"Ink, String, Paper and Glue"

This was the mantra of the encyclopedia salesman with whom we spent a memorable hour--our first San Antonio guest, 1967.

Winded from the one flight of stairs, the rumpled man sank into our one brown chair--did we have something to drink? maybe water?--and began his spiel with newlyweds who'd have had to sell the car to buy anything beyond groceries. We let him roll.  He lit a cigarette, gulped the water, and unpacked his bulky bag.

He spread cardboard displays on our brown carpet, while I sat on the brown sofa and my groom continued to add ink to the painting above the book man's head, one he'd started in graduate school and hauled to Texas.  I thumbed through the A volume, flipping the pages under Anatomy that revealed a layer of plastic pages each showing a map of its own territory: muscles on one, bones on another, organs on another.

The painting above the salesman's head featured an abstract female nude body.  Since we lacked funds for more ink and more canvas, the only thing to do was to continue adding black to the canvas of the one piece of art in the house.  (Adding ink, I can't resist saying, until it was completely black, and had to be tossed on the curb as garbage shortly thereafter.)

"All you're paying for is ink, string, paper, and glue," the book man said with a dour expression on his sweaty face, laying out the monthly payment plan, just a few dollars a month.

In future years, we'd often quote the book man, cementing that phrase in our memory: "All you're paying for is ink, string, paper and glue."

While we didn't buy his books, then or later, he'd given us a catchy phrase, one that I'm thinking of lately as I actually purchase inks, punches, papers, adhesives and other paper crafting supplies:

alcohol inks
Yupo paper
water colors
pencils
strings and threads
stencils

Acquiring the right supplies--whether for cooking (if you still cook) or making things or traveling--it's a sign that you're all in, that you can play better with possibilities.  When we can afford ink and string, paper and glue, we can make up for poorer times and avoid overworking the same old canvases.