Moormanisms

When Kathy and I interviewed Hank Moorman in the summer of 1976, he did a lot of reflecting on his past. One thing that really stuck in his mind was when his mother had told his dad that she wished he were dead. That one statement had an extreme effect on Hank throughout his entire life.

The other thing that Hank talked about that he regretted was his drinking. He felt that drinking had been a habit that he would have been much better off without. We sensed that he felt things might have been better if he had refrained from drinking.

He also kept saying that he really didn’t think he had anything to leave this world with. I guess he thought he was a failure.

During one of his interviews he presented me with a folder in which he said were all his Moormanisms, published and unpublished. He was very proud of these “paragraph writings”, as Joe Aaron of the Evansville Courier called them. I didn’t think much about them, though, because most of them I just remembered as funny jokes. I guess as I have grown older, I have come to see the deeper meaning of most of his writings.

And now the Moormanisms that I have been, and will be, posting for you. Read them and see the problems with our world and the challenges that we all face. If you try to see these problems and challenges through the eyes of Hank Moorman, maybe you will understand more, laugh more, and think more.

Tuesdays With Morrie made me realize that we all need help through this stressful path called life. And what better way to light the path. Some of these paragraph writings may have come from other authors, but I have no idea. Hank claimed these writings as his.

Hank began publishing his jokes, opinions, and philosophical insights by placing ads or letters to the editor in the local paper, The McLeansboro Times Leader. At first he paid to place them in the classified section and later would be given column space to place his writing

Richard Jackson was editor of the Times Leader. He and his family came to love Hank and befriended him. I think it was Richard who photocopied all the Letters to the Editor and Moormanisms for Hank that were then handed to me in 1976.

Richard must have taken quite a bit of time to put all of Hank's writings together. I think that he and his wife June, or their son Mark, had made plans to write something about Hank.

It might be of interest to some of you that Hank got right with Jesus Christ before he died. I was told by Jennifer Lee Wilkerson that her mom and dad (Reverend John & Wanda Lee) went to see him in his last days in the hospital and Hank said he had been saved and was at peace with dying.

More later..........