My constant has always been books. Not the newer Clancey, Koontz, Grisham or King authors, but the old-school stuff. It all began with the spontaneous recitations my mother would blurt out while throwing in a load of laundry or loading the dishwasher. She could recite every Mother Goose rhyme. But her favorites were Wordsworth, Poe, and Stevenson. I think I can remember, if I tried, The Children’s Hour, or The Raven, or Where Go the Boats? I received my first book, Little Women, on my 7th birthday. After that, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Call of the Wild, and Black Beauty. I then went on to Jane Austen and Pearl S. Buck, both introduced to me by my aunt. I don’t mean just a single book by these authors, I mean their complete series.
By the time I was in 8th grade I had read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – and, what’s scary about this is, I understood it, ole’ Gaelic and all. Much to the dismay of my high school teachers, I was already familiar with anything they had in their arsenal of syllabuses. Book reports were easy book reviews for me.
And with the reading came the love of writing. A simple toad basking in the sun became an entire novel, and watching a house being demolished, became prosaic verses. I filled binders with verse and prose ─ some of it not so bad.
So now, it seems, my life has come full cycle. Having spent the past forty years at a desk job, I find myself unemployed, and, thanks to family, have the time once again, to write. I don’t know if, in time, I can make a living in this endeavor. But it’s a dream that has been patiently awaited, and a prospect finally worth considering.
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