Our Town Redux

AUTUMNAL VICTORIAN PORCH
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"We are always together in spirit."
Favorite Halloween Card

Back in March,
I re-cycled a couple of Quotidian posts --

from April 11, 2013, on the topic of Confidence
[See Confidence in Confidence ~ March 15, 2023]

and

from April 26, 2010, on the topic of Grief & Relief
[See Grief and Relief ~ March 28, 2023]

I promised at the time to search out others
that deserved a reappearance on the Fortnightly.

The following initially appeared
on The Quotidian Kit ~ February 4, 2018,
reprinted here with one very important addition!

The Least Important Day

In observation of Groundhog Day, my childhood friend and neighbor Rebecca Sprigg provided a facebook prompt: "If you had to live one day of your life over and over again, what day would you choose, and why?"

Becky had the movie Groundhog Day in mind, but I was immediately reminded of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. This play is dear to my heart -- as you can see above from the leading quotation of this blog -- and has been ever since way back in 1973, when my brother Bruce portrayed the character of George. Bruce, of course, knew what I was talking about when I said to Becky that "This play breaks my heart every time." The was he explains it:

"This play is when I learned how to 'be in the moment.' In the scene where George goes to the graveyard to visit Emily's (Yvonne Brooks') grave, I actually cried . . . real tears."

Shortly after Emily's untimely death (at age 26, during childbirth), she is allowed to revisit Earth for a day, and she wants to choose a "happy day," but the Dead advise her "No! At least, choose an unimportant day. Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough."

Here are the lines, in context:
Emily: Live people don't understand, do they?

Mrs. Gibbs: No, dear, not very much.

Emily: They're sort of shut up in little boxes, aren't they? I feel as though I knew them
last a thousand years ago. . . . I never realized before how troubled and
how, how in the dark live persons are. . . . From morning till night, that's all they are, troubled. . . .
But . . . one can go back; one can go back there again, into living. I feel it. I know it. . . .

Mrs. Gibbs: Yes, of course you can.

Emily: I can go back there and live all those days over again...why not?

Mrs. Gibbs: All I can say is, Emily, don't.

Emily (To the Stage Manager): But it's true, isn't it? I can go and live, back there, again.

Stage Manager: Yes, some have tried but they soon come back here.

Mrs. Gibbs: Don't do it, Emily.

Mrs. Soames: Emily, don't. It's not what you think it'd be.

Emily: But I won't live over a sad day. I'll choose a happy one. I'll choose the day I first knew that I loved George. Why should that be painful?

Stage Manager: You not only live it but you watch yourself living it.

Emily: Yes?

Stage Manager: And as you watch it, you see the thing that they, down there, never know. You see the future. You know what's going to happen afterwards.

Emily: But is that -- painful? Why?

Mrs. Gibbs: That's not the only reason why you shouldn't do it, Emily. When you've been here longer you'll see that our life here is to forget all that and think only of what's ahead and be ready for what's ahead. When you've been here longer you'll understand.

Emily: But, Mother Gibbs, how can I ever forget that life? It's all I know. It's all I had.

Mrs. Soames: Oh, Emily. It isn't wise. Really, it isn't.

Emily: But it's a thing I must know for myself. I'll choose a happy day, anyway.

Mrs. Gibbs: No! At least, choose an unimportant day. Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.

Emily: . . . I can choose a birthday at least, can't I? I choose my twelfth birthday.

Stage Manager: All right. February 11th, 1899. A Tuesday. Do you want any special time of
day?

Emily: Oh, I want the whole day.

But, as it turns out, she can't bear the whole day.
After only an hour or so, she cries out to the Stage Manager:
Emily: I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. . . . I didn't realize. . . . Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look.

Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners -- Mama and Papa. Goodby to clocks ticking…and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?

Stage Manager: No. The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.

************************
So, to make a short story long, this poignant scene is what came to mind when I read Becky's question about repeatedly reliving a day from the past.

