How many of you know that the rubber eraser was invented by a man from London named, Edmund Nairne? To tell you the truth, before I began this novel, I didn't know either. I know one thing, however, that we really take erasers for granted. There's one on every pencil. and it seems, at least in my case, that the eraser is the first thing to wear out. I make a lot of mistakes you know. Hopefully, my writing, "Curse of the Eraser" was not a big mistake, too.
The eraser that the story is named after is one of the first erasers produced by the aforementioned Edmund. In the story line, he sent this particular eraser to the Palmer family of Madison County, New York. In real life, this particular clan of the Palmer family really did settle in that place and a tiny town called, Brookfield. The reason I know all of this is because my wife's family can be traced back to these people. I have been to their farm, nestled in the country in an apple orchard planted two centuries ago. It is a cool place. The five acres there are still in the Palmer family name, but seeing as the Palmer I knew passed away a couple of years ago, I don't completely know the current status of ownership.
Buried there on the property are ancestors that grew up in England, the colonies and right there on the farm. The names of the people will seem strangely familiar when the book is read, because some of them are in there. Which leads me to mention this: it will be difficult to determine what is fact and what is fiction in "Curse of the Eraser". That is the fun of it!
The Eraser is just like any other; an opaque square, much like modern day art erasers. And it works just like an other, well, at least to a degree. The difference is that this eraser, really erases! It is cursed in this way: if you erase someones name with malice- that person dies. If you try to destroy it because you know what it can do-you die. And, if you don't pass it on to the next generation- the entire family shall die! How the Freemason that cursed the eraser like this came up with it, we shall never know. However, the why of it, we do know.
Next: Why curse an eraser anyway?
No comments:
Post a Comment