Sports

Polo Ball on Grape Chair

Posted by Cranford

When I was eight years old, our family went to Fort Snelling during their restoration preparations for their big sesquicentennial in 1969. We were only six years early. They were already selling memorabilia to help pay for it. While we were there, we witnessed a polo game. It was the only time in my life I have done so. My mom grew up with horses, so this was mandatory. Lawyers had not gained as much of a foothold by then, so fans just sat on the grass, with no barriers between themselves and the field. Polo matches were rare, so there were no stands. When a ball got so nicked up that it was deemed too poor to continue in play, they would simply knock it to the sidelines.

Polo Ball on Grape Chair

A ball came hurtling out of the field. I went racing toward it. So did another boy. Now I was pigeon-toed and never that athletic, but I threw myself on that painted cork ball! I nabbed it fair and square! I took it home and found that it had a special charm. I placed it in a drawer of my maple desk with the Masonite drawer bottoms. When I opened that drawer, the ball would roll around and the divots in the ball would make the most interesting sounds and resonate in that drawer. For 12 years, I kept that drawer empty except for that ball, just so I could roll it around to make that special sound.

My mom never understood this special delight. Countless times I would come home from school and see a huge trash bag outside the back door with things from my room in it. Before entering the house, I would retrieve my polo ball and a few other choice possessions, then take out the rest to the trash. I would then enter the back door. I would holler, “Mom! Did you clean my room?” She would answer, “Yes.” I would say, “Did you throw anything out?” She would say, “No.” I would say, “OK.” And I would return the polo ball to its drawer. My mom had cryptic methods of education. Looking back, this was probably her way of training me for politics and negotiations. I am nearly 61. My mom has been dead since 1993. I still have the polo ball. Sadly, I don’t have the maple desk with the Masonite bottomed drawers.

The painting is acrylic on 10″x 8″ stretched canvas.
Price: $55 reduced to $25 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take Paypal, so all credit cards are accepted.

Pepi

Posted by Cranford
Pepi the dog

Pepi was a Golden Cocker Spaniel. Our family purchased him at a service station along Route 8 on our way home from family camp at Camp Lawton on Deer Lake in Wisconsin, when I was six. He was the runt of the litter, so they let him go for $10. I was the youngest of the four children. I spent the most time with him. He pretty much became my dog. Like me, he had a wide circle of friends, and roamed freely in a wide area of the neighborhood. We had Jewish next door neighbors who dearly loved him, and welcomed him into their house regularly. He would defend their front step as vigorously as ours from the paperboy or the mailman. The mailman always brought a Milkbone for Pepi. Pepi would bark, at first, for show. He would receive his treat and petting, then he would accompany our mailman along the rest of his route. This helped him a great deal, as Pepi would keep any dogs busy while he delivered the mail. If any pets were loose, Pepi would make sure they would not come near to, or harm, the mailman.

Pepi would always get excited when my dad got home from work. He knew when the normal time was and he would sit on the manhole cover in the middle of the street, looking East in anticipation of his car. Our neighbor’s Hebrew school bus would sometimes come to drop Elaine off after her lessons. Pepi would not budge from his spot on the manhole cover. The driver would have to veer way to the right to go around him. Pepi loved kosher food. Whenever there was a Jewish family picnic in the neighborhood, even if he had to cross the highway, somehow he would sniff it out and find it. He would beg for food and scarf up anything that was dropped. Then he would come home, eat grass and throw up. We found out just how far he had ranged when our neighbors, the Shermans, had a big gathering on the occasion of a visit of family members from Israel. Pepi, of course, attended, as well. So many of the guests said to each other, “So you know this dog, too?!”

The painting is based on a 4″ black and white snapshot I took of Pepi eating from his dishes in the back yard of our house on Lowry Terrace in Golden Valley, Minnesota. In the background is the fort that my dad built from plans from Popular Mechanics. It had a locked shed in the back for the lawn mower and yard tools. The front had a little play house with a ladder through a hatch to the top deck with the turrets. It was great for snowball fights, etc. That fort was a famous landmark for children for miles around. More kids played in our fort than I ever knew. Behind the fort was a swamp that had milkweed, so we had loads of Monarch butterflies and other wildlife. Behind that was a sledding hill with four rows of American Elms which separated three great sled runs, that terminated on the swamp, which, of course, froze in the winter. The lower part of our yard, next to the fort, was flooded for a skating rink, for several years when I was growing up. In the summer, our yard was the middle of three mostly flat yards, with only one tree, that ran together without fences, where we could play football, baseball, soccer, dodgeball, etc. It was a great place, and a great time to grow up.

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 reduced to $50 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

“Punkinseed”

Posted by Cranford
Punkinseed

I grew up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota. It actually has more like 12,512 lakes and 90,000 miles of shoreline. That’s more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined! So I did some fishing as a child. We caught Northerns, Walleyes, Bass and Perch, but the most fun and the best eating were the simple Sunfish! If you found a good spot, you could just pull them in one after another! They weren’t that big, but they always put up a good fight. We knew a bay on Lake Lizzy near Detroit Lakes, MN, where we regularly caught 3/4 lb. to 1-1/2 lb. Pumpkinseed Sunnies. We would catch them by the cooler-full. Then we would scale them and fillet them. Then we would batter and fry them up; invite the whole clan and a few strays over. We’d fry up ‘chips’ (potato wedges); make tossed and 3 bean salads; and have plenty of beer and other libation on hand. We would have a Minnesota fish fry, where the fish is finger-lickin’ good! One time I was cleaning a cooler full of Sunnies on our back patio and our mailman came around back for a signature for something. He saw how I was filleting the fish. He got down on his knees and showed me a better method that would get more meat out of the fish.

My dad always intentionally mispronounced this variety of Sunfish and called them “Punkinseeds” for fun.

Painting is acrylic on 12″x12″ canvas.
Price: $100

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