13. The Celebration ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

The snow began early, with a deep accumulation just after Halloween of 1966. Inaugurating January of 1967 was Chicago’s largest blizzard on record. While the storm missed Pine Village, additional snow fell on the farm a week and a half later. Although Robert generally liked snow, he was having too much of a good thing. He wondered what it would be like to ride a bus after the move from the town to the country. He would have wondered what it would be like to eat lunch in the school cafeteria, but Ida had decided that Charles, now a student in high school, should have lunch with his classmates and had persuaded Joe to purchase lunch tickets for both of his sons. Even though Charles and Robert were only across the road from a home-cooked meal, they ate in the cafeteria. For Robert, lunch offered an opportunity to socialize with his classmates—and he loved socializing!

Mrs. Miles directed an effective cafeteria staff having four great cooks whose meals included fried chicken, chipped beef on biscuits, creamed turkey on biscuits, beef and noodles, chicken and noodles, beefaroni, ham and beans with cornbread, hot dogs with pickle relish, Coneys, hamburgers, meat loaf, tuna casserole, Salisbury steak, salmon, spaghetti Creole, chili, potato soup and crackers, vegetable beef soup, baked beans, mashed potatoes, green beans, buttered corn, buttered peas, buttered spinach, strawberry Jell-O, peach halves, seasonal fruit, beef sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, ham salad sandwiches, pork sandwiches, pork fritter sandwiches, Sloppy Joes, submarine sandwiches, jellied vegetable salad, cream slaw, applesauce, bananas in red Jell-O, fruit salad, chocolate pudding, graham cracker pudding, cherry cobbler, pineapple crème, and sweet rolls. Most of the ingredients were grown nearby.

Leo Synesael gave himself permission to lean against a doorsill or a stairway railing for a few seconds each day; otherwise, he kept cleaning. Leo was the school custodian. He was skinny as a rail—most likely because he seldom stopped moving! In a jiffy, he mopped up spilled milk in the cafeteria. In the wink of an eye, he dusted the floor of the gymnasium. With time to spare, he spread his magic sand over an oil leak in the parking lot and swept it all up, leaving no trace that anything had been amiss.

Each year, Robert’s hometown—like hometowns across America—celebrated Lincoln’s Birthday on the 12th of February and Washington’s Birthday on the 22nd of the same month. (In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act established three-day weekends for all major holidays and annual commemorations. In many states, Presidents Day became associated with one of the weekends.) On Washington’s Birthday, grocery stores would offer sale prices on canned cherries, and items that usually cost a quarter would be reduced to twenty-two cents, in honor of the 22nd of February. The art teacher always invited the junior high and high school students to make portraits of Lincoln that were judged, with the announcement of the winner during the Republican Lincoln Day Dinner in the gymnasium. Several of the older students were blessed with artistic talent and skill, and their portraits of Lincoln were exceptional. The best of the best were displayed in the cafeteria, and Robert admired them.

Robert became determined to create a portrait that could compete with those of the high school students. Choosing pastel as his medium, Robert devoted hours and hours over the course of many evenings to the formation of Lincoln’s face. Robert compared several images of Lincoln in books that he had checked out from the school library. His portrait was not a direct copy of any one of them but a compilation of features he observed in several of them.

“You have captured him,” Ida said. “You can enter your picture in the competition without doubting whether your work is good enough.”

His mother’s compliment reassured Robert.

He was shocked through and through when the art teacher confided in him that his art had won the competition, although the fact had to be kept secret until Lincoln’s Birthday!

Robert wore a suit and tie to the dinner. Blushing, he stood before the applauding audience while his portrait was proclaimed the contest winner.

Back in grade school, Robert and his classmates had used crayons to color purple-dittoed American flags while listening to their teachers read to them about Washington and Lincoln. For Mrs. Winegardner, the students prepared scrapbooks commemorating Indiana history, and, for Mrs. Leighty, the class’ shoebox floats celebrated the fifty states; such activities further instilled patriotism. Robert’s heart was stirred when the red, white, and blue month of Lincoln and Washington rolled around. Now in his suit and tie, he stood talking with various townspeople who stepped up to congratulate him on winning the Lincoln Art Contest when he was only in the seventh grade.

On Washington’s Birthday, Spot the Fox Terrier (his formal name) decided upon a patriotic excursion of his own. While Robert was bringing home his portrait of Lincoln with the winning ribbon fluttering in the corner of the large frame, he miscalculated how far the front gate would swing, and, with no free hand to hold the gate open just enough to slip through, Robert saw the gate open all the way—and Spot dashing through and running lickety-split for town!

Robert set down his painting by the gate and shouted toward his father, who was taking his boots off by the back door, “Spot’s out!”

Joe and Robert jumped into the front seat of the Bel Air and took off after the dog. They soon detected him racing behind “Peanut” Neal’s house. Robert was surprised that Spot, panting excitedly, let him scoop him up so easily. Then Robert noticed the gash in his side.

“Spot’s hurt!” Robert said, when, holding the terrier, he slid onto the seat of the car.

“I wonder how that happened,” Joe said, as he drove straight to Doc Cullup’s house and veterinary clinic.

Spot’s cut required several stitches, but the dog wasn’t fazed. His eyes remained as bright as ever, and he indicated that he was ready for another sprint while Joe handed him to Robert for the drive back home.

“Hold onto him!” Joe exclaimed.

“I have him,” Robert said.

That evening, the family cuddled Spot even more closely than usual. He had to wear his harness to hold gauze padding against the stitched wound. Ida added a small swatch of red-white-and-blue fabric over the gauze.

“I can’t imagine how he was cut in that way,” Joe said. “We were right behind him. He wasn’t out of our sight more than a couple of minutes.”

Joe, Ida, Charles, and Robert considered Spot so much a part of their family that they expected the dog to speak up and tell them how it occurred, but Spot remained silent on the point.

Robert set his Lincoln portrait on the top edge of his bed’s headboard, put Spot on the foot of the bed, and took a flash photo to preserve the memory.