As a teenager, Marty “Meatman” Sosnowski of Green Bay, Wisconsin never felt like he fit in. He stopped trying to by not going to school. At the time, he didn’t feel like school was right for him. Years later, he realized the importance of getting an education, no matter what he was interested in. He talked about this with his sister, Lynne Williamson, during a StoryCorps Mobile Tour stop in Green Bay on Aug. 18, 2023.
(The following excerpt has been edited for brevity and clarity)
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Marty Sosnowski: This was 1974, I believe. I was just starting my junior year of school — and in those days, we got our report cards and envelopes to bring home to Mom and Dad to sign.
And so I started out my junior year skipping the whole first day. And one day of skipping classes turned into two days, turned into three days. After the first week, I thought, “Ah, it’s just the first of school. I’ll be cool.” The next thing you know, it was the end the first quarter and I hadn’t been in school at all.
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- Marty Sosnowski in 1974. Photo courtesy of Marty Sosnowski
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- Lynne Williamson in 1974. Photo courtesy of Marty Sosnowski
I brought my report cards home. (I) had my friend who was a really good artist and he pretended like he was a teacher, so he wrote all the grades and stuff. It worked again for the second quarter. I brought my reports home, Mom and Dad looked them over, signed them off, I took them back to school, gave them to the authorities and everything was good.
By now, I’m not going to school. I have job.
So it comes to Easter break and Mom and Dad were down at one of the local taverns. And who do they run into? My counselor, Mr. LaFramboise. He just walked up to them and said, “Well, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Sosnowski, how’s it going? Where did you guys move to?” And (my mom) was like, “We didn’t move.” And he goes, “You didn’t? Well, where’s Marty going to school?”
So they took me to truancy court. They put me back in school. So I just started skipping class again, back into court again.
Lynne Williamson: And then there was the period where you got asked to leave, basically.
MS: Mom put my clothes out on the porch. And she was standing behind the door and she was not gonna open that door. She just told me to leave, so there I go.
LW: Where did you go?
MS: I ended up living in my truck for a while in Antigo. I got a job up there working construction and had no place to live. I just lived in the front seat of my pickup truck.
After my 12 years of school, I believe that I had — I think it was five credits — but luckily, I had gathered enough information through all those years that I just went and got my GED. I switched it around. I was out of high school nine years, went back to college, got my degree, graduated with a 3.59 grade point average, which I was extremely proud of.
The reason I went to college is because I had picked up a camera and started taking pictures of rock ‘n’ roll bands. I wanted to work in the music industry and I did it. I did all those things and just ended up having the greatest life, which, you know now, we all sit around and tell stories about it.
The band Brainiac performs at Sudsy Malone’s in Cincinnati Ohio in 1994Photo by Marty Sosnowski
LW: Yeah, we do.
MS: Which, is just the opposite, you know…
LW: Of where you started from.
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- Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor sings at a concert. Photo by Marty Sosnowski
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- David Bowie performs at a concert. Photo by Marty Sosnowski
MS: I consider myself one of the richest people I’ve ever known in my life. It’s not because I made a ton of money working in the music business or anything like that. I’m not rich with dollars, I’m rich in my heart. I have my family and I have so many friends. I quit drinking and drugging and doing all that stuff and turned my whole life around and ended up living the greatest life a guy could ever have. I got to hang out with David Bowie, I got hang out Chet Atkins. I’ve got to be part of that industry.
The message I’d like to get out to people about that is, especially if you are like me, it’s out there. There are so many people, so many teenagers that still struggle with the same things I did. It’s just a little different world.
But, god, if you can just understand that it can be anything you want it to be. You don’t have to go down that road. You don’t have to do that. You can totally change it around and you can do whatever you wanna do. That was worth it to me.
Siblings Marty Sosnowski and Lynne Williamson at a recording session during the StoryCorps Mobile Tour stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Aug. 8, 2023. Courtesy of StoryCorps
This story came from an interview recorded at StoryCorps, a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. During a StoryCorps Mobile Tour stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin from August 10 – September 8, 2023, 110 conversations were recorded and preserved. Excerpts were selected and produced by Wisconsin Public Radio staff.
Major support for the StoryCorps Mobile Tour is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in partnership with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
