This is the time of the year when I take an editorially-approved month’s vacation, by publishing old columns. Here’s one that is as old as I can get: my very first column ever, written for a Pittsburgh weekly newspaper in October 1972. Not how I would do it today, perhaps, but then, what is?
After all, there is something to be said for hoarding, if it’s only for the joy, years later, of finding the stored-up evidence that, once upon a time, you were very young.
A couple of years ago, when we were packing for a move, I came across a notebook of my “Collected Works,” edited by the author at the age of 12.
It contained my entire literary production up to that time, consisting of 16 poems, five plays, and three short stories, plus an uncertain number of word sketches. (There appears to be a mistake in the index but then no editor is infallible.)
This nostalgic little volume knocks into a cocked hat the idea that a happy childhood is all fun and games for the incumbent.
Besides four that are downright frivolous, the poems can be divided into six rather upbeat ones, and six that are grimly pessimistic.
They deal with subjects as diverse as suicide and prayers, rainbows and pet dogs, automobiles and school.
One of the stories is a contemporary war story — World War ll, that is — and makes the point that people are human whether they live in Nazi Germany or the United States. One of the plays, in two very short acts, promises the 9-year-old heroine absolute fame and happiness because of her musical talent — sort of a cultured Horatio Alger line.
When you’re young, you don’t miss seeing the tragedies, the human conditions of life — they just look a lot simpler.
Here’s one of the mournful poems, written during a 1939 vacation to Nova Scotia, according to an editorial note that fails to explain the lugubrious tone. (Though we have learned from the movies that that was a very good year.)
Down by the fishing wharves
There is something that catches your heart,
To see fishers’ wives, waving goodbye,
Maybe forever to part.
There’s no mention of whom they were waving to, but poets are always disposed to let their readers do some of the work I hope it is not too much to assume, at least, that the fishers’ wives were not waving goodbye to each other. (Ed. Note: I also detect overtones of soldiers’ wives here during the War, but, nope, “fishers” it is and “fishers” it must remain.)
One of the frivolous poems sounds dated when it mentions (regrettably) “cars of every Nashionality.” However, another one, on school, probably expresses the timeless emotions of the pre-teen scholar, when it concludes
Ah yes, school is fun
With its contests, its bout,
But man, oh, man, is it swell to get out.
Rhyming seemed essential in those days, and the poetic mood was sometimes difficult to sustain in the longer works. Here’s the end (not quite soon enough) of a four-line ode to the Northern Lights:
The moon is very pretty, and so
Also the stars, But the one that
Certainly takes the cake
Is the Aurora Borealis.
Nevertheless, all things seemed possible then, even in the midst of war. As times appeared to improve, so did the optimism. Too bad the poetry didn’t. Anyhow by five more years, I had cast off the chains of rhyme and delivered myself of
I sing
The countless gifts of life, for I am
Seventeen.
I found that one too, hoarded away among the stray artifacts of youth. No matter how pretentious it sounds (and the proud young always do), it is good to be reminded that most of us have had our share of youth. It is so easy to forget.
Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.
Maude McDaniel - Living
Column and poetry from the distant past
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Each of them found a Spot in her heart
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We’re all entitled to change our minds
