June 29, 2020

“THE NARROW LAND,” a novel about artist Edward Hopper but really about us all

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

     In this moment — perhaps age — of revisiting our past, heralded national leaders, authors, statesmen, etc., it is vital to place actions that today are deemed unacceptable in the context of their history. Society advances in steps taken forward but also by stepping backward.

     Accept that Teddy Roosevelt, maybe even Lincoln, will have their official portraits remade with the warts that were evident back when but ignored. Criticize anyone for supporting racism, not tackling inequality, for championing the white man as world savior. Yet also know that without the accomplishments of slaveholders Washington and Jefferson, for example, the promise that is America would not have advanced as it has, however incomplete that is.

     In fact, it is in the accomplishments of incomplete “heroes” themselves that humanity can have another chance to do it right, as should have happened in the first place. We can learn from their mistakes.

     Just don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

    Such progressive attitude holds for anyone, of course, including world famous artists such as my favorite, realist Edward Hopper, born in Nyack, N.Y.

     It took years for the genius and “voice” of this 20th century fellow to blossom, and it did not happen until after he met and married fellow painter Josephine Nivison. Yet it is only in recent years that her absolutely fulfilling part in Hopper’s life and works has been revealed. And she paid a price for the gig.

     Not only did Jo give up her own promising art career, but she devoted all her time building up a man who did not, as far as we can tell, appreciate that she was his booster. It was she who contacted his gallery, the Rehn in New York City; she used her inheritance to build a summer studio in South Truro, Cape Cod; she meticulously kept notes on his works; above all, Jo was the light in his dark tunnel of doubt.

     Hopper, world-revered for such works as the urban “Nighthawks” and the Cape Cod paintings, did not marry until age 42. Then his career took off. Yet he seemed unsuited to living with someone, a man “looking” for himself in his works, a loner, a person who did not easily share thoughts.  He painted instead. He ignored at will.

     Hopper has become an American hero, a worldwide artistic interpreter of the need for solitude, the search for simplicity in an ever-more-complex time. The price for his genius was wife Jo, an outgoing woman who was cloistered in the studio home of a man whose expressed being had to be extracted for the world to see, to relate to, to understand. She pulled all that out but received scant thanks.

     There was great good done in that sacrifice, drawing out the language of a gifted man, a giving for us all, but at the cost of a woman’s uncompleted being.

     This is all so very clear in a recent novel, “The Narrow Land” by Christine Dwyer Hickey. Set on Cape Cod in 1950, it brings the Hoppers into contact with two young boys, one fellow’s family and the dynamics of life shortly post-war in a summer vacation spot not yet invaded by the hordes of the 1970s-on.

     It is a journey of a season: loneliness for Jo, more doubt for Hopper in his artist’s block, everyone’s failings shown.

     “The Narrow Land” is in Dwyer’s quite descriptive words an offered puzzle that might be assembled by viewing Hopper paintings. He may have been looking for himself, but he found us all. Warts and all. Heroes fallen as well.

     The writer is a retired newspaperman and a volunteer at the Edward Hopper Museum and Study Center in Nyack, N.Y. (ahgunther@yahoo.com) 

                       –30–

Fathers Day 2020

 By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

    As my Dad lie dying in hospital and I on my way to visit his presence for the last time he could speak, not yet in the induced coma that would let him pass, already with the angels beside him, I thought, on that beautifully shaded sidewalk on a glorious spring day that he was no longer beside me. I needed to hold his hand.

     It had been ages since I did that, and not much then, fathers and sons being what they were in the 1940s, ’50s. Yet I would hold his hand many times metaphorically after young childhood: When I was sick, for one of his many careers was as a licensed practical nurse; when I had a nightmare; when my mother chased me, a teen, about the house with a broom, and he offered understanding; when I was learning to drive; most of all when I had the momentary but great desire to be very young again, without much care and appropriately nurtured.

As we grew, the two of us, distinct personalities clashed, and the wall that can rise between father and son did so. It would take decades of having my own family and two sons better than I to realize my father was truly doing his best. It would take his death and the years since to understand and absorb the fullness of his well-met responsibility.

Oh, how I would hold his hand now.

