Tom Fahey - 43 Days of Reflections and Ruminations

There must always be a beginning to get to the end. Or maybe it is more correct to say you must start if you ever want to get to the finish. From my marathon running days, you must take the first of 55,374 steps to complete the race. I bet I can find at least another dozen clichs, but they are only delaying the real start to my story.

My mother was a teacher and instilled in me a love of literature. She also corrected my spelling so often I must have used that as my one open rebellion against her because I really rely extensively on spell-check. They say to be a great writer, you must be a voracious reader, and in that, I think I qualify.

Years ago, I started keeping a log of books, authors, and comments on all books I read. Since starting my log, my average is ninety books a year. I took several literature courses in college, wrote poetry, and envisioned myself as the next Hemmingway, sadly though I was better in science. For about twenty-five years, I have nominally worked on about four different books, one made it to the eighth chapter, and the others not much past research and my mental machinations. So, let us see if this start ever approaches an end.

I consider myself a very simple, common, red-blooded American male. So, if you are interested in a womanslike my wifesperspective, I have no idea how that would work. To understand how I come up with the average American, you may have to throw out all the super-rich and maybe those rare people who have no ambition at all and want to live off others. After those exclusions, I think we have a lot more in common than different. With those limited exclusions that still leave about three hundred and thirty million Americans in my calculations of what is average. We may still have a lot of differences but who wants us all to be the same.

I think I will have to give you a little background and do some qualifications before I proceed. I am a white male of European descent; my ancestors came to the United States of America in the middle of the 1800s. We do not have roots with the pilgrims, and we did not immigrate recently. That makes me somewhere in the middle of our countrys history, hence average. I was born in a small town with a small dying manufacturing base. We moved to Chicago when I was just twelve. From a small town to a megacity such as Chicago was a real shock to the psychic. I am pretty much average height and weight and good at a lot of things but surely not great at anything. If you put all three hundred and thirty million Americans in an enormous blender and made a homogenous mixture, I think I would be one of the averages. Luckily, America is made up of totally unique individuals. Isnt the wonder of DNA amazing? Coming from a meager background and a baby boomer, I have worked hard and done a little better than my parents, which was their ambition for us. The American dream of each generation standing on the shoulders of the last and doing better is still our legacy.

If you are looking for a politically correct read or if you are easily bruised or offended, you might want to stop here. I was born and raised in a time when we used the phrase such as sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me. We were raised up to have a lot thicker skin; we were not offended by everything; and yet we were taught to love and respect our fellow man. I know I never went to a grocery store and was offended by the branded character on a syrup bottle or a box of rice. God and religion were not attacked daily, and we said the pledge of allegiance in the schoolroom every morning. What I want to share with you is a look into life and hope you can laugh and cry and relate to some of my reflections as a pretty common American.

Thirteen years ago when I was trying to write and made it to eight chapters in a book about my summer vacations with crazy Uncle John, my youngest daughter, Lisa was just entering law school and functioned as my editor and critic. Lisa along with my older daughter Anna and my wife Nancy had heard me talk about my intent to write enough that I am sure it bored them to no end. My family was kind of in the yeah sure mode anytime I talked about my many books thought of but not yet in writing.

I think Lisa saw something in those short chapters I had written and my love of reading so she sent me one of the most motivational emails a dad could ever dream of. I saved that email that talked about how John Grisham took three years while working as a full-time attorney to write his first book A Time to Kill. Sometimes, he was able to write only a few paragraphs a day, but it eventually led to one of the most popular novelists of my time.

This morning, I went through a minor medical procedure and must take it easy for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. I also am retired so work can no longer be used as an excuse. So, Lisa, I am going to start again hoping I find the finish line, and you can again be my editor and critic.