so ! another small world book story, very similar to the one
with my w.c. heinz book below ... this new version was sent to me
(again) by gayle heinz, savior of 'once they heard the cheers' ...
almost as good a book story as mine ...
click the pictures for easier reading ...
below from September 23, 2025
so, it was 1980 when i first met the
sportswriter WC Heinz, who lived in Dorset, VT,
a 20 minute drive from where we lived in Arlington at the time.
he asked if i would build a hutch for their daughter Gayl
and i willingly agreed, as i was just in the process of
becoming a full time furniture maker.
below is a note on the history of the hutch that i received,
i believe, on the 20th anniversary of the delivery of the piece!
you can click the picture to enlarge it ...
W.C. was a gracious gentleman
and we hit it off pretty much immediately ...
this photo is from 2022. it took a while for the project to play out:
saw the logs, dry the lumber, for me to figure out what i was doing,
but in the end it turned out to be a real piece of furniture!
i remember being very proud of it, and i was thrilled
when i delivered it to Gayl who welcomed
it into her home outside of Boston. on the completion of
the project, Bill gave me a copy of his book
'Once They Heard the Cheers', with what i remembered
as a wonderful inscription on the title page ...
Betty and Bill before they passed, i don't think i saw Gayl again until 2023
when she was in town for a high school reunion. it was
the year that Will was inducted into the Burr and Burton
hall of fame for the arts. she recognized the name and touched
base with me afterwards.
but i came up empty handed ...
time passed again, and she had a gift for me when she arrived today!
a copy of the book i couldn't find ...
how she came by it and what it actually is,
is the small world story ...
her daughter got married this past summer in new hampshire.
before the wedding one of the bride's friends was in a used
bookstore, knew the relationship of the book to the
bride's grandfather, bought it, and passed it on to her.
because of what was inside, the daughter passed it to
her mom, who passed it to me today. you can't make this up!
ACTUALLY MY LONG LOST BOOK!!!
how this happened, i have no idea
Kit says it was 'karma' ...and i'll buy that.
i may have loaned it to someone who didn't return it,
or we may have accidentally de accessioned
it when we moved from Arlington to dorset in 1996
but, who knows?
below is some more info on mr. heinz, the sportswriter ...
click the photos to enlarge them ...
the back of the book ..
here's to Karma!
one (almost) final note ...
W.C. Heinz is justly famous for two other things:
#1. his collaboration with former military surgeon
Richard Hornberger to get the 1968 book 'Mash'
published. the rest of that is history:
book, movie, television show! what a legacy!
and #2. a short article from 1949 in the New York Sun
titled 'death of a racehorse' .. an essay justly compared to
Hemingway and others as one of the 'finest short stories' of all time ...
the link to it above goes to a discussion of the story,
and still, on it goes ...
when i got an email from gayl in september telling me that
she would be in town for her reunion, i looked one more time
and then ordered a copy of it from thrift books.
that one didn't arrive until two days after she left so
i then asked her if i could send it to her daughter ...
her reply is below ...
on we go!
