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COPYRIGHT 2005 Smithsonian Institution
AT AN AGE when most men are resting on their laurels, if not simply resting, Gordon Parks has just written yet another memoir (A Hungry Heart) and another illustrated book of poetry (Eyes With Winged Thoughts), both scheduled for publication by Simon & Schuster this month, in time for his 93rd birthday, November 30. He is also composing a sonata for the celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma, cooking for friends and presiding over a widely scattered family of three children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren who all call him Pepe.
Recently, I watched this friend of some 50 years pad restlessly around his bachelor's apartment overlooking Manhattan's East River in his workaday outfit: a navy sweater with a New York City detective's badge embroidered in gold over his heart, baggy pants and sneakers. A baseball cap turned backwards covered the mop of swept-back white hair inherited from his father's part-Cherokee ancestors.
"Haven't you achieved enough for one lifetime?" I asked.
"No," he answered, puffing slowly on an ever-present pipe protruding from under his...
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