Estate sales can be wonderful. A few days ago, Daniel and I dropped by one with a book room. The take? Ender's Game (just finished, loved), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Tuck Everlasting, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Spoon River Anthology.
Not bad, eh? Spoon River Anthology, written by Edgar Lee Masters, is a series of epitaphs-in-verse, each spoken by a citizen of Spoon River who now lies buried in the village cemetery. Here are two, set side-by-side, blatantly exposing the human tendencies to envy and despair.
Albert Schirding
Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one
Because his children were all failures.
But I know of a fate more trying than that:
It is to be a failure while your children are successes.
For I raised a brood of eagles
Who flew away at last, leaving me
A crow on the abandoned bough.
Then, with the ambition to prefix Honorable to my name,
And thus to win my children's admiration,
I ran for County Superintendent of Schools,
Spending my accumulation to win--and lost.
That fall my daughter received first prize in Paris
For her picture, entitled, "The Old Mill"--
(It was of the water mill before Henry Wilkin put in steam.)
The feeling that I was not worthy of her finished me.
Jonas Keene
Why did Albert Schirding kill himself
Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools,
Blest as he was with the means of life
And wonderful children, bringing him honor
Ere he was sixty?
If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand,
Or one of my girls could have married a decent man,
I should not have walked in the rain
And jumped into bed with clothes all wet,
Refusing medical aid.
On a happier, less-melodramatic note, Daniel just got home with a surprise--he cleaned all the bike grease off of the back seat of our car! Which means: now would be a good time for us to give you a ride somewhere. It looks Brand New! Yay! (Not that there's anything wrong with bike grease, it's just nice to see it looking all nice and spiffy :)
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