On this blog, I am posting selected excerpts from my father’s handwritten journals. My father, Paul Dwight Davis, was born in Torrington, Connecticut on June 19, 1922, and died in Kirkland, Washington June 1, 2008. He began keeping a journal on April 1, 1942 at the age of 19, while a student at Middlebury College. My father maintained his journaling practice, with occasional gaps, until early 2008. In all, he produced 39 bound journals, constituting many hundreds of thousands of words.
I began exploring my father’s journals several months after his death, and found them to be fascinating records of both his internal life as well as the times in which he lived. My father was a professional journalist early in his career (Masters Degree from Columbia School of Journalism, Providence Journal reporter) and writing was always a central element of both his professional and private life.
My father’s commentary ranged from his personal experiences (family, Army life, books read, work experiences, travels, etc.) to ruminations on societal, political, and world affairs topics. It is this latter category of entries – those dealing with society, politics and world affairs – that I am excerpting and posting on this blog. These writings, I believe, provide a fascinating window into the evolving mind of an intelligent and engaged Twentieth-Century American, as well as contemporaneous observations about most of the major events and issues that transpired during my father’s life. Most interestingly – and often sadly – my father’s descriptions and critiques of social and political issues mirror or foreshadow much about our current world of political polarization, social inequity and superficial living.
The particulars of my father’s life weren’t incredible, although they provided a variety of vantage points and contexts for his wide-ranging observations. After an Army stint (mostly stateside) and the completion of his higher education (Middlebury & Columbia), my father worked as a journalist then as a college administrator (Brown University, New College in Sarasota, Florida, University of Wisconsin Green Bay). He retired early and, with my mother, Phoebe Davis, spent three years in the Peace Corp in Belize before settling in Morelia, Mexico for five years until my mother’s death in 1994. My father then lived out his life in Kirkland, Washington, Montclair, New Jersey and, finally, back in Kirkland.
More notable than my father’s activities and his locales is his life-long search for knowledge and happiness, and his insightful commentary about the world in which he lived. I think others will find his observations to be both enlightening and, occasionally, profound.
Dwight B. Davis, Kirkland, WA
Hi Dwight, Thank you for all of the hard and thoughtful work that it must take to bring these letters to the public. Your Dad was a really extraordinary man. I am still traveling and have been for the last 6 months or so but we still need to get together for coffee some time. Hope the work situation is improving. Dave
Thanks for your comments, Dave. Let’s definitely try to connect during a break in your travels. — Dwight