Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss / Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on this day in 1904. As a kid, I liked his books-- the wacky non-human characters and parables. I'm a parable junkie: I used to watch those painful animated Aesop's fables, I could quote more episodes of Twilight Zone from memory, and I loved Dr. Seuss. When I grew up, I learned more about Geisel and my interest grew. He downplayed the Communist "threat", he was an anti-fascist (anti-fascism in the US died in the 1950s under the McCarthy era) and a political cartoonist. I would love to make kid's books, but with the paint drying on the zombie-colored lawn duck in the backyard I somehow think I am not well suited to craft stories for kids-- even my aborted opus, "Billy's Last Big Owie", a dark tale where a kid encounters the A to Z of death (yep: death by zamboni) on a school bus and then meets his own end. Kids wouldn't read it. Everyone else would be actually unhappy.