I was
watching a segment of “The Waltons” tonight, and one of the two story lines
involved “Livy” Walton’s talent for painting.
She enters
several of her landscapes in a local art show; only to miss out on a “First
Place” ribbon. However, minutes later the director of the art show informs her
that an anonymous dealer has purchased all of her paintings, and presents her
with the cash dividends.
As this
segment winds down, and Olivia happens to be looking through her attic, she
chances upon the paintings which, supposedly, had been sold to the art dealer.
Mystified, and miffed at the same time, she accuses her husband of buying the
paintings to feed her ego. John denies having bought the pictures, but as the
broadcast concludes her father in law confesses. It is a poignant conversation,
indeed.
“Livy, I’m
the one who bought the paintings, not John.”
“Oh grandpa,
why would you do something like that? If you wanted them that much, I would
have given them to you.”
“I know you
would have, Livy. But I bought them as a legacy of what our mountain here
looked like in our day and time. This is something I want to leave to
grandchildren’s grandchildren.
(and)
If you had
given the paintings to me, well, they wouldn’t be MY legacy; don’t
you see?”
I can so
well relate to the object and the concept.
For you see,
my dad was a landscape artist, and a very good one. I suppose he painted
hundreds of full-sized oil paintings in his day, and sold many of them. I am
fortunate to own five, and they grace the walls of my home. And though my
father has “traveled on” now, his paintings are one of several facets of the
legacy he left us.
Like my
father, I am busy “leaving something behind.” Oh, I’m not a painter, but I have
written numerous, (thus far unpublished) volumes, and I am strongly involved in
family research; all of which I have been accumulating for the day that it
might be said of me, (as it may be said of my father)
“He was…”
By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 10
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