Self-indulgent Post Number 1
This post was supposed to be about protowhales. This is my blog however, and I’m postponing the post! Why? Because today is November 29th, 2006. 60!!! Yes, 60 years ago today, early on Friday evening, November 29th, 1946, I wriggled and screamed my way into the world. It’s been all downhill. Born to Harold Ronald Buell and Eleanor Virginia Brust, it was as if they were breeding for an athlete. That it didn’t exactly work out wasn’t their genes’ fault. My father was a local baseball legend and a starting guard of the Nott Terrace High School (Schenectady), New York State men’s championship basketball team, 1934. My mother, also an athlete, was the star forward of the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School women’s New York State champs, 1936 or 37, and one of the best woman bowlers in the state in the 1950s. They met when he saw her play in a women’s city league game after she graduated.
Legend is not too strong a word. Dad started playing for money with a traveling team at 16 during The Depression. It’s hard to imagine today how popular baseball was in the 1930s. When dad played for GE, 10,000 people would show up for a Saturday game. He always led off and led the team in batting. In 1939 he won the title by a mere 110 points hitting 519! I couldn’t do that in Little League. Yes, the GE team really was called “the Refrigerators”!
My father used to love to tell the story of their first date. Always the romantic, after a casual diner dinner he took mom to the local bowling alley where my mother proceeded to beat him by 100 pins in a three game match to the accompanying hoots and laughter of his friends. I call it a match, because while it started out as fun, it soon became apparent that “popular baseball star” was being trounced by “girl”. Dad got serious, but it only got worse. He always jokingly insisted that he didn’t really want to continue the relationship (a lie, mom was a hottie - see below); he simply kept coming back asking for dates trying to beat her. He never did, and fell in love instead. It was much easier.
World War II ended dad’s baseball dreams. He was called up by both the Cleveland Indians and the US Army in the summer of 1941. The Army won the contract and dad was on a ship on his way to the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He didn’t see my mother for over 3 years. My mother passed the time by marrying some guy named White and then having the marriage annulled after a very short time. This part of the story didn’t come out until I was 17. It’s still unclear to me exactly what happened exactly when, but she was waiting for dad when he came home, so whatever occurred, they worked it out long distance. After the war, dad was invited to tryouts by Brooklyn and St.Louis, but experiences in the Pacific had left him shaken and at the time, my mother seemed more comforting then baseball.
My father Harold, mother Ellie, and My dad’s brother Don, also a terrific ballplayer and later New York State amateur golf champion. As the first Buell of my post-war generation, the expectations were enormous.
Banking on his local popularity, dad got a job as a sportswriter and turned his love for sports into a 45-year career. Later he would win an Associated Press award as outstanding minor-league baseball writer (for an early 50s series called “View From the Dugout”), but at that moment he was happy just to be home, employed, and engaged. My parents were married, March 1946, and 8 months later, I was born.
I was a honeymoon baby!
Mom and I. This is the earliest picture I could find of myself. I know there are maternity ward pictures somewhere, but I had all the wrinkles then that I’m getting back now.
Yeah, sure. The family mythology says that while 8 months pregnant, my mother, ever the athlete, tried to move the springs of a 1945 Desoto that were in her way on the porch and immediately went into labor. I don’t think that explanation holds water however, because after mom’s broke, I was born 7 lbs. 9 oz., a perfectly respectable birth weight.
Mom and I during our “Grapes of Wrath” phase.
There was hardly any room in the cradle what with the bat, ball and glove, but I managed. It seemed like a good start to a life, and it was, at least for a while. Things would change, but that’s a story for another time. Today I’ve been alive for a full 60 years and I want to enjoy the moment, giving it all the how-the-hell-is-this-possible fear it deserves. Friday I’ll have another whale post up.
Until then I’ll leave you with a photo of a type of unfortunate behavior that would make my life all too complicated in the coming years. It was taken in Schenectady, New York, the summer of 1948.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Cool post Carl! Happy Birthday buddy!
November 29th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Oldavia Georgie Pudding and Pie
Kissed the girls and made them cry!
Many happy returns on the day!
November 29th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Zeke says happy birthday! So do I, of course.
November 29th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CARL!!!
November 29th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 29th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Well happy birthday to you, and many similarly self-indulgent returns! It’s a pleasure to the rest of us when you indulge yourself.
Damn, you’re almost as old as Joe.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
Happy birthday!
You were born in 1946…?
That makes you 39 years old, right?
November 29th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Happy Birthday to you!
The world is a zoo
And you paint it so lovely
That it makes me go Oooo!!!
Congratulations and best wishes for many more. I think it’s wonderful and entirely appropriate that you made this post about your remarkable parents.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Happy Birthday!
That “A Kiss is Still a Kiss” photo is surely a keeper.
There is something so bittersweet about reviewing old black-and-whites of those early days, no?. Memories not clear or lucid like yesterday; more like remembering having a memory. A photograph of long ago can assume the associative value of a smell; remember Vitalis?
