He knew what it meant to have nothing. to take risks. to work hard. to stand on his own. When he wrote about freedom. as he did so eloquently. he new what he was talking about. The son of a German immigrant. Hoffer learned to read English and German by the time he was 5. Two years later. as the result of a fall. he was blind. After his mother died. he was raised by a German housekeeper who. somehow. convinced the child that he did not have long to live. "My childhood was a nightmare. and its shadow still hovers in the back of my mind." he once recalled. If Eric Hoffer ever let this background get him down. he never told anyone. Regaining his sight at 15 he began once again to readit was "my only occupation and my pastime." he saidand. 3 years later. he headed for California. "the poor mans country." For 3 days he starved on Los Angeles skid row. eventually finding work as a dishwasher. a migrant farm laborer. and lumberjack In 1943 he settled down as a longshoreman in San Francisco. where he lived until last week. It was in the late 1930s that Eric Hoffer began to write. capturing the popular imagination with "The True Believer" (1951). "The Passionate State of Mind" (1955). and "The Ordeal of Change" (1963). Admired by Presidents Eisenhower.
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