September 19, 2010

Pictures from our Memories




Doodle….how to get your boat off the beach. Journal scan, 1981.

Yesterday and Today

Himself: He’s doing great all but his medical insurance….which card hasn’t arrived and doesn’t seem to be the promised Aetna. He even is catching up with himself at last…..oh, Hurrah!

Herself: …and the quilt blog too: Called Bee first….she’s doing better and I’m doing better. First thing, we drove north and found Lee who was surprised to see us. He kept asking how we found him. Someone shaved off his beard, and we were surprised to see this. A mutually surprising morning. After the Less visit, I felt better. By dinner time, I found myself back to myself.

My Babylonian Captivity: Do stop in and read Tugster's experience as a human shield. He writes that, “ I was captured in Kuwait (where I was teaching in the Kuwaiti air force)….”

Gratitude: Just for the feeling of balance after days of not feeling well and tearing apartness. G and his finding of those wonderful books…..my copies had burned when the Garritson house burned.

There’s an acceptance in my soul at last.

Oh, there are the moments of breathlessness. There is the thinking….which I can divert. There are the wonderful books the Geezer found at an estate sale today. We will keep them for Granddaughter MJ as her reading isn’t up to Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” or even “Little Women,” yet. All these things went to make up the day, but the books were the best gift of all.

Many of these are the very volumes I had in the 1940’s.

It’s the illustrations, you see: The “Grosset and Dunlap Illustrated Junior Library.” Marvelous charming things by WPA Illustrators of note…I often find I remember the illustrators better than I do the stories tho these are the classics.

How this series ended up with such a divergent group of illustrators, I will never know. Lynd Ward, who was noted for his dramatic, black woodcuts, did the passionate line illustrations many remember from The Swiss Family Robinson…among others. Mother never got me Tom Sawyer, but Geezer found him here as well as two of Robert Louis Stevenson’s best adventures illustrated by Norman Price instead of by the more famous and lyrically powerful illustrator N.C. Wyeth. Probably Grosset and Dunlap couldn’t afford Wyeth. Mother did get me the Lucille Corcos illustrated “Little Lame Prince. Corcos was, for some thirty years, the doyenne of the “modern primitivist,” the internet tells us, but I was charmed as a child and today by the light line drawings of the floating prince.

Cyrus Leroy Baldridge lived a wonderful and magical life of artist, illustrator, and bon vivant, yet he was the illustrator chosen to limn the story of Hans Brinker and the Silver skates. A particular favorite of mine.

Today these volumes sit on our maple chest. Some have never been opened, but others show serious signs of age. We were thrilled to find them….at a dollar each, they bring our childhood home for another generatio

6 comments:

  1. Good morning, Maggie, I am so glad you are feeling better. I have been catching up on your posts of the last couple of weeks since my life has become hectic with visitors and home improvements. Almost all of my childhood books have been lost or destroyed by my kids. You were lucky to find those old books.

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  2. Such treasures! I can't think of a better gift than books. I'm sure she'll cherish them.

    As to your comment: Their strong stock is laudable. And while I do not believe in fate, I do believe in destiny; we each have one. How we get there or whether we do is up to us.
    Lee and Marion remain in my prayers as do you. Hugs back at you! Kathy

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  3. A very good find. Keep them on the maple chest and enjoy looking at them and remembering.

    You never cease to amaze me with all the things you know something about.

    Glad you're feeling better.

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  4. I read Little Women so many times. Like most people I suspect, I related most to Jo.
    Keep on feeling better.

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  5. Never understood why Jo had to marry the old prof... to this day I wish she had met someone young and passionate and willing to sweep along in her shadow.

    It must be discovering treasure to finds those books, at those prices. I'm glad the books acted as your friend and helped you gently find some acceptance about the destinies of your other friends. They are in my prayers too.

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