Thursday, February 1, 2007

Moeller adds 'poet' to resume

by Kenneth Lassiter

Over 40 years of life in Oskaloosa, Tom Moeller did everything from run the county’s emergency preparedness department to selling insurance. Now that he lives in Florida, the 82-year-old recently added another job to his resumé – published poet.

Poet Tom Moeller

Moeller’s book of about 30 poems, “I
Wish I Was a Tiger and Other Simple Rhymes,” was hot off the presses in
early Januaryas the longtime Oskaloosan and Kansas City native had more than
250 copies printed through the
AuthorHouse publishing company. The
book is green and features a vivid
picture of a tiger on the front, which
was a bonus as he had picked the title without thought of the book’s cover.

“That was just the poem I’m most proud of out of the ones in the book,” said Moeller of the title poem. He and his late wife, Gladys, have five grown children, 13 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He remarried in 2005 to Florence, a woman from Wisconsin who he met in his writer’s group in Florida.

The poems touch on a little bit of everything over the course of Moeller’s life, from his service in the military during World War II to life with family. He said some of the poems date back as far as 20 years but most were written after he moved to Nalcrest, Fla., from his home of 40 years along Cherokee Street in Oskaloosa in 2002. Tom and Florence live in a retirement community for letter carriers.

Moeller’s career that ended when he retired from the county in 1993 is remarkable. Prior to seven years as emergency preparedness director, he worked for the U.S. Postal Service for eight years. He originally came to Oskaloosa to work for a local window factory in 1963 and later sold insurance, worked at Sears, ran a service station in Topeka, and worked 10 years for a railroad company. After visiting Nalcrest in 2001, he fell in love with the place and decided to move there.

“I came back from spending time with my daughter in Oregon in March of 2002 and called Bud Showalter and asked how soon we could have a sale,” Moeller said. “We had the sale April 28 and, after that, I loaded my stuff in a Lincoln Town Car, picked up my sister in Missouri and drove to Florida.”

On a whim one day he attended a meeting of a writers’ group and a new career emerged.

“I visited and really liked it but in order to stay active, you had to write something for each meeting,” Moeller said. “So that’s how most of these poems came about.”

The book retails for $10 and is available online at barnesandnoble.com. Moeller said the book costs $12.99 at the site. Response has been good, Moeller said, to his first book.

Some longtime friends at home in Oskaloosa and even family were surprised at what Moeller had done in publishing the book. “I’ve gotten real good response from my friends in Florida, and I brought about 50 copies up with me for this weekend and I think most are gone,” said Moeller, who was in town to visit family and friends as well as attend a reunion of letter carriers in Topeka. “I was talking to Larry Bowser (from the State Bank of Oskaloosa) about it and he said he didn’t know I had it in me. I really enjoy writing poetry.”

“There were things in there I never knew about dad,” said Moeller’s daughter, Cathy Dailey, “so some of it surprised even me. I’m very pleased with the book.”

Moeller said he loves life in Florida and thus far has enjoyed his new notoriety as a now published poet.

“Everybody’s been real supportive,” Moeller said. “There’s a lot of different ideas and different thoughts that went into the book. The writers’ group is tickled to death about it.

“It’s really turned out better than I could have hoped.”