The Last of His Mind by John Thorndike

Author:John Thorndike
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780804040372
Publisher: Ohio University Press

Hi, Oliver, this is Joe Thorndike. I couldn’t come down to see you today because they put me in the hospital. For no good reason, but they did. Now I’m happily back home again. I had hoped to come down to see you, but it doesn’t look as if I could, because it’s such a long trip down there, and I’ve pretty much decided to stay on Cape Cod. I’m living in Harwich now and wish I could see you, but I guess they think I better not make such a long trip at this point. I’m mostly in the hands of my son John, who’s looking after me and telling me what I can do and what I cannot do, and so far it’s working out very well. So anyway, I send you my very best when he sees you. And one of these days I’ll see you again, and we’ll renew old times and old acquaintances.

My father can really pull it out of a hat. I’m sure he hasn’t spoken that many words in a row since I came last December. When I transcribe them I come close to crying: old times and old acquaintances. Of course they were far more than acquaintances. In addition to being friends for over sixty years, they were the editorial engine for both American Heritage and Horizon, and for dozens of large illustrated books on American and world history, on art, culture and archeology. My father wrote a pair of those books—The Magnificent Builders and The Very Rich—and Oliver wrote others: The American Heritage History of Railroads in America, American Album, and Americans at War.

I’ll be taking down some old photos of the two of them, some long letters from Oliver proposing various articles, and assorted office memos that go back to their days at Life. In one of these my father has asked Oliver to write a short piece about “a girl washing a dinosaur,” for which they have some photos. Oliver, well known at Life for his humorous memos, typed in a response below Dad’s message: “We lost all the pictures so I had some new ones taken. Through an oversight they show the dinosaur washing the girl, but I still feel this is a noteworthy subject, of interest to our readers.”

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