{"id":4551,"date":"2025-04-19T19:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T23:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/?p=4551"},"modified":"2025-04-23T08:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T12:43:22","slug":"goldspiel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/2025\/04\/19\/goldspiel\/","title":{"rendered":"Edna and Al"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Harrison Goldspiel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Can a Head<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It began with a man and a woman, as many stories do.

They met on the beach in the Rockaways at the southern edge of Queens. It was the crux of the 20th century, an indelible ecotone of time. Families sprawled across the sandy peninsula like so many ants, enjoying an innocent pause between one war and another.

Albert was a fortunate man. After a short period of training in the Colorado mountains, he found himself miraculously spared from war, returning home to New York instead of Korea. Returning to a large family and the certain pleasures provided by the coastal city.

It\u2019s hard to say what he first noticed about her. Edna was a peculiar woman of many signals. She rode bikes and roller skated. She climbed billboards and trees. She smoked cigarettes. Of all her curious signals, smoking was the only one he cared to extinguish.

Edna was an artist. Shortly after their first oceanside encounter, she invited him to her family\u2019s home in Brooklyn to make his head. He didn\u2019t quite understand what she meant then, luring him to a quiet room with a solemn chair and instructing him to sit down. After retreating to another room, she returned to him with a giant block of clay. She made his head.<\/p>\n\n\n