Making Ends Meet

The was a time, a couple of decades ago, when I felt like I was good enough at art and design that I could pay the bills, put groceries on the table and have money left over to go fishing now and then. And I did that but it seemed like I spent a lot of time making things that either didn't sell or sold but were not used in the way I had originally thought. This drawing of my cousin, President Abraham Lincoln, for example is but one of many similar drawings I made but nobody was interested in buying them or using them and paying me for their use. Of course this was in the days before the Internet, computers and "digital" images. We had to send a letter to an editor of a magazine and include the image we wanted to sell and wait for a response. The mail was what we now call "snail mail" and it took a week or two for an ordinary letter to get from my home to Cincinnati, Ohio and to the Beckett Paper Company located in Hamilton, Ohio. They like the image and called their advertising company in and asked if they could use the image in one of their next ads. The ad company said they would use it if I could make it say "ABE" as in Lincoln and I did that but used the drawing of Lincoln instead of the letter "E". And to make it seem even better, I put it on top of the Gettysburg Address. This was back in 1978 and the ad agency bought it and used it in the next ad they did for the paper company. I suppose I got enough money to buy a pair of shoes or two for the 5 kids we had in the house.

Indian Arrows

War arrow with sharpened trade black for hunting and attacking. A target arrow with a point. The blunt tips are for hunting small game and birds. These points will kill or stun but do not stick in trees should you miss.

The raw sinew strips wrapped around the arrow protected the notch where the bow string went and kept it from splitting out or opening and ruining the notch. The women made the sinew by chewing it when fresh and they were able to make any size. It dried and shrunk in the sun and made the arrow that much stronger.

These are some of the same arrows with the owners colors painted on the arrow. This is still done today because it makes the arrows easier to find when they skid off under brush and grass.

From Scribbling to Calligraphy

This is another of the books that were sold when commercial time rolled around people were shown the books I wrote. This is one of those that I wrote for the series, From Scribbling to Calligraphy.

Television Show Book

One of the books I wrote for my television show--a thirteen week series of 1/2 hour shows related to having fun writing like a calligrapher.

Pollinators

Honeybee having lots of work to do if we are to eat--they are responsible for the pollination of the food crops people consume. Every time you spray insect killer on flowers or on any plant, it will linger there and kill any honeybee. This has led to colony collapse and hives are dieing all over the land. You need to plant flowers that bees are attracted to and then make sure you do not use chemicals to kill anything, including weed killer.

COPD

By Abraham Lincoln

I felt immortal back then. I was mired in black volcanic sand on the beach at Iwo Jima. Scrambling up that slope was as impossible when I had to do it as it has always been.

The black lava beach was a nightmare and I remember looking at the volcanic mountain named, “Suribachi”, on my left and the caves where Japanese machine gunners sprayed bullets—we were panting and gasping for air to breathe.

As soon as I got on top and looked down into the volcano’s steaming crater, I grabbed my shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes—Camel—the Camel’s slogan: “I’d walk a mile for a Camel” but it seemed like walking two or three miles would be easier than climbing to the top of the steaming Suribachi volcano.

I was young and felt I could do almost anything but I was already troubled with breathing. I didn’t have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) then by had bronchitis and a touch of asthma. Not related was my “flat feet” that kept me from standing or marching in parades. I had a slip of paper that excused me from any of those activities.

Now, some 60 plus years later, I still have COPD and my breathing is an ongoing struggle—I use inhalers to open airways so I can take a bigger breath and I have oxygen bottles and oxygen concentrators that enables me to keep a steady supply of oxygen going into my lungs. Without the medical treatments and medications I use every day I would have had a stroke a long time ago. I am fortunate to live now when there is some help available—a few years ago and I would have succumbed to the disease and been a name on a stone monument.

At eighty years of age, I only have memories of how I used my life and what I did to myself and what politics did to me. The tobacco lobby in Washington made sure the Army had cigarettes in our C-rations and they all knew that smoking caused cancer and heart disease but they gave every soldier a package whether he smoked or not.

My rhubarb patch. Just squeezed off three large seed pods. I think the stalks will be OK to eat raw or for a pie by the middle of summer.