Thursday, June 21, 2007

Robert McCloskey Landmark to Close

Photo of Condon's Garage from the Brooksville Photos page.

"Is it a Maine morning without Condon's Garage?" asks Kathleen Caldwell for the Christian Science Monitor.

Condon's garage, the setting for the ONE MORNING IN MAINE picture book by Robert McCloskey, will close.


Above: one of Mr. McCloskey's drawings from ONE MORNING IN MAINE.

Sad thing is that I never thought of it as a real place when I read it. Maine, I mean.

I remember reading this book, as a Midwestern kid, and not really understanding places with water and boats and clams in the mud and so on. Maine was a fantastical place to a flatlander, landlubber kid like me who didn't see the ocean until the age of ten!

But I did understand little Sal (who looked like my kid sister -- and starred in her own book, BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL) when she said:

"I guess some clam will find my tooth and get what I wished for .... If we come back here tomorrow and find a clam eating a chocolate ice-cream cone, why, we'll have to take it away from him and make him give my tooth back."

Teeth fall out, little kids grow up, things change. To quote Charlie Brown: *SIGH*

Hat tip to dear ol' Dad!

No comments: