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