Reading over the responses to the Becky's prompt, I was interested to see that some commenters had interpreted living "one day of your life over and over again," as a good day that they would like to experience perpetually; but others had interpreted it as a do - over day that they would like to improve upon or change.

I asked Becky which she preferred, and she explained what she had in mind originally:

"Yesterday I was thinking about the movie Groundhog Day, but had forgotten the plot. Living that day over and over again was not a good thing for the character Bill Murray played. He only got out of that vicious cycle by slowly changing, realizing his mistakes, doing things for others and being a nice guy. So my initial thought was that people would share a blissful day that they wouldn't mind re-living.

In that vein, I love the touching memories my friends and family have shared. However, equally touching are the do-over stories. I appreciate the bravery of those willing to share about their losses (none shared here related to any personal failings) that evoke regret. Everyone has them. Sharing them seems to me a path to peace with our past. This is a long way to get to your answer, but please feel free to share either a happy day or a do-over day."

I had to brood about all these options for awhile, but finally I decided to go with the first day of 2nd grade at Eugene Field Elementary School (Neosho, Missouri, Fall 1964). Here's why, not so much because I want to relive it over and over; and not because it requires a do - over, but out of curiosity:

For as long as I can remember, I have had this memory that my grandparents -- my mother's parents Paul & Rovilla Lindsey -- drove me to school on the first day of 2nd grade. But could that really be true? It seems unlikely, but in my memory, I had stayed with them until the very last day of summer vacation, and they drove me back home either the evening before school started or that very morning (they lived about 2 hours away from Neosho, in Caney, Kansas). I can see it so clearly -- their car pulling up to the school (the door by the kindergarten side of the building), me wearing a plaid dress, jumping out of the car, running up the steps, and turning to wave to them. But where are my close - in - age siblings, Bruce and Diane? Aaron was too little for school; and David and Peggy were at high school. But it was also the first day at Field School for Bruce and Di, so they should have been there with me, jumping out of the car and running up the steps. Yet, I can see only myself.

If I could go back and live that day again, I could confirm whether or not or how much of this memory really happened or if I somehow just made it up because that's how I wanted the summer to be. She died of breast cancer in June 1966, and during her last 2 summers -- 1964 and 1965, Bruce and I spent a lot of time at their house, so maybe we really did stay that year until the very last day.

******************

Mystery Solved!
Now here is the above mentioned
important addition to this story!

Since writing this post in 2018, some new / old information has almost unimaginably come to light! I have made an amazing discovery: my Grandmother Rovilla's journal from 1964, confirming my memory of this day as accurate.

As the photo below indicates, she was recording her daily memoirs in a book of meditations, and the readings for the first week of September are themed to Labor Day. Rovilla's hand-written notation verifies my childhood recollection. It was not just wistful thinking on my part.

We truly did rise at dawn that day. And those loving grandparents drove two hours there and back in order to indulge a little girl who could not bear for the summer to come to an end until the very last possible moment. Nor was it "the least important day." It was a very significant day indeed.

"We took Kitti B. back home to enroll for school.
Left before 6 A.M. & back by 11:55."

******************
Choosing this day would also allow me to hear my grandmother's voice once again. I was only 9 when she died, and sadly the memory of her voice is nearly lost to me. How I would love to hear it once again!

