We Are Still Kids at Heart

Before the confession of childishness, which we prefer to interpret as joie de vivre, two public service announcements:

First, do not forget that Stephanie Mills will be at Dog Ears Books tomorrow, Sunday, from 2 to 4 p.m., signing her newest book, On Gandhi’s Path. This will be a good time to visit with Stephanie in general and have good conversation with her about her lifelong career as an ecology writer and bioregionalist.

Second, who left this cap behind at Thursday’s author event?



Now, some of the toys that grace our lives--.

Poet Al Bona was happy to have prints of a couple pictures I’d taken from his book launch party, but as we were looking them over together I spotted a stray item that shouldn’t have been included. “That shouldn’t be there,” I said hastily, pulling out the stray print. “What’s is it?” Al asked. “Oh, those are just David’s Barbie dolls.” A shocked look: “David has Barbie dolls?” “It’s a long story,” I told him, “for another time.” People were coming through the door for another bookstore event (Oomen and Busch), and there wasn’t time right then to tell how David had found the dolls at a garage sale and how much fun he was having posing them in dioramas on our front porch. Besides, what would I answer if Al asked, “Why?” There is no explaining all the ways the artistic impulse manifests itself. How to explain the rubber frogs and rats on the edge of our bathtub, their dialogue written on the tub in magic marker? Our eight-year-old grandson seemed awestruck by the old folks' bathroom.




For my plastic horses, however, I claim no highbrow justification, aesthetic or intellectual. I saw them (at a different yard sale, a few years back), wanted them and, miracle of miracles, could afford to buy them. As a young girl, I could almost never afford to buy these coveted items—maybe only twice—as the money for each took long weeks of scrimping, allowance and birthday money usually burning a hole in my pocket before I had enough for the purchase price. So why did I buy them as a middle-aged woman? To recapture my youth? Or to capture the youth I couldn’t afford to have when young? I just wanted them, that’s all. And anyway, they look good above the door of the Painted Horse Gallery, though when I climbed up to photograph them the other day I could see that after three years the whole shelf and all the horses could use some work with a dustcloth. I really mean it: “No kind of housekeeper at all.”

Briefly (About Toys)

While I'm flush with the success of solving (thanks, Walt!) a linkage problem from two days ago, I'll try immediately to put in a link today. This one comes from one of Diane's blogs, not the one listed at right but one I don't have in my list. It's for anyone with young children or grandchildren who's looking for good, wholesome, fun toys.

Here in Northport, Sally Coohon of Dolls and More has arts and crafts supplies, dolls and toys for all ages. The elegant teddy bears in the basket were made by Sally from a customer's vintage full-length fur coat. Go to the Chamber site at right to find Dolls and More and other Northport businesses.

More on Why I Love Books

Today I heard a very sad story. A little girl had received one of those stuffed animals that kids “play with” by registering them online on the Internet, after which their toy can “interact” with those of their friends. If I understand the concept correctly, kids then play on computer screens with representations of their toys (which are, as David points out, already representations of real animals, taking abstraction pretty far out, one would think). What happened in this particular case was that the mother had endless trouble registering the toy online, blocked at various levels after putting in information. Well, not “endless,” because eventually, after trying two or three computers and two or three web browsers, she finally achieved the goal, but before it was reached, she said her daughter was standing next to her, quite forlorn, holding her stuffed animal and waiting and waiting until she could “play” with it.

This is where I can’t help thinking how it was “back in my day,” when we just sat down on the floor (or on our beds) with our friends and our stuffed animals. We played with the toys directly. Same with games. When we wanted to play a game, we got out the box and took out the board and game pieces, and we were in business. To play baseball or hide-and-seek, we ran around outdoors.

Reading was simple, too, back in my Dark Age childhood. We didn’t have to download texts or go screen-blind or didn’t worry about power sources or program glitches. We just opened a book and dove into the story! In bed, on the bus, under the living room desk, up in the apple tree—the book could go anywhere. Dinosaur that I am, I still read that way most of the time. Human-readable text! What a fabulous concept! It’s so darned easy (not to mention cozy, a top criterion in our household)!

Okay, sorry! Can’t blog any more tonight. Gotta curl up with a book! CUTTINGS FROM A ROCK GARDEN calls!