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Above left: the author with his grandmother, 1939. Right, the author in a ditch, 1941. Old Sawyerville is glimpsed in backgrounds.
Let’s start with what may be my earliest childhood memory. At home. Where else?
I am standing on the steps leading down from our screened-in back porch to the back yard. There is a bannister on the right side as you face the house. It is covered with clematis in white bloom. I am holding on to the bannister to keep from falling. A train whistle blows, and I look slightly to the east across the highway and see the train on the tracks beyond the few houses and buildings and trees on the far side of the road. The train is passing from east to west. It is pulled by an old-fashioned locomotive and smoke is trailing behind. Colors are vivid. Everything is somehow separate but yet part of a larger picture. Perspective is flat. Later on when I see paintings by Grandma Moses, I know that is what it looked like. I recall strong feelings of astonishment and joy.
I am standing on the steps leading down from our screened-in back porch to the back yard. There is a bannister on the right side as you face the house. It is covered with clematis in white bloom. I am holding on to the bannister to keep from falling. A train whistle blows, and I look slightly to the east across the highway and see the train on the tracks beyond the few houses and buildings and trees on the far side of the road. The train is passing from east to west. It is pulled by an old-fashioned locomotive and smoke is trailing behind. Colors are vivid. Everything is somehow separate but yet part of a larger picture. Perspective is flat. Later on when I see paintings by Grandma Moses, I know that is what it looked like. I recall strong feelings of astonishment and joy.
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