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"The Path to Nowhere", a window screen painting, is a Ben Richardson creation. The image was most generously contributed to this site by Tom Lipka ~ from his collection. The article on this page mentions Uncle Ben playing Beautiful Dreamer on his fiddle. The tune was written by Stephen Foster in 1862.
"THE
PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE"
There's a path that leads to Nowhere In a meadow that I know,
Where an inland river rises And the stream is still and slow;
There it wanders under willows And beneath the silver green
Of the birches' silent shadows Where the early violets lean.
Other
pathways lead to Somewhere, But the one I love so well
Had no end and no beginning--- Just the beauty of the dell,
Just the windflowers and the lilies Yellow striped as adder's tongue,
Seem to satisfy my pathway As it winds their sweets among.
There
I go to meet the Springtime, When the meadow is aglow,
Marigolds amid the marshes, And the stream is still and slow;
There I find my fair oasis, And with carefree feet I tread
For the pathway leads to Nowhere, And the blue is overhead.
All
the ways that lead to Somewhere Echo with the hurrying feet
Of the struggling and the Striving But the way I find so sweet
Bids me dream and bids me linger--- Joy and Beauty are its goal;
On the path that leads to Nowhere I have sometimes found my soul.
by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Ben Richardson painted window screens in East Baltimore in the 1940s through the 1980s. My Uncle Ben loved attention and was proud of all the times he was featured in the media. This is a clipping from a Baltimore, Maryland newspaper that appeared about 1967:
LOU PANOS INSIDE BALTIMORE
'Citizens At Work'My meeting with Ben Richardson, the friendly fiddler of Old Town, was one of those planned accidents. A friend had called me the day before to suggest that there was a citizen worthy of study on a parking lot along Hillen Street opposite Belair Market. 'This guy looks like he works on the parking lot,' the friend said, 'but there's something funny about him. He just stands out there on the lot and plays a violin.' When I drove to the section known as Old Town in search of the citizen, I parked in a city-owned, metered lot near the market, looked up, and spotted a wiry, tanned gentleman walking toward my car. He wore a white hat, a windbreaker and work pants. 'Seven o'clock,' he said as if we were in the middle of a long conversation. I checked my watch. It said 3:30. 'What's seven o'clock?' I asked. 'Me,' he answered brightly. 'On television tonight.' 'That's fine,' I said. 'And who are you and why will you be on television?' 'Ben Richardson. Everybody around here knows me. They had the cameras down here a little while ago and I played for them.' He held up his right hand, from which only a thumb protruded. The fingers were lost, he explained, in an industrial accident. 'I was 15 and I didn't have any money to buy my mother a Christmas present. So I lied about my age and got a job in a sheet metal shop. First day on the job I got my hand caught in a machine. That was 48 years ago. Worse things have happened to other people. Doesn't stop me from playing. I paint window screens, too.' I asked Ben if he would play for me and he headed back toward his parking lot shack to get his violin while I stepped across the street to inspect one of his screen paintings, a neatly done waterfall. As he tuned up, he showed me several slips of paper with song titles inked on them. 'Requests,' he said. 'I get 'em all the time. The guards and prisoners at the City Jail send some down, and the people working in that Gas & Electric building across the street are always asking me to play something. You can see them hanging out the windows, listening to me at lunch time. Yesterday I played from nine to four-thirty. Didn't even eat my own lunch.' Ben adjusted an amplifier, put the bow to his fiddle and the strains of 'Beautiful Dreamer' filled the air over Old Town. Passing cars and pedestrians slowed as they passed. Shoppers and residents from across the street paused. Some shook their heads and some just stared. Ben Richardson, lost in his music, oblivious to all else, played on.
RICHARDSONs from Hounslow Heath
| Memorial to Edward Arthur James Richardson | | Primrose Day ~ April 19th | | The Screen Painters of Baltimore | | Ted Richardson in the News, 1985 | | Obituary of Ted Richardson | | Uncle Ben's Stories | | Ben Richardson in LA Times | | Ben Richardson ~ The Washington Post | | Ben Richardson, Baltimore Sun | | Richardson Artwork | | Ben Richardson in The News American | | Ben Richardson in Folk Art Book | | Harry Richardson and Family | | Aunt Flo's Letters| |Aunt Florrie's Journal| |Frank Arthur Edward Heming, World War 1| |Grandfather's Memoirs| |Arthur Richardson Memoirs 1| |Arthur Richardson Memoirs 2| |Richard Richardson's Story| |Edward and Emily's Saga| |Dr. Jamison and the Boer War| |Hounslow Heath, England| |Hounslow, England 1831| |Farm Laborer's Cottage of 1860s| |John and Polly Mills| |Smiths of Chelmsford| |Richardson Genealogy & Scrapbook| |Links of Interest|
RICHARDSONs from
Hounslow Heath ~ Ben Richardson's "The Path to Nowhere"
Copyright ©2001-2004 Edna Barney, All Rights Reserved
~~www.ednabarney.com~~
Thanks to Mary's Little
Lamb for the backgrounds.
This page was last modified on 16 November 2004.
