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My Son Shaun

Hav­ing post­ed the lyrics and music for “The Mouse Song” from my new book, Rag­weed and Pop­py.

A num­ber of folks asked me to say some­thing about my son Shaun, who wrote and per­formed the music with his family.

His name, Shaun, derives from my admi­ra­tion of the Irish writer Sean O’Casey.

His full name is Shaun Wolf Wor­tis, and there is much more about him and his music on the inter­net than I can say here.

Shaun’s first gig

Born in New York City, he cur­rent­ly lives in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts with his wife, Ingrid Ander­son (who teach­es writ­ing at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty) and his two kids, Isabel­la and Ezekiel, both cur­rent­ly in ele­men­tary school. Isabella—12 years-old—aside from being a good student—is an out­stand­ing soc­cer play­er, where­as Zeke—8 years-old—is a great gamer and shifts his pas­sions almost weekly.

Shaun’s moth­er was a mod­ern dancer, and I am a writer, so it seems (in ret­ro­spect) only log­i­cal that he com­bined these fields with one of his own, Rock Musician.

I’m not sure exact­ly when he tru­ly got inter­est­ed in music, though music was played con­stant­ly in his child­hood home. His first gui­tar was pur­chased with mon­ey he earned from a news­pa­per deliv­ery route in New Hope, Penn­syl­va­nia, where we lived.

He orga­nized his first band, appro­pri­ate­ly called “Child,” with his ele­men­tary class­mates and tells me his first per­for­mance was at the sixth-grade end-of-the-year picnic.

A music teacher at that school gen­er­ous­ly offered to men­tor the group, teach them music, and how to work togeth­er as an ensem­ble. (Some of what I saw hap­pen there may be found—in exag­ger­at­ed fashion—in my book, Nev­er Mind, which I wrote with Rachel Vail.)

I do recall watch­ing him per­form for the first time at some open stage at a music fes­ti­val in Allen­town, Penn­syl­va­nia. I remem­ber being aston­ished as he—a sev­enth grad­er perhaps—played and danced like some­one I had nev­er seen before.

Shaun Wolf Wor­tis in high school

In high school he con­tin­ued to play gui­tar, and I believe it was The Who that influ­enced him the most. His senior high school project had him mak­ing his own elec­tric gui­tar, men­tored by a fam­i­ly rel­a­tive who was a Cam­bridge carpenter. 

By the time he fin­ished col­lege (Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty) he had formed a cou­ple of oth­er bands: “3rd Estate” (a 10-piece band) and then “Slide” (a four-piece band).

Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty being in the Boston area that is where he remained, and he cur­rent­ly lives in Cambridge.

The life of a musi­cian being finan­cial­ly risky, he taught him­self pro­gram­ming and soft­ware design. As fam­i­ly demands and respon­si­bil­i­ties grew, he shift­ed his pri­ma­ry occu­pa­tion from music to com­put­ers. His skills grew so much that he now works full time for a large tech com­pa­ny as a Soft­ware Design­er. That said, he con­tin­ues with his music, being part of a duo called “Bear­mon­ster.”

He is an avid sports fan, and is “Com­mis­sion­er” of a Sun­day morn­ing foot­ball team, as part of the OFL (“Our Foot­ball League”)

Music remains a key part of his life, and I was delight­ed when he under­took to write music for “The Mouse Song.”  I have a vision of count­less young read­ers singing the cheer­ful, tune as they read the Pop­py books.

Thank you, Shaun.

Shaun now

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