Writing is something we can all use to save some of our thoughts and ideas. Whether the process uses a pen, pencil, computer or typewriter is of little consequence. It’s what we have on our minds that means a lot, as we all need from time to time a way to save what’s on our minds (and in our hearts), sometimes releasing it like poison or expression of love and gratitude even much later.
I still have letters written to me by my parents while I was away from home in college. Just holding the paper in my hands brings back more than I can express in words as goodbyes disappear while I’m reading the messages shared by them so long ago.
Though I appreciate the speedy convenience of computers and their efficiency, e-mails for me can’t capture the deliberate and physical creation of what was done by hand while I was still young, and my parents (and grandparents) were still in their prime. The passage of time plays a large part in the special value of such letters, like that of priceless antiques. They represent almost the same sentiments as old photographs or locks of hair, or Mom’s gentle perfume still residing in an old handkerchief.
The mechanism of memory is something we all share on one level or another. We can’t live in the past, but it’s rewarding to know that loving memories of both joy and sorrow still exist in the power of old photographs or letters and that loving recollections remain so that we are still somehow in touch with those we loved, even many years later through those dear, priceless remnants of younger days that we don’t always appreciate while they occur but become like buried treasure as we age. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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