Eat Your Oatmeal
Eat Your Oatmeal!!
Words Care of Dorse A. Lanpher:
Sitting here eating my oatmeal for breakfast and having recently discovered how oatmeal can control ones cholesterol I’m reminded of my last meeting with the revered Joe Grant. Everyone admired Joe for his talent and creative energies but how many of us were close enough to him to have been exposed to his wisdom. I was attending the last showing of some of the many years of his work on the second floor concourse in the Walt Disney Feature Animation building when I had my only chance.
I was perusing his wonderful artwork which covered the walls when I found myself next to the great one himself. I guess the child in me thought he would reveal his secret of success if only I should ask. So I did. “Joe,” I questioned “how have you been able to maintain your creative energies for all these years?” I know now that the question was just a simplistic effort for me to connect with this historical personage but Joe, in his vast mental library of cleverness had an immediate response without seeming to think about an answer.
He leaned toward me as if to protect his secret from the surrounding crowd of people admiring his work. He spoke softly, his elderly vocal cords adding a quality of wisdom to the sound of his voice and emphasis to his words. He said “Eat your oatmeal.”
Hey Dorse. I remember that show. I believe it was called “50 Years of Joe Grant”. 50 years of the creativity of this one man took up the entire concourse on the second floor. Illustrated books, greeting cards, magazine articles, caricatures, designs, calligraphy, ideas, and on and on. I’d like to see “that” show again and again and again.
Dorse,
I’ve been eating oatmeal since I started my first paper route for the Valley Green Sheet. Maybe someday it will rub off on me?
I remember early in my Apprenticeship working for Nick Vasu Camera Service I befriended a Filipino janitor named Pete Perez. Pete made janitors wage his entire career, but he owned two apartment buildings, and his house. He was about mid 80’s when we met, and came to work each morning around 4am. I asked him once his secret his eyes lit up and said to me, “Tommy you have to work everyday, everyday, or you die inside. Tommy don’t marry for money, earn it.”
I guess I’ll just enjoy my oatmeal each morning, and work hard everyday.
tomb