Through a Darkened Pane (page 13)

snowbird

Hi, CoCo.

I will answer your question first, lest I forget.

Theft warrants are signed by police officers on people who go "shopping" via "five finger discounts," otherwise known as shoplifting.

I'm given the distasteful task of notifying them of such action and listening to some sad stories that always leave me ... well, muddled.

Despite the volcanic personality of Elizabeth Etna Vincent and its seismic consequences to our family, she was my original, beloved mentor. She is the primary connection, albeit broken, to my educationally golden childhood.

This sums things up so nicely.

Kudos.

Sylvia

compound complex

Partial inventory of contents of container addressed to:

Elizabeth Vincent, Old House on the Hill, Barberry Road, Tangle Town, NA, Zone 34:

Pavilion of Women, Dragon Seed, The Good Earth: Pearl S. Buck

The Egg and I, Onions in the Stew, The Plague and I, Anybody Can Do Anything: Betty MacDonald

Just Be Yourself: Mary Bard [sister to Betty MacDonald]

The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew: Margaret Sidney

The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair: Laura Lee Hope

Lost Horizon: James Hilton

Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft: Thor Heyerdahl

Seven Years in Tibet: Heinrich Harrer

Paradise Lost and Other Poems: John Milton

Autobiography: Benjamin Franklin

Selected Poems: Robert Browning

Swiss Family Robinson: Johann David Wyss

Treasure Island: Robert Louis Stevenson

Life Among the Savages, The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson

Please Don't Eat the Daisies: Jean Kerr

In One Era and Out the Other: Sam Levenson

Piles of magazines: The Saturday Evening Post, LOOK, Life, Astrology Today, Argosy, Popular Mechanics, ad infinitum ...

MORE books, including paperbacks.

Numerous letters, manuscripts (haven't yet perused them), several dictionaries, one huge, very old Webster's Unabridged, a stack of folders containing loose papers, et cetera, et cetera ...

Hello, Glad to see you are back with pen (keyboard) in hand.We are expecting large amounts of snow soon.My walk will probably consist of a short walk to grab the nearest shovel.I usually enjoy the exercise,but when I start getting tired I may look up into the sky,squinting at the falling flakes, and state in total exhaustion to nobody,"COME ON. YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING!"in hopes the snow will stop.It usually doesn't work.Oh well.

I enjoyed your posts CoCo.

compound complex

Hey, Musky!

So you've got snow too? At our low elevation, it is not so much rare as the quantity we received last night. About 3 inches here and a foot in town. It was beautiful while it lasted. I understand how the work element can take the wind out of your sails, though.

Oh well, don't overdo it.

Hope to talk again soon, and thanks for your nice comments.

CoCo

compound complex

As child I languished somewhere between unsteady ambulatory and down-and-out sickly. Somehow or other I did manage to attend school (and make the weekly rounds to the library, of course!) between bouts of sinusitis and catarrh. I still don't know if they're the same affliction. The medical terms discussed back and forth between the doctor and Mother stuck in my noggin as thickly and unrelentingly as the ever-present mucous. That doesn't mean, however, I could understand Latin.

When housebound, I would meander gravely to the living room and stare forlornly through mullioned panes of puttied-in glass. They were seldom unadorned: sometime after a combo Halloween/Thanksgiving extravaganza of boos and gobbles, the glass transformed into gaily decorated Christmas scenes. The medium of choice was tempera. The hand of the artist was the one creatively attached to Elizabeth Vincent's wrist.

These "seasons greetings" remained intact months and months beyond December, eventually washed away with ample reluctance on the artist's part, and that barely in time for the Easter Bunny and his hard-shelled retinue. Despite the opacity of a stylized old Saint Nick, his Donners and Blitzens, assorted foolishly grinning elves and an unreasonable facsimile of the North Pole, I was able to glimpse through gaps of high art the neighbor children playing kick-the-can or dodge ball. Billy Tobias was always pushing his little sister Sally Anne away when she tried to join in. Her consequent kicking and screaming made me laugh out loud, but that made me cough, so I had to contain my mirth.

I rarely had the pleasure of kicking the can or their amiable company.

As a result of chronic childhood illness, I spent untold, joyful hours traveling the world ... and beyond ... my bed, a magic carpet....

musky

Hello CoCo, I hope that your health is better now than when you were a child.Somehow I imagined that you were raised as a Witness.But it doesn't seem that way.Well,i am glad to know a little more about you.Sorry that you didn't get to be outside with other kids as much as you would have liked.I am glad though, that you spent a lot of time reading.Because now I can enjoy the fruits in your writing style.

Thanks for posting your thoughts,

compound complex

Thanks, Musky!

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I sort of milked the "illness" for all it was worth to make a point (literary license). It's not like I didn't get to play at all. Additionally, the pane that I looked through really was darkened by painted scenes.

Those books and mags were for real; we did get the WT and Awake! when I was a kid. An anointed sister studied with "Elizabeth Vincent."

I appreciate your concern and that you popped in to say hello. It's always a pleasure.

CoCo

snowbird

Sylvia

compound complex

Thank you, dear Sylvia!

If you get a chance, and wish to do so, we'd love to have you post some of the books you read early on.

I bought for 25 cents yesterday The Secret Life of Bees at Friends of the Library.

Loved it once, will love it twice, and thrice ...

CoCo

Through a Darkened Pane

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