Storybook Pages Of My Mind

“Yesterday was a glorious day for a drive.
Cranked up the classical music; flipped the storybook pages of my mind, seeing sword fights,
fanciful runs through the woods and peasant lovers.”

This Facebook entry by my daughter Debbie intrigued me.  Flipping through the storybook pages of my mind!  It has been a long time since I did that.

As hard as it is for this generation to comprehend there was a time  when every story and lyric was not accompanied by video interpretation.   We were free to put our own interpretation to the words and notes; and Oh! how our imaginations could soar!

My fondest memories of childhood are the adventures I enjoyed with  people I met through the printed page.

How they looked, how they felt, was limited only by my imagination.   They were as real to me as any persons I knew.  Some were my friends, others I did not like.

They lived far more adventurous  lives than I.

There was no TV, video,or immediately available movie to suggest what might have been.

The printed page took me beyond the confines of the isolation of rural South Carolina into a larger world where people lived and experienced  much of the same things I might.  I knew I was not alone.

Two examples of my early friends come to mind.

First, there  is Johnny Tremain.

This Revolutionary War character is so real to me.  I can feel his exaggerated pride and arrogance; his humiliation due his own actions and his intense determination to be a meaningful part of  a solution dispite the handicap of  his  fused fingers.

Reading the notes  on this book by Esther Forbes, I wonder how the character  could be so memorable  to a  kid  with such limited experience.

In the pages of the storybook in my mind, do I see myself, and perhaps the person I hope to become?   One can only speculate;  sixty years later, Johnny Tremain remains a friend; as real today as he was then.

Jody Baxter, his family and  neighbors,  are people  I remember well.

Jody lives in Florida, but I can  identify with his longing for the companionship of a pet; his parents remind me  of my own in their struggles against nature, disease, disaster and less than sympathetic neighbors.

The circumstances of my own life  are surely exaggerated by immature, childish, understanding of our circumstances, but if my friends the Baxters can face adversity and not let it destroy their basic goodness, I know we can as well.  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings  in her novel The Yearling shows  there is hope.

I probably watched the movie on TV, but it is not those faces that I  remember as  the Baxters.   The portraits of my friends  are  the ones drawn on the storybook pages of my mind as I struggle along side Jody as he grows into manhood.

Wonder how many, today, can listen to music (classical or otherwise)  and as Debbie describes:   flip the storybook pages of the mind, see sword fights, fanciful runs through the woods and peasant lovers?  Probably not many, especially of the younger generation.

Music video has robbed us of that opportunity.   Few see meaning beyond the often meaningless interpretation of the lyrics  presented in the  accompanying video.   No more does “each listener puts his own meaning to the words”.

Gone are the days when students are told “Each poem or song has it own meaning, there is no right or wrong interpretation.”

Well, we almost believe that, except the wise student knows  he must interpret the meaning of poetry  as the teacher  understands  its meaning  if he expects an answer to  be marked as correct on a test.

A good example of music that has  different meaning to different people ( and generations) is The “William Tell Overture“, the instrumental introduction to the opera William Tell by Gioachino Rossini.

Few of us recognize that title, but the music has meaning to us all, but in different interpretations.  The original is classic!

To my generation in the  40’s and 50’s it was recognized as the introduction to  the Lone Ranger series. Spell binding adventure, almost as good as watching Dad shoot an apple off son’s head!

Rossini would probably turn in his grave if he knew how his masterpiece is abused now as an vehicle for comedic interpretations such as “The Mom Song“.   It is fun!

Today this galloping refrain encourages many students to hurry down the hallways to the next class, as it  blares over the sound systems at centers of education.  Hurry! Hurry! Don’t be late!!

Ah, what is written on the pages in our mind if we would only open them!  What pictures, what stories, what fantasies!

We can run into trouble when we share those pages with others.  When I put a worldly interpretation to Debbie’s comment with this observation:

“MY!MY! What the……..sword fights, peasant lovers
running through the woods.  I thought you would have your mind
concentrating on less worldly things!!”

Her reply brings me back to the reality of the generational difference:

“Hahaha Dad! I know you were teasing. 😀
It actually kind of icks me out to know that you are human and probably have romantic
thoughts from time to time too.  Ugh…threw up in my mouth a little…”

Well, Darlin’, many pages  in my mind  are kinda’  faded, yellowed, and torn; I can still read a few of the scripts.

There are  even a few entries about chasing somebody through someplace, I just forgot where.

I did not write why.

Now I have forgotten!