By Dick Brooks
For Capital Region Independent Media
I love words. I’ve always loved words. That’s not a strange statement coming from one who became an almost-famous columnist known near and far; well, near anyway.
I think the biggest “ah-ha” moment in my early days was when I finally figured out that odd parade of funny squiggles the teacher kept parading before me actually were symbols for the spoken words that I was already familiar with. I could communicate my thoughts and feelings to people far away. I could write down jokes and stories so I no longer had to commit them to memory, where they frequently got jumbled up or forgotten.
I quickly discovered that the big fat fibs I sometimes told that raised the teacher’s eyebrow brought praise and comments on my creative abilities when I wrote them on paper and handed them in.
The written word had power!
If I got angry at my parents as small children are sometimes wont to do, I could prevent getting grounded for life if instead of yelling my feelings at them, I went to my room, usually not a voluntarily chosen destination at such times, and wrote my feelings down on my wide-lined school tablet. I vented and vented and vented.
They were going to be sorry that they had treated me so cruelly when they found me dead of a broken heart. I wrote about their anguish when they discovered I had run away and been shanghaied by pirates and taken to strange lands. I wrote words that would have had me still burping soap bubbles at my advancing age today. I wrote until the fire in my gut died and the only sign of it were the “zup-zup” sounds of a kid who had been crying for a long time.
I then ripped the sheet of venom off the tablet and hid it where no living soul would ever find it — usually under my pillow — and slept the sleep that only a validated, long-suffering child can.
First thing in the morning, I’d pull the crumpled bile-soaked piece of paper from its hiding place, read it and usually chuckle at my naughtiness and then destroy the evidence completely — God forbid my mother should find it — and go downstairs to breakfast and a new day.
College came along and I discovered that words could get me the much-to-be-desired attention of the fairer sex. I got a set of bongo drums and started writing poetry. I quickly became one of the world’s greatest undiscovered poets.
I actually enjoyed painting word pictures of the events of the day. I could make my emotions come alive and impress girls at the same time. I got one published and I started being asked to read at local coffee houses, the “internet” in more primitive times.
Fame, respect and girls were mine — garnered not from my ability to knock people down on the football or soccer field but from what I could craft using my fondness for words and my somewhat limited intellect. Life was good!
Words still fascinate me at the far end of my life cycle. Now I sit before the computer instead of my Royal portable typewriter that served me so well in my youth and get to paint word pictures about my daily adventures in the sometimes confusing, usually amusing world of the almost-average senior citizen.
I will start collecting ideas for next week’s column as soon as I finish this one. All week long, I will add thoughts and phrases to the mental file I keep. Then, next Wednesday, after I see The Queen off to her adventure for the day and after Telly and I take a short walk and check the yard for invading squirrels, we return to the comfort of our old house. I sit down at the old desk that’s been mine since childhood, and I get to play with some of my oldest friends, words.
Thought for the week — “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.
Reach columnist Dick Brooks at Whittle12124@yahoo.com.
