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Follow me, please. We’re taking a little walk through my house.
My home, like most homes, I believe, is full of displays. Photos, paintings, ornaments and plants. Stuff like that.
It’s become a museum reflecting those who live here, including Tucker, our dog. People are not lining up for tours, though. And I confess that sometimes I wish they did. (Note to wife: Relax. I’m making a point here. There will be no public tours.)
Our home is our sanctum. Our safe and private place, we hope. My wife and I surround ourselves with things that provide comfort and joy and powerful memories.
These are things we display … also for others to see. But friends who visit and even family don’t really see everything. Or understand what it all means.
I jam my environment, especially my writing office, with things that are telling – about me. Or what’s important to me. (Others tend to see a mess.)
You will see two comics taped to my monitor: Snoopy at a typewriter, of course, and Garfield lamenting: “I don’t know where to not start.”
This is my quirk, I suppose. I plaster words with messages all around. I love great quotes. (Doesn’t everyone?) So I display them. Just below my monitor is Jean-Paul Sartre telling me, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.”
Tucked into books in my desk nook are two more.
“Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you want to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer,” says author Barbara Kingsolver.
And Martin Luther saying: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
Around me are ornamental typewriters of all sizes. They represent writing, my career, and the keyboards I used to make my “music.”
There’s much more to see here, but our tour time is limited. I need to take you to the lower level. I won’t get into all the books. But I do want to point out a few displays.
On a closet door is a very large poster showing a reporter (“Press” label in his hat) saying into an old-fashioned candlestick phone, “Hello, sweetheart, get me rewrite!”
Two old typewriters are set up. The Royal, like the one I used in my early years, has paper in the roller sharing my mantra: “Make the world write.”
Tucked into a small plastic photo holder, I have a colorful print of the First Amendment. (I’ve never lost touch with the importance of those monumental words and their purpose.)
And, of course, there are quotes on the bookshelves.
Author Ray Bradbury telling me, “At the top of your lungs, shout and listen to the echoes. You must live at the top of your voice.”
From the Persian poet Hafiz: “Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe Me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the Whole Sky.”
And author Adam Stanley: “Every book you read may not save your life, but some of them will.”
Nearby on a pedestal stand is a large framed print of a young boy perched on a couple of mailboxes reading a newspaper. Not sure how he got on those mailboxes, but what’s important are two things. He’s reading, and it’s a newspaper.
Sadly, we’ve run out of time. I (and my ego) have enjoyed taking you on this brief tour, which I had to do. Right? I mean, it’s kind of a shame that people don’t really see the place we call home.
• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.