inspiration to write

**G*@aol.com**

An interesting thread.

Hard to say what inspired me, but my older sister was a writer of sorts,  and 
all my family were all voracious readers. I remember when my father first  
let me read such tomes The History of Mankind, Men, Beasts and Gods, and similar 
 then popular works. We lived on a farm in Idaho, seven miles out of town, 
which  was a good distance in those days, and I went to the library once a week, 
took  out books on my card, my father's card, and my brother's card, read 
them all and  returned them the next week and did it all over again.

In school, I liked to write, and in high school I won some awards for  
essays, worked on the school newspaper and the yearbook. Then in college, at  what 
is now Idaho State University in Pocatello, I majored in journalism, was  
managing editor of the student newspaper (made $12 a month), wrote university  
publicity, and worked as a stringer for a building and trade journal located in  
Seattle.

But events like WWII, and a growing family pushed writing into the  
background. I spent 29 years with Burpee and left as Western Regional Vice  President, 
went to Bodger as Executive Director for six years. Toward the end of  that 
stint with Bodger, I happened to meet the editor of the local newspaper on  the 
street one day. We were old friends from Junior Chamber of Commerce days,  and 
on impulse I asked if he would be interested in another garden column. He  
said "Send us something." And thus I got back into writing, something I had  
always wanted to do, and for years now I've been doing garden columns for  
newspapers and periodicals as well as doing travel writing.

It's been satisfying.

Jerry

Gerald Burke
Garden Writer

**************Start the year off right.  Easy ways to stay in shape.     
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