Dave Cunningham

October 5, 2005

this is long overdue. though i do think that procrastination is an overlooked virtue in many regards. i first found daniel manus pinkwater in his work ‘the big orange splot’ in a sale bin at a fringy bookstore in monterey california in 1976. i scored big and used the book in my substitute teaching gig that transitioned my career change from writing impact statements for nuclear power plants to teaching. teaching has been more powerful, and dmp has helped me wield the power.

fat men from space? gateway drug.

alan mendelson? utterly subversive

worms of kukumlima? rocks.

i read them to my students. principal came to me and said maybe i shouldn’t be reading to the kids in science class…. hmmmm “this is space science, ned” and now i get to read ‘wolf christmas’ my grand-daughter, 4 years old. ‘be a woof, poppop, be a scary woof.’

dmp, you have been my companion through more than 26 years of reading stories to children. i’ve been able to introduce them to borgle, captain rassman and captain roosman, fafnir, the snarkout boys and snarking, not to mention blueberry park and rollzup, clarence yojimbo…. and my son, now 30, lay back in our pond in his pre-teen times and voiced ‘gagunk, safe place’.

thank you ever and always so much for what you’ve brought into our world and my world. it’s a richness that cannot possibly be repaid. i’m just going to keep on doing what i’ve been doing, with your help. a former student,[she was in 7th grade then, now in her 20’s] at her wedding ceremony, leaned into my ear and whispered ‘i named my dog fafnir’ and glanced over at her new husband. she told me in a glance that he could never get it all because he had not shared our time in that book together. a new flavor of…. adultery?

regards,

dave cunningham

Thank you for your kind words.