MY SON had just told me of the imminent birth of his first child when I left the office, picked up an Evening Sun final edition at a newsstand, and learned of the death of Dr. Seuss.
It was a juxtaposition that threw this hardened, seen-it-all newspaper reporter onto an emotional roller coaster ride of unparalleled joy at the top and extreme sadness at the bottom. I could hardly wait for the birth of my grandson, who was born the next KellyGilbertday. But Theodor Seuss Geisel has always held a special place in my heart.
There was a time, many years ago, when I delighted in sitting on the sofa with my mother, listening to her read, over and over, "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins." Perhaps that initial attraction was natural; Bartholomew came to life about the same time I did.
Later, when I could manage more than the Dick and Jane primers that Geisel abhorred, I regularly spent the hours between school and dinner reading and re-reading that marvelous tale, enraptured by the magic in the drawings and sympathetic to Bartholomew's inability to take off his hat before his king.
In those days, Dr. Seuss was simply fun to read; the realization did not strike me until fatherhood that Geisel peddled satire as much as whimsy. This legendary author of children's books created characters who subtly but firmly instilled in his readers, young and old, the human basics of good triumphing over evil, of morality, hope and humor. Geisel disdained, even hated, pomposity (homage to the king in "The 500 Hats. . . "), Hitlerian fascism (in "Yertle the Turtle"), environmental destruction (in "The Lorax") and misuse of political power by the likes of Richard Nixon (in "Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now?").
There was a time, after the births of our own children, that my wife and I could hardly get through a day without sitting on the couch and reading "Green Eggs and Ham" to our son and, later, our daughter. It's a family tradition that Dr. Seuss is still quoted -- verbatim -- in our light-hearted conversations.
For some brief moment, back then, I thought my bright son had learned to read at a pre-school age -- until one night when I was in a hurry. He had been "reading" about Sam-I-Am aloud with me, not missing a word, when I purposely turned two pages ahead.
"Daddy, you missed, 'Do you like them in a box? Do you eat them with a fox?' " he said, insisting that I read the skipped passage to make his day complete. He had heard the tale so often he had it memorized!
