BY MIKE
CASSIDY
There was work to be done. There was so much to do,
that young Charles
Olson would sit there and stew.
Yes, he ran his own company that made lots of money,
but the fun in his life, well, it just wasn't funny.
He needed some help, a book of some use.
And that's when he reached for his old Dr. Seuss.
Don't laugh. OK, laugh a little, but there is wisdom in Seuss.
Some practice Zen. It's yoga for others. Some drink. But you should think about Seuss. He's the perfect Silicon Valley cocktail. He's deep breathing in meter.
This I discovered in a Palo Alto garage. The big garage door swings open. There is Charles Olson wearing a palm frond headdress and a dozen or more pukka necklaces. Right away, I know this isn't going to be one of those Hewlett-Packard Palo Alto garage stories.
I'm here to hear about Seuss. To hear about why a grown man has become a Seuss scholar.
``I grew up with it,'' says Olson, 43. ``I just knew I loved these books.''
Yes, Olson has time on his hands. He's divorced and childless. After nine years of running a programming business, he's taking one of those Silicon Valley time outs. A chance to catch his breath and search for his next meaningful pursuit.
Not that this is meaningless. This is Silicon Valley silliness and we don't have enough. And maybe it's something more than silly.
``I love to find lessons,'' says Olson.
It was the lesson of ``The Lorax,'' that led him back to the wonderful, wubbulous doctor. Olson, a loyal Libertarian, was writing a speech in 1993 when he seized on ``The Lorax'' as a way to argue for free market environmentalism. He plunged deeper into the Seuss library.
``At some point, I bought every Dr. Seuss book ever written.''
He tracks them and stacks them and puts them in boxes.
Keeps like books together, like all Foxes in Sockses.
He loves all his books and gives them great care,
but what good are they all if there's no way to share?
But Olson is smart, as smart as they get,
so he took the book's themes and put them up on the Net.
And he thought and he thought, as he's that kind of guy,
how in the world others might buy,
books about Sneetches and Grinches
and the Cat in his hat.
And he said to himself, ``I'll think more about that.''
In January, Olson launched his Seuss site, drGoose.com, with a link to Amazon.com. The link gives him a cut of any book a visitor buys after clicking through his site. But, he says, it's not about money. Which is good, because so far he's made none.
No, the value of the site is that it makes you think. And relax. And take joy in the little things.
It's bad, you should know, to just hurry and worry,
to have so little time that the whole world's a scurry.
So, when life is so stifling that it feels like a noose,
take a time-out yourself and read Dr. Seuss.
Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@sjmercury.com
or call (408) 920-5536. For previous columns by Mike Cassidy for SV and
the Mercury News go to www.siliconvalley.com/columns/dispatches/.