Remember being a kid in elementary school? They’d try to get you to write stories, sometimes in little books made from folding over some ‘typing paper’ (now ‘copier paper’) and using a sheet of construction paper for a cover. Well, I remember it, and that’s what we’re talking about today. I remember some girl being very proud of her story about a bunch of kids who solve mysteries. She asked two or three people to sketch up their idea for the cover of her book, and she’d decide who’d draw the cover.
In case you hadn’t surmised already, I, like some of you were, perhaps, was the “class artist”. For those of you who were NOT the class artist, it’s a heavy burden. Well, no, it’s not. It’s an ego trip is what.
For the aforementioned Mystery Kids cover illustration, which featured a cave in the title I can’t recall, I drew a mysterious looking cave. I had been to quite a few caves. Carlsbad Caverns, Ruby Falls Cave, Mammoth Cave, and I’d even camped out in Cumberland Caverns with the Indian Guides Father/Son group. I knew me my caves, you betcha. The cave I drew was at the bottom of a large rock wall with creepers all over it. There were bones and stuff in front of the rocky black hole that was the entrance to the mysterious cave. Being the class artist, I was confident that my sketch would be prized above all others, exciting comment about how perceptive and well-schooled I was in both mystery and caveishness.
The writer picked a different sketch by a friend of hers. This friend had drawn what looked like a muddy igloo with, I swear to you, footprints all around the entrance. It wasn’t a cave! It was a lumpen mound with a hole in it! And how the hell did those footprints get up and around the sides of the hole? Some guy lying on his back sticking his giant feet all around the door to his stupid mud igloo? Idiotic.
So, while drawing this week’s cartoons (and the extras) I have continually flashed back to fourth grade and being snubbed for my cave art, which is not to be confused with art in a cave. You can’t go home again, but by Golly, it’ll sure as heck stay in the back of your head for your whole life.
I’ve also flashed back to a lot of smaller caves and water-cut spots I’ve been to since 4th grade, but that’s a whole ‘nother set of silly stories.
