A BEAR FOR THE AGES

Books were treasured items when I was very young.  I can remember whenever I had a case of serious sniffles, or symptoms of flu, or an especially nasty case of Chicken Pox as I did in first grade, I would be confined to bed with a few books scattered nearby.  Bed, at that time, was in a shared room with my sister.  It was a small room, but bright, with both a north and an east window.

We didn't have a lot of books.  As with everything in the late '40s, we had a few of this and one of that.  Not like today's children who have a lot of both this and that.  I remember two books of poetry--a large format book filled with Mother Goose rhymes and colored illustrations, and a slightly smaller, and more serious, dark blue book--Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses."  I have to guess that both books were gifts to my sister...perhaps when she was born. (The '40s were also a time of sharing and hand-me-downs.) 

I remember preferring Mother Goose to Robert Lewis Stevenson, but I loved the illustrations in both. My worldview was formed from those drawings--which means my ideal landscape and cityscape and architectural design all date from 18th and 19th century England.  It's why I sometimes think the Good Lord planned for me to be born in England, but in the rush and flurry and fury of World War II, dropped me in Dodge City, Kansas.  It was an honest mistake--the Army Air Force Base in my home town had originally been intended for Royal Air Force pilots.  No doubt, it was just another wartime paperwork snafu.

As far as owning a book to claim as mine, that would be "The Littlest Angel" which, much to my surprise, is still in print.  I loved "The Littlest Angel" and, although it's technically a Christmas book, I read it again and again and again. It was not an easy book to read--it's difficult to learn of a small boy in heaven--all by himself--trying so hard to be good, and failing at it again and again.  The ending, however, is more than wonderful so, if you buy it for a grandchild, DO NOT let him or her become depressed and put it aside.  He must read it all, for the rewards are rich. 

This reminiscing has led us, in a roundabout way, to what I had intended to be my starting point:  The 100 Aker Wood and Winnie the Pooh.  Our set of four Winnie the Pooh books: "Winnie the Pooh," "House at Pooh Corner," "When We Were Very Young," and "Now We are Six" were also baby gifts for Mary.  The books were copyrighted and published in the late '20s, so our editions would have been very early.   I could listen to tales about Pooh and Rabbit and Owl and Eeyore and Kanga and Baby Roo by the hour and...I did, if I could plead with just enough intensity to win over a kind adult. Fortunately, by the time I could actually read the books by myself, my sister had moved on to movie magazines and Farley Granger, letting me store A.A. Milne's four masterpieces on my own set of shelves.

To the left of our front door was a set of stairs that led to an upstairs bedroom.  They were enclosed, but had a west facing window.  For me, those stairs were a cozy private place where I could read, play with my stuffed animals or spread out my paper dolls.  Each step became a different room, or a different house, or a different part of Pooh's world.  I spent hours on those stairs, and that is exactly where I read and re-read every tale about Pooh's adventures with Christopher Robin. 

Many years later, after Mary and I had both graduated into the Adult World, I learned she had packed up the Pooh books and taken them to California to use in her classroom.  I felt terribly let down, although I hadn't looked at them in years and, after all, they were her books.  My own kids owned Disney-fied Pooh books and paraphernalia, but it was not the same.  Not even close.  I always missed Ernest Shephard's line drawings. No amount of technicolor could make Pooh as lovable as those spare illustrations.

A few months ago, I was working on a writing project, searching for quotes, and realized only Pooh could cover the situation.  I dropped into Amazon, and YES! Pooh was still in print.  I ordered the classic boxed edition which was a copy of those I had loved as a child, and waited impatiently for the mailman to drop them at the front door.  He did, and I've been reading ever since.  No one is as sweet and lovable as Pooh.  He describes himself as a "Bear of Very Little Brain," but, in actuality, he is a Bear of Very Large Heart, and that is enough for me.