turns reading aloud

The day came.

After waiting two weeks for the right moment, it was my turn to watch the boy after school got out. The book lay on the seat beside him in the pickup. It was raining out. I watched as he first picked up the book and thumbed through its pages. He read silently to himself.
We came into agreement.
He would read one sentence aloud and I would read the next. And so on, taking turns, sharing the story. Listening to the sound and shape of the words and imagining the characters we were fond of.

 A while ago, my wife recalled, back when we were dating, I had found a vinyl record at Link Library at Concordia University in Seward. I was attracted to the rich grandfatherly voice of Carl Sandburg as he read his Rootabagga Stories. The stories were transferred to a cassette tape of mine. And last year my great-nephew enjoyed the audio stories on tape at his house. That day he and I were drawing doodles on paper at their dining room table. Hatrack the Horse was telling the night policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs about the Three Wild Babylonian Baboons.

"Soon the baboons, all hairy all over, bangs down their foreheads, came sneaking through the door. Just as they were sneaking through the door they took off their hats to show they were getting ready to sneak through the house........The last he saw of them they were walking away in the rain eating bread and butter. And they took off their hats so the rain ran down and slid on the bangs of their foreheads." Carl Sandburg

Word had come to me that my great-nephew had been talking to his GG about wanting to HEAR that baboon story again. His grandmother mentioned it to her sister (my wife) and I heard of his renewed interest. That was when I ordered the book through our local Carrollton library.

The second grader was surprised that I had to WAIT a whole week for the book to arrive. He asked me where CARTHAGE was. The book was on-loan from the Carthage Public Library. It was a city near the bottom on our state of Missouri, I replied.

What astonished me was that there were OTHER tales in the book that were not on the vinyl record. More stories with new titles to explore.

When we got home to the yellow house with dark green shutters, he and I read one of these. One we had not heard of before. "Many, Many Weddings in One Corner House." "... bug games bugs-up, bugs-down, run-bugs-run, or beans-bugs-beans."


I was so glad this opportunity was fulfilled. WE  DID IT and the idea worked.


The boy told me he scored high on the reading chart in his class. Great. Here are two audio files I found on Youtube. Both stories are on my cassette tape.


 
Four minutes. Carl Sandburg reads aloud. (courtesy of Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU2PJiYPv-c, accessed May 26, 2017)



Seven minutes. A second story from that audio file.
(courtesy of  http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2012/04/books-on-record-carl-sandburgs-rootabaga-stories-lp.html, accessed May 26, 2017)

Rootabagga Stories

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de mi corazon

       The boy was staying home from school ill. I told him I was hoping we could look at a special book I had brought with me. But, I went on, I wasn't going to fight about it. He could ask me about it when he was ready. If I were home ill at his age, I'd probably be watching TV cartoons also. I remember him coming in to join me at the dining room table.
      I always brought something along with me when it was my turn to watch him. Sometimes we played Stratego or UNO. Sometimes we assembled plastic straws and connectors. Thursday morning he opened the green box, and gave us each six cards to start with. He drew a card off the middle stack and placed a Flat Tire on my pile. I drew a card and I placed a Spare Tire on my pile when it was my turn. Soon the mileage cards were being counted. He was very good at adding numbers, especially hundreds. We played Mille Bornes twice. A card game my brother Paul and I used to enjoy. ( See link 1 and link 2 ) During one game he had dealt himself all four of the Safety or accidents-free cards. So I was unable to give him a Flat Tire, an Out-Of-Gas, an Speed Limit, a Stop, or an Accident.



     Back on a soft cushion in the living room, we flipped through a large scrapbook of mine. I pointed out family photos and he was soon able to figure out which boy was me Karl and which was my brother Paul. There was a room with kangaroos kicking over barrels, a laughing monkey with a pitcher of water, a janitor's dust mop, and a train roaring through the library. The typed piece was called "The Library Caper," written by a character I called "Sam." Double click on images to enlarge.

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Three minute video.

    There were early drawings by my brother and me that my father saved and that I added to this special collection.

