letty
drewdad
mismi
JPB
swimpy
tai chi
Thank you all.
Sam often sent silly emails for no particular reason, tossed off on the spur of the moment. I saved a few. The email title is followed by the message, in each block.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee........................
Damn! There goes another of our boys over the edge of the cliff!
We could have used that ammunition he was carrying!
_____________________________________________________
When You Hear Thundah Don't Evah Run Under a Tree
There will be panties from Heaven for you and me
___________________________________________________
Look Out! It;s Keenay!
Wheeee! Whinny! Brrt! Ugh! Me catch-um white horse! Him run like wind! Wheeee! Whinny! Brrrt! Oh, no! It a box canyon! Me trapped! Wheeee! Whinny! Brrrt! Ugh! Grrr! Snarl! Snap! Chew! Spurt! Ugh! Him save me from wolf, bear, puma and skunk! Wheeee! Whinny! Brrrt! Now him dig way out of canyon! Ugh! Him plenty smart! Me catch another day! Wheeee! Whinny! Brrrt!Wheeee! Whinny! Brrrt!
_______________________________________________________
Cheeta.....ungowa!
God damn it, Cheeta, I said umgowa, and I mean it. And don't sass me or I'll whip your butt. You just march yourself right out there into the jungle and bring me a switch.
Please accept my condolences, Ed.
That 's a GOOD stegosaurus !
A sizeable proportion of people who have been brought back from death
in hospitals have come back COMPLAINING about being brought back, in that thay liked it BETTER
how thay were before thay were brought back. Thay were happy.
At Chinese funerals, thay joyously celebrate for the guest of honor.
David
Thank you for opening the window to his life, and yours, Edgar. I'm very sorry for your loss.
I don't know who wrote this bio of Sam. -egarblythe
Early in his life Sam Galentree learned to draw by copying characters from comic books or from newspaper comic strips. Growing up in a poor family with twelve children meant clean paper was not always available so many times he drew on the brown paper bags used to carry groceries home from the local market. At family gatherings Sam would be the one sitting off to the side watching what went on and drawing pictures of all the relatives.
His keen eye and steady hand made images many remember to this day. As teen years approached, Sam would find acceptance at school and at parties by drawing pictures of the people he saw, caricatures that he claimed never were really good enough. Yet the subjects of these drawings were pleased enough with them to beg Sam for more. Sam always dreamed of a time when he could make his way in the world by drawing and painting. But real life intervened and Sam had to "get a real job" to help support the family. Sam worked at carpentry and roofing for many years but he never gave up his dream of becoming an artist. He bought books and practiced techniques, constantly seeking to improve his art and to find ways to make it pay. Sam's talent and perseverance led to many unusual sales. One of his earlier pieces was for a church in Corpus Christi, Texas. He created a waterfall scene on a giant sheet of plywood for a small Southern Baptist church. Getting the art to the church was a real challenge. He had to strap it to the top of his car and keep hands on it as he drove down the highway to keep the strong Texas wind from blowing it away. Sam painted signs and designed stationery for area businesses. One was a local dog breeder who later introduced Sam to the woman he would marry one day. Sam painted their signs on the car doors and used the same design for their letterhead. In later years Sam and his wife Geraldine moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where Sam soon opened a comic book store. Here he used his professional expertise designing advertising pieces for his own establishment. He also created advertising art and editorial cartoons for the newspapers. He drew the attention of a Washington, DC firm who hired him to create logos and advertising. He also created record album jackets for an international music company and did promotional pieces for a local rock group. He created t-shirts for his store and for various musicians. He did a mail order catalog for his shop which helped sell a lot of his vintage comics to collectors all around the country. He eventually created his own comic book, too, which enjoyed limited distribution. As time went by Sam learned to create art on the computer. He started toying with 3D models. Today Sam works from his home studio, creating comic strips and advertising art for various clients. His work has appeared on the cover of People Newspapers Christmas Carol Songbook and one of his more recent clients is a local Baptist church which used his advertising art in the papers, in the church newsletter and online as well. Sam's comic art enjoys international attention as the newspaper comic strip ‘The Prime Minister’ appears in a Swedish newspaper.
The Prime Minister is a collaborative work which has Ray Husac, the strip’s creator, writing the scripts and Sam creating the art. And as the computer game ‘The Lord of Misrule’ is completed more and more people will be exposed to his art. From Corpus Christi, Texas to Providence, Rhode Island, to Dallas, Texas and now to Europe! Sam Galentree's art is slowly circling the globe!
Thinking of you, Edgar. Sam's left a mighty big hole, it seems.
@edgarblythe,
It's good to learn more about your brother.
My condolences, Edgar.
Thanks, George. And Sozobe.
I just got off the phone with his wife. She said that he will be cremated. There will be no viewing and no ceremony. It's the way he prefered it. She plans to have a get together for a celebration of his life a bit later, after she gets organized again. I told her she did good.
@edgarblythe,
and how is edgarblythe doing?
I'm bearing up. Stoicism is imbedded deeply within me.
