Small Words

Edit: Found Dan’s obituary. It is beautifully written and does tell you about his life: read it here

Recently, a man named Dan Pelzer has popped up on my social media and news feed more than once. Though I don’t usually think much of the “inspirational eulogy”, I finally had to look into his story. Dan passed away at 93 years old and left a rather tall legacy. This isn’t like the usual Facebook eulogy where a man is exalted for his great deeds, greater suffering, and the hole in the hearts of those left behind. Possibly that man, in this other post, had a four-legged friend that is still waiting at the door every day in hopes that he comes home. All this sap is often written by a weirdo to pull heartstrings and garner engagement.    

Dan’s story isn’t written by a hack at all. It is written by thousands of acclaimed authors, political figures, theologians, and celebrated luminaries. Dan’s story is told by his book list.  

Since the 1960’s, Dan has recorded every book he read. After his passing in July, his family came forward with images of his log, which you can see here. And let me tell you, this log is impressive. It has more than 3,500 entries, each of which fastidiously includes the book’s title, author, and the year he read it in. Printed, his list is 100 plus pages – what a flex.

All this is, I suppose, why his book list has created such a stir among readers. The Columbus Metropolitan Library was so impressed when they heard of his admirable pursuit of lifelong learning, they ran a brief (and very successful) social media campaign, which felt especially appropriate because, purportedly, every book that Dan read was checked out on a CML library card. This was too much of a social media gem to let go unannounced, I’m sure.

Even putting aside the social media campaign and news stories, there is genuine respect for Dan Pelzer’s disciplined commitment to reading. It isn’t that he just read a lot – everyone can read; Dan understood that reading is about learning and all the good stuff that comes from knowing about the world you live in.

Looking over his list, you’ll find some mystery books, autobiographies, pop-science but mostly he read boring books (speaking for myself). Politics, history, military, true espionage – okay, “true espionage” makes it sound exciting but like, really, who wants to read about former president George “Dubya” Bush? Well, Dan I guess. Anyway, point is, Dan gets it. 93 years old, and he never stopped reading about what is real and relevant today.

“Today” is a lot of days when you’ve lived 93 years. Dan has seen countless historic events unfold during his life and instead of puzzling about what they meant, he went to the library and sought counsel.

In 1991, Dan read about Genetic Engineering, just about the time that Dolly the sheep was in the news for being the first animal to be genetically cloned. To many, the use of cloning was a terrifying concept. It brought to light ethical questions no one thought they would ever have to consider. Many feared a new doomsday future was on the horizon. I don’t know if Dan feared after hearing about Dolly but I did see that he checked out several books on the topic. If he was worried, I am positive he felt better after.

When stuff got real, Dan pursued literature again, and again. He read about Former President Bill Clinton policies when the former president was in office, and many years later, and when Hillary Clinton was passed over, Dan read her heartfelt memoirs. He read in-depth considerations on terrorism during Bush’s Iraq war. The years passed, but Dan kept reading. Before the BLM protests, Dan read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ moving and lyrical book Between the World and Me about the realities of being black in America. He read Bob Woodword’s Trump during the first round of litigation against Trump. And then The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

One of the last books he read was called Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It is a novel about video games. Dan was born around the time pantyhose, radar, and scotch tape was invented, and nearing a century later, he can still stomach new technology. Not to wax poetic, but reading truly made Dan forever young.

When I first came across it, Dan’s story seemed like a sensationalized account of speed-reading bookworm, and as a woman with dyslexia, I’m really not into a show-off. But I kept seeing Dan’s story around town. First, the library, then the local news. But when the story entered national publication territory, I thought I’d better, at the very least, skim it. I now have to eat crow because looking through Dan’s meticulous log turned out to be an illuminating reminder of why I follow those accounts in the first place.

Like, who is Dan Pelzer, really? The articles say almost nothing about his life. As it turns out, a glimpse of the books he reads is enough to show us what kind of person he was. And judging him by his book covers, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. Those thousands of acclaimed authors, political figures, theologians, and celebrated luminaries from Dan’s list that I mentioned earlier are a forever reminder that you are what you read.