past. It depends, I guess, on when you arrived, and what you recall, and how your life is going at the moment. It was a thrill being footloose to cover whatever I pleased back then. I love the way seeing Scott and the other senior singers conjured up so many memories. For example, I was only paying $225 a month for my downtown apartment in 1980. But I was only making $7,200 a year teaching high school.

I sometimes feel a “wistful affection” for the past. I’m proud of the newspaper work we did. I’m fascinated with how that Portsmouth period dovetails with the years that came before and the years I’ve lived through since. But those who stop time too often, I fear, risk getting sad and cranky.

Sure, I miss working with that old creative gang of mine. But there is no longing in me for bygone days. As corny as it looks in print, my Portsmouth “golden age” begins every morning when the alarm clock sings.

Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved