Update: I want to thank Volodymyr Frytskyy at Vladonai Software for writing a happy ending to my blogging drama. He sent back everything he could recover, which was everything I lost.
Ralph Ellison, famed writer of Invisible Man, reportedly lost his second novel, nearly complete, in a house fire, and didn’t return to writing for years. I read Ellison in college and that knowledge made Invisible Man that much more important to me.
Having been a writer since I was a child, I’ve lost a lot of work, much of it in the days of paper when gone was gone. I’m a packrat now, but despite weekly backups and multiple copies, accidents still happen.
Words are like children to a writer and I feel a little like the Prodigal Son’s father, just much poorer. And no fatted calf.
Thank you Volodymyr.
c0
Stray images from childhood..
• Mom testing a hot iron with a licked finger. When the spit sizzled, the iron was ready. I do this today myself, even though modern irons have indicators when they're ready to use. I don't trust them. I trust my finger.
[2013-04-10]
• My Grandpa Grandy addressed my Grandpa Cairns as "Mr Cairns," and Grandpa Cairns did the same for "Mr Grandy." I thought that odd as a child because I always considered both of them just as much family to each other as they were to me. Not until I was older did I consider that my mom and dad married each other, my grandparents didn't marry each other.
Both grandpas were pretty prominent businessmen; this way of addressing each other may have had more respect in it than distance.
[2013-08-18]
c0
I still test my iron that way. LOL Hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Not that I'm an 'old dog' of course. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou are so right re: Mr. Grandy and Mr. Cairns. It was the same for my mom and Grandma Cairns. For some reason neither couple was comfortable with the use of first names. Maybe it was partially that generation.