Guilty!

As recently as not long ago, I wrote about pencils and pens. I reiterated a promise to myself that I would not spend my money on expensive writing tools.

Well, so much for that noise coming out of my talker. Behold, my three-pack of Blackwing pencils. (Photo above.)
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When You Grow Up

It was my least favorite question in school. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

On one occasion, I remember being forced (forced!) to draw (draw!) what my life would look like … in … the … few … cher-er-er. (Echoes.) If I had had the sense of humor I now claim to have, I would have drawn someone who was capable of drawing. Maybe I would have drawn someone holding a board with many colors on it. The person would be wearing a smock. And a beret. (That was how Mr. V—, our art teacher in elementary school, actually dressed. It was almost a parody of a cliché of someone’s parodied cliché of what an artist is supposed to look like.) The caption to my drawing would have stated that I hoped I would be able to draw when I was a grown-up.
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Thanksgiving’s Mother

In most of her portraits, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving, looks stern. Gentle, but stern. She was an editor, but befitting a woman of her era, she employed the term, “editress.” From age 33 until her death at age 90, she wore black, which designated her as a widow in mourning from the day her husband died until the day she was to join him.
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