Sunday, November 26, 2006
By MIKE BAKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Childhood homes provided a first movie set for Steven Spielberg, a window to New York's theater district for Hank Azaria and a fighting chance for Sugar Ray Leonard.
They are among the memories shared in "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives," a coffee-table collection of mini-memoirs edited by 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards.
"The home, family and the environment in which you grew up never goes away," Edwards said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It has a profound impact on who you are as a human being."
Personal, not political
While Edwards says he is "strongly considering" another run for the Oval Office, his book doesn't wade into policy or partisanship. Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole, who lost his presidential bid in 1996, contributed an essay, as did former astronaut and Democratic Sen. John Glenn.
Since the book's release Nov. 14, Edwards, whose wife, Elizabeth, just completed a book tour promoting her memoir, is on a book tour that includes stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- key states in the presidential nominating process. The trips build on the tireless travels of the former North Carolina senator, who has worked for the past year on poverty initiatives around the nation.
For "Homes," Edwards picked nearly 60 stories from a cross-section of Americans, mixing both cultural icons such as Spielberg, Leonard and Ohio native and architect Maya Lin, with average citizens, including Kathryn Cline, a health-care worker, who writes about growing up in Youngstown. He opens the book with a glimpse to his own childhood, when the Edwards family bounced from house to house as his parents chased mill jobs around the South.
In words and pictures
The essays in "Home" are paired with personal photographs, including an old snapshot of popular chef Mario Batali and his grandmother after a home-cooked meal, a black-and-white photo of musician Nanci Griffith's long-ago abode and a picture capturing Dole's humble Kansas upbringing.
"Whether you're famous or not, you remember the same kinds of things -- the smell of dinner being cooked, conversation, doing things together as a family," Edwards said. "That helps create the values system that we believe in this country."
In his essay, boxing great Leonard recalls his early days in Maryland, where his parents worked long hours in humble occupations to give their six kids "the chance to go after our dreams."
Azaria wrote he developed his acting aspirations while sitting at his bedroom window in a Queens apartment complex wondering if he could "someday, somehow" be on stage in the theater district he could see in the distance.
For Spielberg, the story is about growing up in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he used his father's 8 mm camera and his childhood train set to direct his first movie -- dubbed "The Last Train Wreck."
"Scottsdale is where I learned what was really important to me -- family, memory, and imagination," wrote the Academy Award-winning director.
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