Well, on a TV show that I saw as a kid, there was a character called Maynard G. Krebs. And he made quite an impression on me. Maynard G. was laid back and innocent and funny. He wasn’t overly interested in material things; He wore scruffy clothes and, in an otherwise “clean-shaven” era, he sported a goatee. He was okay about being different. He was the exact opposite of pretty well everyone in my small factory and farming hometown in Southern Ontario Canada, including me.
Maynard G. was a “Beatnik”.
Beatnik was the name given to a group of Poets and Storytellers, Folk Singers, Musicians and Artists plying their trade in the 1950s and early 60’s. They would get together in coffee houses, jazz clubs, around kitchen tables, etc. to work out their visions for a better world.
My work channels my “Inner Beatnik.
With stories, poems and what I call “character sketches”, I explore what it is to be a person in this world and what we might want to do about that together.
I draw from my lifelong fascination with people, people going about the business of being people. And I weave in insights gained through a degree in Sociology, a Masters Degree in Social Work and some four decades working with and learning from people.
Hopefully my contributions touch your inner beatnik.
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Content on this site is copyrighted. That means you can’t present my stuff as your own. You can share the illustrations as long as you give me credit for my work, don’t make a profit from my work, and don’t change the content. This is called common cause copyright. For any other use, particularly commercial, you have to ask my permission!
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