Dreamer of Dune by Brian Herbert Read Free Book Online

just nineteen, but had a way of speaking and carrying himself that enabled him to pass himself off as a man five or six years older. He smoked a brier pipe, too, which made him look sophisticated.
    At the Star there was an old, foul-tempered man who was also a copy editor, and the guy apparently thought that life had passed him by. He sat directly across the desk from an energetic upstart named Frank Herbert.
    â€œI was young and he was old,” my father told me later.
    The old curmudgeon accused Frank of messing up the copy-editing on a story that ran in a prior edition, and Frank responded, “You’re wrong. I didn’t do that. I wasn’t even here.”
    Suddenly the old man grabbed a pair of scissors from the copy desk and went after his younger counterpart, trying to stab him. Thankfully, people jumped in and grabbed the assailant and hauled him away. The fellow continued working there after he calmed down, but my father told me, “Whenever he had scissors in his hands, I stayed well clear of him!”
    Another copy editor on the paper had his own style of revolt. His tactic was to refuse to bathe for two months at a time. He would not change his underwear, socks, or anything. His teeth had green film on them. People really kept their distance.
    My father would accumulate many more interesting characters and stories in more than three decades in the newspaper business, a profession that for him was a window on the world…fascinating but low-paying. Journalism kept him on the leading edge of events, filling his hunger for political information and arming him with political data he would use in his science fiction writing.
    Always impulsive, in the summer of 1940 he moved back to Salem, Oregon. For a short while he lived with the Rowntrees again, while looking for a newspaper job. He approached The Oregon Statesman for a position, but was told by the personnel manager that no openings were available.
    After finding out who the managing editor of the paper was, the would-be journalist went to the man’s house and accosted him in his front yard. The managing editor, Steve Mergler, was at first irritated, but the young man had a convincing way about him. Frank Herbert asked if he could fill in when other reporters, copy editors or photographers were on vacation. He had his own photographic equipment, and said he could even perform copyboy duties if necessary. “I can do a lot of things,” he told Mergler. “I can be like a utility man on a baseball team, playing whatever position you need.”
    This sounded intriguing to Mergler, who had an eye for good people and appreciated an enterprising young man. So Frank, just shy of his twentieth birthday, went “on call” for the paper. He came in at all hours, did anything he was asked to do. He even worked in the advertising and subscription departments. He did everything so well, in fact, with such dedication and excellence, that it wasn’t long before he was working full-time. His principal responsibilities involved photography, and, since this was the state capital, many of his assignments involved political events. One of his photographs, at a charity fund-raiser called the Salem Chest, was of U.S. Senator Douglas McKay, who would later become Secretary of the Interior. McKay took a liking to the young man, which later proved beneficial to Frank.
    In Salem, Frank Herbert became enamored with airplanes and flying. He worked every angle to get into the air as a passenger, both for pleasure and on news assignments. These were small planes, single engine two-seaters.
    In nearly fourteen months on The Oregon Statesman , Dad also reported, worked as copy editor and night editor, and wrote feature stories. In feature-writing he learned the importance of characterization, of clearly defining a person and determining what makes him tick. This, he would come to realize one day, was a central feature in any good novel.
    He spent as