Lyman's Masterpiece

It often takes some people longer than others to "find themselves," to find something they can do well and that they enjoy enough to make it their career.

Some people know from an early age what they're cut out to be and do. Others struggle for a while, trying first this and then that until they find their calling.

I had a college roommate who knew from his first day as a freshman what his calling was, and he never wavered from it once. In fact, he died a few years ago, still doing that one thing.

It took me a while longer. I had three majors before I "found myself" and settled on a career as a teacher and writer-editor.

Lyman

For Lyman, it took even longer to hit his stride. He bounced from one job to another and never stuck to one long enough to call it a career. He worked at various times as an actor, a reporter, a playwright, a traveling salesman, a store display window decorator, a chicken breeder, and who knows what else.

Finally, in 1897, when he was 41 years old (he was born on May 15, 1856), he discovered what he should have been doing all along. He became an author when his first published work appeared--Tales from Mother Goose. He went on to write more: Father Goose: His Book, 41 other novels, 83 short stories, more than 200 poems, and 42 or more scripts. Lyman could say he had found his calling. But you probably know Lyman better for 14 other things he wrote based on one fantastic idea.

As I understand it, Lyman's children had asked him to tell them a story. Wracking his weary brain for an idea to tell them as a story, he let his gaze wander around his office until his eyes happened to light on a filing cabinet drawer that he had inadvertently left open. On the tab identifying the drawer's contents he read, "O-Z."

That sparked his imagination. And he began to tell his children the story that became what you know as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Lyman is better known today as L. Frank Baum. And people have enjoyed his brainchild work for generations, thanks especially to the movie adaptation of his book.

Although Baum's masterpiece was written for children, it includes some dialogue that adults could benefit from. Consider the following quotations from it:

• "Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?"

• "A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get."

• "For I consider brains far superior to money in every way. You may have noticed that if one has money without brains, he cannot use it to his advantage; but if one has brains without money, they will enable him to live comfortably to the end of his days."

• "A little misery, at times, makes one appreciate happiness more."

And my favorite,

• "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home." (Can't you just hear Judy Garland repeating that with closed eyes? "There's no place like home! There's no place like home!")

Just thinking about this topic makes me want to watch that movie again! How about you?