Bøger af John E. Beerbower

My father grew up on a small farm in a very small town in northwestern Ohio, appropriately called Hicksville. Its claim to fame is that it is mentioned in Huckleberry Finn. My mother's father during the 1930s worked at the YMCA so that his family could eat meals in the cafeteria. That was his pay. My parents both graduated from Ohio State University. They married right after my father returned from Italy, where he had served in the army during WWII. I grew up in Northville, a small town in southern Michigan. Everyone was either management or labor, and everyone supported either Michigan or Ohio State (in football). Our town was economically diverse, but otherwise pretty homogeneous. Our minorities were the Catholics. My father was quite successful over time. We moved to Oakwood, a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, which was much less economically diverse (but there were more different religions). My parents lived quite well after all four kids were through college and had several wonderful years of travel and adventure after he retired.These are my stories... .

The four books in my Wanderings series contain many essays on politicized topics. I decided to collect them in one place, arranged by related subjects, covering most of the big issues of today: racism, climate change, abortion, inequality, heredity, nationalism, patriotism. I call it "Politics," based on an unusual definition attributed to the late Christopher Boehm, formerly the Director of the Jane Goodall Research Center. I would clarify it by adding "attainable" before "directions" and "rational" before "arguments", making it less Utopian but also more aspirational. It seems silly to do more than dream about societies that can never exist; and we can at least hope for rational argument. I believe that these essays meet both criteria."[T]he essence of politics: the ability to reflect consciously on different directions one's society could take, and to make explicit arguments why it should take one path rather than another."

Sometime during 2013, I became aware of my first symptoms.I was diagnosed in March 2015. I rushed to finish the book I was writing since my retirement in March 2011. Under a perceived shortage of time, I decided to self-publish. The book was out by mid-2016. By early 2018, I was getting restless. I started writing again. Naturally, much of what I wrote concerned my experiences with ALS. Having learned how to publish a book, I indulged myself. I have now three more. While reading posts from sufferers of ALS, whether patients or care-givers, I concluded that there might be benefits if I made my writings more accessible. So, I gathered the relevant chapters from the three books, added a preamble and some final notes and went "to press". For a small but very special audience. May some find help.¿

Diagnosed with ALS in 2015 and confined to a wheelchair in 2018, he wrote his first collection of essays, entitled Wanderings of a Captive Mind. A second set of essays, The Eyes Have It (Wanderings Part 2), was written entirely using his eyes. Those essays are by practical necessity shorter and without the many references. This new set, also written primarily with his eyes, is Part 3 of Wanderings. And, as J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: "Not all those who wander are lost... ."Born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Northville, Michigan, John majored in economics at Amherst College (Class of 1970) and received his J.D. from The Harvard Law School in 1973. Following law school, he did post-graduate research at the University of Cambridge (Trinity College). In late 1974, John began a 37-year career as a commercial litigator with a major law firm in New York City. John retired from the practice of law in 2011 and, shortly thereafter, located just outside of Cambridge, England. In March 2015, however, after his diagnosis, he returned to the U.S., settling in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. His daughter Sarah and his son John Eliot and daughter-in-law Megan, with his two grandchildren, Hannah and Jeffrey, all live nearby.