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The Gryphons Are Back
Still further information is at hand regarding the gryphon, this printer’s mark.
And about demi-gryphons, too. Mr. Conant Brodribb, proprietor of The Demi-Griffin Press, of Oxford, England, sent much material, gathered as a result of his own interest in the beast. The demi-gryphon (one is shown here) is part of Brodribb’s family coat of arms, about which I shall report more in a future issue.
My research into gryphons has recurrently suggested a Welsh connection. It is proving hard to pin down, however.
Brodribb sees a Welsh connection in “the similarity of the word ‘griffin’ to the Welsh surname, ‘Griffiths’ or “Gruffyd’ and I would not be surprised if there were somehow a much older link with the Welsh dragon emblem.”
The city of Radnor, Pa., one of a number settled largely by Welsh immigrants, takes the gryphon as part of its official seal for granted (although there was a recent effort to displace it, an adventure I will also report on at another time).
In an earlier Gryphon I said I knew of no college other than Canisius College, Syracuse, New York, which uses the gryphon as an athletic symbol. But Charlie Bush has sent me a copy of The Griffon News, published at the Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph, Mo. Students are referred to as the “Griffs.” Shown here as the gryphon the newspaper employs on its front page. Thank you, Charlie.
Finally, Dave Tribby sent a clipping from the student daily at Stanford University where, as reported earlier, a group is campaigning for adoption of the gryphon as an athletic mascot. A student plebiscite is expected.
Stanford’s gryphon-advocates base their case on a pair of historically obscure statues on the campus; the statues are of what are described as “mutant gryphons,” the heads being those of lions instead of eagles.
The Moon
III
Jack Lehigh caught himself walking too fast again. Not that Lois would ever say anything; she’d keep up. But it was impolite, and besides, the slower they walked, the longer it would be before he had to give her up at her front door.
These Saturday nights together were now a three-month-old tradition. Half of Jack’s weeks were Sunday mornings, filled with memory of the last Saturday night; the other half were Saturday afternoons, filled with painful impatience for evening and his date with Lois to come.
It had never rained – not once – on Saturday night during the three months. They’d commented on it more than once and had told each other again this night, as they had walked to the theater and as they now were walking back, how fine it was that the rain today had stopped when it did.
Jack and Lois were seniors in high school. They would graduate in a few months and Jack had played out to himself, in the privacy of his cluttered room at home, life at college with Lois.
He had been a long time befriending Lois; or she him. He wasn’t sure which. But the last few Saturday nights he had been to the point of showing her how much he cared. He thought, when the rain had first begun to fall, that it would not be a good night at all, now that he had made up his mind to share his feelings with her.
But the rain had stopped and some stars were out, and even the moon now, which hadn’t been visible when they’d gone into the theater. The moon, like some glorious good luck piece, had left the nearest clouds far behind, Jack reflected as he slowed his pace and looked upward.
They joked and laughed, but his thoughts were far ahead of them, impatiently outdistancing their leisurely footsteps. He looked at her again in the moonlight, loved her more, and lost or gained bravado with each successive glance.
Then they were at her home and she sat on the topmost step of the front porch. He sat beside her and took her hand in his. The laugh on her lips suddenly died and her gaze followed his to the moon.
“It looks like a perfect hole cut in the sky, with a light behind it,” she said.
He glanced at her; his eyes soft. He opened his mouth to tell her he loved her, couldn’t, and pressed her hand more tightly in his.
He tried to rally his courage, but failed, all this thoughts going helter-skelter.
As he studied her, she glanced moonward again. He felt her warm hand contract a bit in his, heard her “Oh!” and saw her raise her free arm to point. He shook himself, looked up, and saw what she saw: the bank of clouds, far away before, racing to the moon.
He felt a surge within himself and his hand grasped her more tightly. Suddenly he had told her, with an urgency not even he understood. She smiled and they were locked in an embrace before the moon yielded and the clouds, satisfied for the moment, patiently gathered force for the final siege….
(To Be Continued)
To Be Known
by Ben Patterson in
The Wittenburg Door
Of all the analogies and images suggested to characterize modern man, the most compelling, for me, remains that of a human being riveted in front of a television set. A Philadelphia radio station recently offered 127 families $500 to stop watching the tube for just one month. Ninety-three refused outright, and one woman admitted that her husband gets up from the set only twice each evening: to eat and to go to bed.
I would like you to look closely at this quintessential human being glued before his TV set and ponder his life. Each day dozens of TV personalities come smiling into his living room and he knows each one. But he is never known.
Notice also his surroundings. Prominent will be a stereo hi-fi, a radio, and a telephone. He can be sung to, spoken to, and dialed by a computer. But, again, he is not known. The identity issue for him is not “Who am I?” but, “Even if I know who I am, I have no significance, I can influence no one.”
No human being can tolerate this numbing impotence for very long. So, latent in our 20th century man is always the David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, the mass murderer. If he cannot be known, he can at least strike out and shock us into feeling, into making us both feel something. But most of the time quintessential modern man just sits there in dull isolation, detached from himself and those near him, from his own values and theirs.
Notes from a Journal
Ronny Zamora’s recent murder defense was that he was conditioned by television to violence and killing. It didn’t work. I think a more plausible defense (and explanation for many similar crimes) would have been that young Zamora suffered what Ben Patterson describes on the center pages of this issue. Zamora and his mother, in their testimony, both described him as a “loner,” ignored and “unknown.”
A fortune awaits the man who invents a delicious, crunchy, lip-smacking snack food that has absolutely no calories. Meanwhile, I am losing weight by hard dieting. I’ve lost 16 of my 260 pounds en route to 200. Then I will tackle my smoking habit.
In response to inquiries, yes, I took a photo of an inchworm head-on (or tail-on; I’m not sure which). Here it is, folks:
The Gryphon
A hobby journal, hand-set and printed
by Walter H. Brovald
St. Paul, Minn. 55105