On Setting Quiet Examples

by John Ettorre

To the casual observer, my friend Don may appear to be the most unlikely poet imaginable.

After all, he makes his living in an alternate universe, as an economic development consultant. This involves studying and writing about business developments and traveling around the country giving civic leaders and other interested parties advice on how to make their economies sizzle. It’s true that this is a field of endeavor not generally known as a prime launching pad for poets. On the other hand, you should know that a man named Wallace Stevens spent much of his working life beavering away in the insurance business, while also managing to produce some of the most memorable poetry of the 20^th century.

But let’s get back to Don.

His first book of poetry is due out this month, a long-awaited collection of his quietly reflective work. He told me that he plans to dedicate it to his dad, who’s in his eighties. As well he should. He once explained how, as a boy growing up in a small Appalachian town, his life was subtly shaped by watching his father’s early-morning routine. His dad was a blue-collar guy, the kind of American male we lazily tend to think of as mostly lacking a lively interior life. And yet his father, without much extra time on his hands, would quietly sit at the kitchen table each morning before going to work. It seems he too was writing poetry.

Don evidently never forgot the sight. He’s never said this, but I think that in important ways the silent ritual he observed as a kid shaped his life as much as anything he experienced. At a certain point in his life’s journey, he’s reconnected with something that he knew early on to be soothing and spiritually cleansing. Most ironic of all is that he seems to have been given the gift of an enduring appreciation for words in large measure by his father’s unspoken example.

For me, his story is a parable about the observational powers of children, and about how what they see and experience in youth continues to echo for a lifetime. As parents, we tend to imagine that what we say is what carries the real weight in our households, and what will come to be remembered best by our kids. Sometimes that’s the case. Just as often, though, it isn’t. In my experience, kids tend to care only a little about what we say, with some obvious exceptions. (Try telling your kids you want to give them a hundred dollars each or buy them a second-hand car and you’ll likely get their full attention.) Mostly, it’s what we do that shouts the loudest to them. Like Vegas card sharks or mid-century State Department Kremlinologists, kids study their parents’ mannerisms and moods, unknowingly looking for clues on how they might organize their own lives.

In recognition of this, I’ve stopped nagging my own boys about cleaning up the mess in their rooms until I’ve first tended to my own piles of newspapers, books, magazines and assorted stuff that grows like moss in the back seat of my car. And near my bed. And around my favorite reading couch in the living room. And on the steps going to the second floor. And even sometimes out on the hammock. I’ve learned through long experience that my suggestions carry considerably greater moral weight when my sons observe that I’ve already taken my own advice.

And if Don and a hundred other examples I could cite are a true barometer, you’d have to say that when it comes to the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture equation, what we do—often wordlessly, without thinking really, but repeated hundreds or thousands of times—will set much of the pattern for what kind of adults our kids become. For better or worse.

I’m going to be giving some hard thought to what the equivalent moments of that early-morning poetry-writing routine might constitute in our house. Yes, my boys are teens, with much of their belief structure and personality already set. But for me, as for most parents I know, hope springs eternal that we can continue influencing our kids the right way, even if we haven’t thought enough about that during the earliest, most formative period of their lives. I figure it’s really never too late to begin setting a good, silent, example.

If you’re interested in getting your hands on a copy of Don’s book of poetry, just drop me an email or give me a call. I’ll be pleased to send a free copy to the first reader I hear from.

John Ettorre is a Cleveland-based writer and editor who has also worked in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Over a 20-year career, his writing has appeared in more than 70 publications, including the New York Times. His online weblog, Working With Words, can be found at www.workingwithwords.blogspot.com. To reach John, send e-mail to: jettorre@voyager.net or leave a message at (440) 708-2994.