Motherhood Moment

Sorry, but I have to write this down before it vanishes. It’s summer vacation as of last Friday. I am home today with Kid 1 (girl, 10) and Kid 2 (boy, 7).

Boy, being bored, just brought downstairs a recently emptied chocolate tin and a tin bank a (souvenir from Canada). He was opening a store on the living room floor. Items available for sale: a “plane” he made from Legos; a small plastic car; a page of his math homework (“but I only did one side”) and a few feet of clothesline. This was the total inventory. I came in with 35 cents and selected the clothesline. Lord knows why he has it or what neck it might accidentally find it’s way around if not removed from his possession. He then gave me the option of which fund he should put it in: “for charity” (the Canadian souvenir), or “trips and bills” (the chocolate tin). I picked trips and bills.

Walking on the Mountain - '70s Kids Books - A Budding Affection

Last Sunday I tried out my first hike on Jay Peak with wee Maisy. She did great. In fact, I credit her with walking about twice as far as I did because of her little detours around my feet. Here's some of what we saw.





We didn't walk clear to the top. It gets very steep up there, but I made it as far as the point where the trees get stunted and short. We had a little sit down at that point (mind you it was about 7 AM on Sunday). Just then, I heard this strange engine noise. What? A helicopter? No, two guys in hard hats in some small mountain-climbing vehicle bringing some small beams up the mountain - maybe to the tram house at the top. They were driving up the trail in this picture. (I know it doesn't look steep and it isn't particularly right there but that changes).



It always amazes me that anyone could drive any form of vehicle on a mountain. The snow cats that groom the ski trails in the winter, and the nerve of their drivers, are sources of amazement for me. And what does it say about the hard-working nature of Vermonters that these guys were up and out on the mountain working at that hour on a Sunday? Just after they passed us I looked back up the trail and there was an ENORMOUS moose; the biggest I have ever seen, standing just up the slope. No horns so I guess it was a female. She was staring at me and Maisy and I thought I was best advised to beat it. Maybe she had a baby around and while I haven't heard that female moose are aggressive I didn't want to take a chance, especially if Maisy took it into her head to bark around the moose's ankles. Time to get down the hill. I am actually getting nervous about meeting a bear on my hikes. I have only seen one at a distance once, and not on Jay Peak. They are there, however, and bears around here have been getting more and more public. A mother bear and cub have been stalking garbage cans in the nearby shire town of Newport lately.

A 1970s Kids Book That I Like

I have written before about my affection for children's books from the 1920s and '30s. Ten years ago I would not have been able to imagine myself having any nostalgia for the '70s, despite its growing vogue. I was 5 years old in 1970 so that is the decade of my childhood, which wasn't so bad. Nevertheless, despite my conviction that the decade marked cultural low point (remember sofas made from "herculon" and all the crappy cars?) I am softening on the '70s. Age, I suppose.

A few weeks back I found a copy of a book I had as a kid in a huge box lot of kids books that we bought at auction. I recall looking at this very book my grandparent's farm which was in Mexico, New York, about a half hour north of Syracuse.



The Farm is my all-time favorite childhood memory, so my kind feelings toward this book are partly generated by that association. (My Dad is the eldest of 12 and his youngest sisters were still living at home when I was a kid. We loved to see them, the animals, the whole package). I know my sister and brother and many cousins feel the same way.

This book must have been next door to a freebie. There were lots of grandchildren to be amused and Monster Movie Matinee (remember that all you Syracusans?) was only on the big color TV in the living room once a week. Also, my grandmother was a book lover. I suspect she picked our copy up at the supermarket. It was compiled by the editors Parent's Magazine and is mostly reprints of older nursery books (ones up my pre-war street and probably copyright-expired and so cheap to reprint). Some of the illustrations were more up-to-date however. This copy is inscribed to a little girl exactly my age.

Leafing through it I realized that I actually liked some of the obviously postwar (50s, 60s, 70s) illustrations for their own intrinisic merit - not just because they reminded me of a happy time. I read once that anything that is true to its times [and executed with some heart] may fall out of fashion but will eventually reveal its merit. I am paraphrasing but that's the idea. I guess this provides some proof of that proposition.

Rescued from Obscurity Part III "Handsome Books"

It was Gladys Peto's books (have a look at the sidebar for some Peto art and click through to Jeanette Payne's web site for a real satisfying wallow) that got me started on collecting old children's books about 10 years ago.


