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It already revealed the storyteller I would later become.
When I was 11, I wrote a school essay titled “My Life.” It’s filled with forts built in the woods, summer-camp battles, and a near-miss forest fire that almost caught our apartment. I even listed my Civil War ancestors and the exact streets we lived on, as if the details might vanish if I didn’t write them down.
Looking at it now, I can see what was already there: a fascination with memory, a love of quirky detail, and a habit of turning lived moments into stories. I wasn’t just playing at adventures — I was preserving them.
The essay closes with my plans for the future: maybe a botanist, maybe a chemist, maybe even a “nuclear physicist.” But in the end, I became something the essay had already hinted at: a storyteller intent on making sure history doesn’t get lost.
Sometimes your childhood writing knows you long before you do.
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Dave Tabler
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While my twin brother and I were adventuring at that age, I wasn't writing as well as you. But recently I was scanning old documents and found a number of letters from my younger twin brothers who wrote me every time I sent them gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. Written on that same lined ring paper with a ballpoint pen.
I love to tell the story about picking up butts and smoking them when we were seven. Caught a building smoldering and got picked up by the police. Made me quit smoking.
Like you, I love writing about true adventures.
Ron