A Childhood Book: The Beginning of the Beginning

If I had to make a guess I would say that right about now, I'm somewhere in the beginning of the middle, I think.  Mind, I don't have to make a guess.  And even so, it's really nothing more than my hope and wish.  I could be closer to the end of the beginning than I think.

That would be a bit discouraging, though nothing I haven't handled before.  I'd prefer not to think about it.  Besides, this isn't really about where I am now.  No, not at all.

It's about where I was then.

Mrs. Hannah's fifth grade class went by remarkably quickly in my memory.  We had only one new student that year in our grade, and I barely remember much more than the numbering system she used to try to keep us in line, and that I gave a report about Leif Erickson, who was one of the best explorers ever.  Or so I thought.

But two events stand out in my mind from my nine months Mrs. Hannah's fifth grade class, intellectually speaking. Realistically speaking, I believe that was the year my brother assaulted me and blamed his bruised knuckles on an unfortunate trip into brick wall outside of school wall.  I should have never thrown his treasured X-Men hat into the water.

He should have waited for our sister.

No, that year marked the beginning of the beginning.  I read Gary Paulsen's THE RIVER, sequel to THE HATCHET, though they're basically the same book.  It gave me all the tools I believed I needed to survive the end of civilization.  And it was a good read, to boot.

I also read THE ORIGINAL FREDDIE ACKERMAN, by Hadley Irwin.  I probably would have never found and read it on my own, even though my appetite for any kind of text was much more voracious then than now, but Mrs. Hannah informed us that the author was going to be in town in a few weeks.  We were going to go for a visit!

Hadley Irwin was actually two someones: Lee Hadley and Ann Irwin. Two teachers from Iowa working on a collaborative project that, now, boggles my mind.  Writers don't work well together, not usually.  More often than not, our own ideas are the most important ideas, and to let anyone tinker with something that, to us isn't broken, well, you may as well stomp on our toes and call us dummy-heads for as much as that will please us.

Unfortunately, only one of them was going to make the visit; the other was a bit ill.  I think it was Ann Irwin who made the journey, but the mists of time have obscured the recollection exactly.  (Ms. Hadley died in 1995, though, so I think that makes sense in the grand scheme of things.)  This was a chance to actually talk with someone who wrote books - books that we should read!

So we all picked out one of Hadley Irwin's books, and I got the one about Trevor Freddie Ackerman, one twelve year old boy forced to live with his two eccentric aunts for a summer.  It reads a bit like a Middle-Grade version of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," in which the main character's boredom with his mundane life forces him to create a super-alter-ego version of himself.  But it was a splendid book.

I loved reading it.  I loved how the plot wound itself to a satisfying ending.  And I was mesmerized by meeting one-half of Hadley Irwin.  I got my copy signed that day, of course.  I still have the book, somewhere.  The day remains firmly etched in my memory.

After all, that was the day I decided I wanted to be a writer.

A few months later, in the sixth grade, I wrote what I think was my first short story.  I also soon began work on my own first novel, primarily in notebooks, when ended up a 40,000 word romp about a young man forced to live with his cousin and family for an entire year.

Both are absolutely terrible.  Still, I'd have never written them if I hadn't read Hadley Irwin's book, I think.  It's possible some other great piece of literature would have spurred me on to greatness.  Maybe THE GIVER, some time later, or TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE WESTING GAME or CATCH-22.  I'd like to think one of those would have got me started.

But I began at the beginning a bit early.  And I have Hadley Irwin to thank for that.