A CHILDHOOD GROTESQUE

 

The pandemic has provided a reckoning with childhood for me as it has, I'm sure for others. A chance to clean out the nooks and crannies of closets and drawers where the detritus of living resides. Things stuck away because one could not quite bring oneself to dispose of them. So it was with a cigar box my mother had labelled Phil's model soldiers, cowboys and indians. 

 

 

Of course, I had forgotten all about these miniature figures and have no idea where they came from or who gave them to me. The first time I opened the box and looked closely at each figure I came to the realization that they are in the fullest sense of the word grotesque. Each figure is apparently male, and most are in some kind of aggressive action pose. The exception to this appears to be Robert E. Lee and a Viking Chieftain. To tell the truth I was never really attracted to them as a child which probably accounts for their survival. Now, well into adulthood, I find them fascinating and repellant at the same time. 

 

P.S. I remember as a child always asking myself, "Why would that Indian (read Native American) stab himself in the side like that?".