Tag: Grandma Moses

Grandma Moses Country (‘Memory Lane’ Contest, Day 13)

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GRANDMA MOSES (American, 1860-1961)The Old Checkered House in Cambridge Valley, 1943Oil on masonite21-3/4 x 29-3/4...

This is the next-to-last day of our Memory Lane Contest. Anyone can enter, as often as you like: just post your memories here.

Here’s one from me.

Many years ago, my Grammie visited her folks in the Pennsylvania hills. I went, too.

How wonderful that was! Everybody–three generations, at least–lived in this enormous, rambling old house. There was always someone available to play checkers, stroll down to the brook, or shoot at targets with slingshots. We stayed for a week; and I’m sure I missed seeing large sections of the house.

It was like being in a Grandma Moses painting. No other experience in all my life was quite like it.

And now it’s your turn, folks.

‘Why I Write “Memory Lane”‘ (2017)

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Grandma Moses painted this… God bless her

There are, of course, things in the past, in my own life and in the world around me, that shame and horrify me when I think of them. But it’s not for those that I write “Memory Lane.”

Why I Write ‘Memory Lane’

But there is also an embarrassing wealth of good, wholesome, sane and sweet things to remember, and those are the things I choose to write about.

We have to remember them! Because they are the proof that we don’t have to be content with the dreck that passes for “the way things are” today. Proof that we can do so much better than this.

We must never, never, never settle for “the way things are.”

‘Memory Lane: Skating in the Woods’ (2016)

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Grandma Moses knew these places–and painted them for us.

I like to run this piece now and then because I think it’s important to remember things that were good, people and places, squandered riches that we would’ve done well to keep.

Memory Lane: Skating in the Woods

Did I dream of all these places? There’s not a shred of them left. All pulled down, bulldozed, paved over, a perpetual sacrifice to the idol of mere ugliness. No more skating in the woods, because there’s no more woods. And that fabulous wealthy estate that I remember, torn away to make room for another housing development–I may be the only one left who ever knew it had once been there.

We don’t have to do these things.

‘Why I Write “Memory Lane”‘ (2017)

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There’s at least one thing to be said for living in the past: you soon learn that a lot of things were better.

Why I Write ‘Memory Lane’

Was it perfect? Of course not: people are sinners. I don’t write about the bad parts. But we can see that so much was better than it is now; and seeing that, we realize we do not have to accept “the way things are” as carved in stone.

It simply doesn’t have to be the way it is. We do not have to have Drag Queen Story Hour–to name just one of a very great many things that we can do without.

Sanity Break: Grandma Moses

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Folk Artist Grandma Moses

Forget that condescending claptrap about “primitive folk art.” This is Grandma Moses, and America has never produced a greater artist.

Do yourself a favor. Drop the nooze for a while and go online to look at Grandma Moses’ paintings: enjoy a kind of private tour of an art museum devoted to her work.

These are not just pictures. They are doors. They let you into the sane and wholesome world of Grandma Moses. You may even remember similar details from your own life.

Country people fording a little river in their wagon. Sheep grazing in the background. Trees beginning to show their autumn foliage. Oh, yeah, I want some of that!

Maybe it’s because I’m old enough to remember real places like the places in Grandma’s paintings, real people who lived there–and these were wonderful places! Most of them torn down and paved over by now.

But the ones in Grandma Moses’ paintings are beyond the reach of the back hoes and the strip malls and the bent zoning boards. She put them on canvas so we could put them in our hearts.

I kind of think the new Earth, when God restores Creation, will look more like the world of Grandma Moses than–well, who wants to mention any of those people on a Sunday?

‘Memory Lane: One Summer Night’ (2016)

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Grandma Moses, we need you!

Sometimes I look back on how different things used to be, and can hardly believe I’m still on the same planet.

Memory Lane: One Summer Night

Yes, they had block dances on the school blacktop in the evening. Nothing could be more harmless. The three of us kids watching from the upstairs window. Ray Bradbury got a lot of mileage out of scenes like this. So did Grandma Moses. How wise they were!

Can you imagine such a scene today? It would turn into a riot.

Culture rot has advanced very far indeed.

‘Memory Lane: Skating in the Woods’ (2016)

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“Skating on the Mill Pond” by Grandma Moses (She knew!)

I wouldn’t trade my middle-class, 1950s childhood for all the tea in China. I certainly wouldn’t trade it for what passes for childhood now.

Memory Lane: Skating in the Woods

But the woods have been hewn down and paved over, the swamp and stream filled in so they could build more condos, the palatial estate so thoroughly erased that only a very few of us remember it ever existed–oh, fap! to all that. We do remember!

You can’t tell us “There is no sun.”