In conclusion, here is a contemporary passage -- written in 2016, describing the summer of 1938. It is so in keeping with the tone of Our Town written in 1938, describing the years from 1901 - 1913; and with my own childhood memories of sitting out on the front porch rocking chairs with my grandparents, as the light faded, night after night, summer after summer, 1960 - 1966:

“She watched her nieces commencing their nightly rite of selecting chairs. They were young and they didn’t understand. They believed that one chair was better than another. They believed that it was important to make distinctions, to choose, to discern particulars. Like crows, they picked out bits from each evening and lugged them around, thinking they were hoarding treasure. They remembered the jokes, or the games or the stories, not knowing that it was all one, that each tiny vibration of difference would be sanded, over the course of years, into sameness. It doesn’t matter, Jottie assured herself. They'll get to it. Later, they’ll understand that the sameness is the important part" (47 - 48).

from the novel The Truth According to Us
by American editor and author, Annie Barrows (b 1962)

Tea sets, here and above, on display
at the Art Institute of Chicago

You may have noticed that some of my favorite lines from Our Town serve as the permanent header on my Quotidian blog page. It is so true! When Emily asks, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?" I want the answer to be "Yes, Kitti Carriker does!" May we all strive, as Thornton Wilder advises:

"to find a value above all price
for the smallest events in our daily life"

*************

PREVIOUS POSTS
RELATED TO OUR TOWN

More on Facebook

The Least Important Day

Our Town Too

What's the Big Idea

Quinton Duval

Pretty Enough For All Normal Purposes

Our Town

The Mind of God
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, November 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Friday the Thirteenth

Posting a day early in observation of
this month's timely superstition

FRIDAY THE 13TH
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

I admire the combination of Halloween & Christmas
in the bookmark above and the sign below
[also this wreath]

Friday the Thirteenth

For Keith,
Friday the Thirteenth
held no fear.
He wasn’t superstitious
(or even a little bit stitious),
and didn’t view the day
as particularly suspicious
or with the promise
of the unpropitious.

It was then a black cat
crossed his path,
causing him to step on a crack
which made him stagger
under a ladder,
and shatter a mirror
being carried
by a passing albatross,
who suffered fatal blood loss
from a shard
which flew hard
into its heart.

Keith didn’t think anything of it
until later that day,
at a wine reception,
he found himself trapped
in a conversation
about Jeremy Clarkson.

Consequences

I opened an umbrella indoors and waited for misfortune to rain down upon me.
Nothing happened.
I walked beneath a ladder and waited for the sky to fall.
Nothing happened.
I placed a pair of shoe on a table and waited for fate to trample me down.
Nothing happened.
I smashed up a mirror with a hammer and waited to be pierced by the shards
of seven year's suffering.
And still nothing happened.
With the third strike of a match, I set fire to a chain letter sent to me by a raven,
with a forwarding on date of Friday the 13th, and waited, rather nonchalantly.
Not a sausage.

Three years later, I lost my house keys down a storm drain.
The following week, Brexit happened.
Five months after that, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.
Later, there came a deadly pandemic and then war in Europe.

How easy to think the things we do carry no importance.
How easy to imagine our actions are without consequence.
How foolish we are to ignore the old stories.

both poems by
~ Brian Bilston ~
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

All that Glitters

GRADE SCHOOL SWEATER CLIP
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Cat and Mouse

On the sheep-cropped summit, under hot sun,
The mouse crouched, staring out the chance
It dared not take.

Time and a world Too old to alter, the five mile prospect—
Woods, villages, farms hummed its heat-heavy
Stupor of life. Whether to two Feet or four, how are prayers contracted!
Whether in God’s eye or the eye of a cat.

Ted Hughes

I no longer have my 1965 vintage cat and mouse sweater chain. But I remember it well and was able to track down a few photos on the internet. I must have worn it to school every day in 2nd grade, until the mouse's tail snapped in two. Even after that, I saved at the bottom of my trinket box for a long time, along with my broken Snow White Watch (3rd grade).

These two poems -- above by Ted Hughes, below by William Blake
-- align perfectly with the drama of the sweater guard. Look! There is the glittering "eye of a cat," pursuing the anxious mouse. And there is the "end of a golden string," enticing the cat in its perpetual conflict with the universe.

I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

William Blake

Poetic connections to gold abound;
here are a few glittering examples:

Robert Frost:
"nothing gold can stay"

Barbara Kunz Loots:
"watch the gold illusion drift away"

Joseph Parry:
"Make new friends,
but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold."

