Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)

GOLDEN OLDIE.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Not everyone can claim Dr. Seuss - one of the most famous children's book writers of all time, a la "The Cat in the Hat" - as a regular correspondent, but Arthur Golden can.

Nor does everyone have a letter from President Harry Truman, a thank-you for making his day a little brighter, mounted on the living room wall, but Golden does.

And how many people have an Aunt Bessie who was first cousin to Al Jolson, the acclaimed singer-actor-comedian whose career spanned the first half of the 20th century? Well, one has, and his name is Golden.

Now 86 and living in a small, neat-as-a-pin apartment in a downtown Eugene retirement center, Arthur Golden doesn't seem to find any of this extraordinary.

"My greatest achievement in my life is my three daughters - and my work with alcoholics," Golden says, describing himself as a "recovering alcoholic" who took his last drink 56 years ago, and his long life as a conundrum of silver tongue and clay feet. But through it all, one thing - writing - has been a constant.

Much of his writing has been in the form of letters, but this year he also finished and self-published a children's book, "Flibbity Jibbit...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!