80

So, I'm BACK from a fairly longish drive down to the SW corner of MO & back, from gassing away to a swell gaggle of visitors to the Geo Washington Carver Monument. It's just outside of Diamond, what might be termed a hamlet. A village? Anyway, a nice little town with a TERRIFIC museum nearby, concerning the life & works of a most significant individual.

And the night before? Visiting, sniveling, eating, drinking, laughing, wine-ing & whining with dear, swellegant author friends Veda Boyd Jones & Vicki Grove ... then today: cold gray, soon turned to a lovely, cool & sunny 16th of April.

It's the anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's birthday in 1889 and that of lovely painter, Élizabeth Vigée Le Brun, in 1755. Garth Williams, whose illus. of Mrs. Wilder's books I loved so much when I was a little squirt [not so much now], was b. on this day in 1912, the day after the great ship went down, the day after Harriet Quimby flew the English Channel, 99 years ago.