The Pen is Mightier...

...and the keyboard is no slouch either.

As a student of history it's easy to sometimes look at the story of mankind as a won/loss record. You can skip over the details and just focus on the battles. If you doubt this look at the entire industry of WWII video games. No deep dissection of the evil of the Nazi regime or the ethically shaky adoption of their medical research by American scientists, just guns blazin' good guys versus bad guys. But in the end it's not who had the biggest machine gun or the most powerful bomb that matters, although that helps in the short term. The things that change the world are ideas and the best way to get those ideas out there is to put them on paper.

If you've read even one of my blogs before, then you know just how highly I value the written word. I get that from my father. It's be reinforced by a life long obsession with books. Film is a medium I love, and the theatre is a magical place, but a book is a work of art that will last through the centuries. While the Spaniards never found the Fountain of Youth, and there is no Philosopher's Stone, there is a bridge to immortality for us mere mortals. We can write. We can leave a statement for the generations that follow us to see. "Here I was. I lived, I felt, I hurt. These are my thoughts."

I've stepped away from writing for more than a month now. At first it was out of necessity as our European excursion and ensuing move to New Orleans made it almost impossible. We've been in our new house for several weeks now and still, I didn't write. It wasn't that I didn't want to or couldn't. It just seemed to me that I had nothing important enough to say. That's a load of hooey, and I apologize to my readers for buying into it.

For one thing, I've promised you all a complete journal of our trip and I'm less than halfway through that. Secondly, I've committed myself to honing my craft as a writer and continuing to try to make my mark in the field of literature. That's not something that I've given up on, and as of now you can consider me re-focused. What is it that shook me up? What finally righted my sails and reminded me what I need to be doing? A good book.

This weekend, as anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, the final book in the "Harry Potter" series by J. K. Rowling was released. I started reading the books in the fall of 2002. I had been one of the biggest critics of the series, as I thought my peers should have something more important to spend their time on than children's books. A friend bet me that I couldn't read the first fifteen pages of Book one and stop. If I did, she'd never mention Harry Potter in front of me again. I finished that book in less than an afternoon. Before the week was out I had burned through the first four books in the series (all that were available at the time). Since then, I've been at the book store at midnight on release day for every book. Rowling has created a world that is not only exciting and enthralling, but comforting. She has captured the very essence of myth. In so doing, she has made herself (and the characters she dreamed up) immortal. As long as their are people we will share our legends. And now Harry Potter is one of them.

Congratulations, Mrs. Rowling, and thank you. Thank you for giving us a new group of heroes to visit and a beautifully full world in which to visit them. Thank you for carrying the torch that so many have taken up before you and millions more will take up because of you. Thank you for using your pen. And most of all thanks for waking a slumbering writer from his doldrums.

So I'm Turning Into My Father? Well, There are Worse Things I Could Be...

We take a break from our regularly scheduled blogging to honor the man that largely made me what I am today...well, he was there at the very beginning anyway.

Today my Dad, Jimmy Everette, turns 60. And I have to say it's been an eventful six decades. In 1947 President Truman announced the "Truman Doctrine" designed to stop the spread of Communism, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues, the United States Air Force was formed using branches of the Army and Navy and Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. People born in 1947 include: David Bowie, Jack Hanna, Laura Schlessinger, Nolan Ryan, Farrah Fawcett, Edward James Olmos, Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, Ry Cooder, Emmy Lou Harris, David Letterman, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Dave Barry, Arlo Guthrie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Mamet and Stephen King. Not a bad group to be in.

These people were old enough to be awestruck when the first man walked on the moon. They've seen not only the birth of the Internet, but the explosion of the computer itself. They've watched television go from black and white to color to high definition, not to mention from 13 inches to over 50. They lived through the red scare (started in 1947), the race wars, the Vietnam War, Watergate, a Presidential assassination (and several more attempts), an impeachment, Republican majorities, Democratic majorities, recessions, bubbles, gas shortages and literally everything in between. They've got stories to tell, and it's an awful shame that we don't listen more often. They are the most successful, most diverse, longest living generation in American history (if not World history). They're a hard act to follow, and they expect a lot out of us. But they've provided a pretty good road map to follow.

On his sixtieth birthday, I want to say thanks to my Dad. Thanks for working hard. Thanks for the free room and board those first eighteen years, I probably wouldn't have made it without them. Thanks for the gas money, and groceries while I was in college. Thanks for standing and taking it (without getting your feelings hurt) when I got a little education and decided that you were backward and simpleminded. Thanks for not rubbing it in when I realized I was wrong. Thanks for setting a good example of a life well lived, with friends and family ahead of success and possessions. Thanks for loving Mom, and showing me that being a good husband is hard work but delivers one of the biggest rewards life has to offer.

Thanks for pushing me to achieve, even when I thought you were pushing in the wrong direction. Thanks for reminding me of the direction when I lost my way. Thanks for instilling a love and reverence for the written word, and those that lay it out. Without it, I'd probably be an accountant, and while my bank account may be a little more full, my reader's inboxes would be empty. Hmmm, on second thought maybe I won't thank you for that one.

Thanks for coming to see me in plays, even though you had little interest in Theatre. Thanks for taking me hunting, even though I had little interest in the outdoors. Thanks for your persistence, though some call it stubbornness. It wore off, and it's won me a lot of fights over the years. Thanks for occasionally losing an argument, and thanks for admitting it when you were wrong. It means so much more coming from someone like you or me.

Mostly, thanks for being around. I know now, that not every one's Dad is. At every stage of my life it's been helpful to know, no matter how badly I fail at something, I've always got a safe place to land. Thanks for providing the safe place.

Happy birthday, Dad. I hope you don't feel any older today than you did yesterday, and no older next year than you do right now. If you liked this birthday wish, just wait 'till you see the one I'm working on for your seventieth.