The Year of CBdB

This weekend Sammy declared 2010 to be The Year of Charles Brockden Brown.  He said it’s the 200 year anniversary of his ancestor-writer’s death.  Since his writer-ancestor died in 1810, it’s really the 199th anniversary of his death, since the first anniversary didn’t occur until a year later.  Sammy was willing to concede the point, but nevertheless claims that 2010 is the Year of CBdB.  Personally, I think Sammy was just wandering through Wikipedia one day and figured out that his ancestor died two hundred years ago.  On February 22nd Sammy never mentioned a thing about any of this even though that’s the day CBdB died.

Just to make fun of Sammy, Boyce has declared 2010 to be the Year of Tom T. Hall.  Boyce has recently uncovered an album called "In Search of a Song" by Mr. Hall, a country music singer in the 1970’s.  Boyce asked Sammy to interpret the album cover for him, but Sammy refused on grounds that Boyce won’t ever read Charles Brockden Brown.  Instead, I tried to give Boyce a reading of the album cover, but I can only interpret dreams so mine was pretty shaky.

I told him that the only thing I noticed is that Tom T. Hall seemed pretty pleased with how that black guy was fishing under the overpass.  He doesn’t seem to be in fishing gear himself and his car is parked just above, so he’s probably just coming to check on how the black guy is doing.  The album is called, “In Search of a Song,” so maybe Tom T. Hall is hoping the black fisherman pulls out a singing fish.  It’s hard to tell how Tom T. Hall would feel if the black fisherman claimed the singing fish for his own.

The fact that under his coat he’s wearing an all-red suit probably makes him prone to violence.  Or maybe the devil, and he’s asking the black fisherman to make a deal for his soul in exchange for a singing fish.

I didn’t give that interpretation for Boyce’s sake since he just kept looking at the album cover and saying how beautiful it was.  I did it more for Sammy who was just steaming about it all.  He finally took the album and said, “My God, that’s a work of beauty.”  A few years ago Charlotte bought Boyce an old record player for all his albums so she put it on and we sat back and listened.  It all made Boyce pretty happy so he told Sammy that he’d never read his ancestor, but in honor of the Year of CBdB he’d sign all petitions, credit card offers, and wedding guest lists as Charles Brockden Brown.  Sammy said that’s all he could ever ask for, and we went back to admiring the album cover.