BIG BROTHER MEMOIR IN CIRCULATION

September 11, 2001 changed many things and one of them was the awareness of privacy issues.

Big Brother: A Memoir

Why would Big Government be interested
in the life of an ordinary American?

... a work by Joel W. Culp and Marguerite Culp

Before September 11th, this nonfiction work had limited appeal as the story of an eccentric American family extending in years from The Great Depression to the turn of the 21st century. During this period George Orwell wrote 1984 and profoundly impacted political and literary circles with an image of Big Brother that defined authoritarian regimes and influenced privacy debates.

After September 11th, the possibility of a Big Brother society surfaced more frequently in discussions after the federal government curtailed civil liberties as a response to terrorist threats. The memoir of Joel W. Culp, an 80-year-old man from Pennsylvania, assumed particular importance with his question, Why would Big Brother be interested in me and my family?"

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Joel W. Culp was by no means a terrorist or candidate for such a role. At the start of the memoir, he had done little in his life to be of interest to anyone. In his mind, Culp was an ordinary guy, although he had an unusual wife and children.

It wasnt until he took a bus trip west in 1982 with his wife to visit their son in Idaho that the question of Big Brothers existence set the stage for the work.

Big Brother: A Memoir is a grassroots tale that Marguerite Culp has written in collaboration with her father, Joel W. Culp. She is a freelance writer and former newspaper editor who seized the opportunity to document her fathers life stories shortly after her mothers death in 1997. Marguerite Culp returned for several months to the town where she was raised in the Philadelphia area to help settle family affairs. She spent weekends with her father, at which time she pressed him to tell her in detail about his life.

Her father, Joel W. Culp, was much more conservative than her mother, so she was more than surprised to hear the details of her parents bus trip west, the summer of 1982 when they visited their son Tom. Hed just attended the Rainbow Gathering, a large countercultural event. Joel and Wilma Culp spent time with their son and his friends. Then, the trio went on a camping trip to realize a dream of sinking their feet into the sand of the the Pacific Ocean.

During the camping trip they endured a series of problems, including wrong turns and getting lost, overbooked campsites and running short on food. The only relief was in finding hot springs where Wilma and Joel, alone in a shaded glen, took off their clothes and relaxed in the healing waters.

On the bus trip home, Joel and Wilma met a fellow passenger who was intent on proving to them that Big Brother really existed. Imagine their surprise when they heard Big Brother had photos of them nude at the hot springs. This became the springboard for the memoir, to answer Joel Culp's question, Why me? Why would Big Brother be interested in someone like me and my wife?"

In the process, the elder Culp studied Orwells 1984 for parallels in his own life. He inspected the highlights of his adolescence during the Depression, his courtship with his wife, working at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia during World War II, raising a family during the 1950s, including disagreements with Wilma, an anti-nuclear activist.

Big Brother: A Memoir features the stories in the life of Joel W. Culp as he attempts to answer the question, Why me?" In the end, he realizes he isnt such an ordinary guy after all.

Although it addresses a serious theme, Big Brother: A Memoir has a range of emotional highs and lows. It is an opportunity to view the life of an American family during the Depression, the second world war and post-war era. A memoir web site has been available online for over a year:

www.bigbrothermemoir.com

The site has attracted a wide variety of people from around the world, as well as a mailing list of people interested in being informed when the book will be published. The web site contains photographs, links, a synopsis of the memoir and other resource information. Because of considerable interest documented outside the initial small circle of family and friends, Big Brother: A Memoir is now available for publication consideration by a wider venue.

Big Brother: A Memoir makes the point that privacy issues are not to be treated lightly even in the midst of a national emergency.