Archives for April 2013

The Dinkey Bird

When my special, every-Thursday-antiquing f riend of 50 years passed, her dear children appeared on my doorstep bearing pieces we had found together on endless treasure hunts  and presented them to me.   “Doesn’t it make you SAD.”  someone asked, “to have these things?”  Oh, no!  On the contrary!  I recall with   great joy each  and every bush that we beat in New England to find EVERY one!  Anyway,  among the treasures was a carved wooden plaque of a whimsical bird unlike any we had ever seen.   Dot called it “The Dinkey Bird” and bought it immediately.   She referred to a well-loved children’s verse by Eugene Field of the same name.

When I inherited The Dinkey Bird, I added color to it, thinking it should be in a child’s room somewhere.   But I haven’t been able to part with it because I like to think that Dot Hartzog is waiting for me  someplace “where the dinkey bird is singing in the amfalula tree” and it is an  everyday sweet reminder of a rare and wonderful friendship.