Johnny Marks:
"Silver and gold . . .
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure
It gives here on Earth."

Shakespeare:
"all that
glisters / glistens / glitters
is not gold"

Spandau Ballet:
"Gold!
Always believe in your soul
You've got the power to know
You're indestructible
Always believe in, 'cause you are
Gold . . ."

Yeats:
" . . . pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."

The Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Previously in this series of jewelry inspired posts:
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
Choose Dearests, Choose
Where is Fancy Bred
AND MORE

Also in my jewelry box:
Three Sisters' Pin & Pendant
that my sisters and I wear whenever we're together

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Where is Fancy Bred

LIFELONG NECKLACES
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Pewter Gemini Necklace
A gift from my sister Peggy on my 19th birthday.
Once a Gemini, always a Gemini!

I've always liked the way the twins kind of
resemble two adults holding up a child --
Lion King style!

These two necklaces have been
with me for most of my life.

For my high school graduation picture,
I wore this tiny floral locket that
I had received back in first grade,
a sixth birthday present from my mother.

Some Shakespearean Connections
in continuation of jewelry box theme . . .
The Merchant of Venice, features three very important jewelry boxes, referred to as "caskets, resembling small treasure chests, and serving as a hurdle for all the suitors proposing marriage to Portia. There are three caskets, each with an appropriate inscription on the outside, and a related, illustrative token and moralistic verse inside:

"The first, of gold, who this inscription bears,
'Who chooseth me shall get what many men desire';

The second, silver, which this promise carries,
'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves';

This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt,
'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'”
(Act II, scene vii)

****************

Gold ~ A Skull

"All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscrolled
Fare you well. Your suit is cold.
Cold, indeed: and labor lost:
Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!"
(Act II, scene vii)


Silver ~ A Fool's Head

"The fire seven times tried this:
Seven times tried that judgment is,
That did never choose amiss.
Some there be that shadows kiss;
Such have but a shadow's bliss:
There be fools alive, I wis,
Silvered o'er: and so was this.
Take what wife you will to bed,
I will ever be your head.
So be gone. You are sped.
Still more fool I shall appear
By the time I linger here.
With one fool's head I came to woo,
But I go away with two."
(Act II, scene ix, 63 - 75)


Lead ~ A Portrait of Fair Portia

“You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair and choose as true.
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content and seek no new.
If you be well pleased with this
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn you where your lady is
And claim her with a loving kiss.”
(Act III, scene ii, 139 - 146)
The message of the caskets is clear: whatever treasures are in your jewelry box, always choose for love, never for vanity.

Before Bassanio -- Portia's favorite beau -- correctly chooses the lead casket, Portia gives him a few hints by calling on the players to perform a song whose first three lines rhyme with "lead." Silver and gold might be nice, but they are not all. Follow your heart; use your head:

"Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engender’d in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle, where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy’s knell;
I’ll begin it – Ding, dong, bell.
Ding, dong, bell."
(Act III, scene ii)

******************

Another long ago favorite from my childhood jewelry box:

Next time, more on the cat & mouse sweater chain!

Previously in this series of jewelry inspired posts:
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
Choose Dearests, Choose
AND MORE
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, July 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Choose Dearests, Choose

GEMS FOREVER
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

As a child, looking through my parents' album collection
I was always drawn to this treasure chest: Gems Forever!

"1962 - Boise"
That's my mom's handwriting, perhaps
when she bought the album for my dad.

I was only 4 at the time, but I can remember her
wearing the sandstone jewelry when we lived in Idaho.

The sparkly set was added a few years later,
when we lived in Neosho and I was 8 or 9.

Still in their original box;
it says "Priscilla" on the inside & "Floyd's" on the outside.

My mother's necklaces make me think of Virginia Woolf's lovely description in To the Lighthouse of the children rummaging around in Mrs. Ramsay's jewelry box:

"And if Rose liked . . . she might choose which jewels she was to wear.

