By THIRSTY
Gerald Hausman is today’s
Mark Twain. An award-winning, bestselling author and magnetic storyteller, he
recently received the Who’s Who in American Lifetime Achievement Award.
The author of 90 books, he has also received awards from the New York Public
Library (Best Book for Teen Age), Parents’ Choice Magazine (Silver Award),
USA Today (Book Award), Midwest Book Awards (Awards in Four Categories)
and the Florida Magazine Association (Best Column), to name just a few.
This past July, Gerald
Hausman’s memoir, Little Miracles, was published. In it, he chronicles the
extraordinary and meaningful moments, experiences, people and animals that have
shared his remarkable and colorful life. Stay Thirsty Magazine invited
him to participate in our One Hundred Words project with topics drawn
from his memoir in order for others to briefly bask in his exceptional life and to experience his gift for telling a tale.
Gerald Hausman – Reading from Little Miracles
STAY THIRSTY: Miracles.
GERALD HAUSMAN: The
original miracle is life. Birth is a miracle, greatest miracle of all, as we
often say. But then as we grow older, by degrees, we see all the little
miracles that are an aspect, a suggestion of the original miracle. I remember,
for instance, the first thing outside myself that was a “little miracle” all by
itself. That blessing of sight was light. I recognized that light, all by
itself, was a little miracle suggestive of life. Seeing particles of dust
floating before a rubber tree, the tree and dust bathed in morning light, was
an unforgettable little miracle.
STAY THIRSTY: 12699
Cristi Way.
GERALD HAUSMAN: Cristi
Way was our fourth home during our 50-year marriage and as it happened it was
in Southwest Florida on a barrier island. The name was Pine Island and this
small barrier island was as long and as wide as Manhattan – but relatively
undiscovered by tourism. It was occupied by storm resistant folks, tough by nature.
We wondered if we could resist, or rather escape, the forces of nature. We
wondered if we could face hurricanes and get through them. Eventually one horrible
Cat 5 hurricane whacked us good. We lost our roof and moved back to Santa Fe.
STAY THIRSTY: Greenwich
Village.
GERALD HAUSMAN: When
I was in high school I followed the Sixties folk music scene, played the guitar
and sang. I had some professional experience playing with groups and then I turned
to writing about folk music with my friend Jim MacFadyen. We went to the
Village, as everyone called it, and hung out with some of the best folksingers
in the business. We didn’t worm our way into their company, we just met them
and appeared quite naturally as irrepressible fans, lovers of folk music.
Things were different then. Players and singers were very accessible, friendly
and happy to have fans.
STAY THIRSTY: Bob
Dylan.
GERALD HAUSMAN: We
were at The Gaslight Café when Dylan was performing and damned if he didn’t
sound like Jack Elliott, his earliest influence. Jack knew Woody and had his style down pat.
Dylan, at first, copied Jack. Jim and I copied each other. We were just
impassioned kids – dreamers. We were in love with the sound of old Appalachian
America and the ring and twang of the high-plains Southwest drifters. Jim
disappeared one day, and I heard he was out in California hanging out with Hoyt
Axton, another folk legend. (His mom, Mae Boren Axton, co-wrote the hit single Heartbreak
Hotel).
STAY THIRSTY: Maurice
Sendak.
GERALD HAUSMAN: By
some little miracle, I found myself in the company of Ruth Krauss, the
children’s author of A Hole Is To Dig, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
Both Ruth and Maurice were lamenting over the fact that their early books
together were out of print or just available in library editions. We partnered
with David Silverstein, owner of The Bookstore in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Together, we founded The Bookstore Press and soon publishers’ inexpensive
paperback editions of Ruth’s and Maurice’s early books. These became bestsellers
all over again. Ruth and Maury (as she called him) became friends with David,
Gerry and Lorry.
STAY THIRSTY: Bob
Marley.
GERALD HAUSMAN: In
the early 1980s Lorry and I founded a summer school for creative writing on the
North Coast of Jamaica. Our daughter, Mariah, was with us in the airport when,
barefoot, she visited some Jamaicans who were at a gate and ready board a
plane. They were Ziggy Marley and family heading for a concert tour. Looking
back, I see that this was the initial meeting with the Marley family. Later, we
would visit the 56 Hope Road house where Bob and Rita had established their
quarters ten years earlier. This was another story of editors meeting up with
artists.
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| Gerald Hausman |
STAY THIRSTY: George
the parrot.
GERALD HAUSMAN: We
have had George, a Blue-fronted Amazonian parrot for 41 years now. He is an
irascible, temperamental, bossy sweetheart of a bird who knows our ever nuance
of mood and body movement. He’s gone everywhere with us and has been a
comforting and mad, comical pal in the best and worst of situations. He is in
the next room right now, waiting for his next breakfast waffle. Lorry and I
wrote a funny book about George and it is called The Parrot Detective. I’d
love to say George loves the book, but to date, he hasn’t read it. Maybe
tomorrow.
STAY THIRSTY: Mouse
the dachshund.
GERALD HAUSMAN: This
little miracle dachshund started out in the palm of Lorry’s hand. She believed
she was large, not small. There was no convincing her of her true size. She and
George ate together out of the same bowl, slept in the same doggy bed, and
traveled the country together. You probably want to know if George talks … the
answer is yes. Mouse did, too. But one night when Mouse was asleep and George
was awake I heard George say clearly, “I know you are sleeping right now, but I
have something to tell you.” Spoken clear as a bell.
STAY THIRSTY: Santa Fe.
GERALD HAUSMAN: Off
and on, Santa Fe has been our home for 30 years. Lorry and I met at Highlands
University in 1966. Santa Fe, is a little miracle of its own. They say the earth
and sky here is magical. Witness one little miracle that happened recently.
Lorry and I were standing in the backyard of our Santa Fe apartment and her
birthday was the following day and I still hadn’t come up with the right
present. But then I looked at her pretty bare foot and half-hidden by her big
toe there was an ancient turquoise bear. She’s wearing it.
STAY THIRSTY: Memoir.
GERALD HAUSMAN: As
I see it a memoir can be anything. Sometimes a confession of the most
mysterious kind. I believe many memoirs are like that. Some people dream
memoirs. Some write them. Usually the written ones turn out to be something of
a mix between the fictive voice, the dreaming mind and the straight-forward,
hard truth of a person’s life. I hove toward the mystic relation between words,
thoughts, dreams, and little miracles. I could say that all 90 books I have
written started out as memoirs. Later, as I wrote them, they morphed into
fiction or some other imaginative genre.
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