Dec. 16, 2010
OP-ED: And Bring All of Your Manuscripts with You
By Shelly Reuben
Next in the series from Come Home. Love, Dad, published by Bernard Street Books, a memoir about my father, Samuel Reuben – a truly extraordinary man. Letter from my father.
November 17, 1971
My dear Shelly ~
The days roll on changing their length to weeks and months and going by thro’ the years. Which brings to mind a children’s poem:
Maybe we can take a trip to Alaska. The area of Alaska is 586,400 sq. miles, according to the latest survey, or about 1/5 the size of the United States proper. When we bought it the cost was about 2 cents an acre, and yet some people said we paid too much. It is a wonderful country of high mountains, great plains and broad rivers. Along the coast there are glaciers that slide off into the sea and about 1100 islands known as the Alexander Archipelago. Some of these have high mountains with great forests on their sides. More later.
You are most welcome to come home and visit us for as long as you like, and maybe we can do things together.
Dad & Mom
December 5th, 1971
My dear Shelly ~
I’ve been long overdue in writing you a letter, but I’ll try to make up for it now. We get mail from Michael quite regularly. He writes that he is taking up acrobatics in the gymnasium and he’s quite good at it. Also he plays the piano and is learning to compose music. He also writes about the shape of the large moon coming over the football field during the last game he attended. How is your job there? Are you still visiting the airport?
Are you in need of any financial assistance? If so write us.
It has been said that every man is furnished, if he will heed it, with wisdom to steer his own boat…if he will not look away from his own to see how his neighbor steers his.
“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers.”
White huckleberries are so rare that in miles of pasture, you shall not find a dozen. But a girl who understands it will find you a pint in a quarter of an hour.
A few words about strength and unity.
If you cut or break in two a block or stone and press the two parts closely together, you can indeed bring the particles very near, but never again so near that they shall attract each other so that you can take up the block as one. That indescribably small interval is as good as a thousand miles and has forever severed the practical unity.
Dad
Copyright © 2010, Shelly Reuben. Reprinted from Come Home. Love, Dad, originally published by Bernard Street Books. ISBN: 0-9662868-1-2. Available from barnesandnoble.com; Amazon.com, or your local bookstore. Shelly Reuben has been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her books, visit www.shellyreuben.com. Link to David M. Kinchen's reviews of her novels "The Skirt Man" and "Tabula Rasa": http://archives.huntingtonnews.net/columns/060605-kinchen-review.html
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OP-ED: And Bring All of Your Manuscripts with You
By Shelly Reuben
Next in the series from Come Home. Love, Dad, published by Bernard Street Books, a memoir about my father, Samuel Reuben – a truly extraordinary man. Letter from my father.
November 17, 1971
My dear Shelly ~
The days roll on changing their length to weeks and months and going by thro’ the years. Which brings to mind a children’s poem:
There was a crooked man,
And he went a crooked mile
He found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile
He bought a crooked cat,
Which caught a crooked mouse
And they all lived together
In a little crooked house.
Well, maybe then again it might have no significance. On the other hand, possibly you could do better and more famously with your writing basing yourself in Chicago in Middle America, with both sides of the continent as your market place. Chicago is a cleaner place for operation than N.Y.C., which is the garbage can of the country. There are hundred of publications of every kind in this city, and opportunities are plentiful. Come home and bring all your manuscripts with you.
Maybe we can take a trip to Alaska. The area of Alaska is 586,400 sq. miles, according to the latest survey, or about 1/5 the size of the United States proper. When we bought it the cost was about 2 cents an acre, and yet some people said we paid too much. It is a wonderful country of high mountains, great plains and broad rivers. Along the coast there are glaciers that slide off into the sea and about 1100 islands known as the Alexander Archipelago. Some of these have high mountains with great forests on their sides. More later.
You are most welcome to come home and visit us for as long as you like, and maybe we can do things together.
Dad & Mom
December 5th, 1971
My dear Shelly ~
I’ve been long overdue in writing you a letter, but I’ll try to make up for it now. We get mail from Michael quite regularly. He writes that he is taking up acrobatics in the gymnasium and he’s quite good at it. Also he plays the piano and is learning to compose music. He also writes about the shape of the large moon coming over the football field during the last game he attended. How is your job there? Are you still visiting the airport?
Are you in need of any financial assistance? If so write us.
It has been said that every man is furnished, if he will heed it, with wisdom to steer his own boat…if he will not look away from his own to see how his neighbor steers his.
“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers.”
White huckleberries are so rare that in miles of pasture, you shall not find a dozen. But a girl who understands it will find you a pint in a quarter of an hour.
A few words about strength and unity.
If you cut or break in two a block or stone and press the two parts closely together, you can indeed bring the particles very near, but never again so near that they shall attract each other so that you can take up the block as one. That indescribably small interval is as good as a thousand miles and has forever severed the practical unity.
Dad
Copyright © 2010, Shelly Reuben. Reprinted from Come Home. Love, Dad, originally published by Bernard Street Books. ISBN: 0-9662868-1-2. Available from barnesandnoble.com; Amazon.com, or your local bookstore. Shelly Reuben has been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her books, visit www.shellyreuben.com. Link to David M. Kinchen's reviews of her novels "The Skirt Man" and "Tabula Rasa": http://archives.huntingtonnews.net/columns/060605-kinchen-review.html
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