Blog – Campbell Raw Press

Remember the feeling, as a child, when you woke up and morning smiled…It’s time you felt like that again.

–Taj Mahal

I don’t remember having air conditioning when we were little. I think we had a window unit at one point, but it was never something we relied upon or cared much about. My favorite memories of summer have everything to do with swimming, running through a sprinkler, playing at the park, riding bikes and eating lots and lots of popsicles and fudgsicles…and nothing to do with sitting inside anyway, so it obviously turned out ok!

Running through the sprinkler with Charlotte

During Iowa’s massive drought (one of those climatic markers of seasons and times in agricultural areas), in the roasty toasty summer of 1988, my whole family sat outside in the backyard at our house on 21st Street in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by a small fire reading The Long Winter from the Little House on the Prairie books well into the evening, enjoying the vicarious cooling that their 19th century winter transmitted to our 20th century selves.

My mom read to the three of us all the time and it remains one of my favorite things; someone reading a story out loud to me is up among the most relaxing things I can imagine. When I was little, we read the Narnia books, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, James Herriot’s animal stories, The Hobbit, The Phantom Tollbooth, Lafcadio, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Corduroy, The Nutcracker, The Phantom of the Opera…and so much more. My mom’s nightly routine ensured our young lives were downright packed with fantasy (which is probably a good thing when both parents’ income depends on the success of theatre and visual arts in Iowa!).

Now, Charlotte and I read everything we can get our hands on; she heard a large chunk of John Irving’s most recent novel at two months old and we’ve graduated to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, and George & Martha books. Part of me can’t wait until she’s about 6 or 7 and we get to read the really fun ones!

On Father’s Day this year (Matt’s first Father’s Day!), we were out and about and stopped in to Unnameable Books, a classic bookstore with a smart mix of used and new volumes. Matt picked up a copy of E.B. White’s One Man’s Meat, a collection of the monthly essays the author wrote for Harper’s Bazaar from 1938 to 1943. Each essay is quick, smart, and easily digestible; perfect bedtime stories since they clock in between 13 and 17 minutes apiece.

I know Mr. White’s writing mostly from his smart animals in Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, and these essays are, in some ways, like reading a version of those stories for adults. He chronicles his years in Maine away from New York City, itemizes the expenses of his small farm (including the actual cost of raising a Thanksgiving turkey…$463), his love for his sheep and chickens, and his poetic despair for the world around him turned on end by the war across the ocean from his small plot.

As we’ve read these stories to each other each night after we put away our work but before we tuck in for the night, I’m reminded of how important it is to do the things we loved as children. There are so many expressions of just plain fun that melt away from our lives as we age, figuring out which path is the right path (the one you’re on!), and focusing on the things that are most meaningful in our lives. Part of that meaning we treasure so much now was derived from the joy and pleasure we felt as children and there’s honestly nothing better than the feeling of looking at someone or something with fresh eyes and curiosity, and drinking up every last drop.

My thanks to Mr. White for the oceans of drops he shared with the world.