life indelible
summertime, oh summertime,
summer without end

Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the background, and the life along the shore was the design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses and the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and the post cards that showed things looking a little better than they looked. This was the American family at play, escaping the city heat …

From Once More to the Lake, as published in Essays of E.B. White by E. B. White, New York, Harper Colophon Books, 1979.

In his forward to the book of essays, Mr. White writes, “The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new “attempt,” differs from the last and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self -centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.”

Sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.

Is that not fabulous?

And spot on for all these goofy essays that seem to spill off of my keyboard.

Now here is the odd thing.

I hate to type.

I will go to the greatest lengths imaginable to find a bit of text that I can copy and paste rather than type myself.

I had it in mind to use this bit of story, Once More to the Lake by Mr. White.

But far be it from me to want to retype the the text I wanted so I searched for something I could copy which led me to an electronic copy of the Essay’s of Mr. White which led me to re-read his forward to the essays which led me to copy and past that little bit of text from the forward I just quoted.

In doing so, the word belief in the phrase sustained by the childish belief was copied as the word behef or sustained by the childish behef.

Spell check tossed it out so I looked it up.

Maybe behef was a word the Mr. White selected as a bit of word play.

The closest word I could find was from the Middle English and that behef was a variation of the word biheve (according to the online dictionary of Middle English available from the University of Michigan which as an institution has been working on the Dictionary of Middle English for as long as I can remember) which is an adjective meaning of things: needed; beneficial; appropriate, fitting.

Things needed, beneficial, appropriate and fitting.

I love that.

Though closer inspection did prove that the word Mr. White wanted was belief, I like the sentence very much with behef.

The sentence could have read, Sustained by the childish need that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest which is altogether beneficial, appropriate and fitting.

Summertime, oh summertime.

Summer without end.

Needed, beneficial, appropriate and fitting.

Life indelible.

BTW – the photo above is of my sister Lisa along the shore of Lake Michigan was taken by my Father sometime in the late 1960’s.

My family has had a long association with the West Michigan artist Armond Merizon.

This photo could have been painted by him.

Life indelible.

the good life apart
from the hustle and worries
of a main street world

From The Appalachian photographs of Earl Palmer by Jean Haskell Speer, The University Press of Kentucky, 1990.

The caption for this photograph reads:

With a generous-giving milk cow, a pen full of fattening hogs, and a flock of Plymouth Rock hens of high laying qualities, Blaine Sartain lives the good life apart from the hustle and worries of a main street world. [Near John’s Creek in Craig County, Virginia, 1960]

In her forward to the book, Ms. Speer writes, The first time I saw some of Earl Palmer’s photographs I was captivated. As a folklorist interested in the traditional culture of Appalachia, I was struck by Palmer’s images of the folklife of mountain people. There were photographs of farm life, mountain cabins and rail fences, quilting, basketmaking, gathering mountain herbs, boiling molasses, stirring apple butter, and making moonshine. But it was not only the subject matter that drew me to the photographs. I had seen and even made photographs of mountain folk culture many times before. I was struck by the quality of the photographs, the range of subject matter, the apparent age of some of the photographs, and the story they seemed to tell about Appalachia.

Paging through the book, I too was captivated.

Captivated by the photos sure.

But the thoughts behind the photos, behind the images, the people.

People who live the good life apart from the hustle and worries of a main street world.