April 30, 2006

A LEGACY CARVED IN STONE; BOSTON-BORN SCULPTOR DEPICTS CRAZY HORSE

April 30, 2006/ Beverly Beckham

BLACK HILLS, S.D. - You'd think that we'd know his name. You'd think if a man from Boston, born on Harrison Avenue, orphaned at the age of 1, beaten and abused his whole childhood, grew up and did something great something no one else has ever done we'd have at least heard of him. You'd think that conceiving and working for 35 years on the biggest sculpture in the world, bigger than the pyramids in Egypt, would be a shoo-in to fame.

April 23, 2006

By Any Name, It’s Still a Rose

April 23, 2006/ Beverly Beckham

I'm taking a gardening course this spring, not for obvious reasons. Not just because a friend said, "You have to!" (She's seen my garden.) And not just because I want to grow something other than daffodils, which are in bloom now and look lovely but will be gone in days, leaving the round patch of dirt at the top of my driveway bereft for another 11 months…

April 16, 2006

For Sal Grasso, the Promise of Easter

April 16, 2006/ Beverly Beckham

It wasn’t easy. Not for him. Not for his children. Not for his brother and sister. Not for any of us who loved him. He was needy. He was demanding. He was stubborn and brilliant and frustrating and funny, a pain in the neck, sometimes, and an ache in the heart all the time; a very human, human being locked in a body…

April 09, 2006

LETTER FROM A STRANGER AN UNEXPECTED BUT TIMELY GIFT

April 09, 2006/ Beverly Beckham

I had been thinking about her. That's the way these things happen. Coincidence? A random pairing of events? Or something more? Sound just out of earshot? Sunlight, bright and steady, but in another room? I had been remembering who knows why? being a child sitting on a kitchen chair, my face pressed against a window, waiting for my aunt to come and play with me. I could hardly say her name. "Rain coming?" I would ask my mother, "Lorraine" too big a word, "Aunt Lorraine" impossible.

April 02, 2006

Happiness in the Age of Innocence

April 02, 2006/ Beverly Beckham

They are listening to records not tapes on a Fisher-Price tape player, not CDs on a small boom box, not music that you get at the press of a button. They are listening to small, plastic 78 records no bigger than a salad plate, some red, a few orange, but most bright yellow, bought by my mother for me more than 50 years ago…

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