Archive for April, 2013

Ninety years ago . . .

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

This would be Dadbo’s 90th birthday, had he not been lost to us nearly 20 years ago. For the rest of my life I shall create pictures of him. As I’ve said before, I can’t know what he’d think of that, but I suspect his feelings would be mixed. Modest enough to be uncomfortable with the practice, he might have approved, on the other hand, of my using his image as a mechanism for continuous artistic investigation. It’s natural for me to think about him on his birthday and how enhanced my life would be if I still had access to his wisdom, evolving perspective, and keen sense of leadership. Whether we comprehend it or not, each of us has a meaningful influence by our very presence in the drama of existence, affecting our world and others in countless ways. Perhaps our departures from the stage will be less profound than his, depending on how each of us has played our part. When one is as beloved as my namesake, the absence is a deeply felt void which sends wide ripples across the surface of family life. And so, it is a day for me to pay tribute, in the springtime he cherished, and to declare that I shall love him forever.
 

Variations on a Theme by Grandybo, Part Eight
mixed-media collage by J A Dixon, 2006
collection of Alyxandria Kenner

Gaps Not Bridged

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

“Never lose sight of love and kindness for family, Clan, and friends. Family comes first and many times we make or seem to make it last.”
— Grandybo

Why is the sweetness and sorrow so ever-present, tipping this way and that, like the child’s teeter-totter of oldenday?

Dana’s splendid birthday celebration with friends has been bookended for me by the deaths of my Uncle Jack and Jonathan Winters. That both of these men departed within a week of each other feels strange to me, because I always associated one to the other in my mind. They were close in years lived, went to high school in the Dayton area, and both reached the prime of youth wanting to be cartoonists, just as I had done. Saying farewell to Uncle Jack comes, of course, with a deeper sense of loss, but I shall miss the unique, zany humor that made Winters so famous. Both men had a zest for life so characteristic of their great generation. I’m not aware that they knew each other, or had ever met, or that any of the Seitz brothers had met Winters, for that matter. It’s just that I had him linked to my uncle for my own odd reasons. Perhaps I was picking up on something that transcends coincidence, if such a thing even exists, but that is the substance of another journal entry, is it not?

Pop Seitz delayed giving his name, John, until the last of eleven children. (An act of humility?) When each had a first-born son, neither Uncle Jack nor my own dad would wait. (An act of pride?) Although Aunt Betty always called her husband by the name ‘John,’ he was always called ‘Jack’ within his family. In much the same way, the Dixons called the namesake of John by a different name— ‘Ed’ or ‘Eddie,’ the diminutive of his middle name. You may find it peculiar that I focus on these aspects, but it just happens to be the way in which I think.

Although I can empathize with Aunt Betty’s family as they endure the loss of a father, I cannot begin to comprehend how Mombo must feel to lose her “kid brother” and the only sibling who had remained among the original eleven. Art, Ginny, and Jack had always been a trio, and her early memories never fail to tie the threesome closely together. When I think of Uncle Jack, I think of his enthusiasm. If a subject was worthy of his attention, he was never half-hearted about it. We shared more than a name, but also talents and interests. Nonetheless, he was someone with whom I spent precious little time, as was so true with all my Seitz uncles. No matter how much one of my mom’s brothers seemed to like me, I could never make the proper effort to correspond or really connect. A generation should not be such a difficult gap to bridge, especially when there is respect, admiration, and affection. I’ve been blessed with more fine uncles than anyone could ever expect to have in one life. Studying and appreciating them from afar, I have squandered nearly every opportunity to discover the true man and to know him as a mentor or friend. This is the path of least resistance, I suppose. It’s probably what Grandybo was trying to impart in so many of his Clandestiny writings.

I once had an idea to create a gift— a strip of panels in the style of Milton Caniff called “Jack and the Renegades.” It always seemed too frivolous or too ambitious, depending on my state of mind. Today I realize that undoubtedly my time and effort was spent instead on something ambitious or frivolous that means nothing to me now. And yet, the cartoonist in me still lives, and has probably been kicking inside since I first found out that Uncle Jack was a cartoonist, too.

My heart is with him today, with his descendants, with my mother, and with everyone who loved him.