Posterity and Nostalgia

I made an astonishing and stunningly wonderful discovery today that made my heart sing. I know that sounds a little over the top and corny but bear with me. In my "Big O" post I uploaded a Saturday Evening Post cover of trick or treaters. The moment I typed Saturday Evening Post a metaphorical cartoon lightbulb appeared in balloon a cartoon .

Many of you know that both my Dad and I have been on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post as well as a third cover that featured our odd little car. My Dad was into buying strange little cars. I learned to drive on a German Borgward.

I've been on a mission to find all the covers that the artist painted.


Could I find the artist online? Would I be able to find the covers he painted? Would I find myself on the internet? So I googled Earl Mayan.

Earl was a neighbor of ours, one of my Dad's best friends, my Dad's tennis partner, the host of a fourth of July party that I can conjure images of even to this day and probably the inspiration for my own 4th of July party and, of course, an excellent artist.I am lucky to have inherited some of his paintings.

And there I found them... "Rainy Saturday" Earl is the disappointed golfer on the left and my Dad is the happy gardener on the right.
This is the "Big Hill" not the real title of this cover but what we all called it. Woodhollow Lane was the major road into our subdivision. It was huge (to our eyes), steep and long. Earl is leaning on the shovel. An aged version of my Dad is shoveling, I am on my stomach on my sled behind my Dad. My best friend Christine is in the middle sitting and Earl's daughter is at the bottom.
"Traffic Jam"

See that ugly olive green car in the top right of this picture? It's our English Hillman. You can see it repeated in the traffic jam.

What a find!