As someone who now reads books almost nightly to my 2-year-old daughter, I wanted to share my favorite editorial, one for which I won first place in Best Column, Feature or Criticism at the 2018 Arizona Newspapers Association’s Better Newspapers Contest, about the annual celebration of the March 2 birthday of Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Seuss Geisel.
In 1905, a long time ago, was born a great man, though he started out slow.
This young boy, whose name I redact, was born quite young, age zero in fact.
He loved to spell and to draw, to read and to rhyme, and found himself doing them nearly all of the time.
He grew fast near Mulberry Street, [which came into play in his first published feat].
Being a cartoonist was his biggest desire, so he went to Dartmouth, in a place called New Hampshire.
When looking at a map held south-side down, it was found a little to the right and up at the crown.
Learning quite fast, no ignoramus, his drawings at the school paper made him quite famous, but caught drinking gin when all booze had been banned, he had to discover how to hide his hand.
So he picked a name that wasn’t his first, nor was it his last, but rather betwixt them and tied to his past.
“Ah-ha!,” he said “I’ve got it! A name I will use, so no one will know this ban I’ll abuse!”
His middle name! “Pop!” came into his head — the name of his mother before she was wed.
Now, none of us were there to quote him precise, permit me this fiction, it gives the tale spice.
While we spell it “Seuss,” we rhyme it with Bruce or caboose or even the juice of a recluse Siberian spruce, but sadly we’re wrong as a very sad moose who has been painted chartreuse.
You see, we shouldn’t rejoice, because he pronounced it “Soice.”
Yet Seuss, like “Bruce,” he became, but no one’s to blame because children just read what words they had said inside of their heads.
“And besides,” he said later, “Mother Goose rhymes with Seuss and what better way to be remembered at the end of my days?”
He was never a doctor, but wanted to be, so he added “DR” and became who we see.
With his name now intact, he first wrote and first drew about the hats of Bartholomew.
Then he wrote about the stilts of King Bertram of Binn and Lady Godivas, there were seven of them.
He created a Cat in a Hat who wreaked havoc wherever he went, then mixed green eggs and ham — imagine the scent!
Seuss wrote about what he would do if he ran a circus or even a zoo.
He helped children learn their ABCs and imagine letters beyond Z.
He wrote of the Lorax who saved all the trees from the Once-ler obsessed with his “right now!” needs.
He wrote of big creatures helping the small: An elephant named Horton and Thidwick the moose, who grew very tall.
There was a turtle named Yertle and a bird called Zinn-a-zu, two types of Sneetches and a town filled with Whos.
Just north of them, well more than an inch, was green baddie Seuss called The Grinch.
While he stole Christmas, it wasn’t for long, for Cindy Lou made him return it by singing a song.
Toward the end of his life, it seems apropos, he wrote the grand book, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!”
Now every year, to honor his birth, we pick up his books and share in his mirth.
Readers read to the young their favorite tales, on the second of March, shunning rain, snow or gales.
On the front of newspapers, you’ll see some who shared by reading to children — they weren’t even scared.
Next year when the date comes ’round, don’t let them down, sign yourself up, don’t flee town.
And you’ll find in the books of that boy I said I would name, Dr. Seuss showed we’re all exactly the same.
Christopher Fox Graham
— Managing Editor
(all apologies to Dr. Seuss)
