Every once in a while, people ask me how I come to write stuff. This question is to be distinguished from “WHY do you write?” The answer to the latter question would involve substantive items of little or no consequence, so I will concentrate on the first question. I believe that it goes way back to my early days – very early days.
Let me indicate that I am aware that scientists change their minds about what is good for you and what is not. For example, one study will say that coffee is lousy for you, and a year or so later another study comes out and says it does all sorts of wonderful things. There is one food that they pretty much acknowledge is pretty good and that is milk. I know that it is not the same as when we were kids. I mean whoever heard of “fat free” milk back then?
In my case, my mother and dad always bought milk from a nearby farmer. When I got older, I would trudge down to the farm with a gallon jug. The farmer would fill it for 25 cents, and I would lug it back. Back when the Sears catalog was the Amazon of its day, my parents purchased a home pasteurizer from it. So they would take that gallon of milk and run it through that machine. The machine did not homogenize it, so the cream came to the top.
The result was not only a rich milk, but plenty of whipped cream, which my mother put on strawberry short cake and all sorts of good food items. The point of all this is that I am certain that the milk and its by-products activated my writing genes. This causes me to sit down and write away regardless of whether anyone cares to read it or not. Now I was a finicky eater, hated vegetables (still do generally), did not like nuts, fish, bread pudding and in general gave my parents fits about my eating habits.
Thus, it had to be the milk. I did eat bread, but where we lived we had no bakeries around so most of what we had was good old Wonder Bread. My father always said “Wonder Bread, it’s a wonder anybody can eat it!” So, it could not have been the bread! Had to be the whole milk! Perhaps, if we had been able to buy a good loaf of Italian bread, then one could say that bread played a part. The Blond in the house and I eat all kinds of good bread now and Wonder Bread never darkens the door.
Back in the part of Western Pennsylvania where I grew up, we did not even have any Italians, let alone their bread. Heck, I was 18 and in college before I saw an Italian. Part of the reason was that my area was depressed and there wasn’t any reason for Italians to come there – particularly since they are pretty darn smart. The area is still depressed, and those friends of mine from high school who are still around have not mentioned any so Sandy Lake and Stoneboro may still be void of them. We did have more last names than a friend of mine from Kentucky had in his area, but ours were generally of the Anglo-Saxon variety.
One year in my high school days, we had a new kid move in, and his name was Methodius Sabulchak. Yes it was! We were all amazed. Naturally, we called him “Toby”. He was a great guy, but he only stayed about a year. True, he was not an Italian, but came from one of those Balkan countries not too far from Italy. I always wondered what happened to him. It is possible that he drank enough good milk that his writing genes became established.
I think I will close this, and go “google” him. If I can get in touch with him, I will find out if people ask him how he came to write.
Barry Evans is a Villager.