I bought her books because I loved the illustrations. The stories are, shall we say, less memorable. This isn't to say that she was a bad writer; some of her poems in particular were very good, but I find her stories were just typical ephemera of the day. An exception is her travel book for Egypt (The Egypt of the Sojourner 1926). It is written in a witty and breezy tone that I like (although hopelessly politically incorrect). The point is that I have a lot of her books because I like to look at them, not so much to read them. In my Peto collecting I was also lured into some sidestreets, particularly the children's annuals that were once so wildly popular. Mostly I love these for the cover art. The Joy Street annuals, about which I recently wrote here, are stand outs for being both beautiful to look at and genuinely literary. I think of them as the Rolls Royce of the annuals genre. I don't know what the Joy Street dust jackets looked like because I haven't see one complete. The cloth covered boards beneath them are, shall we say, restrained. The Blackie's children's annuals, for girls, boys, "little ones", what have you, really work their cover art and it is printed on the boards. This seems to be the case with most of the others I have seen (e.g. the Monster (meaning "big") Books for girls and boys, Rupert books etc.)

The cover, then as now, of course, was the main adverstisement for the book. The cover had to catch the eyes of aunts, uncles, Sunday School teachers, parents and children naturally. (Well behaved as I imagine our grandparents were, I am sure they pleaded for things in shops once upon a time). I am particularly drawn to the aesthetics of the 20s and 30s. This is my favorite era for book cover art.

It doesn't seem quite right to love a book only for how it looks, and I always read at least part of each book that I get out of curiosity but also a sense of obligation. I usually find at least something to like. My favorite article in the 1920s Empire Annual for Girls (that I bought mostly because it included an interview of Gladys Peto) was "Advice for the Family Failure." No one broaches subjects like that in such frank terms with adolescent girls today! Still, the reason I love these books best is for something to look at on the shelf. That always struck me as a bit of a guilty pleasure but I see I am not alone. Just before drafting this up I found a great-looking resource for people who love books for their wonderful quality as objects; a place in California called Handsome Books. They have a fabulous selection of children's annuals that are right up my street and it looks like all kinds of other beautiful things too. Just having a look at the scans there is a fun little trip. No, I am not on their pay roll. It looks like a great job though.

Sunshine, Flowers a Puppy and a Barn - Get Your Toothbrush!

Life along the Vermont/Quebec border does not feature many days where the weather is spectacularly good. Today, however, was such a day. This is because no relatives from far away are visiting. If someone had just arrived from Texas or Florida or Wisconsin, it would have rained, or something worse. Maybe we would have had a hatch of mosquitoes. There ought to be a name for this phenomenon. People drive for hours to visit during leaf season and the night before they arrive there's a near-hurricane strips the leaves from every branch or a freeze that turns all them all brown. Oh well. I'll take what I can get. I can share today with you readers maybe, if not with my parents, siblings and in-laws.

I was home today with Maisy and having accomplished about half of my to-do list I felt compelled to get my camera and blog about this weather. I was hoping I had gotten a shot of Maisy McTavish that suggested Christina's World,the famous painting by Andrew Wyeth, just so I had something to offer that was not a complete Vermont cliche or so twee it would make your teeth ache. I wasn't very successful, but here's the original and my little effort.

I'm Cheating...

The picture above, and the banner for today (June 11, 2008)and a few days to come, is not actually the view from our house. I wish! It is instead the view from the porch main lodge of the famous Basin Harbor Club in Vergennes, Vermont.

I have lived in Vermont since 1995 and yesterday was the first time I ever set foot on the property of the BHC, despite knowing its location and passing the sign for years. Remember ol' John Denver, "born in the summer of his 27th year, comin' home to place he'd never been before"? I experienced a moment of that feeling yesterday when I arrived at the BHC. I was there early, around 8 AM, for a meeting of the Vermont State's Attorneys (aka "prosecutors"). After I parked my car and found the room for the seminars, I asked in the Main Lodge where I could find a cup of coffee. A pretty young girl in the dining room sent me out to the porch, where I snapped the picture that I have posted, temporarily, above. Sigh.

Guests can stay in cottages sprinkled around the grounds, in the main Lodge or in a few other out buildings. Bring your wallet if you come. ($$$) I won't be checking in anytime soon but it was great to check it out. Here are couple of the cabins that I found particularly fetching.





I had the sense, for a little while at least, that "this" was where I was meant to spend my summers. I sometimes wonder if I didn't have a past life in the 1930s. If so, I sense that old-time summer resorts like BHC would have been my milieu. The place is beguiling and nearly a complete throw-back to east coast summers for the privileged classes of the fin de siecle to the 1950s. There was a photograph on the wall of the Lodge of a reunion in a New York Hotel (the Roosevelt?) in 1947 of the Basin Harbor Club residents. Evening gowns and tuxedos; stockbrokers, old-time power brokers and their wives. The picture was spookily reminiscent of the ending shot in the film version of The Shining(The creepiest movie ever?), where Jack Nicholson's character appears in the photo of some long ago party in that mountain Hotel that also happens to be a doorway to hell. Yikes.

