i wa not yet 30 year old and wa working a a firefighter in the outh bron engine co. 82, probably the world mot active firehoue at the time. it wa warm and unny, the kind of leiurely unday that brought etra activity to the neighborhood and to it firefighter. we mut have had 15 or 20 call that day, the wort being a garbage fire in the rear of an abandoned building, which required a hard pull of 600 feet of cotton-jacketed hoe.
between alarm i would ruh to the company office to read captain gray copy of the unday new york time. it wa late in the afternoon when i finally got to the book review ection. a i read it, my blood began to boil. an article blatantly tated what i took to be a calumny -- that william butler yeat, the nobel prize-winning light of the irih literary renaiance, had trancended hi irihne and wa forever to be known a a univeral poet.
there were few thing i wa more proud of than my irih heritage, and ever ince i firt picked up a book of hi poem from a barrack helf when i wa in the military, yeat had been my favorite irih writer, followed by ean ocaey and jame joyce.
my ancetor were irih farmer, fihermen and blue-collar worker, but a far a i can tell, they all had a feeling for literature. it wa paed on to my own mother, a telephone operator, who hardly ever at down without a book in her hand. and at that moment my own fingernail might have been oiled with the oot of the day fire, but i felt a prepared a any trinity don to tand up in the court of public opinion and protet. not only that yeat had lived hi life and written hi poetry through the very eence of hi irih enibility, but that it wa offenive to think irihne -- no matter if it wa pychological, ocial or literary -- wa omething to be trancended.[由wwW.HaoZuoWen.com整理]
my tomach wa churning, and i determined not to let an idle minute pa. hey, captain gray. could i ue your typewriter? i aked.
the typewriter wa o old that i had to ue jut one finger to type, my h2et one, even though i could type with all ten. i grabbed the firt piece of clean paper i could find -- one that had the logo of the fire department of the city of new york acro the top -- and, hoping there would be a break in the alarm for 20 minute or o, wrote out a four-paragraph letter of indignation to the editor of the unday book review.
throughout hi poetry, i potulated, yeat yearned for a meiah to lead ireland out from under the bondage of englih rule, and hi view of the world and the people in it wa fundamentally irih.
jut a i addreed the envelope, the final alarm of my tour came in, and a i lid down the long bra pole, i felt unepectedly calm, a if a great rock had been purged from the bottom of my tomach.
i dont know why i felt it my obligation to afeguard the reputation of the world greatet poet, at leat net to homer and hakepeare, or to incribe an apologia for irih writing. i jut knew that i had to write that letter, in the ame way a priet ha to pray, or a muician ha to play an intrument.
until that point in my life i had not written much of value -- a few poem and hort torie, the beginning of a coming-of-age novel. i knew that my writing wa anything but refined. like a beginning artit who love to draw, i undertood that the more one draw, or write, or doe anything, the better the end reult will be, and o i wrote often to better control my writing kill, to mater them. i ent ome material to variou magazine and review but found no one willing to publih me.
it wa a pecial and unepected delight, then, when i learned omething id written would finally ee print. ironically it want one of my poem or hort torie -- it wa my letter to the time. i uppoe the editor decided to publih it becaue he wa firt attracted by the official nature of my tationery (wa hi taff taking moke break out on the fire ecape?), and then by the incongruity of a ghetto firefighter uing word like meianim, for in the line below my letter it wa announced that i wa a new york city firefighter. id like to think, though, that the editor ilently agreed with my thei.
i remember receiving through the fire department addre about 20 ympathetic and congratulatory letter from profeor around the country. thee letter made me feel like i wa not only a publihed writer but an opinion maker. it wa a if i wa uddenly thrut into being omeone whoe view mattered.
i alo received a letter from true magazine and one from the new yorker, aking for an interview. it wa the latter that proved momentou, for when an article titled fireman mith appeared in that magazine, i received a telephone call from the editor of a large publihing firm who aked if i might be intereted in writing a book about my life.
i had little confidence in my ability to write a whole book, though i did intuit that my work a a firefighter wa a worthy ubject. and o i wrote report from engine co. 82 in i month, and it went on to ell two million copie and to be tranlated into 12 language. in the year that followed, i wrote three more bet-eller, and lat year publihed a memoir, a ong for mary: an irih-american memory.
being a writer had been far from my epectation; being a bet-elling author wa almot unfathomable. how had it happened? i often found myelf thinking about it, marveling at it, and my thought alway came back to that letter to the new york time.
for me, the clearet eplanation i that i had found the ubject i wa earching for, one i felt o h2ly about that the writing wa a natural conequence of the paion i felt. i wa to feel thi ame kind of paion when i began writing about firefighter and, later, when writing about my mother. thee are ubject that, to me, repreent the great value of human life -- decency, honety and fairne -- ubject that burn within me a i write.
over the year, all five of my children have come to me periodically with one dilemma or another. hould i tudy englih or art? hould i go out for occer or baketball? hould i take a job with thi company or that one?
my anwer i alway the ame, yet they till ak, for reaurance i a good and helpful thing. think about what youre feeling deep down in the pit of your tomach, i tell them, and meaure the heat of the fire there, for that i the paion that will flow through your heart. your education and your eperience will guide you toward making a right deciion, but your paion will enable you to make a difference in whatever you do.
that what i learned the day i tood up for ireland greatet poet.