Art: Cicely Mary Barker (thank you, Lili Matthews, for the correction)
I happened to hear from Hannah this week. We went to the same schools from age 4 through age 13. We’re in touch from time to time but not regularly, so I was pleasantly surprised.
Hannah mentioned she remembered “playing fairies in the wonderful fields behind your house.” Although I don’t have a mental picture of the two of us playing fairies there, I am not surprised to learn we did. Fairies were a big part of my childhood. Even now, I occasionally catch myself wondering if they could be real.
Hannah got me thinking of other imaginative play in childhood: tea parties with cinnamon toast in an attic closet with Carole, the woodland path where Patsy and I walked without speaking because of deep magic, plans with Ursula to perform “Snow White and Rose Red” before the movie at the Lafayette Theater (if only our brothers would cooperate and play their assigned roles), nefarious scheming with the Jukes kids on the roof of a small building, outdoor theatricals with the Cummings kids.
You will say we must not have had television, but in fact we had the first tv in the neighborhood, and kids from all around gathered to watch Disneyland on a tiny black & white screen on Saturdays. And you can bet that whatever magic Walt dreamed up was magic I believed.
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