Chapter 1: Dramatis Personae

John Bayne Selby, a cavalry brat from either Cheyenne or Roswell (depending on the needs of the story involved), formed a duet with Jane Claire Dentry of Baltimore, got her with child, and went to Korea where he served the army honorably as the only doctor who could operate the newly invented artificial kidney. The child was named Bayne. Upon his return the trio set up housekeeping in a Quonset hut near the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The climate being cold, and the parents young and vigorous, led to the production of another son, Henry, two and a half years later. For reasons lost to history, the quartet then moved to Lexington, Kentucky where Dr. Selby busily helped to found the Lexington Clinic. There they produced the third and final fruit of their loins, Rebecca, and the quintet was complete. The children were given nicknames of Buzz, Hank, and Beka.

I am Henry. My wife Cindy and I have three children. My older brother is Bayne. He and his wife Lynda have three children. Our younger sister is Rebecca. She lives with our parents on Sullivans Island, South Carolina. If she had married, she also would have three children. This is what we do. I know this because our mother and father each came from three-children families. It’s genetic.

Our eldest is Lillian, a driven and hard working graphic designer with a deep longing for beauty. Next is Caroline, a quixotic crusader, majoring in music, who will march into hell for a heavenly cause. Son Hank is only nine, but already showing the danger signs of art. His singing voice is celestial. My children are all artists of one sort or another, God forbid. I am surrounded by them and many others like them. They are moths to my flame: they come at me, surround me, choke the reality of workaday life from my every breath and extinguish the taper of pragmatism that my American schooling so carefully tried to dip in the tallow of capitalism.

My brother’s children are also artists. How can this be? Claire, the firstborn, is off to Europe again to study metallurgy so her jewelry designs will achieve Germanic precision. Isabelle floats between New York and Charleston museums on the winds of violin concertos that have been her sustenance since early childhood. John, at least, seems to eschew “fine” art by wailing away on an electric guitar, though he is not safely indemnified. He has a fine voice and plays a remarkable number of instruments.

Our wives may be at fault, for they are gifted both musically and with those tools commonly associated with artists such as charcoal, brushes and canvas. Cindy, however, has been a paralegal, medical assistant, and is a Stephen Minister. Lynda, likewise, is a nurse who among other billets, operated a treatment center and served on a vestry. I am a headmaster. Bayne is a medical doctor. These are down-to-earth occupations. What is the root of this art problem?

These are the major players, the principals, in my story. You will meet others. It is all true.