The smell can conjure the images of guys long forgotten, faces and voices from long ago. Or the lavender scented perfumes worn by ladies who were old when we were young boys. Sometimes it can work in reverse. When I think of my grandmother’s friend Lila Johnson I can distinctly smell her though there is no similar odor in my contemporary recall. Lila - long gone but remembered through olfactory chemistry.
Any thoughts about the first comments made about you at the time of your birth? I ask because the one made about me still brings a chuckle when I reflect. ‘Bout quarter to eleven on the morning of April eleventh, 1951, in the Jackson, Wyoming hospital, as I came down the chute, Doc McCloud announced to my mother: “It’s a boy, Helen. And he’s got Tom’s ears”. Still got ‘em.
Many productive years to you, Carl. And thank you for your art, your blog, and your humanity. I have found these to be a most enjoyable. Press on!
November 29th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Happy Birthday. Stay better than carrots.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Happy birthday Carl.
Thanks for the images, their relevance to science, their art and beauty.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Woo! Happy, happy, George!
November 30th, 2006 at 12:02 am
I hope you enjoy 40 more so as to continue to dazzle us with your work. Thanks for sharing.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Happy Day-After-Birthday! (Sorry I’m late, my confuser was down for the last 2 days……)
November 30th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Happy 60th Carl. What a great post, and a great story!!
November 30th, 2006 at 1:24 am
Happy birthday George! It is still Tuesday for me!
November 30th, 2006 at 1:41 am
Congrats for making it 60. 60 more!
November 30th, 2006 at 2:36 am
Well, few things would make me break my long time lurking habits, but that’s a great way to celebrate your 60th! Happy birthday!
November 30th, 2006 at 3:03 am
Happy birthday!
November 30th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Happy birthday, late as that may come!
November 30th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Happy Birthday!
November 30th, 2006 at 9:01 am
FSM, sorry for missing it by a day… happy 60 and a day, Carl.
November 30th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Happy birthday - said belated.
November 30th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Awwww. Those pics are cute! (And yes, your mom was a hottie! So was mine.) George, can you believe that your parents and mine are from the same generation? My father served in WWII in the army–landed in Sicily and St. Tropez–he married my mom when he came home and I am the youngest (came, ahem, quite late, as does this greeting).
So I guess that makes us counsins?
But anyway. Happy birthday!
November 30th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Happy Belated Birthday Carl. This is really an amazing site!
November 30th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Happy belated, Carl. Love your site. I used to wonder where old people came from; now I understand, being one myself.
November 30th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
A day late, but still full of good cheer and birthday wishes. Those are great photos. It’s cool to look back at those old pics and remember the way it was. Hope you had a fantastic birthday.
November 30th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Happy birthday Carl! (One day late though). Curious…my father was also “Harold”. Born in 1910. You beat me by about two months. let me know how it feels so I can prepare!
Steve
December 1st, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Happy belated Birthday!
Absolutely lovely posting too.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Happy birth day Carl. It seems funny when you are 18, 60 seems ancient but now that I am 60 it seems quite young. May your work keep you young, and may your great art last forever.
Sandy
December 6th, 2006 at 8:15 am
My son, who shares your November 29 birthday (though a few years later — he just turned 2!) was born three weeks early, weighing 9 lbs. 3 oz. (We are as certain about the dates as you can be.) The honeymoon baby story is well within the realm of possibility (maybe you were just big and early) and may even be true.
Happy (belated) birthday!
December 6th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Happy Birthday Pop!
What makes you feel older- turning 60 or having a son that’s 36? Just kidding. Your grandchildren say hello and love you very much.
Bryce
December 9th, 2006 at 1:59 am
Um, Carl, your dad was (is?) really cute!
Oh, and happy birthday!
December 12th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Very happy belated birthday Carl. Yes your mother was lovely. And the photo of the children, boy and girl, a classic. I have one of me in a similar pose, with a cat. Oh well.
Ummm. Your father was. quite. nice. looking.
Too.
December 13th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
OK, Carl…I’m turning 65 in January and happy days I’m looking foward to retirement!! (I say that’s a ‘lucky’ girl in the Carl’s rowdy behavior photo)! :o) Happy Birthday a little late….Kathy
December 29th, 2006 at 3:16 am
Aww! Cute pictures! Happy late birthday to you.
Here’s to 60 more years! 
April 15th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Happy 60th Birthday !!!!
Thanks for the posts and the extremely beautiful and interesting paintings.
You made me wonder if by the time I’m sixty I still will be able to pull my old photo’s out of my iphoto album. Better get a backup right now… Thanks !
December 5th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Dear Mr. Buell,
I am trying to contact you for a survey on paleo-illustration that I am conducting for my masters degree. I am producing biographies on working artist in this field. Please contact me using my email address so I can get your information as accurate as possilbe. Thank You. Jamie Stroud
May 14th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Excellent post, very nicely written family history. Such “cute” pasts are always refreshing, many thanks for sharing….