Inspiration (Saturday Writing Essential)

This is a very difficult thing to write. Not because I can’t figure out what inspired me to write it, but I had so much inspiration for it. I’ll try to narrow it down.

In March of last year I posted  Golden Rain,  which was a retold California folk tale. In the intro I mentioned how I heard of the tale and what prompted me to write it and I think I need to expand on that a bit.

We moved to a new home in June, 1960. Just a couple weeks later, a family moved into the house next to ours. The father was George Zimmer and he was a schoolteacher. Through the summer I got to know him and enjoyed listening to his tales. He was born and reared in Boston and had many stories about sailing ships. I was, at the time, a model builder and loved working on models of sailing ships. We spent hours talking about ships. He’d be cutting his grass and I’d walk beside him, back and forth across the lawn, and we’d talk about ships.

He also told me several folk tales and this is one of them. I mentioned, in the intro, that my dad had told me this story years before and I have no idea why I waited so long to write it. What finally got me going was the fact that George was in failing health and I wanted to do something for him.

A tribute to him? I don’t know. I do know that I met several men and women who had been in George’s fifth grade class and they, without exception, said he was the best teacher they’d ever had.

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Challenge: Pick something you’ve posted on Gather at any time. Write a brief story (prose or poetry) explaining who or what inspired you to write that particular piece. Include a link so that we can read your original work.

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