Saturday's Simple Gifts: Waiting for Grandfather, Part I

By Carroll Jones III, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50337942

Saturday's Simple Gifts:Waiting For Grandfather

Part 1: Carroll Jones, Sr.

[Storytelling by Carroll Jones III, edited by R. Walker]

Carroll Jones, Sr. was Welsh and an amateur painter. He was also head of the Minnewawa Press. (thread) They made labels in N.H. I went there when I was a child and it was just an ocean of spinning spools. I liked him immensely. He invented a little gadget that called birds. It made bird sounds. A small red wood funnel type thing with a metal twist piece. He was also in the 1939 World's Fair with a triptych that I only saw in the barn on his property. Carroll and his wife, Ann ran a boys camp on Swanzea Lake in NH from 1902 until 1933. The depression did them in. He was much more country than BBIV [Blakeslee Barnes IV, Jones' mother's father--RW.] More my type people. I loved both of them though. Carroll use to say things like "Turkey one day, feather's the next." Since we were both artists, that was true too. I once couldn't find something and he said "It's down the cellar behind the ax." That was funny to me then. Today Chris Rock can say nothing but "F**K!!!" and get a standing ovation. I saw that on HBO myself years ago. (when HBO was sent to my apartment by mistake.) The world is passing me by.

I attached a book mark my Grandfather Carroll made at the Minnewawa Press. I have it too. He designed it. Look at the light coming from that star or cross. All just thread. And no computers.

 "Gonna be a scorcha!" is what my father's father said once in the summer when I was visiting. He was standing there on the mostly burnt grass with his hands on his hip looking at the white sky in July. That was New Hampshire at the lake. I loved him......funny that my father was not like him at all. Love what grandparents say.

Oh, my grandfather's cat, Nicky, [not the cat in the work--RW], was black short haired cat who loved my grandfather...my father's father......whom I loved too. (both) Grampa died in 1967. I was in school in Hartford Conn. and hitched hiked up to Keene, NJ where he was in a hospital. (from a stroke.) We talked for hours, especially about comics and funny stuff. He had a great sense of humor. We traded current jokes then (from Phyllis Diller who was new on the scene) and other's. We talked a bit about Nicky for some seconds and his wife (Annie) was taking good care of it. I left and hitched hiked back to Hartford.

 They [Carroll and Annie Jones--ed.] had a good business when they ran a boy's camp on Swanzey Lake in NH. In 1902 to 1933. (Depression killed them)

This is a picture of it today. I was there in the summer's of the 50's to 67. I slept in the screened porch in the top left many time back then.

The other b&w pictures of it are mine and are in the 30's and early 60's. In the front of the house of the lower picture is my father and grampa Carroll which I took. That's where all paintings I do today began....the thinking anyway.