There was one evening when my dad came home late
Which was hardly unusual
In those days when doctors still did house calls
This evening he was carrying a box
With some excitement and childlike passion
Look, Big Little Books, he said
We had no idea what the big deal was
Since they no longer existed and we had never heard of them
But they were the comics of his youth
Chunky little books
One page of action packed text
The other an illustration in black and white
The right hand corner of each page had postage stamp insets
Animating a sequence magically into a mini movie
There were dozens in the box
Tales of GMen and cowboys
Movie star personas with more backstories than you could ever imagine
Titles that had survived in the papers or morphed into comics
Like the Green Hornet or the Lone Ranger
Which is the one I have here in my hands
The Lone Ranger and the Great Western Span
A little tattered and faded but still intact
Still a connection, even if he only carried in the box from the car
I’m not sure if he ever had the time to read them all again
But I did
Around the age he must have been when they first came out
So we were able to be friends in imagination
Across time and role
We hung out in Our Gang clubhouses reading Big Little books
Floorsprawled in depression dust
Sharing these homilies and parables
That made sense of the time
Time that I hadn’t seen but now could
Through these simple pages
Where remembering turns into discovery
David Trudel © 2013
A really moving and beautifully interwoven poem. X
Thanks Melanie, I appreciate the comment!
Oh, I love this one, David! It reminds me of being in the basement at my Grandma’s/Great Aunt Amanda’s house flipping through those little cartoons–and trying to create our own. Thank you for the memory!
Thanks Karin, I’m glad you had the pleasure of enjoying those low tech wonders too.