Resting my paintbrush on my palette and wiping my hands with a paper towel, telling Jennifer to take a break as I answer the phone. Another scam caller. These days I answer those unknown numbers calling, never knowing when it's one of my doctors or their nurse. Since my heart problems, I answer all calls.
I think of the time before the smartphone and Google, back when I had to ask Dad my questions and be told to read the encyclopedia. Before Netflix and television there was the radio and programs like "Gangbusters" and "Gunsmoke", that sparked my imagination. Homework done, the radio would be turned on if Patricia or Mom weren't playing the piano. I can still hear the voices of Amos & Andy at times. Sitting on the floor listening to Robert Conrad as Matt Dillon shoots it out with the bad guy and Miss. Kitty saying it had to be done. I could picture Matt Dillion and Miss. Kitty from the radio and imagine the horses and the others with their cowboy outfits, drawing them as I did.
NC Wyeth and Harvey Dunn were my heroes then, their illustrations guided me with my own drawings. Mom bought cowboy books from rummage sales for me, they were beat up some, but you could see the illustrations fairly well. I was to read them, not just look at the pictures. I read aloud to Mom as she sewed, making a dress for one of my sisters. The next night, Dad would have my book, reading it, and I would have to return to doing homework. Dad insisted I read my math book even when it was summer vacation time. It wasn't just the cowboy books Mom got for me to read, it was all books that came into the house. My brother's college textbooks, if left laying around, Dad would snap them up and read them.
My art book on materials disappeared for a while, not that I needed it. It told which colors were poisonous and how to cure you from that poison. Found it in my Dad's basement office with high school textbooks. Mom, too, checked out my books. Once I found a page missing from a book on French Impressionism... The nudes in all the books at the Aurora Library were covered over with a red stamp saying AURORA LIBRARY. At our house books were special and reading them was a gift from the author. Every Christmas at least twenty books were wrapped and exchanged. Books and plaid shirts resting under the tree replaced the dolls and baseball gloves. I didn't mind, especially when I unwrapped an art book by Robert Bateman, autographed too.
