JOY ALONG THE WAY: DIFFERENT GRADES FOR DIFFERENT DAYS

So I come to the last page of my Mary Engelbreit calendar, December. All through the year I've been eager to turn to the new month to see how she has so charmingly and colorfully illustrated it.

There is much detail in Mary's work. Almost crowded, some might think. But I like to search out every little flower, heart, animal or almost hidden toy she tucks in around her lovable little characters, which are mostly children.

Quite often Mary Engelbreit, whose trademark or logo is her initials, ME, chooses quotations from some well-known author and makes them the bases for her artwork. For instance, the December '96 quotation is, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times," which even semi-well-read people recognize as the first lines of Charles Dickens' "The Tale of Two Cities."

What does Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities" have to do with December, the Christmas month, one might ask. Why not "The Cricket on the Hearth," or "A Christmas Carol?" Magic Mary, as I call her, treats it this way: She proceeds to divide the illustration into nine blocks much as if you were going to play tic-tac-toe. Then she shows how even the days of this merry old month of Christmas can have some of the worst days and some of the best days. For example, in one block a little girl is looking down, sorrowfully, at a cookie sheet of burnt cookies she has just taken from the oven. Worst day. Next to it is a happy little boy sitting in Santa's lap, sharing some secret, probably what he wants for Christmas. Best day.

Again, there is a worst day picturing a frustrated father trying to put together a complicated bicycle and the instructions are in Japanese. Worst of times. Next to it is pictured the best of times, multi-racial children singing carols from a songbook labeled "Noel."

All these little illustrated episodes started me thinking of past Decembers which held the worst of days as well as the best for me. There was the time when, center stage at the school Christmas program when all the parents were there, midway of reciting "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," I suddenly got stage fright, all those eyes looking at me, and, like the narrator of the poem who "away to the window he flew like a flash, tore open the shutters, threw up the sash," away to the stage wing I dashed, warmly throbbing with panic, embarrassment and thinking of throwing up. Worst of days.

Two weeks later I won first prize at some candy-making project for children. Divinity, it was. With black walnut kernels. Best of days.

While teaching school, during the desperate Depression, a little pupil of mine drew my name for gift-giving (The teacher's name!) and stood by eagerly to watch me open her gift. A gift, when she couldn't even afford a tablet!

I could tell it had once been a beautiful and fragile glass vase, one that, no doubt, had belonged to her mother, but by the time it got into my hands it was broken into many pieces. Probably dropped on the way to school. The little girl was horrified and I was unable to console her. Worst of times.

Two weeks later I came up with the idea of making wind chimes of the broken glass. Aunt Marg had taught me how to make them, using an embroidery hoop, with various lengths of strings tied to it, at the ends of which were little pieces of glass (the vase) glued on.

I took the chimes to school and hung them where breezes from the opening and closing of the door made fairy music for us. The look on little Helen's face and all the rest of the 45 pupils made it the best of times.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.