Some years ago, there was an art gallery in the building that once held the J.A. Hagen Toy Factory next to the old fire station across from the Cathay Temple restaurant. I worked in the factory one summer before college.
It was a summer of misery, working in front of 100-degree ovens dressed in jeans and long-sleeve shirts covered with a rubber apron, standing in heavy rubber boots filled with liquid rubber that dripped down the apron, lifting heavy molds, enduring late nights on the second shift. But it supplied me with a wealth of stories I later wrote about.
The woman who ran the art gallery was searching for stories about the toy factory. When I heard that, I kindly obliged her by sending her a copy of one of the columns. She contacted me – I lived away at the time – and asked if she could chat with me next time I was in town.
As I walked into the gallery at the arranged date and time, surprise! There was an arrangement of chairs and a stool set up facing the group. I was expecting a casual chat, but it was clear a presentation was expected. I had to think quickly. Good thing I studied storytelling in grad school.
As invited guests settled in, I began my impromptu presentation with an anecdote. I told them that the last time I had been asked to speak in Mattapoisett was when I was a struggling artist; my first children’s book had just been published. I was invited to speak to third and fourth graders at Center School, my old elementary alma mater. I was honored to return … as a “celebrity.”
I should note that the week before my visit, Norman Bridwell, creator of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” children’s books, was the guest speaker. The week after me came Marc Brown, who created “Arthur the Aardvark” books.
Both artists, neither of whom were struggling, were rich men with their own TV series and all the accompanying profits garnered from shrewdly marketing their cartoon characters across America. I, on the other hand, eventually became but a humble, public-school art teacher in a high school far away from here.
In one of the classes I spoke to was a little red-headed sprite of a girl, sitting with her legs crossed in a circle of other diminutive third graders in the same classroom where I once sat. All those cute kids were attentively listening to me explain the ins and outs of illustrating a children’s storybook.
Years later, as a member of a committee interviewing candidates for a recently vacated art teacher position, a freshly minted art school graduate bounced into the room with her portfolio eager to impress. She did and got the job. Later she told me she grew up in … Mattapoisett. Surprise! And, she had attended Center School. A coincidence indeed.
I described the last time I was there, all those many years earlier. Again, to my surprise, and chagrin if you “mature” folks know what I mean, she said she remembered me. She said she remembered being fascinated with how I blended the colors and wondered how I did it. She now knew.
Could it be because of me she became an art teacher? I don’t think so, but who knows? I do know this: Every time I saw her, I was reminded of just how old I had become. There was another surprise. In addition to becoming a good teacher, she was a trained EMT. A valuable classroom neighbor at my “advanced” age.
By the way, the presentation at the art gallery went off without a hitch. A couple of coworkers at the toy factory were there, and their memories covered my lapses.
All’s well that ends well. That was a surprise.
Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
Thoughts on…
By Dick Morgado