The Saga of The Monstrous Glisson Glop
In 2020, I wrote an essay called “Thankfulness.” The point was there were people you met along the way in your life, who had a positive influence on you, to the extent that, years later, it might be worth going back and thanking them for what they did for you.
They were gym coaches, Boy Scout and Girl Scout leaders, the surgeon who enabled you to walk, the lifeguard who had saved you child’s life, your first creative writing teacher, and even school friends who came to the rescue when bullies were pounding you down.
Of those who read the essay, a surprising number took the concept to heart and did some soul searching. Within a few weeks and then months, several of them sent me follow-ups on how the essay had affected them. They also told me about their recent encounters with those in their lives, from long-ago, who they reached out to and thanked. All were very moving letters.
Recently, I did a re-review of my own life to see if I had missed anyone who’d had that positive effect on me. I realized one, who now seems so obvious, I am almost embarrassed that I missed her on the first go-around.
The search, the find, the call, the emailed letter, and then the follow-up from her end of my long-in-the-tooth delayed thankfulness, became a story, in itself. That is thanks to my new friend, Diane Redfield Massie, now 94-years old, and still sharp as a tack.
The cover of the original hardbound edition of The Monstrous Glisson Glop, 1970
Dear Ms. Massie,
Years ago, when my second son was in second grade (1989), he came home from school with a textbook that included your poem, The Monstrous Glisson Glop. At the time, I did not know the story was also published in its own book. Importantly, however, I had an ability to memorize stories and poems for children.
So, it was not too audacious when eight-year-old Sebastian asked me to memorize this one—only about 24 stanzas long! Over the next several weeks, I did just that on my commute to work at the Washington Field Office of the FBI. The only fortunate thing about the terrible traffic in Northern Virginia, on the way to the Nation’s Capital, was that it gave me plenty of time to memorize your poem.
Finally, I recited it in my son’s class, acting out the parts of both the monster and the little fish. It was a grand success. Having five children, this was something that took on a life of its own. Sebi was the second born, so the same performance took place in the classrooms of my younger children, as they progressed in school.
Soon I was invited to children’s birthday parties—some, by families we did not even know—but whose children were at parties where I had done my lively recitation. As long as my own kids were also invited—it was fine with me!
Years later, when I learned the story was in its own book, published in 1970, I began to buy them up. I gave them out to young couples who had young children—spreading the wealth—and there were dozens of them.
Over time, I cornered the market on the book. Then its price began to skyrocket to over $100 on Amazon. I believe I created a worldwide demand. Whenever its cost fell as low as $15 dollars, I scarfed up another. Without you, as the author, knowing what I was doing, I think it, literally, forced the book into a second, softbound, printing in 2017, 47-years after it was first published.
Now it is much easier for me to continue with my minimally philanthropic ways, all with very good intentions, and no one is the wiser, except the well-selected recipients. I am still, always, on the search for an original hardbound book. I have had so many grateful young parents thanking me for the gift—your gift—that, one day, I realized I would need to reach out to you and thank you for what you are, what you wrote, and for you to hear just some of the results.
That day is today!
I was in the FBI for 29 years, much of it working foreign counterintelligence, that is, catching spies for a living. A good memory is important in that work, too. But, now retired, I am a licensed private investigator in Florida, and travel state, nation, and worldwide for dozens of investigations. But it also means I have friends with access to pretty comprehensive databases.
I had tried to send a letter to you through your publisher, but they are a tight-lipped set of people. I wanted to make this personal, one-on-one, reader-to-writer.
I found three addresses for you, in Santa Fe, New Jersey, and St. Thomas. My question was—Where do I send my letter?
I am now a very healthy 75-years old, and while you have a few years on me, it is my view that it is never too late to express thankfulness to those who have done well by you, even if they are not aware of the effect they have had on your life, and on so many others.
That is what this is. On behalf of myself, the friends who have received from me the dozens of original 1970 editions of The Monstrous Glisson Glop, special gifts to families with newborns, and for the hundreds of children I entertained, reciting and acting out your poem—for all of that—we thank you so very much!
As the father of five, now ages 32-to-43, my rule was—never miss a school play, a back-to-school night, a baseball or soccer game, track or swim meet—anything your offspring experience in childhood. I never missed any of these for my children, and those are the “words of wisdom” I offer to parents. But along with that, my message, “Read to your children, start early and they will learn to read on their own, and they will love it.”
Starting with The Monstrous Glisson Glop.
Ms. Massie, please accept fond regards, from a very avid fan,
Wayne A. Barnes
A two-page, handwritten letter from Diane Redfield Massie
The Komodo Dragon’s Jewels, hardcopy, first edition, 1975
Signed by Diane to Wayne, with drawings of a bird and butterfly, March 2023