" . . .Jasper offered her an opal necklace; Rose a gold necklace. Which looked best against her black dress? Which did indeed, said Mrs. Ramsay absent-mindedly . . . And then, while the children rummaged among her things . . .

"But which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case open. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace, which Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her amethysts?

" 'Choose, dearests, choose,' " she said, hoping that they would make haste.

"But she let them take their time to choose: she let Rose, particularly, take up this and then that, and hold her jewels against the black dress, for this little ceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone through every night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. She had some hidden reason of her own for attaching great importance to this choosing what her mother was to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace she had chosen, divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that one had for one's mother at Rose's age. Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was. And Rose would grow up; and Rose would suffer, she supposed, with these deep feelings, and she said she was ready now, and they would go down, and Jasper, because he was the gentleman, should give her his arm, and Rose, as she was the lady, should carry her handkerchief (she gave her the handkerchief), and what else? oh, yes, it might be cold: a shawl. Choose me a shawl, she said, for that would please Rose, who was bound to suffer so."

(120 - 123, emphasis added)
[And thanks to my friend and fellow scholar
Victoria Amador for sharing my reading of this passage]

[Read more about Virginia Woolf:
Fortnightly ~ Quotidian ~ Kitti's List]

***************

Additional Connections

In "The Diamond Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant,
Mme. Jeanne Forestier says to Mme. Mathilde Loisel:
"Choose, my dear."

In "Wild Montana Skies"
John Denver & Emmylou Harris
sing of the conflicted, contemplative character who
was born with the blessing / curse of deep feeling and
" . . . never knew the answers
that would make an easy way . . . "
[kind of like "Rose, who was bound to suffer so"]

In one of my 4th - grade favorites,
Ginnie and the Mystery Doll by Catherine Woolley,
Ginnie and Geneva follow the trail of a long - lost antique doll,
a recently painted portrait of the doll, a red Jaguar,
and -- a missing jewel! -- a conch pearl.

I took a couple of hours to re-read this childhood classic, and was touched by Ginnie's similarity to Rose:

"Ginnie gave a sad little sigh. This was the best, the most beautiful part of the day. The air felt cool when she sat up, but the sand still held the day's warmth and the wind had dropped. A path of molten gold led straight across the silken water to the setting sun." (45)

"The summer days were slipping along now. Ginnie treasured every one. As the summer had advanced, a new world had come into being for her -- the world at the edge of the sea. . . . So, each new day unfolded its own lovely pattern. Ginnie hugged every one to her heart." (83, 85)

As with Rose, Ginnie "loved anything resembling a story" but every now and again she had "the strange sensation [of being] alone in a hostile world" (111, 117).

Need I say it? Bound to suffer so.

Previous Fortnightly Posts in this series
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
AND MORE

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Mantovani Christmas
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Diamond Studs Are Forever

DIAMONDS
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thanks to Intersoul for Sound & Graphic

Visual connection: Imitation of Life opening credits, 1959
Sound connection: Shirley Bassey

Long ago (Christmas 1991), when Gerry and I brought Baby Ben to England for the first time, my tiny diamond earring got lost at O'Hare when we were waiting for our flight. The story has become legendary in our family. As previously recounted on The Quotidian Kit ~ May 20, 2013:

The first [diamond that I lost] was a small stud, embedded in the carpet at O'Hare, where my little Ben (age 1 1/2 at the time . . . ) clutched my earlobe in a moment of excitement. When he let go, the diamond was not in my ear, nor in his hand, nor anywhere on the chair or floor as far as we could see. We shook out my hair and clothing to no avail. I treasured these earrings because they had been my first ever Christmas present from Gerry.