Other than that little frisson, however, the vibe at the BHC was great. In addition to a lot of cheerful lawyers (a day out of the office in a beautiful place and lunch to boot!) there were lots of families from all over the country (the guest list is posted in the lobby). It was lively and beautiful - and how about that view! Summer really arrived this week in Vermont, whatever the calendar says. It got to about 90 degrees these last three days. Today is cooler. It was a beautiful morning here at the old house too and I will leave you with a few pictures of the real view from the last house around 5 AM this morning.

Ms. Charisma Poses and Cavorts! Also Remembering The Petershams and Children's Book House

Here's our Maisy disporting herself with her people. The black bits on her tongue are some ashes from a burned up Wall Street Journal. She still has a lot to learn but she has adjusted wonderfully well so far. We are now beginning Week 2 as her people. Dog ownership seemed a lot harder when I was kid. We had a dog like Santa's Little Helper on The Simpsons. (I.e., stupid and hyper). He kept escaping our suburban subdivision home to chase cars on the highway. When he bit neighbor kids, a brother and a sister in one family, he had to go. (Luckily he was adopted by an animal lover friend of my mother's and lived out his days on a farm). Having had to care for some human infants in the interim has made this puppy thing a breeze. OK, maybe the puppy's personality has something to do with that too.

Rescued from Obscurity Part II
Maud and Miska Petersham and My Travelship.

A couple of posts back, in a curatorial mood, I blogged about the nearly forgotten Joy Street Annuals (q.v.) These make up a big part of my smallish collection of pre-war (World War II, that is) children's books. While I had them down from the shelf I couldn't resist pulling down this volume:



Isn't that cover gorgeous? The illustrations are by Maud and Miska Petersham. A husband and wife team who have not really faded into obscurity - but they aren't exactly household names either. The illustrations are so bright and beautiful, it hardly matters that they accompany English-language versions of (now) nearly unreadable Dutch fables, stories and poems. Perhaps they were inspired by all those brilliant old Dutch Masters.



Tales Told in Holland is one of three books in the "My Travelship" collection. The set was published in Chicago by the Book House for Children beginning in the Mid 1920s. It was reprinted many times at least into the 1950s and maybe beyond.


The Petersham's also illustrated another volume in the set, Nursery Friends from France. It's also beautiful. The third volume is Little Pictures of Japan. That one is very elegant and illustrated by Katherine Sturges. The set was edited by someone called Olive Beaupre Miller. I believe that when they were first sold they were boxed with six other Book House volumes in a wooden box shaped like a house (someone is trying to sell such a set online for about $2,000). I bought these three in first editions, as cheaply as possible. The French one came smelling like it had spent generations on the desk of a smoker and the Japanese one had some ripped pages. Still they are all beautifully illustrated and an interesting effort to introduce American children to the stories and songs of children beyond the sea. The Petershams were extremely prolific and if you have any interest in children's book illustration you might want to have a look at their work. Your efforts in that direction will certainly be repaid.

That Ear is Gone and It Ain't Comin Back - Reflections of an Otosclerotic

(Ear image courtesy of Wikimedia)
I'm just in from a session on the Cub Cadet, grooming the Country Club-like acres of grass around the Last House that W-Husband as decided we need to cut. I was also listening to my iPod - or trying to listen. The lawn mower makes for a poor audio environment, naturally. Worse, I am just about completely deaf in my right ear. If you haven't tried listening to Eleanor Rigby or Peggy Lee singing You Gotta Have Heart on your headphones when only one of your ears works you have missed one of life's odder experiences. Not that I recommend hearing loss but, it does make a person think from time to time about, hmmm, failing and eventually dying - an ever present memento mori. It also makes a person say, "Eh?" and "What?" and "What did you say?"

This failure to hear annoys other people. Mostly they are too polite to admit annoyance, but not so with spouses. WHusband keeps saying in loud tones, and with false pity, (every time I don't answer some unheard question or respond to an unheard comment) that I am getting more deaf and ought to wear "my trumpet." By "trumpet" he means the $900 low-end hearing aid I bought three years ago and lost two years ago. (I haven't shared that last information with him because it would lead to a lecture on carelessness that I have heard and would just as soon skip).

