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I love Huskies and Malamutes! |
I appreciate this group wants to see adoptions, both specific breeds and mixed breeds, they want to stop bans of specific breeds, and they are suggesting donations to shelters and rescue groups. I have dealt with various rescue groups and especially supported K9 Stray Rescue League who have been wonderful, but I would prefer to donate my services to that specific group or another local group than be told by a national entity that I must become an offiffiffic'al partner if I want to name their holiday. The funny thing is they will consider letting something be free IF the request comes from a big enough non-profit with sufficient followers of their social media.
I trust you'll understand my going GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
Today's some stories first appealed to me as possible stories to tell at a Rescue event. Stories Witty and Pictures Pretty, is one of those anonymously produced 19th century children's books I would normally reject. I try to sample a book of stories before buying it. Today's book, has some tales in it about a St. Bernard named Bose that captured me right away. Bose, too, like my own "malamutt" had to adapt to a new human. The stories were in the reverse order of the way I'm presenting them as I prefer to give them chronologically. Possibly the publisher, W.B. Conkey Company, of New York and Chicago was correct, as right away I could think of similar incidents that matched the final episode with Bose and his canine friend, Sam. It would be too easy to dismiss as being from another era and possibly sentimental. It's not. It and the other stories are good examples of why so many people can't help but love dogs. When I mention the word "dog" beyond the mirror image of "God", I'm also convinced dogs are His best creation. They certainly surpass humans in many ways. Today's stories give a good taste of why I say that.
and in conclusion
For those of us who love our pets as family members, when a pet dies I also recommend the story of The Rainbow Bridge which has grown since 1997 to become an online support site.
While we're looking online, I also went looking about that part where Bose cried actual tears. If you want to know more go to http://peanutpaws.com/can-dogs-cry/ which also is part of a site which is a good resource for dog owners and people thinking about getting a dog.
My apologies for the way a story sometimes isn't squared perfectly. My scanner is across the room and so I must dash back and forth between it and my computer to start the process. In the case of a delicate old book, this leads me to be gentler to its binding. Today's book will probably never be scanned and put online. I've no idea who "Kham" was nor the even more anonymous illustrator was, but one of the joys of old books can be traces of its history. This was the book's first page.
That Christmas of 1896 someone named Julia gave Cleveland Bandholtz the book as a present. I couldn't resist peeking into history a bit. I've no idea if it was the same Cleveland Bandholtz, but he was born in 1891, the son of General H.H.Bandholtz and May Cleveland Bandholtz, and even has a Michigan connection, spending part of his early life at the family home in Constantine, when not being an "army brat" following his parents to the Philippines and other army stations. He grew up to be a lieutenant colonel, serving in both World Wars and was awarded the Legion of Merit for his World War II service. He's buried in Arlington National Cemetery, while his father is in Constantine. I've no idea who Julia might have been, but reading about the man I suspect was the recipient of my book I like to think her gift helped to shape who he was.
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Here's my new closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain. *****************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain." The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.
At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week. This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here. (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.) Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -
- There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I have long recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
- You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
- The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:
- David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
- Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain
- Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
- Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
- Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/
- Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html
This reminds me, you're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links. Tim's site is so huge, probably updating it would be a full-time job. In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online after she could no longer maintain it. For an example of using the "Wayback Machine", list member, Papa Joe is on both Time Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is gone, but you can still see it. I put in his site's address, then chose 2006 since it was a later year and clicked until I reached the Library at http://www.pjtss.net/library/.
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