Drawing on the Past

Following mom to the rhubarb patch behind the garage, I was about to learn how to pick rhubarb the proper way. Mrs. Martin was making a rhubarb crisp and in need. When I was 10, neighbors shared what they had and rhubarb was something we had. Back then we had a dozen plants. Mom showed me where to grab each stem and how to pull it off. With a big butcher knife mom whacked off the leaves of a dozen stems at once. The leaves went on the compost pile with the bad apples and tomatoes that had rot on them.

Arms full of rhubarb, I cut through Mathew's yard and Mr. Assell's, to Mrs. Martins. Mrs. Martin was picking pears in exchange for the rhubarb. The people who made the neighborhood were always there to help when I was a kid. Like racing to take in the wash before rain when their neighbor was out on a Monday wash-day. Mr. Adam used dad's extension to clean out his gutters. Neighbor ladies took my brother to his therapy when he had polio. Mrs. Martin was the biggest lady I’d seen, 6'4" and always in black. Even her aprons were black. Dad did various things for her, and Mr. Assell did the clearing of the gutters for her. Mom said she was in mourning for her husband, and I learned that was why women wore black.

Tagging along with mom, I got to know all our neighbors and they got to know me. It was how mom knew everything I did. Telephone party lines informed neighbors of events and happenings in the neighborhood. Mathew's basement was where grown-ups went to vote. Scout meetings were held in Lion's Kitchen. Katie Listenster had sewing-bees. She looked to be a hundred but was twenty-five, she was born on Feb 29th 1856. Mom liked explaining why Katie only had birthdays every four years. Dad fixed the neighbor's electric motors and he and mom ran dances for the teens at the K of C club.

Some of these memories inspire paintings, and sometimes the paintings bring back the memories. A still-life of flowers in a blue Ball canning jar reminded me of Great Auntie Ann. One summer Mom was in need of more jars, and Auntie Ann offered hers. I tried one of her apples that sat in a bowl on her dining room table. Didn't like it, it was made of wax. Memories of her dining room inspired another painting years later. Helping Katie Listenster inspired a painting for my model Anne to pose like she was teaching her nephew to cook. Sometimes paintings seem to come out of nowhere, but halfway through I'll recall something from my past to draw on.

Swallowing Marbles

Quietly I turned the attic doorknob. Mom called from the kitchen asking what I was doing. "Nothing," I answered, pushing open the door. Mom was frying eggs for a Chinaman who had come to the back door asking for food. Why she didn't give him the green beans I don't know. “People are starving in China,” she or dad would tell us while making us eat our green beans. So this man had to be a Chinaman to have come to our house in need of food. Careful not to step on creaking boards, I made my way to the back attic window. Turning the brass latch, I opened the window and waited to see where this Chinaman would go. I wanted to know which direction from High Street, China was.

“What are you doing?” Mom standing in the attic doorway, she knew the steps that creaked too? “Close that window and come downstairs.” The Chinaman had taken an egg sandwich and a couple eggs with him. I raced to the front door to watch where he went. China was across High Street, just like I had guessed.

Later that day Dad came home for his early dinner before heading to his second job. Dad worked two jobs to be sure us kids could go to college. They talked about mom feeding hobos, with dad saying some of the hobos could be dangerous. I was disappointed that wasn't a Chinaman who had come to the backdoor, but still mom could have given him some green beans.

Mr. Koos, our next door neighbor, had kept an eye on the hobo while mom fried the eggs. Mr. Koos had seen me leaning out the attic window, while sitting there keeping an eye on the hobo. Neighbors kept an eye out for each other when I was a kid, mostly to warn when the rain was coming on Mondays, or when the big incinerator was burning garbage. The city's incinerator filled the neighborhood with stinky smoke, making everyone's wash smell.

There was nothing I could do that Mom and Dad would not know about before I got home, thanks to a neighbor. Mrs. Martin would inform Mom I was in her yard drawing. Mrs. Miller called Mom once that I was in her yard drawing and was bringing home a white snake. Most neighbors were friendly, not so with Patty Matthew though, who sunbathed while listening to a portable radio. Her uncle lived in a small apartment above her parents. Her uncle, Ray, was nice. He had been hit in the head by a baseball when he was nine and it caused him to stutter. He was another grown up that kept an eye on us, though he was more like a kid too.

I had my own speech problem. I was known as the one that doesn't talk. It was easier for me to sit and draw than talk to people. At the end of summer I'd be starting school, mom and dad decided I had to go to the “banana lady,” as I called her. She was supposed to be a speech therapist but all she did was stuff my mouth with bananas and make me say different words. Couple times I had to talk with marbles in my mouth. Dad waited in Grandpa's car, which he borrowed to take me to the banana lady. Sitting in Grandpa's car, he read or did crosswords while I swallowed marbles and spit out bananas. I started first grade still not being able to speak clearly. My brothers and sisters could understand me, why Sister Claire had a problem, I don't know. She was always telling me where to put my tongue. The girls in school decided I had cooties because of my speech. I hated school, but then I got my first art lesson from Sister Claire. Only on Fridays did she teach art. Had no idea I would grow up to be an artist. First grade was the only grade I had art lessons. Those lessons must have stuck, even though there were no more art lessons till art school, I kept my head down and drew portraits through grade school. English book open or my math book open, I just drew.