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