Voices in Our Heads
Thomas Fields and His Many Life Stories Continues
Editor’s Note: We continue our conversation with Writer-Producer Thomas Fields in this Part Two. I met Thomas Fields more than ten years ago at a networking lunch at the old Frenchy’s Bistro in Long Beach. We would then often meet over the next few years to talk politics, ideas for music and art events, life and Long Beach. There would be dinners with spouses and visits to each other’s homes. We met each other’s children (Well, I still have to meet his daughter who lives in another city). We recently talked for over an hour in his home office. It became obvious over that hour that Thomas Fields has lived many lives. I also discovered quickly that there just were too many stories for one podcast.
Thomas Fields
In Part One, Thomas took us on a journey through his many early lives: from growing up in a segregated Washington, D.C. to school in Tacoma Park, Maryland to his skipping college to work at the National Security Agency to missing out on the Vietnam War because of National Security work but serving in the Army in Atlanta, Georgia. It was then back to Washington, D.C. and work with the National Welfare Rights Organization and the Washington Free Press. But, it was the trip to Chicago and the 1968 Democratic National Convention where Thomas Fields’s life gets even more interesting (Not that it wasn’t already). He met his future wife, Susan, and he found himself in front of and behind the barricades during the ensuing tumultuous street chaos. He returned to Washington, D.C. disillusioned and ready for a change. The change came in New York City with a stint first as a New York dock worker and then as a Madison Avenue advertising writer and producer. Then, it was time to move on. In this part two, we get to watch, with Thomas Fields, the Manhattan skyline in the rearview mirror as he leaves New York City to embark on his long-dreamed train trip across America to Southern California. Here’s part two of our conversation for Voices in Our Heads on PalacioMagazine.com.
Thomas Fields Fulfills a Dream
Writer-Producer Thomas Fields was working at a New York Advertising Agency when he handed in his resignation on December 31, 1976. He took a month off afterward. His wife Susan would fly out to California but Thomas would fulfill one of his dreams, ride a Pullman train across America. The fulfillment of that dream became a precursor to another adventure, this time in Hollywood. But first, in early 1977, there was no job.
“I had some contacts…I had some contacts that I had gotten in New York City. But the point was I was here to write a screenplay.”
So, the first year, that’s all Thomas did. Savings and his wife working sustained them. They were living a dream in the Hollywood foothills. Fast forward to a meeting with Topper Carew, a producer who we both knew at different times in Washington, D.C. (small world). Then came television scripts and the high life of television or the low life depending on what side of the money you’re on.
“But one realization I came to was I really was not enamored with show business, enamored as much as I thought I would be.”
How does Thomas describe it?
“I had thought the folks on Madison Avenue were barracudas. I didn’t realize the folks in show business were sharks.”
Bye-Bye Hollywood and back to advertising where he only had to deal with barracudas.
“So, I went to advertising. I worked on probably every one of the imported car companies that are out here as a writer, as a producer.”
Thomas Fields Meets Public Service and Then
Fast forward again to his life in public service. Thomas and his wife, Susan had moved to Long Beach after about a year in Southern California. A child was coming and they were, as Thomas describes it, didn’t want to have a child living in Hollywood. Long Beach was an opportunity to get a house with a yard, white picket fence, and the “whole nine yards.” The impetus for the public service to follow came from living in Bixby Knolls. At the time, shuttered stores and an inactive business corridor didn’t seem to make sense.
“I thought, you know, this is ridiculous. You have a community that is solidly middle class and we can’t even get a grocery store up here, really.”
That frustration led to flyers which led to a community meeting. Expecting ten people, more than two-hundred people turned up. Ideas, proposals, organizing, and perseverance resulted in both Trader Joe’s moving into Bixby Knolls and Thomas Fields catching the attention of City Hall, Mayor Beverly O’Neill, and her Chief of Staff Randall Hernandez.
“I get a call from Randall asking if I wanted to be on the Economic Development Commission.”
That appointment would be the first of a series of commitments that included the Redevelopment Agency and the Port of Long Beach which is where controversy would dog Thomas Fields and result in his being relieved of his command as President of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners. (I don’t want to dwell on it in this piece. You can read all about it here and here.) I was more interested in how the long drawn out episode affected Thomas Fields. Thomas saw all his work with the city as public service.
“I was not an elevated citizen. I was simply there to do a service.”
He says he just wanted to give something back.
“Many of those positions are seen as either stepping stones or somewhat of positions of privilege.”
Thomas didn’t see it that way. His professional life was satisfying and it was enough. But, at the time of his expulsion, this writer had an interesting behind the scene insight into the political machinations from a number of different sources. I knew it was going to smear Thomas Field’s reputation. If it had been anyone else, I would have thought that leaving town on a rail would have been the only alternative. Not the Thomas Fields that I know. When he was faced with what he thought was slander, Fields came back in the only way he knew.
“I decided to fight it and I fought it all the way.”
The Next Story from Thomas Fields
But, that was then. This is now.
“I started the conversation with, ‘I’m a writer. I’ve always been. I will always will be regardless of whatever I go into.’ It’s just this time I’m doing what I was born to do.”
He quotes Mark Twain.
“I think it was Mark Twain who once said, ‘The two most important times in a person’s life is when they’re born and when they discover what they were born to do.’”
Thomas Fields is writing that novel now. The theme has fascinated Thomas for some time.
“This idea that adults are the product, the consequence of decisions made by teenagers.”
We make decisions when we are teenagers that will “…impact and change your life thirty years down the road.”
“You have no idea that you’re doing that and that’s what most of us do…And it’s also about consequences, the consequences of life.”
Contact Thomas Fields
You can reach Thomas Fields at thomfields@gmail.com.
