Column: Memory of Dr. Seuss lives on

Elizabeth K. Oliver
Record Columnist
Published Sunday, March 21, 2004

Anyone who knows me is aware that books and music play an important part in my life.

This past week, I put on my Bose a Wayra C.D. (I have written about Wayra, the Peruvian of Incan descent whose name Wayra is Incan for wind. The music he plays on his siku, also known as pan pipes or pan flutes, is haunting. The liquid melody of his tone make listening pleasure.)

With the Wayra C.D. for background, I re-read a handful of the Dr. Seuss books and was reminded of my librarian days in Connecticut when I read stories to the little ones who came from school to the library for a story hour. I had once recited to the children the Greek alphabet, which I had learned for an initiation years before, and I still know it from alpha to omega. (And I just proved I still know it by reciting it aloud!) Anyhow, the little ones were fascinated with it, so different from the ABC's they'd learned, and they always asked me to recite it.

Then, I would continue with the story hour. A favorite book was Dr. Seuss "The Cat in the Hat." It still is a great favorite.

During March, Dr. Seuss' centennial is being celebrated with a U.S. postage stamp and a statute in his home town of San Diego, Calif. -- a bronze statute showing "Ted sitting at this desk, one of his legs plopped on its top, with "The Cat in Hat" standing behind him," his friendly wife, Audrey said. "It's perfect because that man never had both feet on the ground. One leg represents reality, the other his imagination." He will also have a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Theodore Seuss (his mother's maiden name) Geisel was born March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Mass. His father was a zookeeper, and at an early age Dr. Seuss began to draw animals, often adding an extra hump on a camel's back or a long snout on a hyena's face for comic effect.

He attended Dartmouth College, where he studied Latin, saying "It allows you to adore words, take them apart and find out where they come from." (I have written in the past of the importance of studying Latin which is a base for so many of the Romance languages.)

With the publication of his first book "And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (1937), he began his meteoric rise as America's most popular children's book author.

His 44 books have been translated into 21 languages, selling more than 500 million copies. The Dr. Seuss Collection is in the Geisel Library at the University of California, now open to scholars. Over 8,000 archived items are on file.

Audrey Seuss oversees Dr. Seuss Enterprises and, like her husband, when she cannot find the right word, she pulls one out of the hat.

For example, describing Dr. Seuss' career, she said his life was "phasic."

When asked where Dr. Seuss was buried, she stated "Ted was a card-carrying claustrophobic. I would never put him in the ground or scatter his dust. I keep him in an appropriate place in an appropriate container."

Dr. Seuss is gone, but his stories like "the Cat in the Hat" will never be gone.