My sister refused by invitation to "hobby"

I cannot convince her, my 8 year old sister to join in my hobby- art I call it. It is early Saturday morning, maybe 10am. I am about 10, 1953. Freckles cover my face and my red curls cover the freckles and my eyes at this early hour. I have been allowed to stay in my nightie, the one trimmed with lace and flowers, the one that flares out from under my still invisible breasts. My feet are bare. I am sitting on a little stool, which my father made, and I am about 6 inches from the TV set. This is what my father would call “the in danger of imploding position,” imploding being the term he used when my sister or I touched the screen and risked the danger of having the set explode. I love that word-implode! I love the TV. It is small and in a cabinet many times its size which occupies a special place in our already crowded but comfortable living room.

The black and white test pattern, The Eye, as our family, and probably thousands of others, named it, has just blinked off  the TV and in its place, “Winky Dink and You.” with Jack Barry. I can’t wait. Expectation is all over my body. I have my special crayons and my mom has put the specially ordered green colored plastic over the screen. It cost about 50 cents to send for but there was a better one that I got from Aunt Nettie who found it in a toy store. I know today my help will allow Winky, this little star-headed cartoon figure, and his dog Woofer to get to safety. What a job for a girl hero.  I draw with the television voice, the ropes and the ladders; I invent escapes and decipher the secret codes to save Winky and Woofer from danger, from some unknown terror. It is an interactive game, a game I play with hundreds of other kids I’ll never meet who come up with the same solutions and cherish the seriousness of this. What do I know of dangers at ten? I don’t read newspapers and am not threatened by poverty and crime. Even starving children in some far off place are not my concern. Winky is the one in danger. I helped. A half hour flies by and the program is over. There’s a little song to sing to say good-bye. As always I follow instructions and carefully take the plastic from the screen and smooth it out on a table. I am always obedient and careful. There’s the simple reminder to wipe it clean for next Saturday. I do this. This is a favorite Saturday morning entertainment, at least for now.

I have always been an artist. Diane, my friend who was born just five days before me, who lives in Elmont now, not in the projects anymore, in a private house with wonderful flowers around it, flowers called marigolds which repel bugs, I am told, asks me to draw pictures for her homework when I sleep over. She is studying Indians and Pilgrims. I am great at feathers and shoes.  I am not so good at pilgrim’s hats but better than she is. I love sleeping over at her house. She has her own room. Her house has its own basement and its set up like a playroom. Her mom Charlotte served me an artichoke for dinner once. I drew it. It was easier to that than eat it.  I thought it needed a book of instructions on how to eat it. “Pull off each leaf which was covered with bread crumbs and run it along your teeth getting the “meat from it. You can dip it in a sauce if you like the sauce”, she said. I thought this more fun than good to eat. I never got this at home. But maybe Jewish people didn’t eat artichokes. After all, we didn’t eat a lot of things that I knew others did. Diane’s family was Italian. Everyone on her block was Italian and they all had these little smiling saints in their windows, on their cars’ dashboards, even in their yards. Some of them had great names like Eustace’s or Mary Robert. When I slept over I stretched my neck backwards in my bed and there was a cross on the wall. I drew that and I gave it to her. I wouldn’t bring it home. Whatever helps, I guess is good. We didn’t have a Jewish star on our wall. Maybe we should have. Diane and I had lots of fun memories to share from the projects and our school days. She goes to Catholic school now and says the Nuns hit her on her knuckles with a ruler if she talks. My mother would kill them if they did that to me and I am sure they would since I am told I never stop talking.

 Diane remembered how well I drew since our 1^{st or 2nd} grade when I won the art contest with a drawing from “The Five Chinese Brothers.” This was an exotic story about five miraculous men each performing an act that could save the other. Maybe the principal loved my drawing of the idea of this story more than the art involved. I will never know. But I won and he framed the picture and hung it in his office. I never saw it again. Years later I found the book in a bookstore and read it to my kids who thought the story rather ridiculous. “Mom, no one could swallow the sea. No one could survive being burned.” So much for sharing that episode of my life.

Drawing with Jon Nagy on the NBC Channel was a different experience for me. I wasn’t playing here. This was for real- art with a capitol A.  I thought maybe my sister would take this on as a hobby. Again, she refused. I think it was because I suggested it. It was at a time when I wanted to be an artist. I had already given up on dancer after the ballet recital, on singing when I couldn’t get into the singing group, and on being a baseball player when I learned girls just didn’t do that. I still hope maybe for ice-skater. I never entertained the idea of being a secretary although my mother was one and felt it was a good, secure profession for a girl. “Good for girls and secure” were words that would become my mantra. 

          ”Anyone can draw,” this thin bearded man said. All I needed to do was follow his lessons. 

I had my special art paper and crayons or pastels. I am sitting at the table, going along with what Jon Nagy draws and then adding the color to the black and white pattern. This day it is a park scene. “First kids, how are you all. Wipe the sleep from your eyes.” Thousands of me are wiping her eyes and answering “fine” or good.” “Make sure your paper is smooth, really smooth,” says Jon, and I meticulously smooth the textured white paper, getting out every crease and lump. “Then, get the brown, the brownest you have from the special crayons.” I follow as he draws the tree trunk and then the branches. It must be Central Park. I know that tree! It looks just like the one near the camels’ cage in the zoo, the camels that are named Artie, Ellie and Peter who I visit whenever we go to Central Park. Then I add the leaves, greens and yellows, shaping each as the teacher says, making up some on my own. “I hope he adds the little nest and the squirrel running across the branches,” I dare to say aloud to the empty room. He doesn’t, but later when I look at my creation, I will sneak in those details. I might even add the little fence around each tree, which prevents people who dare to step on the grass from going too close to the tree. I actually know how to draw, maybe as well as he does if I can brag, but I don’t let on since then I won’t get to sit in front of the TV if I know it already; maybe I will have to do math or dust or even make my bed. Or play with that sister. This beats them all. A hobby of hobbies. “Let’s try the sky,” he says. “What kind of day is it?” I think, sunny or cloudy? Cloudy means those great pink and white clouds so that’s what mine will be. I will not get the yellow sun into this one. Cloudy means purples and grays and blues. I try to rub the colors around to get different tones. It’s hard since there really aren’t lots of color choices. I imagine them though. We add grass and maybe flowers. We add a bench. I’m glad. I actually love the benches. When I spend time in Central Park with my family we sit on those benches and bang two nuts together to attract the squirrels. They always come and grab the treasure and hide it. My father says they hide the nuts for the coming winter and always remember where to find them. I wish I were as smart. I have things in my room someplace that will never appear again. I put park thoughts away. I return to thinking about my drawing. Anyone would know this scene. “Add yourself into the picture.” This is my favorite part. He can’t possibly know us all and so we can’t trace his shape and person. I use the position and the size of him, but add me. There I am. My hair I decided would be in bunches; I had on my pinafore, the Swiss dotted one and I had my mary-janes, the party shoes, on this not a party day. I let myself carry the little pocketbook I just got from my aunt even though it wasn’t really ready to be carried. I sneak in balloons. Probably I had candy but I would leave that out.  Maybe I’ll add my sister.  “Step back. Look at what you did. Look at it turning your head,” he says. I stand back; I tilt my head, my curls falling in my eyes, and I smile, pleased. I call my mom and dad. They are pleased. I will draw the scene again later in the week in my art pad. It will be signed and dated. It might be someone’s gift. My mother tells me to get dressed and come for breakfast. It is Saturday, a beautiful day and I am ready for what will be. My sister, she lost out. No art hobby for her.