Now, one of them was missing, but suddenly it was time for boarding, and I had to walk away; like Lot's wife, I looked over my shoulder! I don't think Ben really understood what had transpired, but he knew that it was something we had not expected. For months afterward, he would reach out to pat my ear and say, "More Mummy earring?" Ah, what's a lost diamond compared to that kind of sweetness? Besides, Gerry soon surprised me with a new set -- to this day, not yet lost! -- so I still have a pair and a spare.

Here's the mate to the missing one, that I still have:

But wait! There's more! As coincidence would have it, you just NEVER know when a ring or an earring might be lost or found. Did I ever see my special little Christmas stud again? No. However, flash forward to Summer 2019 when Ben and Cathleen were flying to Portugal -- and try to guess what they found stuck in the carpet at O'Hare? Let's hope not the same carpet (after 30 years?) and definitely not the same earring, but -- Yes! -- a diamond stud!

They sent me this photo with the caption:
"More Mommy Earring?"

THEN they found another one on the way home!
What's the odds?

I now wear the two that they found as a set, even though they are not quite the same. They surely belong together, as ordained by the Diamond Gods!

And 5 years later,
this one came into my life,
stuck in the carpet of my hotel room
in Kirksville, Missouri ~ October 2024
The diamonds come and go . . .

Quick Aside Re Synchronicity: I knew my sisters would love this story, because our lives are filled with synchronicity. My sister Peg said that these diamond discoveries must derive from some kind of brain pattern theory, "but it's so much more magical to hear it as a random, wonderful coincidence. I'm excited to see where I confront this phenomenon in the next few days, because that is so often how it happens!" Certainly that's how it works with vocabulary words; as my literary friend Laura explained: "I really enjoyed your discussion with your sisters of that uncanny sense, once one learns a new word, of suddenly seeing it everywhere. A good friend told me it's called the Baader-Meinhof effect -- hope naming it doesn't remove any of its uncanny power." Nope, naming merely adds to the magic!

But getting back to those diamonds, sometimes they are not real. What happens then? Remember Luisa in Act One of The Fantasticks? She is a heroine so hopeful and pure - hearted, it hardly matters, diamonds or rhinestones:
El Gallo:
She has a glue paste necklace,
which she thinks is really real.

Luisa:
I found it in the attic, with my mother's name inside.
It is my favorite possession.

El Gallo:
It's her fancy.

Luisa:
It's my pride. . . .

Act Two

El Gallo:
Oh, yes. I steal fancies.
I steal whatever is treasured most. . . .

(Looking at her necklace.)
Precious rhinestones.

Luisa:
Rhinestones?

El Gallo:
Can be precious.
It depends on the point of view. . . .
Wait! Give me a trinket –
to pledge that you will come back.
That necklace –

Luisa: Was my mother’s.

El Gallo: Good. It will serve as your pledge.

(He holds out his hand. She considers, then
removes necklace and places it gently in his hand.)

Luisa:
All right. I leave you this necklace
because it is my favorite thing.
Here, guard it. I won’t be long. . . .

*****

Lyrics by Tom Jones (b. 1928)
Music by Harvey Schmidt (1929 - 2018)
Sung by Jerry Orbach (1935 - 2005;
the original El Gallo, from 1959 - 61,
at the Sullivan Street Playhouse)

*********************

A few more jewel - themed stories to contemplate:
Master of the short story, Guy de Maupassant (1850 - 1893) experimented with both scenarios: fake jewels believed to be real and real jewels believed to be fake. I won't say which story is which; you have to read them both:

The Diamond Necklace & The Jewelry

and this one
by Henry James (1843 - 1916): Paste

James doubles up on both the irony and the betrayal in his intrigue of a mysterious family jewel box, filled with a combination of treasures and trinkets that, unlike diamonds, may or may not be forever. In his story, it is a string of pearls that deceive and delight. Are they dull or lustrous? Paste or genuine? Fancy or pride?

Next Fortnightly Post ~ More jewels to come!
Wednesday, June 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
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Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
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