![\"Happy](\"http:\/\/www.catdoodles.com\/dailydoodle\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/happy-birthday-hannah.jpg\" "\\"Happy")
<\/a><\/p>\nHappy Twentieth Birthday, dear Hannah! As you can see, no matter how old, poised, accomplished and wise you become, your nutty auntie still sees you in her mind\u2019s eye cavorting with fairies and gnomes, costumed cats and mice. (I\u2019m so sorry, dear!)<\/p>\n
Another thing that seems like a dream to me, is the year I spent at Grinnell College, alongside your parents, when they were the age that you are now. On the one hand, it seems like yesterday, but it also feels like a unique time and place, never to be recaptured.<\/p>\n
Since we didn\u2019t carry cameras around, here are a couple sketch \u201csnapshots\u201d of your folks at twenty and twenty-one, that you saw once before (and liked, I think), some years back. \u2014Just for fun, as a special birthday treat.<\/p>\n
I drew the above during a transfer stop at an Iowa bus station late one night, when Carol and I \u00a0took \u201cthe dog\u201d (the Greyhound bus) back home during a mid-term break. (That looks like a very fat book your mom is taking notes on, no?)<\/p>\n And here\u2019s your handsome dad, Hannah, studying at Pinetree House, I think, the vegetarian food co-op where they lived off campus (like you are are doing now).<\/p>\n But enough with the images of people working and studying! Let\u2019s sign off with an image of people frolicking\u2014a reminder to go out and celebrate tonight (or soon): Here\u2019s an old engraving of A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/a>, courtesy of Wikipedia, that I thought you might enjoy.<\/p>\n And even though the rest of my readers are not likely having birthdays today, \u00a0I wish you all the same: a wonderful day, followed by many more ahead. I hope everyone is getting through the heat wave OK, and finding shady bowers to frolic in\u2014if not in their waking hours, than in their dreams.\u00a0Happy Wednesday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I mean, I must be dreaming, right? How else could my niece be a sweet baby one minute, a darling girl the next, and then suddenly, a newly minted 20 year old\u2014in college, with a job, a driver\u2019s license, and … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Sometimes I would tag along when Carol would reserve a practice room on campus, to play on one of the Music Department\u2019s oddly-black-key-deficient pianos. (Just kidding. For these sketchbook drawings, I never filled in details afterwards, but just drew what I saw in front of me until I ran out of time or steam. So, very often, chairs don\u2019t have legs, people don\u2019t have feet, rooms don\u2019t have floors, etc..)<\/p>\n<\/a>While I may not have captured the best likenesses in these sketches, they preserve something for me that I still see when I look at your folks: They are still the wonderful, caring, hardworking & focused people they always were. (Hmm…not unlike their dear daughters, you and your sister.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAnd one more vintage image, this one of Titania, Queen of the Fairies<\/a>\u2014who would likely align with me in wanting to coax you out to have some fun today.\u00a0But regardless of how you spend your birthday, dear niece, I hope you have a wonderful, magical day, and a bright and beautiful year ahead.<\/p>\n