The Vanity Publisher

My brother and sister went 3,000 miles away from home to college up north.  I went 3,000 miles away to Lynchburg, Virginia.    I was more naïve then they, and less able to make friends quickly.  Though Lynchburg was very different from Redlands, California, the places had in common red clay dirt and friendly people.  Those were the reasons I chose to attend R-MWC, along with the college's fine art collection.

The first winter break I was ready to come home.  I found my friend, Mim Tritt at home soon after arriving.  When we got together, we found that our friendship had survived the time and distance apart.  

We had both read a feature article in the Saturday Review about vanity publishing.  The same issue with the article about vanity publishing held an advertisement from Vantage Press -Your work published! – Submit for a free evaluation! – or words to that effect.  That sounded like vanity publishing to us.  We found irony in the ad and the article appearing in the same copy of Saturday Review.

Mim had a Remington typewriter.  We moved it to her kitchen table and took turns free associating free verse on paper.  I don’t remember her poems but mine included some deathless phrases, e.g., cockroaches turning on toothpick spits; my soul smolders in this dirty ashtray; his entelechy is the thread at the end of his pocket.”  I had just had my first Philosophy semester and wasn’t very sound about entelechys.

We needed a pseudonym.  We came up with Sheldon McCrea Sales after three of our favorite high school English teachers.  We used Mim’s address as a return address.  I had a stamp.  A postbox was close to Mim’s house.  We walked together, laughing, snorting, to post the letter.

Near the end of my winter break Sheldon got a letter from Vantage Press.  The Vantage Press showed great interest in publishing our slim volume.  They passed along the opinion of their reader.  Sheldon had a “fresh, mordant imagination", but his poetry needed a little work.  Our wildest dreams were realized.  We agreed to take turns keeping the letter.  Mim had it first and later passed it on to me.

I do not know, now, where the letter is, nor where Mim is.  I think I sent the letter to her at one time.  We each went to our fates, geographically far apart.  I moved house at least every three years, sometimes every two years in the time since then.  We finally lit in Virginia.  I saw her mother when I was in Redlands; my mother was very sick and my mind was elsewhere.  My mother died.  Not very long after, her mother died. 

I tried to find Mim on the internet, and found a Miriam Tritt in a Midwestern state.  I wrote an awkward letter to the address and heard nothing back.  I remember Mim fondly; I wish I was the sort of friend who kept in touch.

How Jackson Saved Me from Post-Election Depression

Because I had agreed to babysit for Jackson on election day, I voted at 7:30 am in Crozet.  Tom brought Jackson to the studio at 8:30.

I had volunteered, late in the game, to drive people to the polls from 9:00 to 1:00, saying that I only had three seat belts - my 8 year old grandson would drive with us.  I was worried about the outcome of the election because of the weight of Republican attack adds.

When I called the number of the person who was in charge of assigning drivers to voters, she asked if Jackson and I would go to the Carver Recreation Center to hand out sample ballots, we were needed more there.  Jackson and I went to what I thought was Carver Recreation Center.  I had found a bound copy of Pogo from the 1950s to keep Jackson from terminal boredom.

We drove the mile to what I thought was the Carver Recreation Center.  There was no one at the table with Democratic sample ballots held down by a rock.  Someone had bent the Warner signs in half so that they were illegible.  Jackson and I straightened them and propped them back up.  People came by and gladly took the sample ballots from Jackson.  A wizened woman came up to me and asked, “Is this the Carver Recreation Center?” 

I said that it was.  She went in to vote.  A few minutes later she came out saying, “They tell me this is the Key Recreation Center; the Carver Recreation Center is at the old Jefferson School.”

My resource person confirmed this by telephone and sent us to Carver.  The gentle old lady, Jackson, and I drove to the right recreation center.  The old lady went in to vote.  Dismayed. I saw that the Democratic table was 20 feet away from the path people took to vote.  The Republican table abutted the path.  I said to Jackson, “What is this?  The Democratic table and our signs are practically invisible from the path.”  The man by the Republican table immediately said “I didn’t do it.” Jackson and I moved the table over next to, but not in front of, the Republican table.  We moved a Warner sign and a Gaughan sign over to the tiny crowded patch of earth, next to the Republican table; our signs were easily seen from the path to the polls.  I held the other Warner and Gaughan signs against the Democratic card table.  (Next time I’ll bring duct tape.)  Then Jackson sat down to read Pogo.  I was delighted that he liked it.

The old lady came out of the polls.  A man I know had just arrived with a car full of voters.   I asked him if he had room to take the old woman home.  He did and he did.

A few people took sample ballots from me.  I was pleased by the many people who didn’t – who knew how they were to vote.  I chatted to the Republican, and found to my surprise that he was a sensible and intelligent man.  We talked a while.  I realized that I had not talked to a moderate Republican for years.

Jackson decided to hand out sample ballots.  Most people took ballots from him; he offered the ballots with great charm.

A woman came to the curb in a black car.  She asked if someone could come to her car to take her vote, she was handicapped.  I said I’d see.  I gave her a Democratic sample ballot and said I’d bring her a Republican one if she wished.  She didn’t wish.  I asked Jackson if he’d be O.K. for a minute while I got someone from the polling place to take her vote.  He said he would and the Republican said he’d keep an eye on him.  Two people from the polls came down and took the woman’s vote.

A few friends came by and we chatted briefly.  The time seemed to go quickly.  At around 11:30, late for him, Jackson ate his lunch.  A woman came by who was as worried as I was by the meager offering in Warner/Gaughan signs.  She said she had some signs at home and would bring them.

At noon the Republican man decamped and his replacement came.  At 1:00 I called in and asked if we could go home; we were excused.  As we drove away from the center we saw the worried woman posting signs on the strip of lawn in front of the Recreation Center.

We went back to my studio fed the goldfish, and played and chatted until Betsy came to pick up Jackson.

I went home happy.  The day with Jackson was fun and we’d both been useful.  Ox and I watched the 10:00 o'clock news with dismay and went to bed early.  Jackson’s day with me had been such a delight, that I didn’t have a chance to develop post-election depression.  2016 is another year and I have hope.