Twenty years ago I was given a mission in life. In response to my fervent plea, “I want to be a writer,” the entire contents of “Animal Exercise Fun” quite miraculously filled my mind. Unfortunately, back then I was told things like, “Kids don’t need to exercise.”
Regardless, I started a partnership with my family, Small World Press, and self-published the first edition with story-book instructions and black and white pictures. Not a salesperson, nonetheless, enough copies made it around the country to garnering academic recognition and conference invites in New York and Washington D.C.
While writing the script for a promising video development opportunity, I rewrote the instructions in rhyming verse, reworking the page layout as well. All this was done in preparation for a revised second print run to accompany the video.
With faith and naïvety more than anything else, I persevered a ten years roller coaster ride of promise and disillusionment. All the time adding to the program and writing, writing, writing.
During this process, I published another book, “Moving to Discover the USA” co-wrote with Dr. Rhonda Clements an expert in the field of movement for young children.
Three times, I came close to having the program produced as a video by celebrity fitness personalities, and experienced all the highs and lows associated with the “business.” I persevered until my mother, also an inveterate dreamer, began showing signs of advancing dementia.
The Dream Deferred
Despite dying with the same grace and dignity with which she lived, I found it hard to continue facing rejection from the established media and a then “back to basics” education system that was actually eliminating recess in schools. There was no way they were going to allow children to move in the classroom.
So, I fell into a routine working at my local library, kind of like an aspiring actor waiting tables at a dinner theater. The books were solace as well as an ever present reminder of my dreams deferred. Developing programs for children and youth compensated for my unfulfilled dreams.
No More Excuses
Fast forward to the growing recognition of the health crisis associated with obesity and its roots in childhood. Now with broadband in the boondocks of Idaho, and affordable publishing through Amazon/CreateSpace, it is time for me to try again. Having enough money to last a few years without being otherwise employed, plus suffering an overwhelming guilt due to the now epidemic of childhood obesity, I’ve revisited “Animal Exercise Fun.”
Update
My dream is almost fulfilled, “Animal Exercise Fun” is now available as a free e-book download with its own web site and for sale in print-on-demand through Amazon.
My Audacious Dream
Print and distribute copies of Animal Exercise Fun to all the low income, at-risk children in the United States.
The History of “Animal Exercise Fun”
