Comments

So, to you discerning few who read my drivel, particularly to you, Leslie, who wrote to me back in September re: Constitution Day, [don't I wish that I could find publishers who'd want to pay me to write & illustrate the books you suggest. meanwhile, do look at this site and David Catrow's wonderful We the Kids let me tell you that, being a tech-boob, it is only very, very recently that I have discovered where your comments end up, somewhere where I can see them [if I have the wits to look] but you cannot. Do I understand how this happens? Nope. Now I've seen many another blog where readers' comments are actually appear beneath the verbiage upon which they have commented. I doubt we'll be seeing that here.

And, not so by the way, it was on this day in 1902 that Eric Liddell was born. A remarkable fellow, whose accomplishments were portrayed, depicted, & celebrated in the completely terrific film, Chariots of Fire. If you've seen it, do see it again; that's what I'm going to do, by golly, this very week. If you haven't, how much you've missed. And it's the great Ethel Merman's birthday. Andrew Wyeth's deathday, too, God rest him. Two years, earth-time, he's been off in the Blue Beyond.

Dis-Ease

So where was I yesterday when I wasn't posting anything here? Here in lovely New Ulm, Minnesota. As you might imagine, it's German founders named the town after an old Ulm over in the homeland. It is, in fact a fine university town beside the Danube River, said to be blue. I was conducting a writing workshop for and with a gaggle of little girls. Is this the work for which I am best suited? Alas, no. Yesterday, anniversary of the births of Henry David Thoreau and Andrew Wyeth [youngest son of  N.C. Wyeth, titanic illustrator] was hard. Today will be better.   By god, it had better be.  One learns a lot over twenty-some years as a middling author-illustrator.  Lots of good books out of which many a kid learned about our shared heritage.  A few stinkers. Some very fine books that lived a short life & passed away. Anyway, I know more than these little squirts do and I intend to share the joy of writing with them if it kills me. And, just for you to know, it was on this day in 1821 that wily "Wizard of the Saddle," that millionaire plantation wheeler-dealer & slave-trader & Ku Kluxer Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Tennessee.  And it's Dave Garroway's birthday. Remember him? TV pioneer?  Genial funny broadcaster? Anybody? I do.  In fixing to write this, I discovered that he killed himself years ago.  The sadness overtook him.   

Sigh.