Family Weekly j January t.iMi
Smith lined a remote-control device to take thin photo of himself,
Sandburg, and the painting that appears on Family Weekly's cover.
The Carl
Sandburg
I Know
Text and Photographs by
WILLIAM A. SMITH
At H, William A. Smith has won widespread
recognition as a painter and graphic artist. He
is represented in the collections of The Metro
politan Museum of Art in S'rir York and the Li
brary of Congress in Washington, has served as
president of the American Water Color Society,
and teas a member of an official delegation to
Russia under the cultural exchange program.
A noted artist and personal friend '
depicts, in words and pictures,
this beloved dean of American letters on
the occasion of his 83th birthday
Today, January 6, 1963, is Carl Sand
burg's 85th birthday.
To hiH home in North Carolina, near where the
Blue Ridge Mountains meet the Great Smokies,
will come letter!) and telegrams of affectionate
salutation from friends and strangers, homage
to a beloved artist who has set much of America
to words.
The range of his work is prodigious; he has
distinguished himself as a poet, historian, biog
rapher, novelist, anthologist, and .singer of the
folk songs that belong to all the people.
Time and again during the past dozen years,
Sandburg' fellowship has enriched my life and
the lives of my family. A telephone call, and his
resonant voice may announce that he will arrive
at New York's Idlewild Airport the next after
noon. Can I meet him? he asks. If so, we can have
a few days together to work on a portrait that I
am painting of him.
My children love Sandburg and look forward to
his visits the stories, wisdom, walks in the
woods, and the songs he makes up as he sings,
sometimes songs about the children themselves.
My wife knows that she need plan no special
menu, for he is the easiest of men to feed. His
appetite for nearly any type of f(xd is robust.
When I meet him, he will be wearing a slouch
hat, its wide brim pulled rather far down, shad
ing his eyes and emphasizing his aggressive chin.
Bulging from under the hat at the back of his
neck will be a shaggy abundance of his famed
white hair. His carriage is erect, and his walk
is that of a man who has been athletic and has
kept himself in shape. He is just short of six feet.
A large, colored kerchief will be wrapped loosely
around his neck. He will be carrying a couple of
small handbags and perhaps a flight bag. He
travels light.
On the turnpike, driving from New York to
my home in Pennsylvania, Carl once observed
that the steady increase in the number of cars
would make it necessary in a few years to build
another highway, equally wide, right alongside
this one.
"I have a recurring fantasy about this turn
pike," he said. "I imagine that I am traveling its
straightness and, except for me, it is deserted.
There are no automobiles, there are no people, it
is haunted and still. Then, as I continue, I notice
some boxlike factory buildings. They appear as
tombs, and there is an inscription: 'The Yoo
nited States of America, Land of the Free. . . .
Died of Vehicnlarity.'" Then his great loud
laugh, and he repeated slowly and thoughtfully,
". . . smothered in the gravy of vchicularity."
That evening, shortly after Carl and I arrived
at my home, snow began to fall. It continued
through the night and the next day. In rural
Bucks County it meant that we were snowed in.
Already the snow was two feet deep, and it was
still coming down. Carl was delighted. Looking
out a window he said: "This is a snowfall! Why,
day before yesterday in Chicago, 17 or 18 snow
flakes came down, and they thought they were
having a snowstorm. Hah! A snowstorm with 18
snowflakes!"
Though it was hopeless to try to shovel the
length of our lane, and the roads beyond were
banked and impassable anyway, he wanted to
shovel snow, just to be in it, feeling the weight
of it on the shovel and the chill of it in the wind.
IT WAS four days before snowplows dug us out,
but they were wonderful days.
Alone together in my studio, we talk while I am
painting. What Carl says is always worth remem
bering reminiscences of people, experiences, or
simply random observations like: "The artist
achieves solitude and then peoples it to his
wishes."
If, while he is posing for me, I ask him to move
his head to one side or the other, lift his chin,
change position, he will say: "Your wish is my
command . . . I'm your huckleberry." ,
Resting between poses he might place his
hands on the arms of a chair and do a few push
ups, or some of the exercises he learned as a sol
dier in the Spanish-American War. Then he will
Family Werkl). January i . I96J