Philadelphia, PA - I’m alright, really. I haven’t yet entered a mid-life crisis — shopping for a white Lamborghini like Don Johnson’s in Miami Vice (Give me a few years, I’ll get there.) But after turning 45 a few months ago — a man does tend to focus on what one has and hasn’t done — seen and hasn’t seen.
Another spring season has passed where I didn’t get an invite for a tryout to the Eagles rookie minicamp — but I still want to write that novel.
You know, the kind that sits in paperback on the shelves of the few remaining Barnes & Noble’s still left open around the Philadelphia region or on Amazon. Something thought-provoking but not too adventurous. A book that would have appeal for people of all age groups. Complete with a great newspaper review and endorsement from Stephen King or Margaret Atwood.
Since the first time that symbols were carved into the walls of cave dwellings, writing and words were a passion of mankind. From Philadelphia’s beginning’s — when PA Surveyor General Thomas Holme designed the City at the request of William Penn with its intersecting streets and five squares that can still be seen today — we were a center for writing and publishing for 342 years. Ben Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, John O’Hara, and James Michener all wrote here.
Most kids who grew up around the Philadelphia area learned from their father’s to catch a baseball, to throw a football, some of the greatest films ever made here, and how to best to watch Philadelphia Sports. My Dad taught me all of that.
But while other kids were learning how to hunt and fish, my father gave me something much more valuable. He taught me the love of words. When I unwrapped Treasure Island as a gift for my 9th birthday, I sailed the high seas in pursuit of treasure with Long John Silver, protected the western prairie in Shane, and fought alongside Lord Toranaga in Shogun.
The contrast between my father and grandfather’s couldn’t have been more stark. My two elder role model’s from the great generation were self-taught men, never having finished high school. Then there was my father, educated in English Literature at two of Philadelphia’s finest universities. Between all of them — I never remember a week going by without a book in their hands — often a mystery novel.
“If you want to write well,” they said “write what you love.”
So that’s what I did.
The open space in my calendar on the third Sunday in June now carries only the meaning of the memories that I will always cherish about my formative years. Walking out to see my first glimpse of the baseball field at Veteran’s Stadium for the first time with my grandad, taking in a college basketball game at The Palestra, or blocking out Sunday afternoon’s to watch the Eagles game with my Dad. Nothing else on Sunday’s was allowed to matter.
Thirty-five years ago after his death — when my father cleaned out my Grandpop’s nightstand — it was my Dad’s book that was resting on the top of my grandfather’s pile. Thirty-three years later — when I did the same for my father — the article on top of his nightstand? That article was mine.
Michael Thomas Leibrandt lives and works in Abington, Pennsylvania.
