Above: Harry Smith's formula for success.
With a full biography of Harry Smith by John Szwed published this summer, Cosmic Scholar, there is renewed interest in our Nothwest-bred instigator/investigator of the underground. Harry Smith is known as a film maker, painter, librarian, anthropologist, collector and designer. Paper airplanes. Tarot cards. gourds. Harry Smith had many interests.
Our Bret Lunsford chronicles the origin of Harry Smith's wide range of interests and skills in his book Sounding for Harry Smith (Knw-Yr-Own Press). Lunsford traces the Smith legend from his ancestors through his early life in Anacortes, Washington on Fidalgo Island, to his abbreviated stab at higher education attending the University of Washington. Beach combing, art lessons, Latin Club, Native American rituals and haunted salmon canneries: Lunsford has done extensive research on the early Harry Smith, including exclusive interviews with Smith's surviving high school classmates.
Although Sounding for Harry Smith was written and published last year, Bret Lunsford has continued his exploration of the Harry Smith saga. Lunsford now writes a newsletter about his latest findings, Resounding - Harry Smith in NW Washington, Discoveries and errata since Sounding for Harry Smith, to which one can subscribe HERE. Recent issues of Resounding have featured information about how Harry planned to spend $1000.00 in 1939 (it involves a lifetime subscription to National Geographic and a rest home for English teachers, among other things) development of his "Formula for Success" in life, and testimonials about how his experiences with NW Native American tribes have shaped his world view. Fascinating stuff! Lunsford published Resounding - Harry Smith in NW Washington on an irregular basis, as the data surfaces. Check into it.
Above: The biography of Harry Smith's Pacific Northwest boyhood by Bret Lunsford, Sounding for Harry Smith (Knw-Yr-Own Press), available now from The K Mail Order Dept.