     The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com

One room, two very different windows, each of individual color and particular perspective. But they co-exist./gunther painting

      ‘TWO WINDOWS’/gunther

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

     This virus stay-at-home has brought back childhood memories of being in the house an awful lot in the summer though building forts in the ever-present woods of a countryfied New York area and taking walks in the cooler parts of day were also routine.

     Yet the house was a sanctuary. It was quiet, which to me is daily sustenance. It afforded lots of moseying time to let your imagination run its little legs off, and that happened for me when I stared out the window, usually the one in the south-facing living room during the day and the attic sash at night. Both views included Karnell Street cars passing by, which though a fast route between two major roads, never had much traffic. Quiet.

     Those also were the days before weed whackers, leaf blowers and super-sized lawnmowers rendered military-like assault. Quiet.

     So, the imagination liked that, the quiet, assured that it could take you on a journey of nothingness, which, of course, can be everythingness. 

     You read a book, and you are into imagination land, encouraged and narrated by the writer and illustrator. Stare out a window, and you are the author. Works either way.

     Chose a different window, even in the same room, and there’s different fantasy, originality, perspective.

    Sometimes stay-at-home means takin really big trips — with imagination.

     The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com

June 8, 2020

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

     I will tell you a story or two of neighborhood police back in my older days in Spring Valley, N.Y., a then countrified community north of Gotham. This was the time when officialdom did not have to invent the term “community policing” and seek federal grants for its spot use. Police walked a beat, period, every day. There were perhaps three radio cars at the downtown station.  Police were seen. They spoke to us, and we spoke to them.

     This does not mean everyone was an angel, police or the public. It does not mean every one of the officers was suited to the job. It does not mean police were perfect at “protecting and serving,” nor does it mean all citizens were respectful of men doing a tough job — running into nasty people, seeing the horrors of domestic abuse and other base human behavior that has to give a police officer PTSD. It does not mean officers were not killed or maimed in the line of duty somewhere in the land.

     What it does mean, this time of officers walking Main Street in Spring Valley, in Anytown USA, in the cities of old, too, is that people generally knew the neighborhood police, usually by name. They talked to Officer O’Reilly. And he talked to them. There was less of a chance of “us vs. them” escalation in any incident, and there was the greater opportunity of common sense born of human interaction and communication.

     So, one story from my time. A bunch of bored youngsters, seventh, eighth graders, a few older, a few younger, descended on an empty hotel that was to be torn down for one of the many shopping strips that pushed downtowns out of business. The fellows made their way through the hotel lobby, the bedrooms, etc. Generally speaking, no damage was done, but this was still trespassing. I was trespassing.

     In time, the Ramapo police became involved, as did Spring Valley and Hillcrest community leaders. Instead of arrests and police blotter entries, we fellows, our parents, police and officials gathered for a meeting at the Hillcrest Firehouse where it was decided that we would give up the Columbus Day holiday to clean up the hotel. That we did, and very soon after the spruced-up place was torn down.

     The point is the police were part of that  community, part of the solution for teen shenanigans that, who knows, might have gone to worse behavior if we had been arrested, finger-printed, etc. 

     Another story is of a fellow walking Main Street, Spring Valley, after the regular 9 p.m. curfew. Officer on the beat stops him, tells him to go home after the two have a friendly conversation. The officer even notes that he, too, broke curfew. No confrontation. No escalation.

     Now, these are relatively innocent stories of long ago, in simpler times. No drugs, no weapons involved. No broken homes. No horrors to relate.

     Yet, decades later, when the Ramapo officer who interviewed me after the Hillcrest Hotel adventure had retired, I was able to send him a note that I had never forgotten his fatherly, understanding humanity. Would that happen as easily today when police officers seem to be hidden behind a fortress in brotherhood, yes, but also in an isolated point of view? When escalation seems automatic, as if by military-like training? It cannot ever be “us vs. them.”  

     Black lives matter. All lives matter. Bring back the beat cop in every community, put volunteer officers in food banks, soup kitchens, community service endeavors. Take off the helmets, the military gear. Let the people know you, and they you.  It’s not the entire solution, but it’s a mighty big step. Bless our officers. Bless the people.

     The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com

                         –30–