Senior Spotlight | It takes Two
Residents Collaborate on Childrens Books
January 18, 2024
BY BETH A. KLAHRE, PHOTOS BY JACKIE WHITAKER PHOTOGRAPHY
Ever since he was a child, Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall resident Larry Vacek
liked to draw. He admits he did a lot of doodling instead of a lot of note
taking in high school in Nebraska where he was born and raised.
“My trademark was a drawing of an old work boot and coming out of it
was a skinny hairy leg that looked like a pretzel,” Vacek recalled laughing.
Although he never had a career in art – he went to the University of Nebraska
for degrees in zoology and physiology, was drafted into the army, became
an officer, and afterwards landed a job in management in the manufacturing
industry – doodling remained a part of his life. For the past eight years,
Vacek has been drawing cartoons for “Bay Watch,” the quarterly magazine
for the residents of Carolina Bay. “I call my cartoons ‘Secrets of Seniors.’
They are funny things seniors experience at Carolina Bay or generally
speaking,” he says.
When Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall resident Patricia Foy saw Vacek’s cartoons in the magazine, it gave her an idea. “You can find someone in Carolina Bay who has just about every kind of talent. I needed someone to illustrate the children’s books I was writing. So, I asked Larry,” Foy said. “And he did a beautiful job,” she says of her two books.
Author Patricia Foy and illustrator Larry Vacek show off their two recently published
children’s books.
“We Can Still Be Friends” is the story of Billy B Ball who compares himself to Freddy Football and Betty Basketball, always feeling inferior. “Wilbur and Orville” is the story of two Basset Hound puppies whose ears flap and fly, reminiscent of the Wright Brothers, as they explore their world. The puppies get lost and need help to find their way home to mother Violet Doolittle, named after Jimmy Doolittle, the famous WWII pilot.
Larry Vacek used his iPad to draw illustrations of balls and dogs for the books.
Originally from Chapel Hill and a graduate of the University of North Carolina there, Foy retired from a career as a high school civics, English and Spanish teacher in Durham and Wilson, North Carolina ending at South Brunswick High School. “I loved teaching high school kids. They don’t get a lot of good press, but the students at South Brunswick were wonderful, smart, energetic and respectful. It was my pleasure to teach there,” Foy says. She also ran her own ballet studio. After raising her family on Oak Island for 50 years, she and her husband realized it was time to downsize, and eight years ago they moved to Carolina Bay.
Patricia Foy and Larry Vacek are a team right off the pages of her book “We Can Still Be Friends.
Foy is a whiz with words. “Everyone has their own creative process. Once I figure out the beginning and the end, I can’t get words down fast enough. Words just come – bam, bam, bam. With kids’ books, there is only a sentence or two per page. Once I get a pattern set, I repeat some words. It helps kids learn to read and also speeds up the writing process. My husband is my editor. He can fix something in a heartbeat,” she says. Foy tested her story of the lost puppies at College Park Elementary School in Wilmington where she volunteers. “I read sections to first graders. The teacher remarked that it could be a children’s book,” she recalls. Encouraged, Foy carried on. “The last couple of pages is a maze that the reader has to work the puppies through backward to get them home. The first graders figured it out, but I have had adults who said the maze drove them crazy,” she says laughing.
All of the pictures in both books were done entirely on Vacek’s computer and iPad. “I drew directly onto the screen, erased, changed things, changed backgrounds. Balls were easy to draw but putting faces on the balls to reflect emotions was tough. It took me several months,” he said. Vacek shaped Wilbur and Orville after two Basset Hounds, Jack and Blossom, owned by Autumn Hall resident Marvin Neuwirth. “I took photos of their faces and used Blossom’s stereotypical Basset Hound eyes in all my pictures,” Vacek explains. He also reflected the personality of his own Basset Hound, an unexpected Christmas gift years ago from a cousin, in his illustrations. “My wife and I drove across the country with everything we owned and the dog in a U-Haul. I woke up one morning and Rosie was chewing my billfold with all the money we owned,” he recalls. Vacek guided the self-publication process for Foy through Barnes and Noble. He arranged everything in the books – margins, colors, pagination. “I’m 83 and they think that old folks don’t know anything about computers,” he says with a wise-guy smile. “The opportunity to be creative was fun. It was fun when it was done. In between, it was a lot of work.”
Foy’s already embarked on her next project. She rapped the story of Don Quixote. “I thought if I could run it on YouTube or TikTok, I could interest kids in classical works of literature. Like Hamilton, the material is very dry, and I thought well hey, why can’t we rap Don Quixote, too?” she asks. On deck are the “Iliad and the Odyssey” and “War and Peace.” Foy says the lesson in “We Can Still Be Friends” is finding what you do best. The Carolina Bay author and illustrator turned out to be an excellent team. “We all do something well, “ she said.
Seems like Foy and Vacek stepped right off the pages of her book. Copies of the books can be purchased at barnesandnoble.com, and signed copies can be purchased at Spruced Gift Shop in Barclay Commons.