With reading as their touchstone, this heartwarming story chronicles the relationship between a loving father and the daughter that adores him.

Reading with Dad

Children's Books

Jorgensen, Dick

Jorgensen,Richard

Growing Up & Facts of Life

Waldman House Press

In 1954, as a twenty-nine-year-old grad student, Dick Jorgensen was selected to be one of four "ambassador" teachers in a first-ever exchange program with Japan. Jorgensen would represent the University of Michigan, where he was studying history, and would spend the next two years teaching at the University of Hiroshima, founded in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bomb on that city in 1945. Thus began an incredible journey for, as he describes himself, a Kid from the Midwest. Those two years in Japan were the start of a lifelong love affair with travel and with Japanese culture, architecture and history. While there, Jorgensen met luminaries in the fields of history, politics and education, lived with two Japanese families, and discovered new ways to reach his young students, all of whom grew up in a Japan ravaged by World War II. While there, Jorgensen visited many parts of Japan – including Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe, Sapporo, Nagasaki and many other communities. Jorgensen treats readers to luscious descriptions of all those cities, while at the same time providing histories that deepen understanding and perspective. As a work of history, O Tomodachi (friend) provides a perspective on postwar Japan that is both historical and accessible. As memoir, O Tomodachi gives readers a wonderful sense of what it was like for a young American to go off to a foreign land, a place that had only recently been the enemy of the United States, and to open himself to new experiences and people. Jorgensen fell in love with Japan, and that love has lasted a lifetime.

O Tomodachi

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Weeping Willow Books

In this, the second of three planned memoirs, Dick Jorgensen takes readers along on his first around-the-world journey as he travels back to the United States from Japan in 1956. (O Tomodachi, Friend, Jorgensen's first book, tells the story of his two years of teaching at the University of Hiroshima from 1954-56.) Through Southeast Asia and then the Middle East, to Europe and finally, boarding a ship for New York from Genoa, Jorgensen gives us a firsthand view of life and times in the mid-20th-century world, cluing us into the history of various places along the way, and reminding us that the world is ever-changing and subject to the vagaries of man and politics.Once back home in Wisconsin, Jorgensen takes a month or so to reconnect with family and friends, and, when an unexpected offer arrives to join the staff of The Asia Foundation in San Francisco, heads off on another grand adventure.Yuko, which means "friendship between nations," tells the story of Jorgensen's tenure on The Asia Foundation's Japan desk, and we get to skip with him down the streets of San Francisco when the woman who would become his wife emphatically says "yes." As they begin to plan their family, life takes another unexpected turn, which launches Jorgensen onto another new path, that of educator.Along the way, his love of all things Japanese grows and shapes his worldview, and also opens new doors to travel and teaching. All of which is chronicled in his third memoir, American Sensei, forthcoming from Weeping Willow Books.

Yuko: Friendship Between Nations (1)

Memoirs

But Not For Lunch (My First 30+ Years of Retirement) is a collection of Dick Jorgensen's personal stories compiled throughout more than 30 years of retirement. It captures the bright, optimistic view of life that Dick conveyed in every conversation and throughout his writings. Each successive vignette opens the door ever wider to his expansive curiosity and sincere interest in everybody with whom he came into contact. Not only did he share of himself easily, but also he was a supreme listener, fascinated with the smallest of details. After all, for him, learning was everything. The discipline that we know as History has its origins in stories-stories that capture lessons of life and hand them down from generation to generation. Rich in humor, they are tales of love and hope, happiness and sadness, success and failure, good and evil, and countless other aspects of everyday life. Triumph and human frailty are often key themes. Dick Jorgensen was a career educator and historian who approached each day with enthusiasm and a big smile on his face. Not a morning passed without an in-depth read of his beloved New York Times. And this "citizen of the world" embraced life to the fullest, crisscrossing the globe multiple times over. But Not For Lunch chronicles many of those travels. And yes, Dick Jorgensen loved to tell stories.

But Not For Lunch: My First 30+ Years of Retirement

Parenting & Relationships

Independently published

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Books by Jorgensen, Dick