MoodyTunes

I feel like the richest guy in the world today. I knew back in August that planting an old sweet potato was going to pay off: “Eventually,” I said, “new sweet potatoes will grow from those roots and I’ll be the sweet potato king of South Carolina.”

Welcome to the Sweet Potato Kingdom! Verily I say unto thee, Alex hath taken one old nasty sweet potato and worked his magic upon it and created ten new, wonderful sweet potatoes in its stead:

Some in Potato Kingdom may say, “But King Alex, your new potatoes are but one-tenth the size of the original potato. Haven’t you neither lost nor gained any sweet potatoey goodness?”

And to answer that I shall say, “Off with your head! I am starting to doubt your commitment to Potato Magic!”

The results of this experiment reminded me of a Shel Silverstein poem called “Smart” (found in “Where the Sidewalk Ends”):

My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head–
Too proud of me to speak!

I dug our Silverstein books out of the archives so I could look that up. Now that I’ve done so I recommend you dig yours out, too, or if you don’t have any, go buy some. If you’re like me you remember reading these poems at various stages of your childhood. They were funny, but even more important, they had this incredible voice…like someone out there understood you. How important a realization is that — that there’s a grown-up somewhere in the world who isn’t judging, instructing, or reprimanding you? Shel Silverstein was a friend you could laugh along with. He also dropped in a poem every five or six pages that would stop you in your tracks. It was tinged with sadness, or melancholy; feelings you knew were inside but didn’t know how to explain. Check this out:

(from “Snowman,” a poem about a snowman trying to see July)

Chirped a robin, just arriving,
“Seasons come and seasons go,
And the greatest ice must crumble
When it’s flowers’ time to grow.
And as one thing is beginning
So another thing must die,
And there’s never been a snowman
Who has ever seen July.
No, they never see July, no matter how they try.
No, they never ever, never ever, never see July.”

But the snowman sniffed his carrot nose
And said, “At least I’ll try,”
And he bravely smiled his frosty smile
And blinked his coal-black eye.
And there he stood and faced the sun
A blazin’ from the sky–
And I really cannot tell you
If he ever saw July.
Did he ever see July? You can guess as well as I
If he ever, if he never, if he ever saw July.

Think of all that’s involved in those lines, and how sweet Silverstein’s treatment of the subject matter is.

I had a wonderful attachment to these books. Now that I re-read parts I realize that my love of language and imagination, and my (let’s face it) child-like view of the world must stem at least in part from Silverstein. And I’m sure that’s where I learned to start sentences with “And” as much as I can until someone smacks me.

“A friend you can laugh along with.” That got me thinking about how I remember receiving the Silverstein books. My parents would take me to a children’s bookstore in Washington, D.C., called The Cheshire Cat. It felt like my own special trip, although I’m sure we had other stops along the way. But The Cheshire Cat was a place just for me. Just for kids. And a book from that store was a treasure. “Where the Sidewalk Ends” was that friend, the one I laughed along with in the back of the car as we drove around D.C.

That was a time when books were special. I’ve gone through periods in which they became burdens, afterthoughts, or obstacles, and now I’m back to square one. I have my three Shel Silversteins here and, like I said at the start, I feel like the richest guy in the world.