Happy Birthday

They never crossed paths, although they each spent considerable time in each other's neighborhoods. One of them, a daughter of the pioneering days, didn't write much at all until she looked back on a girlhood she thought of as idyllic, even though most of it happened the rough American wilderness was still being settled. You can find a dozen towns in the American Midwest today that celebrate their right to the beloved heritage of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The other, a much younger male, got sick unto death of what that same world looked like once all the pioneering dust had settled. Sinclair Lewis made his literary fortune by making fun of the descendants of the people Ms. Wilder loved, people from whom he'd himself come, ordinary folks from small-town Minnesota, the same folks Garrison Keillor has made a career of chronicling.

It's their mutual birthday today--Ms. Wilder and Mr. Lewis, highly esteemed writers from America's Upper Midwest, as honored and celebrated as any writers whose roots are here. But they couldn't be more different.

Laura Ingalls Wilder loved her world and those who peopled it. Lewis hated it. Wilder romances the reader with sweet tales sixth grade girls can love. Lewis's bitterness enchants cynics. Both bring joy, I suppose, but the tonal qualities are at exact opposite ends of the spectrum.

Wilder's books have never gone out of print. I'm sure Lewis's haven't either. But the only place you'll find Sinclair Lewis these days is English departments. Laura Ingalls Wilder's books still find their way into the hands of new readers, none of whom read them for credit.

Takes all kinds, prairie wisdom asserts, and it does. Garrison Keillor isn't all warm fuzzies, and part of the attraction of the Cohn brother's Fargo is that the film about the very same region has a sweet bit of Laura Ingalls Wilder, as well as a good stiff shot of Sinclair Lewis.

The truth is, I've read a ton of Lewis; and even though I've seen hundreds of Little House TV episodes, I've never read a single Wilder novel and probably never will.

But even though that's true, and even though I'll likely not read either of them again, of the today's two birthday people, I'd rather be Wilder than Lewis.

And I can tell you why, too--through the eyes of another Midwestern writer, Ted Koozer, in this morning's Writer's Almanac, where I discovered these birthday parties. Ted Koozer knows how to count his blessings. Ted Koozer knows how to offer morning thanks. Ted Koozer knows what he wants, and it's not much.

This Paper Boat

Carefully placed upon the future,
it tips from the breeze and skims away,
frail thing of words, this valentine,
so far to sail. And if you find it
caught in the reeds, its message blurred,
the thought that you are holding it
a moment is enough for me.

Something tells me Ms. Wilder would like that poem. Mr. Lewis would just cackle. And me, I'd rather live in love than bitterness.

But they're all wonderful blessings--Wilder, Koozer, Keillor, and Sinclair Lewis too, all of them.
______________________________

"This Paper Boat" by Ted Kooser, from Valentines. (c) University of Nebraska Press, 2008.

You can listen to this morning's Writers Almanac at

http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,k68d,dv,ch2w,1k6c,lxj6,d21w

That poor, stupid squirrel

If I'm not mistaken, it was the very first writing conference I ever attended--at UW-LaCrosse--and the featured writer was Robert Bly, Minnesota's ace, who later went on to make a mint beating his chest for men's stuff. No matter. He read his poetry while accompanying himself on his dulcimer at the conference, and I thought the whole thing enchanting.

I remember him quoting Whitman in a kind of swoon. "I heard you, solemn sweet pipes of the organ. . ." He made me appreciate Whitman in a way I never had before.

But only one thing he said that night stayed with me, and that was a kind of encyclical he pronounced almost in jest: "No one should write anything until they're 35." I'm not sure he made the pronoun error I just did, but that was the effect. I'm quite sure I wasn't--35, I mean; but I was old enough to understand what he meant.

And it's Robert Bly I thought of when I read this morning's Writer's Almanac poem, so wise it stops me in my morning tracks, because this guy knows, too.

Father to the Man

Tom C. Hunley

The OBGYN said babies almost never
arrive right on their due dates, so
the night before my firstborn was due
to make his debut, I went out with the guys

until a guilt‑twinge convinced me to convince them
to leave the sports bar and watch game six
on my 20‑inch, rabbit eared, crap TV. After we
arrived, my wife whispered, "My water broke"

as the guys cheered and spilled potato chips
for our little dog to eat up. I can't remember
who was playing whom, but someone got called
for a technical, as the crowd made a noise

that could have been a quick wind, high‑fiving
leaf after leaf after leaf. I grabbed our suitcase
and told the guys they cold stay put, but we
were heading for the hospital and the rest of

our lives. No, we're out of here, they said.
Part of me wanted to head out with them,
back to the smell of hot wings and microbrews,
then maybe to a night club full of heavy bass

and perfume, or just into a beater Ford with a full
ash tray, speeding farther and farther into
the night, into nowhere in particular. Instead I walked
my wife to our minivan, held her hand as she

stepped down from the curb, opened her door,
shut the suitcases into the trunk, and
ran right over that part of me, left it
bleeding and limping like a poor, stupid squirrel.

from Octopus. (c) Logan House, 2008.

There is, of course, no accounting for taste, and on the night before the birth of our first child I certainly wasn't out with the boys at some sports bar or watching the NBA finals with a gang of Schlitz swillers in our apartment. Nothing like that at all.

But count me among those who would say, unequivocally, that while getting married didn't alter the course of my life all that much, the ship of state got totally rerouted when that first child made her glorious debut.

Some old self, sure as anything, got flattened; and when I remember that moment now--happily, I might add, looking down the long road behind me--I sure as anything see that poor, stupid squirrel.