70

It was a very, not to say strange, birthday for me. Born on Literacy Day, but before it was declared an international holiday, so the Predecessor may have had that in mind when he declared that I was illiterate. To cut a long story short, I turned sixty-nine years old, and entered my seventies, to be afraid of numbers. It was just yesterday when I calculated how many summers I will have in the year 2000, calculated 44 and thought how far it is. And so, the time has come to settle accounts, to paraphrase Mihiz, to write an Autobiography about myself and others in this way as well.

As the mother said, they came into the world at two o'clock after midnight. In the Virgo horoscope, dear Zaga Milošević, who was the editor of "Borba", calculated that I am a Sagittarius. When they weaned me, they gave me to grandma Ruža in the village, my father's aunt, who had no children. Her husband, grandfather Ljubo, held me in his lap and said: "My Dragan, my incense." He slept with grandma Ruža, on a straw mat, in the winter they covered themselves with a blanket, he was baptized before going to bed, grandma was a "prayer".

I didn't know my parents, so to speak; when school was over, they took me to the city, to a room above a fur shop. Then whatever - I go to school and I'm a good student. I can't wait for the summer vacation to spend the whole summer with my grandmother. In the vineyard, I saw a rabbit, standing barefoot on a blind, I didn't let the sheep and cows enter the clover, on the border between Radojka's field and Osoj, they stand under a huge janarik and watch how the summer rain falls here, but doesn't fall from here...

I entered high school, the famous psychology professor declared me the smartest in the school, it was so pedagogical that I repeated my grade the following year. Since I didn't enroll in what I wanted, my mother registered me at the Faculty of Law. On the History of Law exam, with the famous Ljubica Kandić, he was one of four students who received a passing grade, it was one of two weeks. For the holidays, he returned home and went to bed. My mother signed me up for the army, I guess she begged me to be a paramedic, I was in Trebinje and Pula, learned all the diagnoses and codes, read Home is getting further away Petka Vojnić Purčara…

When he came back from the army, again by mistake, without registering, "someone" did it, they invited me to the military factory "Krusik"; after the test at the Employment Office, the psychologist said that I should continue studying. That's how I became a PK pyrotechnician, mainly on hand launcher loading jobs. I was such a self-managing young worker that I was on sick leave for one week every month, plus I used a day off and eight hours of leave. My legs and head led me through life.

I've been writing poetry since high school, I started publishing and receiving awards, and read, read, and read, not to mention, Ružević, Zbigniev Herbert, Česlav Miloš... we have all the issues of Livada's "Pistma". I started collaborating in the regional Youth newspaper, then in NON, where I met Slaviša Lekić, his friends, Mrđen, Zozon, Pava... the "Grgeč" pub, near Pravno, which had a "decisive" influence on my journalistic path. I started working in "Borba", where I was first on a flat rate, then they took me into employment by taking over PK pyrotechnicians. When he came to Belgrade, and when he came, he was in the Club "Borbe", "Arilja"... I started working in "Vremen", in 93. Žarković invited me to transfer to "Vreme", which at that time was a journalistic representation. A little after the transition, the proofreaders were told not to touch my texts, because I am "illiterate". So illiterate that Žare said that I am not a journalist, and Ljuba Živkov, in his column, which for that occasion was a digest edition of "Vremen", among the authors whose texts he simulated, put only Miša Vasić, Žare, Teofil, me, and of course, himself. There is also that the Renaissance Đorđe Matić published "Time of enjoyment" under the title "Todor"!

Only at home, in Valjevo, was he on his own. So to speak, the founder of KANU (Kafan Academy of Sciences and Arts), who was baptized by playwright Brano Lukić. In addition to the two of them, Radovan Beli Marković was in the first line-up, and later the first democratic mayor of Valjevo Toma od Rađevo Selo. Ljuba Pačeta, who knew how to say that he doesn't drink sober, couldn't even smell it.

As a reporter where I have not been: Guča, Lesser Serbia, Eastern Bosnia, Slavonia... In Borovo Selo, watching how the ravaged reservists of the JNA were targeting Vukovar with tanks, on Ravna Gora, he described how the Crown Prince got up from lunch and historically said: "Gibanica was excellent", when the princess, pushing him, pointed to the kebabs, he added: "The chevavpčići were also excellent", and with applause he finished the toast with the words: "The border is not on the Drina!"

By the way, the idea for the first book was given to me personally by academician Matija when, up in the Soko monastery, he scolded me for not binding the texts. Then he bound six more books, so that I don't write who writes the forewords and afterwords, all face to face. Basically, the good Vasa Pavković, one of our best critics, proposed me for membership in the representative Serbian Literary Society, which has just over three hundred members.

Lest I forget, how can I forget, when I met Nada, I told her that she has a name like my mother's, she later replied with the words: "Where have you been so far?" Adopted a cat Masha two years ago; if I didn't know how to take care of myself, I guess I will know about her.