Fitty.... Who am I?

I am Ted. I was born in 1904, today's date to be exact, March 2nd, Springfield, Massachusetts, wow, Massachusetts, that's a long word.

My dad managed a brewery on Mulberry Street but was forced to close during Prohibition. We are of German descent and my sister Marnie and I experienced anti-German prejudice  from other children after the outbreak of WWI.

I went to Dartmouth where I had fun writing for the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-Lantern. Me and 9 buddies got caught drinking gin (Remember? Prohibition?) So, they booted me from the magazine. I tricked 'em and kept writing for the mag using a pen name but I can't tell you that now, sorry.

After Dartmouth, I went across the pond to Oxford with the intent to get a PHD in English Lit. I loved to draw, in fact, it was there I met, fell madly in love with Helen Palmer who said "Ted's notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So, I set to diverting him, he should be earning a living doing that."

Victor, this is dragging quite a bit, hop to it with more hints. OK.

Moved back home (no Oxford degree)...Helen came too. I loved cartoons. Submitted tons to magazines, book publishers, and ad agencies. They said no, no, no and no. FINALLY sold one to The Saturday Evening Post for $25 and ooh la la, things fell in place.

We (Helen and I) got hitched. Ad ideas grabbed up allowed us to travel the World, "traveling helped his creativity" Helen would say.

In 1936, returning from an ocean voyage I wrote a poem that would later become a children's book, oops. 43 publishers said "no" so I was walking home to burn the manuscript, meantime. #44 said "Yes!"

During WWII, I mostly did political cartoons, and after, Helen and I moved to yummy La Jolla, CA, I started writing more and more children's books. 1954, Life Magazine basically said 'kids aren't learning to read because the books were boring, and words difficult."

The director of education for Houghton Mifflin compiled a list of 348 words he thought first graders should know, asked me to "cut the list to 250, write a book using only those words." So, I did. Something about a feline and a cap.

Later, Bennett Cerf challenged me to write a kid's book using only fitty words. So:

 a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, and you.

Anywhere is the only word with more than one syllable. Ya know yet?

I am Sam. Sam I am..... No, that ain't right.

I am lucky. I've written and sold over 600 million copies of children's books.

I am Theodor Suess Geisel. You might know me as Dr. Suess. I do not like Green Eggs and Ham.

Happy National Dr. Suess Day. (It's also National Read Across America Day)

Love, Victurd