Family

CJ

Dowsing is a method for finding material under topsoil.  One usually utilizes a rod (tree branch) of some kind that vibrates or points downward whenever the searched-for material (normally water) is detected.

My Brother Joe in Ohio is an expert researcher of dowsing.  I believe that one of his buddies has used dowsing techniques to find water when even professional well-diggers could not.

My handsome Grandson CJ is practicing to become a dowser, as this photo shows.

Beth

Artle reminded me of an American artist whose work I had always admired.

Clare Leighten 1898 - 1989, was an English/American artist renowned for her wood engravings.  I especially have always liked her "Clam Diggers at Cape Cod" from 1946  Looking at it, I can smell again the salty air of the Cape, where I spent many long mornings digging clams with my hands.

I want to quote information about Clare and then compare it to something I submitted to The New York Times about my beautiful daughter, Elizabeth.

"Leighton had an enlightened attitude toward teaching and inclusion, having been fascinated as a child by a disabled pavement artist she used to encounter when out on walks with her nanny. 

She later wrote of how 'Nanny's scoldings were of no avail.  All I wanted to do was to sit beside this real artist and learn from him. Perhaps, who knew? He might have lent me one of his crayons."

Now, this is more or less what I wrote for the New York Times:  

My family visited New York City in the 1970's when my daughter, Elizabeth (Beth) was nine years old.  We wandered through Manhattan, gaping at the tall buildings like the country folks we had become.

As we stood on a corner, we realized that Beth was not with us.  We panicked. We started back and nervously retraced our steps.  

After a few blocks we spotted her, sprawled out on the pavement next to a rather scruffy disabled man.  They both were holding pads and pencils and were drawing people passing by and were "happy as clams."

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