Ha! Y’all are in for a long trip into the distant past today. You are SO LUCKY. I believe we read Conrad Richter’s The Light in the Forest in ninth grade. If I still had the book–which I kept for a long, long time until it became apparent I was going to have to purge some books–I’d know for sure because I usually dated my books somewhere inside. With my name. Because humans love leaving our names everywhere. However, in looking at my handwriting in photos below, that’s ninth grade handwriting, not seventh grade handwriting. (I know it wasn’t eighth grade because I remember my eighth grade teacher too well, and also know what we read that year that had the most profound effect on me was Longfellow’s “Evangeline.” But I digress. Mandatory Southern storytelling behavior.)
Our teacher assigned us to do a Themeograph for the book. We chose quotes randomly from the book and cut out magazine photos to go along with them. I still have my Themeograph and will now offer up commentary along with pictures.
First, kudos to me for finding a magazine picture that mimicked the paperback cover. I can’t really dwell on this because I have fixated on the pencil writing in the upper right corner. It says “25/Late.” So what was the highest possible score? Did I get counted off for being late? Was it five points? Twenty-five points? I NEED TO KNOW. I hadn’t yet reached the time when anything less than an ‘A’ in English made me hyperventilate and go to bed in a dark room. So I wouldn’t have given a shit, probably. The point is, I GIVE A SHIT NOW. But I will never know the answer. I can do nothing but move on.
Whatever, small boy, moving along.
There is a current disagreement in my household about the top picture. Tom says it’s a picture of Dennis Wilson. I say it’s a picture of someone else, and the themeograph just barely predates my complete and total and eternal preoccupation with Dennis Wilson. It could go either way. I thought it was DW for a while when I first looked at it, but I came to believe it’s not. He’s very pretty, though. Kudos to you if you realize that I rarely discuss Dennis Wilson on this blog and if you try to wade into such a discussion, including this photograph, you should step gingerly. I’m extraordinarily touchy. Really, only Lynne gets to talk about DW with me without fear. And usually Tom, because he treads softly.
On both photos, look at Ninth Grade Becky using ellipses correctly to indicate missing text. That should have earned me bonus points. 30/25!
Damn, I’m literal.
WTF? I’m using Walter Cronkite’s picture for Uncle Wilse, “a powerful, heavyset man…with slaty, less-friendly eyes?” It’s UNCLE WALTER, the man who once had to tell America and hand-wringing Becky our president was dead. Bonus deducted. 25/25.
Finally. A little less literal on the second picture, because that’s a high-heeled and not a moccasined foot. But what I need to know is whether Richter misspelled “forrest” or I did. This could affect my score.
Nice picture choice, nice quote. I see “forest” is spelled correctly. So, Richter, are you inconsistent or do I need to deduct more points from my score? Why the hell didn’t my teacher mark the other misspelling? I’m glad my teacher didn’t mark the other misspelling. I don’t need her scribbles all over my masterpiece. And if she marked in light pencil, I likely couldn’t read it anyway.
Back to being very literal with my picture choices. I must say it’s nice to know children in the 1700s were as bratty about wearing clothes as children in the 1970s. Kids. So ungrateful.
Probably my favorite of them all. This quote and picture make me want to read the book again. I’ll add it to the thirty-one others in my TBR pile.
Oh, so much to work with here. First, I clearly knew and accepted that Aunt Kate is a judgmental bitch. This remains one of my least favorite human expressions, but it’s real. I might have to add some points for that. Does anyone know the identity of this woman? She was probably the head of the Peace Corps, photographed on a rough day. Sorry, “Aunt Kate.”
On the upper right, I also am pleased with the illustration I found for the mountain, which rose “brown and furry like the back of an immense beast.” Marika, if you’re reading, let’s just say it’s a bear and get your Daily Bear Sighting out of the way.
I see I correctly used the ellipsis again. I demand a recount if I got points removed for being late. I was a freshman. I was madly in love. It’s fortunate I turned this thing in at all.
Since I did, at least I knew how to find my way to a bottle of rum. In a magazine, I mean. I didn’t drink rum at that age. I drank scotch. And I never gave my fire water to Native Americans to ruin them. I was too busy ruining me.
This is the end of our flight back in time. We know there are other time carriers and appreciate that you fly An Aries Knows.
I’m wading in … the man in question is Wilsonesque, but I don’t think it is him
I can see a lot of reasons why people would think it’s DW, but it doesn’t speak to my heart. Also, I can identify him from behind with twenty other people around him, so….
also of course it was a bear! I think this is an awesome project.
Maybe you should do one with a favorite book. If you have magazines. I never have enough magazines around here for something like this.
i remember this assignment…well, parts of it. I know that we combed through magazines for pictures. but we did that all of the time. I don’t remember the class, nor the poem I used. But i do remember one of the photographs. It was a picture of hands. The hands of an actor, Dustin Hoffman I think, and the make-up artist making the actors has looks like the hands of a very old man…
weird what one remembers… was this for Creighton’s class? Seems like it was earlier than that…
Nope. I think it was ninth grade, and would have been Mrs. Ledbetter. I have the yearbook for that year, and now I remember Mrs. Ledbetter, but she doesn’t look like the teacher who I thought taught this book. We might not have been in the same class that year, because that was the first year our schedules didn’t match. Which is why I had the worst home ec class ever. Ugh.
Eighth grade was Miss Sandlin (“Evangeline” among many other works we studied–I still have the text book for that class, where you kept getting me in trouble with your pencil sharpening, door slamming ways), and tenth grade was Mr. Craton (Myths and Legends, and Riley and Tim G were in that class, too)–the year I was rudely taken away after the first six weeks and enrolled in that other school. Though in that other school, I had a brilliant English teacher my junior and senior years, so there’s that. We won’t speak of my sophomore year there. It was the saddest.
I don’t have a seventh grade yearbook, but I do remember a Miss Kick, though if she was a JSU student teacher, the one whose face I’m remembering might be the English teacher we had. I remember Miss Kick perfectly. Thin, dark hair, narrow face. I’m not sure if Debby has that yearbook. See? WHO should have been allowed to purchase one that year? I think we all know who the memory hoarder is.
ETA: Thank you for checking your yearbook! Mrs. Hobbs was our seventh grade English teacher. But I still don’t know which class we studied this book in.
P.S. I’ll bet that was Dustin Hoffman’s makeup for Little Big Man, which came out in 1970. That means the class was probably our freshman year. Unless… oh, never mind. I’m going with freshman year.
yes! Little Big Man!