 

I read to him the deep sea adventure I had before I was thirteen. A poem about a yellow cat and a skunk that stunk. And a page about Jan Jan called "No One Is Like Jan" after I was grownup and married.

     The back of the book had felt scraps glued down willy-nilly. The front of the book was stitched carefully together by me. My mother Dorris had taught me to stitch with needle and thread when I was growing up. I love bright colors and textures.

 

The letters spell out "El Es Senor De Mi Corazon," which is Spanish for "He Is Lord Of My Heart." My nephew was able to match the scrap shapes on the back with the cut-out letters on the front.

It was important for my nephew to see the stuff I drew and made up when I was in grade school and even later. I believe the boy will have stories and pictures of his own to make and to treasure as he grows up. Thank you God for parents who stitched books and encouraged me to write stories. I used mom's manual typewriter to click clack on.

One other note: During one visit I took my cassette tape recorder. The boy was interested in the technical aspects of this foreign-looking device. He learned how to start and stop and change the tape cassettes. But more important to me was sharing the Rootabaga Stories as told by Carl Sandburg. (A vinyl LP of Carl Sandburg reading some of the stories, Rootabaga Stories as told by Carl Sandburg was released on Caedmon (TC 1089) in 1958, courtesy of Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootabaga_Stories, accessed October 25, 2015) I listened to this LP record when I was young myself. Then, after college, I checked out the record from Link Library, at Concordia, and taped it on cassette for myself. Sandburg has a comforting grandfather's voice. I know about the Babylonian Babboons. "All hairy all over, with their bangs hanging down their foreheads." 

Twice now, the boy has enjoyed drawing and listening to the cassette. The stories are full of imagination. Its prose are a perpetual delight to me, at 60 years old. And now, enjoyed by this fellow too.

(Mille Bornes courtesy of http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/371458725396?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82 and http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/MilleBornes.PDF  accessed 10.19.2015. Black and white family photos by Reinhold Marxhausen. Drawings and poems by Karl Marxhausen are copyrighted and may not be reprinted without written permission from the artist.)

words in the sky

When I was little Mom held me on her lap. I remember she read books to me. My favorite book was Sam and the Firefly by P. D. Eastman. It was Gus the firefly that wrote words in the night sky -- that glowed!! His words helped save the day. I loved looking at the pictures and the glowing words.

 
At our house Mom and Dad read the newspaper and magazines.

 
I learned to read for myself, and enjoyed reading jokes, adventures, textbooks, and movie reviews. I am glad I can read.

wanted to

   As I review folder after folder, it has become clear to me, Dad was interested in his babies, his boys. His was a time before digital photos and cellphone selfies. Despite all the time it must have taken, he developed the film himself in his basement darkroom and made 8 by 10 inch prints using light-sensitive chemicals. He did lots and lots and lots of them, because he WANTED TO.

Whether next to a water barrel with Mom and me at the pool, 

or in the kitchen with me in the high chair wearing my shoe brace.

Out doors on the front step with Mom and my brother Paul and me, 

or asking Mom to get Dad and me me fit blocks into the play skool roof. 

Mom pushing me on the Concordia campus with Jesse Hall in the background...

as well as me chomping on a strap...

and his two sons by the door. 

Past our drive way at the Con cor dia apart ments on Sixth Street

or Dad holding me on his lap

or the happy faces in the mirror.

So it was no surprise that he caught me holding a pocket mag nify ing glass up to my eye, me stand ing in the mid dle of his art room at home, or the cray on in my hand on paper he set out for me to scrawl on.

How I held the big hand le and  watch ed the dab bles of water color ap pear on the paper pad he set out for me to use. Me in the mid dle of his art room, under his sup ervi sion. 

Building,

making,

eating, 

chatting,

and

reading,

sharing,

looking at art,

the two of us on the living room floor.

In the garage, me on the tricycle and Paul on the wagon.

looking,

drawing,

sticking,

writing and drawing.

Dad took lots and lots of pictures.

I see it now. He did all that work and all the time it took him, because he wanted to.