I started this piece a few weeks ago, when the inevitable seemed imminent. It is about the three of us, my older brother, me and Sam. I will not explain why my half brothers and sisters don't get more attention. It's just the way life happens. - edgarblythe
WE THREE BROTHERS
were born in 1940, '42 and '44, into a family of migrant workers. The Great Depression had much to do with it, I am sure; but, what our people did before they followed the crops is a mystery to me. The head migrant, our Grandpa, pitched for a baseball league. I don't know how that piece fits into the puzzle, either; only that it is so.
I was born in a tent, in a cotton patch, near San Angelo. Roger was from Corpus Christi. Sam came into the world in Abernathy.
We had a mean drunk for a father. Mom slipped away from him to ride with her parents to California. In San Diego, she took a job being a waitress. Grandpa found work in a plant.
It didn’t take Mom long to give herself in marriage to an older man and to part ways with her mother and father. We were to spend the next ten years getting abused by this man, before Mom found the courage to leave him. We came by Santa Fe train to Corpus Christi, in December of 1956. By now, there were eight half siblings to go along with us. A ninth died the year before, of crib death.
In the lost years, Grandpa and the other men of the family had become carpenters. They subcontracted the building of shell homes throughout south Texas. My oldest brother hired on for a wage of one dollar per hour. The state gave Mom $99 per month for the first year. When almost sixteen, I quit school, to work for Grandpa for $7 per day.
We got by.
As I grew to adulthood, I became increasingly unstable. Unable to fit in with any person or group, I finally walked away. After hitch hiking to California, and working for a time at a car wash in Long Beach, I joined the Navy. Roger continued working for the same folks, subcontracting for himself, with Sam often helping him.
Two years after I enlisted, Roger got drafted. He spent his hitch doing carpentry at Fort Hood. Sam was next. He knew, or thought he knew, the first stop after boot camp would be Vietnam. “I’m not fighting someone else’s war,” he informed me. And promptly deserted. Prior to this time, his name had been Wayne. He enjoyed nine years of freedom, but was captured and sent to Leavenworth.
Roger never changed a lot, after he returned home. He stayed with Mom and also took to buying little sports cars. Sam and I were misfits, who rode freight trains and lived in cheap rooming houses. We became separated in New York City. He made his home in Kansas City, but I just made the jump across the bridge to live in Brooklyn. It was during this time that I did more about civil rights and peace than read about it. I demonstrated with Jesse Jackson and participated in anti war protests.
Eventually, Sam and I reunited in Kansas City, after a brief stay in California. We spent our Great White Winter there, working okay jobs and coming home to art, music and writing.
In 1969, we were summoned back to Corpus Christi by a telegram: “Roger killed in car wreck. Come home.”
It was an act of murder, but the guy didn’t have to stand trial. The district attorney’s office ordered him to leave the county. “I couldn’t get a conviction, so I decided not to spend tax payer money,” he told me by letter.
I could never be sure of all the details. Our aunt by marriage had a sister, who was married to the killer, and they had two children. They separated and were going to divorce. He moved in with a girlfriend. I was told, years later, by a different aunt, that this guy’s wife had planned to file child molestation charges on him. My brother’s role was, he began meeting her in a bar. “She’s just somebody to talk to,” he was reported to have said.
They were killed while riding in his Fiat Spyder, run down by a three quarter ton pick up truck, which was driven by her husband.
I stayed with Mom for a year or two. Sam got married and ended up living in Providence, of all places. I became increasingly isolated and unstable, tending to self destructive habits.
It was at this point I met my first wife. Despite the fact our marriage failed, I managed to hold on to just enough sanity to not crack.
Sam became settled in Dallas and I, with my second wife, did the same in the Houston area. He had no children. My wife and I raised four.
@edgarblythe,
It's obvious that your brother had considerable talent, looking at the various cartoons.
He will continue to live on in his work and in the hearts of those who loved him.
I have always written verses and lyrics, from about twelve years on. My Mom had asked me to write a song about Roger, but I could not, despite trying several times. Then, a few years ago, I did manage to include him in this, The Children of the Ward:
I watch the children playing,
See them dancing in the yard.
Preserve the words they`re saying,
Like a fancy Christmas card.
The moments that betray them
Are the moments caught off guard;
Yet the dragons cannot slay them,
Not these children of the ward.
I hear their mothers calling
As they empty out the yard,
Echoing their footsteps,
Like bells tolling in my heart.
I gaze upon the portrait
Of my brother who`s been gone:
Time itself cannot prorate
The memory and the song.
To see you I would kiss you;
And give hugs until you groan.
Mama`s off to find you,
I must go it all alone -
I`ve been across some borders,
To describe my private hell;
In deep and shallow waters,
Like a bucket in a well.
Each story has an anchor;
Yes I dragged mine through the bay;
I was lucky just to find her,
Fortunate she went my way.
The sun is like a prism:
See it straining through the glass.
My mind`s not like a prison;
I`m no prisoner to the past.
There`s a beauty in the foment,
And a rage to top the crest;
Got to have myself a moment,
So I`m ready for the rest.
