baby blue typewriter

Every child wants to please his parents. I am no exception.  Dad loved to write.  He loved the reactions he could incite through his writing.  His father, Grandpa Freedman, wrote for an advertising firm and Dad obviously inherited the love and the gift (or he just wanted to please his father) for writing.  Dad's mental illness caused severe paranoia, which oftentimes made him reclusive.  He would sit, though, at his baby blue manual typewriter and 'hunt and peck' faster than any secretary I've seen to this day.  I loved that sound.  I loved his spirit when he was writing--it was light, yet thoughtful.  Never angry or hurtful, in direct contrast to his usual spirit.

When I was absent from school as a child, he would send in long, elaborate notes that the teachers would howl at as they read.  These notes would be passed from teacher to teacher.  How they would laugh and carry on all day long about the content (which I was rarely allowed to see--I know one informed the teacher that 'the rabbit' died.  I was 8 years old).

He would write to companies in someone else's voice.  Jack Daniels made him a lifetime honorary something-or-other after reading his letter meant to sound as if he grew up in the backwoods of some small southern town. Dad was from New York City. When he died at the age of 42, the autopsy listed his cause of death as 'alcohol poisoning'.  From Jack Daniels.

Dad had a love of words and writing and all things literary.  Dory, Gary, Dave, and I always had 'required readings' and had read most of the classics long before they were required in school.  I was 9 years old when I first read (I say 'first read' as I could, and have, read that book over and over again) Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and I fully understood it.

We were forced to enter any writing contest of which he caught wind.  Of course, his hand usually wrote most of the always winning essay or story.  I was first published in the 6th grade when I was given an assignment to write a research paper on bees.  Dad helped me write one on B's, in which he pondered the question, "Where would we be without the B?  Would we 'ake read' and would a mean woman, then, be an itch?" Mr. Ginsburg, my teacher, loved it and sent it in to some educator's publication.  He gave me a copy with my (Dad's) published article.  It was Dad's way of living vicariously through us.

Some parents create athletes and beauty queens, mine created writers.  All four of us kids love all things literary--especially writing.  Dad was my absolute influence as a writer.  He created my love and ability for words, both written and read.

Jen ;-)