Sewing Machines and Taped Ears

Weathered brick, painted by the wind and rain, catches my eyes and I feel the warm hands that built that wall. I am taken back to days long ago when, as a child, mom took me inside those walls and pulled shirts from hangers and held them up to me. Mr. French points out the sale sign as mom thinks, “Can I make one cheaper?” Back on the hanger goes the shirt, mom asks for boys' trousers. Corduroy with buttons, no zipper. Two sizes too big and long, mom has them wrapped up. Classmates will get a good laugh when I go to school with cuffs rolled up and waist pinned back. Safety pins - I hated them. I have a hard enough time in school with my ears tape back.

French's Pants Shop long gone, I pause to look at what remains of the yellow lettering on the weathered bricks. Leaving Mr.French in his little shop, we turn west and turn in two doors down where mom heads straight to the scrap table. Bolts of material line the walls and all colors of thread fill racks. If there isn't enough material in the scraps for a long sleeve shirt, I will be getting a short sleeve shirt made at home. Mom pauses at the new electric Singer sewing machine. She has that same look I get in the dime store in front of the cap guns. I like pumping the foot pedal of her sewing machine and watching the needle go up and down. Spin the drive wheel and watch the thread race across the top spindles then down and around the shiny silver needle's arm. I could never figure out what it did underneath to keep it from coming back out when the needle came back up. Ada, now living over Mr. French's shop, barks at me from her fire escape telling me to get to work.

The sewing store is now the park below my studio window and my studio was once the Fox Theater. I pause before going in and remember those days of riding the bus to town and walking with mom and hoping she would stop at Favorhomes and buy me another toy cowboy. Those cowboys and their horses were all different and interchangeable. I was still playing with them when I was twenty. Only then I set them up in still-life setups. Mom must have used better tape on my left ear, my reflection in the window shows my right ear sticking out more. I pause again at the top of the stairs to look at other memories.

Time to get to work and focus on my painting of Ann's garden.

The Stream Gets Wider & The Trees Taller

My studio is full of friends and adventures, with sad and silly smiles waiting, as I lay out my paints. Painting unlocks little boxes of memories stored in my brain. My paint brush is the key to these adventures in my mind. Never sure what I'll surround myself with as I lay out my colors and secure a panel to my easel. A snow scene to fit the season seems like a likely subject. With it, a memory from the past comes into my head as I lay out my composition of a creek in winter. Joey Lions falling through the ice on a hike with the scouts. No need for a reference, Walt's Creek at the far end of my paper route is always there for me. Walt's Creek and a small black puppy, crying and shivering, come to mind as I pick my paints and brush.

Snow blowing and feet frozen, nearing the end of my paper route. The icy road is perfect for a sled ride, Walt's Farm on one side of the road, and one last house to deliver a paper to on the other side of the road. The creek was black as ink and the trees seemed ready to grab me. Their limbs like arms reaching every which way. I was certain Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman were waiting in those shadows. My Dad had read that story to us, giving us sleepless nights. I knew it was just a story but still… there could be someone behind a tree hiding in the woods... Jumping on the sled I was sure I could out race the Headless Horseman's horse. With sled, heading towards the creek side of the road, I rolled off into the snow bank. Face now frozen with the icy snow.

Checking for cars, I pulled my sled loose and made my way in the dark to get that last paper up to the porch of my last house. Cinders and sand kept me from gaining any speed but gave me good footing, still I slid my feet along. The bully living at that last house on my route made getting the paper there more of a challenge. An ice ball was that bully's weapon of choice. The idea of getting one of his ice balls in the face made my feet move faster. He always aimed for one's head. There they were - a pile of ice balls on the end of the porch, right next to the box where the paper went. Knocking his ice balls off into the bushes I completed my mission of getting their paper in the box with no sign of Billy the Bully.

Passing back over Walt's Creek, I heard a puppy crying . A black puppy stuck in the deep snow along the creek's edge was crying for help. Sliding down the embankment to rescue the puppy, I forgot about Billy the Bully and Ichabod Crane. Forgot about being cold and having frozen feet. Reaching down I pulled a small puppy out of the snow and tucked him into my coat. I sat in the snow telling him it's OK. Watching the warm lights in the distance going out in Walt's barns, I waited for Mr. Walt to call out for this little feller. No call came for him. Two milk cows and a dozen chickens were the only animals left on the farm. I never ventured to their farm. Too scared of what might be waiting in the woods there. Everything seemed black suddenly, the creek itself seemed to have black water dancing around the snow covered rocks. Not realizing then that this scene would stay with me the rest of my life, I struggled over to Walt's house and knocked on the door. They took my little friend in and had me warm up a bit. As I paint the memory of that night, it all comes more in focus and my painting takes on more detail. The stream gets wider and the trees taller.

My next painting begins to form as I look back on that old farm house. Cleaning up my palette I remember struggling to get my frozen trousers off in our basement that evening. Dry socks and dry trousers hanging over the saw horses near the furnace. Dad asked where I'd been. My wanderings had held up dinner that night.