Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship
Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship is a collection of letters written by E.B.White and Edmund Ware Smith to each other compiled and edited by Torie DeLisle of Skidompha Library and E.B. White’s granddaughter Martha White, and published by Down East Books.
Shall we let the two essayists simply speak for themselves in their correspondence with each other?
Both famed writers were “from away” but both settled in Maine later in life. Many references to health and winter migrations, but they kept in touch quite a bit concerning their chickens and hen houses and feeding animals and even building porches on the very stylish hen house named the Chicken Hilton. Even allusions to the architecture of Chartre Cathedral and its exterior complexity like the chickens domain.
Have a laugh or two or more at these two wordsmith writers, even a post card from White the day he picked an orange!
Just before we crossed the lake in Oct., I took a last look around at the closed and shuttered cabins.
We live in this remote cabin six months a year…
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I hope you stood up well during the conferring of the day’s honors at Colby and got home to North Brooklin and to bed at a wholesome hour.
E.B. White did not attend his White House honor by President Kennedy, but he did attend a lifetime achievement recognition at nearby Colby College.
White wrote this about John F. Kennedy:
When we think of him, he is without a hat, standing in the wind and the weather…He died of exposure, but in a way that he would have settled for — in the line of duty, and with his friends and enemies all around, supporting him and shooting at him…he did not fear the weather, and did not trim his sails, but instead challenged the wind itself, to improve its direction and to cause it to blow more softly and more kindly over the world and its people.
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I’ve recently finished a piece…on stillness. It centers around Kidney Pond Camps in the mountains of Baxter Park… No motors allowed — outboard, inboard, or pontoon plane. You paddle your own canoe. What is more silent than a canoe under paddle?
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I have just finished a piece on outdoor etiquette called, “Into the Woods with Emily Post.”
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I sent in my chick order the other day, so Spring can’t be far behind.
Letters written by fine writers, forever kept safely folded stationery in a library. Alost art with today’s texting and emailing. Two long time friends exchanging carefully chosen words.
I have been a long time acknowledging Strunk & White on The Elements of Style. It made me try to write sentences with no words which is why you haven’t heard from me before now.
What a clever excuse for not writing a letter from one great to another great composer of words!
Before your next jump in the lake, why not write about Maine’s summer joys in a paper and pen letter to someone special in your life? They may treasure it more than a quick text or email photo or whatever hasty communication we are all so absorbed in doing too often and without much contemplation of our surroundings here at the lake.
I was pleased that so many of you felt the beauty and goodness of the world.*
*From E.B. White to sixth graders in 1973, who wrote him letters…quote from Some Writer! by Melissa Sweet. The lucky students received an egg carefully emptied and sent in protective packaging from White’s saltwater farm in Maine. What is more perfect than an egg? E.B. wrote about the marvel of an eggshell and sent them SOME GIFT!
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