Fortunately, he is wrong. I am not getting more deaf. By the time I had Otosclerosis diagnosed in '02, it was about as bad as it was going to get. From the NIH website: Otosclerosis is the abnormal growth of bone of the middle ear. This bone prevents structures within the ear from working properly and causes hearing loss. What causes otosclerosis? You ask.

The cause of otosclerosis is not fully understood, although research has shown that otosclerosis tends to run in families and may be hereditary, or passed down from parent to child. People who have a family history of otosclerosis are more likely to develop the disorder. On average, a person who has one parent with otosclerosis has a 25 percent chance of developing the disorder. If both parents have otosclerosis, the risk goes up to 50 percent. Research shows that white, middle-aged women are most at risk.

Well, I guess at 36 I was "middle aged" when my ear started to go on me. Dad and one of his brothers have it. My uncle had surgery and it really worked well for him. The audiologist I consulted a couple of years ago wasn't sure it would help me and Dad is reluctant to try it. I got a hearing aid, uh, for a while.

It was not much help anyway. The audiologist said it might not be. Funny thing about that. I wear glasses too. Glasses, in my experience, just fix what's wrong. Put them on, you can see. The hearing aid was not like that. It helped, but it didn't give me back my ear. And wearing something jammed into your ear is just not for me. I have never been able to wear barettes or headbands; how could I manage a hearing aid for cripes sake? Everytime I got hot it worked loose; I had to fiddle with it like some nursing home gomer with that horrible feedback turning heads. A hearing aid doesn't work with headphones anyway; and its music that I would really love to get in stereo. A year or so I bought some wireless headphones from Sennheiser for the TV and DVD player. These headphones have individual volume controls so I can pump up the volume in my right ear. It still sounds a little like I am listening through cotton batting but stereo is still a treat. Unfortunately, they don't work with an iPod. I actually wrote an email to the Sennheiser last year and recommeded that they manufacture dual control earphones for MP3 players for us half-deaf folk. No response.

I read somewhere that Stephen Colbert is also half deaf. I wonder if otosclerosis is correalated with a good sense of humor? My father is a funny guy.

Periodically I plug my good ear and have my kids yell into the dead one, to see how much I hearing I have left. It isn't good. As noted, depending which way I flip my head phones, I can hear about "Father McKenzie preaching the words of a sermon that no one will hear" or just the bass line. Or, I get Peggy Lee: "Oh it's fine to be a genius of course, but don't put that old horse before the cart" or her back up singers intoning "Corazon, Corazon" but not both.

The silver lining is that it makes it a lot easier to sleep in noisy places (as in near a snorer) and to block out what I don't want to hear. It can be handy to have a dead ear. As I write now, this little advantage is asserting itself. PBS is doing its begathon, showing 60s pop-music-has beens - by the way, have you noticed that PBS always panders to the musical sweet tooth of the (late) middle aged and old when it comes time to raise funds? Three Tenors, Doo wop etc.? Bill Moyers, that pompous druid, and his ilk, are nowhere in sight. I know I could turn the TV down, but the remote is who knows where; someplace on the other end of the room. As I need to focus, I close the good ear and I can write without the distraction of Michelle Phillips nattering on about how great the 60s were (isn't she the mother of Mackenzie Phillips, the actress whose life was pretty much a druggy train wreck thanks to those 60s values?) Oh, but then comes the Fifth Dimension singing Marry Me Bill (aka Wedding Bell Blues). I love that song... Darn I wish I could hear it better.

Speaking of Julie Andrews

In other news, I just finished a new biography of Julie Andrews. Julie Andrews An Intimate Biography by Richard Stirling. She is irresistible, isn't she? I saw the book on the "new arrivals" shelf at the Stowe Library and just gave in. Funny about all those lawsuits she's filed down the years; that I hadn't much considered as characteristic of her, but that's why we read biographies. "Intimate" I don't know. That word has been so debased by women's products that I get a little queasy just typing it.

I was reminded of a the book just now by the Fifth Dimension. The woman in Marry Me Bill does all the singing and the guy just stands there smiling and rhytmically bobbing his microphone and doing a little back up ooooing. Stirling reports that when Rex Harrison and Julie were putting together My Fair Lady for Broadway, Harrison early on refused to stay on stage during Julie's final song, "Without You." He informed Moss Hart that he was not "going to stand up there and make a c___ of myself while this young girl sings at me." I had to laugh. One does get the picture... The solution devised by Lerner and Lowe was a revision of the song to allow Harrison to interject his number "You Did It." Stirlng writes, "With the focus diverted from Eliza back to Higgins, Harrison was happy once again." No smiling and ooing and microphone bobbing for Rex Harrison.