When we were young – Anne and I and David and Elizabeth – my father would sit beside our beds, or outside the tent, and tell us stories where we were the characters, and everything that befell us was steeped in gentle magic. His voice breathed adventure and comfort over us, until we drifted off in warm repose.
My father is a scientist, that is his vocation. But his gift is as a fabulist journalist. His plots conform to facts, mostly; his details are often accurate, and names are frequently correct – but his voice is unerring and his honesty never falters. He is a polymath of the real and also of the possible. He reports a world where people are odd and gentle, colorful always, often rebuffed and bewildered by the world but usually up for another try. Everything is here: politics, travel, heard on the street, geology, boastful dad stories, memories of long-ago California, England, Africa, everything.
My father has been sending his thoughts, rants, and reflections to our family listserv for years, to such a degree so that I can barely open my mail for all the messages I’m saving. I dare not delete a thing lest I lose even one.
So brother David originally, and now I following on quickly, have set him up with a blog where his fables can be read by everyone. As they should be.
Antony Van Couvering, #1 son
2 responses so far ↓
1 Mary Van Koevering Stryker // Jan 8, 2008 at 3:15 am
Just for fun I googled my Uncle Tony and Aunt Mable’s oldest son, cousin John and what a delight to find all this stuff. Thanks for saving it.
Mary Stryker, daughter of Nelson and Elizabeth Van Koevering, Zeeland, Mich. We live in Hershey, Pa. and enjoyed a visit with John, Enid, and the twins and William many years ago.
2 Andrea Herrde // Jun 3, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I came in touch with John on a professional basis, because he always helps me out when I’m in trouble with Micropress. I’m a German librarian, by the way. Just now I discovered the small link at the bottom of his email reply and followed it, and since then I’m reading and laughing and laughing and reading … bad for my work but wonderful to “know” someone who can tell such stories. Thank you, John, also for this!
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