THEY SAY IT'S NEVER TOO LATE

by

Russell E. Spooner

Russ was born in 1924, which meant he grew up during the Great Depression. Neither he nor most of his peers ever considered this a handicap. Kids learn to be resourceful, to make their own toys, invent games, wear hand-me-down clothes, and think little about it. Graduation from high school led almost directly into military service. Following World War II, he returned to the printing trade, in which he'd begun to serve an apprenticeship and soon founded his own company. The opportunity to write material of his choice came later, most of it after retirement. His poetry has been published in several small-press journals and two anthologies, he writes a regular column for a monthly magazine (circulation 5,000) and two of his stories have found a home in a series of text books designed to teach reading to the learning impaired. He is also a poetry section leader in the Time/Warner authors forum on CompuServe, and is currently working on a novel.

A phenomena of advancing age is the ability to recall in detail events of childhood, while forgetting what the wife wanted an hour ago. Perhaps this is because all of life tends to blend into a whole, and the importance assigned to a particular chore becomes relative to world-shaking events of another year. Or, as I've been sometimes reminded, the memory, like eyesight and hearing, becomes selective. But what difference does it really make whether I take out the garbage right now or tomorrow?

As a small child, health problems denied me the physical strength or stamina to engage in active games or to compete in sports, but there was compensation for this. Fortunately, I loved books. Any books. From the age of six, if there was nothing else available, I'd read the dictionary.

As a result, school was easy, and I had no problem maintaining an honor-roll status. Graduation from high school was just in time for World War II.

The army was my choice, probably because my father had been in the navy, and I wasn't exactly enthralled by the idea of spending time in a floating target for torpedoes and kamikaze aircraft pilots. Besides, where on a steel deck, can you "dig-in" when the going gets tough?

Two years of my service time were spent in Europe. I recall wanting to keep a diary, but that was strictly forbidden. The penalty was execution. It seemed wiser at the time to limit my writing to censored letters. But I did write, and maintained an extensive correspondence. The company mail clerk hated me.

When the war was over, I came home, with some mental baggage that included no small number of troubling memories. Right and wrong no longer had any clear definition. Justice and injustice did not exist. The remnants of a sense of morality threatened to boil away in a clouded soup of unanswered questions. I was sure only that I'd become a pacifist. I still am,

to some extent, although I grudgingly admit the necessity of armed force as a final option in the relief of oppression.

But what does this have to do with writing?

Not long after the return from war, my own printing business became a reality. It lasted forty years. As any small business person would understand, those were years of incredibly long hours and constant stress, most of it without any great monetary return. But writing was part of it.

Customers depended upon me to edit or create their brochures, advertising pieces, warranties, notices, etc. I did not know that I was supposed to charge for this service.

The first published piece for which I did receive payment was a short article in a mid-west weekly, some time in the mid-seventies. They sent a check for $3.50. Three dollars and fifty cents. I was ecstatic. My words had just reached over five million readers.

I believe a writer, and especially a poet, can no more deny what he/she is than a tree can pretend to be a rock. The tree must bear leaves and needles, and we must write. In due time, we must send our work into a world we might often have viewed as crass or uncaring. It's not, and that's the valuable lesson we soon learn. People care. A lot of them care.

No matter what façade we present to the world, we humans are, for the most part, a shy, introspective species. We clutch our secret thoughts and inner selves with white-knuckled ferocity, afraid exposure will result in ridicule. More perhaps that any other writer, the poet must overcome this, for poetry reaches deeper, exposes more, and begs for greater understanding.

I admire every poet who has ever been published. It took courage to make that step, more courage than most people can imagine. For many of us, it took the encouragement of other poets to continue beyond the embarrassed pride of that initial printed piece. I love that about poetry. The willing help of others is so often given just for the asking, and I've never known a poet who was not happy for another's successes.

Sometimes, we see the world not as it is, but as we'd like it to be, sometimes we see it as we're afraid it might become. We create illusions, but we're permitted to do this. For it's not surface appearances that we usually find important, but what lies beneath. All of life exists in the spring song of a robin, a paean of eternity in a blade of grass, dreams of paradise in a September garden. What we see in a child's face is the year after tomorrow. Each is a story. Each story can be a poem. There is so much to see and do, so much to write about, so many poems as yet uncommitted to paper, life becomes far too limited.

So why do I, an old man in my seventies, daily wrack my brain for just the right word or the perfect phrases to express these vagrant thoughts I'm not even sure I can identify? For the same reason, I suspect, that those even older than I, and many who are younger, do it. Because we're writers, or poets, and we must.

We must if we are to be a member of this wonderful, caring community of spirits. Whether it is our lot to achieve fame, or to remain in obscurity, if we write and are published, we belong. We share ourselves as others share with us, and we learn that in some manner, no one can properly describe, the world becomes somewhat a better place.

The list of those who have encouraged and helped me is far too long to print here. I owe them all. But perhaps I owe one just a bit more than the others, because it was she who pointed me in the right direction when I floundered about without a clue as to where I should turn with my writing. Most of you know her. Her poems and short stories have been widely published in the small press. She sent me my first "fan letter." She told me where to send my poetry, and who published which type. She has kept in touch ever since. She told me age doesn't matter in this business and she was right. It's never too late. Thank you, Sylvia Roberts.