3441. MY FOUR WONDERFUL GADZOOKS

 MY FOUR WONDERFUL 

GADZOOKS

(PT. 1  -  SECOND BANK OF THE U.S.  - 
PHILADELPHIA, PA)*

I slipped silently across the walkway,

hoping not to be seen. All that I'd learned

about situations such as this led me to realize that,

by working only in the shadows, I could probably

remain totally unseen. Circuitous reasoning such

as this was, I remained confident nonetheless.

Few people remembered I'd ever been here

before, and this old hulk of a building really held

little meaning in this more modern day : Gouvernor

Morris, as it were, had starved himself dead in a

little cell, a pauper in his poorhouse - once wealthy,

now savaged - for funding a revolution. I had read

once how he'd gone mad for ice cream in his very

last days; wishing for something cold and truly

American in his miserable cell of all those declining

days. How sad. Ah! I'd finally reached the walkway

landing. I slowly lifted up the heavy, steel-black latch.

It gave, the door slid open, and I walked in. So dark,

in these after hours, the portrait gallery seemed eerie.

All those long dead, early American faces, and

the Park Service people would never even know

I was here. I slowly made my way forward, carefully

peering through the dark  -  banks of paintings and

scenes met my stare. Dusky and dark, everything was

as I remembered it, as I knew it would be. Past all

those portraits I crept; stealthy, quiet and sure. Finally!

Finally reaching my goal, I approached the painting I'd

selected  -  a winsomely bucolic scene of some old

American farm, set in the side lee of a dusty, twisting dirt

road 'midst trees, a well, a house and barn, a wagon,

and even a broken down old fence. I'd reached my goal!

Now, the moment  -  I hunched down, bent over carefully,

and lunged, throwing myself headlong into the painting,

forcing myself into another realm, one I was sure I could

enter - with nothing more than a major, mental concentration

and intensity. With that, a whirring rush of air, a cold, weird

feeling, and then, Wham! I landed awake, on the hard, dirt of

the roadway! I realized my place, got up, looked back, and

began walking off. Success! Looking back once more, to be

sure, I knew it had worked. Receding behind me, all that

muck of the modern world through which I'd come. I was free,

dusty again and unharmed. I walked off, happily, into that

world from which I'd once come. A rugged place, still unknown,

and still full of promise. Gadzooks, I'd done it!

*The old Second Bank of the US, at 420 Chestnut St., in
Philadelphia, now houses the National Portrait Gallery as
well as other paintings. The grand, old building itself, still
open for visitors, is operated by the National  Parks Service.