Return to the Fall part two

I've been overhauling my den here at the Suburban Hermitage, and in doing so I've been  going through my altogether too large collection of books, and irresistably cool shelf items. 

 It isn't easy. Every time I lay hands on something I ask, "Do I really need this thing?" The answer is always, "No, BUT..." That's from Art Class in 1969. I got this thing back in the 70's. I made that one when I was a kid. Here's a souvenier from a vacation back in 1960...

Worse is the stuff that belonged to my mother or father. Worse yet is the stuff from my grandparents...

It has been a week of hard work, and there is still no end to it.

I woke up in the middle of the night, last night and rather than lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I got up, and went into the living room. Buddy the Cat hopped off the bed, and followed me out there. Looking out the sliding screen door I could see a soft overcast blanketing the sky, and feel the cool, quiet air flowing into the room. I sat in the big green chair. Ol' Buddy jumped up, made himself comfortable, and went to sleep in my lap. Good ol' Kitty! Odd how things come to light in the dark hours of the morning. I saw very clearly that there are many things I need to let go.

 I didn't intend for rearranging the den to be anything more than moving furniture and opening up wall space for artwork. But somehow, sitting there in the dark, I realized that it's more than getting rid of stuff I don't really need. It's time to put some things to rest and move on. I recently sold my 1950 Schwinn B6 to a very nice young guy whom I met on the local bike path.

I didn't ride it any more, and it was a shame to just let the old cruiser collect dust in the garage. As I sat there in the dark living room I decided to gift him the 1956 girl's bike as well. The bikes are a matched pair, and I don't want to engage in the hassle of trying to sell it. Maybe he can use it to get some young woman on a riding date.

We really don't own things like these, anyway. We are stewards of them, preserving the old machines against Time.


Neither Mary nor I have children. I have a niece and a nephew, but neither of them has much in the way of a connection to the family. My mother's and father's families are all from Michigan and Ohio. That lineage and history means nothing to the niece and nephew, and to be fair, there isn't much reason that it should. After all, those are people they never knew, and places they've never been. They have only a vague memory of my maternal grandmother, and not much connection to my mother either. Mary and I see them maybe once or twice a year at the most.
Going through the accumulated treasures in my collection, I find that so very many of them are touchstones to people, and places I knew and loved. 
I can't hand that down. Memory creates the touchstone, and the heart alone can appraise the value. It is not transferrable. Things are only things after all. What to keep? What to toss? These are melancholy considerations. But the considerations extend to more than souveniers of the past.

As I mentioned in the last couple of posts, I'm about to put The Lost Canyon Project to rest.
This project has been center stage in my life for eight years, now. I still have the feeling that it was a mission that chose me. The number, and frequency of wildly improbable coincidences that led to this work is too great to ignore. If I hadn't engaged this effort there would be nothing of Pete's legacy but a disorganized pile of very old paintings moldering away in a storage bin. I have some few gestures yet to complete, and those tasks will be discharged in the next couple of months.

Right now, I'm waiting for results on a submission to the Doc LA Film Festival. Results were to be posted on September 24th, but they postponed it until Friday, the 26th. This November I have a Lost Era Film presentation at the Whittier Museum, and another at the Whittier Art Association gallery. Pete's sister-in-law will be coming out here for other stuff, and she'll be attending the museum show, and probably taking some paintings with her when she goes back to So. Carolina.

I'm having a new copy Of The Lost Era Transcripts book printed, but I'm still waiting for the printer to get his machines fixed, and complete the order. I'm having it printed up for my one last attempt to get recognition for Pete Hampton's The Lost Era.

George Lucas is building his Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park in Los Angeles, and The Lost Era is nothing if not the quintessential California narrative. I sent them an email, and got no response. I don't think anyone answers emails anymore. So I'm planning on sending the new copy of the Lost Era Transcripts book to the address posted on their web site and hoping for the best.  It's kind of like putting a message in a bottle. Hope is a Virtue, after all. 

Some very slim chance of real success does remain. Maybe the film festival. Maybe the museum show, or the art gallery show. Maybe the message in a bottle  will wash up on the right shoreline. 

But what would real success look like? I ask myself frequently. It is surprisingly hard to envision what shape success might take. 

 I have worked very hard. Indeed, I worked myself to exhaustion creating the catalog, the blogs, the book, and now the film. I've invested huge amounts of time, and spent no small amout of money. I've been ignored by Laguna Beach, Fullerton, La Habra (of all places), La Mirada, and Claremont. I've given over a dozen film presentations. For all that, I have reached a few people, but only a few. I just don't have the energy to continue.
Failing isn't easy. These are the last gestures I intend to make. I really want closure. I need to get this whole thing off of center stage, and move on.

 It's hard to express all this without sounding angry or bitter. But I'm neither bitter, nor angry. I'm tired.

As I wrote at the beginning of this post, it's time to put some things to rest. There is always a melancholy turn of heart in the first days of autumn, and that is compounded when your autobiography is in its last few chapters. As I've said before, If my life were a book then the thick part would now be in my left hand. But the last chapter hasn't yet been written. So there is that.

JWM