MaineCourse

An Artist in the Making

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Drawings by Caroline Radulski

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I might have been working on her cabinet doors, or replacing her bulkhead steps, but way back in early 1990 something, I answered Chris Radulski’s phone (she must have been out and told me she was expecting a call).

“Hello.”

“Can I speak to Mrs. Radalooski?”

I laughed and thought to myself, how do you read a name and toss in syllables and non-existing letters? I told Chris about the phone call and she responded with, “I’ve heard much worse.” Unfortunately, from that moment forward, she has been - in my mind - Mrs. Radalooski.

Yesterday I ordered replacement windows from J & C Adams in Cambridge, for a job in Boxborough, and I was asked if I wanted low “e” glass. Trying to keep the price down, I waffled for a moment, when Joe, the salesman, said, “Let me check your past orders to see if you normally order them with low “e”. " I could hear him shuffling around (surely not through paper). When he came back to the phone he said, “Ah, here’s your last order. You did buy low “e” for the Radalooski job.”

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Rakkity sent me Lonely Planet Unpacked, a collection of travel disaster stories. The disasters are not on the scale of Into Thin Air, although the first short story begins with an auto accident. Mostly they’re funny. Here is the first page of Pat Yale’s, A Costly Trip:

I could tell that something was wrong even before I opened my eyes. The ominous silence surrounding me was broken by a rhythmic swishing sound. For a moment I had no idea where I was. After all, in four months on the road there had been so many different beds.

I snapped open my eyes and hastily closed them again. What they had taken in was just too embarrassing: there I was, lying in solitary splendor on the floor of Nairobi Central Station with no other passengers in sight, just a lone sweeper with his twig broom working his way around the hall and studiously ignoring this single white female spread-eagled on her sleeping bag, her backpack for a pillow.

I glanced at my watch. Six o’clock. Just four hours earlier the scene had been very different when I’d crawled off the night train from Western Kenya with what looked like half of Nairobi. Then, apparently, no one had had a home to go to. I’d watched fellow passengers confidently unrolling blankets on the floor and preparing to bed down for the night, and hadn’t thought twice about joining them. With mugging a known hazard of visiting Nairobi, arriving post-midnight without a bed to call my own was inviting trouble How much more sensible to join this embryo squatter city and wait until daylight to brave the streets.

Now, it seemed, I’d slept through the cacophony of a massed departure. It was beyond credulity. Surely nobody could sleep that deeply.

That's funny about the window man. Our last name is phoeneticallly perfect, it always surprises me when people mispronounce (or in this case mangle) it. As for Caroline's drawings, we have no clue where she falls in the gene pool as she continually surprises us with her artistic capabilities. To be sure, she doesn't get it from mom or dad.

Posted by proudmom.

It makes me happy you wanted to post those.

: )

Posted by Caroline.

Caroline, you are an artist! I look forward to more postings. Helen O.

Posted by Helen.

Aw thank you! That's so nice of you to say
-Cara

Posted by Caroline.

Excellent portraits. They make me want to know what each is sensing and thinking, respectively.

Posted by smiling.

Only Michael would find in a book of disaster stories a piece remarking on an ability to sleep as he doesn't........

I agree with smiling -- the portraits work, in that they invite imagination. Bold, clean lines, like the sketches of many aknowledged masters. Well done, Caroline!

Posted by logsawyer.

Very evocative portraits, Caroline. Thank you for sharing them with the blogmeister.

Posted by anothermom.

Caroline, any of my children could tell you that I
don't pass out idle compliments. Ask Mike if you find it hard to believe. Keep on keeping on. Love Helen

Posted by Helen.

She's telling the truth, sort of. If you're not related, then yeah, she is sparse. However, if you are her child she's both very complimentary and supportive. When I was seven and wished I could fly by flapping my arms up and down, I asked her, as I was making like an epileptic bird, if she could see air under my feet. She said, "Yes, a little."

Posted by Mike.

Posted by Michael at September 9, 2004 06:16 AM