provided in front of the safe, what i fell in love
with was the typewriter; once that limp black
oilcloth cover was spirited away, and the roller
could be persuaded to chew in a sheet of lamar
life stationery, there were all those polished keys
which, if only hit right or long enough might
write anything at all, while daddy sat reading his mail. Hereby is my apology, some years
belated, to miss Josephine Wright for any bad
effects her typewriter showed on mondays.
When the new lamar life building was
going up, i remember my father, who in those
years was general manager of the company, tak-
ing the greatest pride and a daily exhilaration
in the workmanship of it. no wonder he was
proud of the beauty of what was happening. i
think he felt its climax was the clock, but all the
way up to that tower he personally loved and
endorsed every stone that was laid, every gar-
goyle that peeped forth from the various stages.
(i had to grieve a bit to see some of those em-
bellishments go in the recent alterations.) my
father led the whole family to the top for the
first time, as i recall it now, by the fire escape,
a romantic climb; and it was lovely and worth
every step to stand on the roof where the tar
was just hard enough to receive our weight,
and the clock just as close as your hand, and to
look out at the wonderful and unfamiliar view
of Jackson, seen for the first time as a whole, in
one sweep.
