A good FReeper friend (thanks, Mike) sent me this link today. He had no idea that I have read and loved this man’s [John Gould] essays for decades, but he knows me well enough to have believed that I would be interested in John's recent death and self-written eulogy (thank you for the compliment, Mike :). I hope a few of you will take the time to read his ‘exegesis/obituary’. The fact that this man is no longer living has received little or no notice in the media, but I believe that he is one of those old-fashioned-valued Americans whose shoes will be very hard to fill.
Some excerpts from his autobiographical obituary, and comments:
As a railway postal clerk, Frank [John’s Dad] worked ‘six and eight’: in six days on the train he worked the equivalent of two weeks' time. Accordingly he had eight days for ‘rest, study, and relaxation’ after each tour. This may sound like a bed of roses, but John recalled how his father staggered home to sleep for two days and then sat up for two more days memorizing postal routes and addresses.
.... he [John’s Dad] had his miniature Sabine farm with fruit trees, bees, cow, pig, and a flock of Dominique hens. Son John was custodian and nursemaid to all this when his father worked .... Young John milked and fed the livestock before and after school. He recited his conjugations aloud so he had a cow that knew as much Latin as he did. John also had the company of his Dad on the eight days he was home. He was grateful for the hours they had doing things together, from trout hunting to hiving bees, setting hens, hunting bunnies, and a million other important matters that working daddies don't always have time for .... John's father didn't finish school, so he insisted his son should, and nothing ever interfered with homework. If John didn't get his chores done in time to study, don't let that happen again!
How many of today’s fathers would put in such grueling hours for six days (working virtually around the clock), then sleep for two of his ‘off days’, spend his next two ‘off days’ educating himself on information that would help him do his job better and more efficiently, and then occupy a good deal of the remaining four days spending what we modern Americans like to call ‘quality time’ with his son (fishing, hiving bees, setting hens, hunting bunnies, and a million other important matters that working daddies don't always have time for)?
The answer as I see it: fewer every day.
And how often do we witness such an example of strict discipline -- and the implanting of an honorable work ethic -- successfully combined with wonderful one-on-one time spent doing character-building (and yet enjoyable) things (experiences that that child would look back upon with images colored by the words ‘grateful for the hours they had doing things together’) with a child in today’s father-child relationships?
The answer as I see it: not nearly often enough.
How many of today’s very young modern American children would possess the creativity, and the dry sense of humor, to pen the following abbreviation-strewn limerick (Note: John was from Maine – thus the abbreviation ‘Me’):
There was a young fellow from Me.
Who went out with a beautiful Je.
But he found with dismay
Later on in the day,
That she'd lifted his watch and his che.
The answer as I see it: very few of them.
To my mind, we can attribute this small child’s creativity, work ethic, and humor, at least in part, to the discipline, ethics, and nurturing parental attention and example (modern America’s waning parent/child ‘quality time’) mentioned above.
It wasn't until 1946 that they could build a house on the Gould family farm at Lisbon, which John had bought at the estate auction after his grandfather's death in 1929. The farmhouse built by his great-grandfather in the late 1700s had burned, but with money from his books John replaced it.
How many of today’s modern American young married adults would be imbued with sufficient respect-rooted nostalgia to be move to purchase their grandfather’s farm, and use the income from their books to replicate the farmhouse that they knew so well as a child, so that their own children could know the privilege of growing up in a similar lovingly nurturing, mind-and-creativity-expanding atmosphere?
The answer as I see it: Few of us anymore comprehend the soul/spirit-nourishing value of such a keen sense of roots, and such strong family ties and familial memories.
John Gould held two political offices. In the 1930s he was a Brunswick fence viewer, and for more than 30 years he was moderator of Lisbon Town Meetings. Besides his journalistic affiliations, he was a Granger and an honorary member of United Lodge No. 8, Free and Accepted Masons, of Brunswick. For many years he was a registered Maine guide. He was also a justice of the peace. He held a commission as admiral in the Navy of the Great State of Nebraska, and was a fellow of the Guild of Former Pipe Organ Pumpers, having pumped in the First Parish Congregational Church at Freeport. In 2001, John was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.
Not the activities of a man seeking fame for fame’s sake, or a lifestyle threaded with materialism and glamor. Instead, a simple man who enjoyed the company of honest, simple folk -- and who enjoyed serving in the (genuine, as opposed to more common lip-service) role of public servant.
Anyone who has read John’s essays in the Christian Science Monitor (for whom he wrote them every week for sixty-one years) will always remember with a smile their dry, witty, intelligent, insightful, genuinely homespun American humility – as well as the incomparable knack he had for turning what, to someone else, would appear to be a fairly mundane occurrence into a fascinating homespun tale. I especially remember the essay entitled ‘The Missing Fork’ in which he beautifully lamented the loss of a one-of-a-kind, three-tined, wooden-handled fork that had been in his family for generations. His essay ended with:
‘Maybe,’ she [John’s wife] said. ‘Maybe if you write a piece about it somebody will know [where to find another one like it].’ She seldom, if ever, thus presumes on my extracurricular literary pursuits, and this shows how serious it is. If it works, I may get some scrambled eggs again without lumps.
I'd say, offhand, the monetary value shouldn't exceed a dollar at the utmost, even with today's expanded ideas. But when a family's entire happiness and future security is at stake, price is no object.
[Note: John and his wife later received scores of letters from around the world containing dozens of forks. The missing one was discovered much later, stuck in a sink trap.]
The unique humor and rare and humble insight that laced John Gould’s writing was a large part of what made him an historically great man (I like to call him America’s literary Normal Rockwell). I believe those personal qualities took root, and thrived, in an atmosphere of old fashioned American family values that is fast nearing extinction. And, for that sad reason, men of John Gould’s kind are no longer easily replaced (except by modern plastic, imposter substitutes).
~ joanie 