Expressions of Sympathy

Expressions of Sympathy

8.5" x 11"

pencil

Several posts back, I wrote about going to the cemetery to meet people coming out after a funeral. Several of us would pick wildflowers, maybe put them in a fruit jar with water, and present them to people who were leaving the cemetery after a funeral. We thought they might be sad and deserved some flowers, too. And, of course, being children, we didn't have money to contribute toward flowers for the deceased. We wouldn't have known how to go about that, anyway.

Usually, we didn't even know who the person was who died, or any of the mourners. We could tell there was going to be a funeral when the grave was being dug in the cemetery in the next block. Edie lived right across the street and I lived in the next house toward the school, so we always knew when there were funerals.

In this drawing, I showed Judy on the left, waiting to give her flowers. Edie is handing her flowers to a well dressed lady who was wearing a hat with a veil, which most ladies did back then. I'm standing next to Edie, and Tootsie is on the right. Inside the cemetery gate, a couple is leaving and my brave little sister was there, giving her flowers to the lady. (We probably either pushed her in there, or she thought that we were right behind her! Or, maybe, she just saw those people and headed for them while we stopped at the gate.) We weren't brave enough to actually go into the cemetery, with all those strangers. Most likely, we had been warned to leave those people alone and stay away from the funeral. So, this was as close as we went, the street by Edie's house.

I do know that we waited on the little hill of Edie's front yard, and went back there as soon as we had given our flowers. We watched in silence as the people left and the hearse pulled away from the drive through the cemetery. We thought of what we would do for the next funeral, wondered when it might be, and who were these people that we had given flowers to, where did they live, and who did they leave behind in the cemetery. We couldn't help but wonder about death and what it was like and hope that it wouldn't come to us in the night.

There was an empty lot between Edie's house and mine, that was solid with red Indian Paintbrushes in the spring. On the other side of my house, between there and the school, was an empty half of a block that was also filled with the Indian Paintbrushes. Along with the Indian Paintbrushes, there were always some small yellow, pink, purple, and white flowers. And sometimes we could find a good stand of Sour Grass to chew on, or pretty Queen Annes Lace to add to our arrangements.

There also was a coffee weed that grew between our houses, that was good to add to our play-like soup or mud pies. It had bean pods growing on it. Daddy warned us about eating it, though, because he said it was poisonous.

Wild plum trees grew along the fence line at the back of the lots. That made for some wonderful homemade plum jelly, and beautiful spring blossoms.

We had plenty to pick from for our flower arrangements. We didn't seem to have any Bluebonnets, though. There were lots of flowers in flower beds around the neighborhood and in the park, but we knew we would get into trouble if we picked any of those.

The cemetery in Calvert is a lovely park-like place. Beautiful old statues in there, and many interesting tombstones. Before fire ants struck our area, it was a pleasant place to sit and reflect or just read about and think of the people who are resting there.

I thought I would add this drawing today, thinking of another former Calvert resident and member of one of the old families, who has died at age 95. I remember that, when I was a child, he returned to Calvert in his blue Navy uniform during or just after WWII. I remember him coming to Sneed Memorial Methodist Church, wearing the uniform. I remember hearing of "Sock" Norton, but I don't recall any of what was said. Maybe just that he was in the service, or that he was home, or something from Calvert High School days, long before my time there. I also remember him being in his father's clothing store, Norton's.

I was reading his obituary in" the Marlin Democrat", and thought about funerals, the cemtery, and Calvert. Hammond Norton's son, Bill, has restored the old Norton homeplace, now the Hammond House B&B. Most of us remember it as the old courthouse, which turned out to be all wrong. It seems that it was actually built to be a jail. You can read more about the Hammond House and it's history, with pictures, online. I have a link to it in my sidebar.

Like many who have roots in Calvert, Ham seems to have had a long and outstanding life.

I know that his family, and those who knew him, have many wonderful memories of him. They gathered on Saturday to celebrate his life in a place near the Brazos that was dear to him.

Do you remember that almost everyone in Calvert had a nickname, or they were known as Mr. or Miss, no matter if they were married or not? I can hear my dad, my uncles, and Grandpa, people in town, saying those names and bits and pieces about them. But what did they say about them? I don't remember. Wish I had written things down.

We had "Toot", "Honey", "Pappy", "Uncle Doc", "Uncle Tom", "Bupsie", "Shrimp", "Snucky", "BB", "Uncle Goose", "ED", "Dee" in our family. There was "Jolly", "Tootsie", "Chi Chi", "T-Bone", "Slick", "Sooky", "Missie", "Estella", "Goo", among others in school. Around town, there were nicknames like "Lightning", "Hoss", and "Possum". There were lots more, but those just came to me.

Some of us never got a nickname, and was I glad to be in that group. I thought that someone would probably come up with a horrible name for me, something that would be really embarrassing. I was relieved to get through school without that happening.

One time, about 5th or 6th grade, we all decided that we would not write out our names on our papers in school, and would just put initials instead. We were really looking for shortcuts with our writing as those corns on our fingers got really sore sometimes! And, besides, if we could manage to get away with something and put something over on the teachers, that would be so great! Dutifully, one day, we all put our initials on our papers, along with our school, class, and date.

The next day, when the teacher was returning our papers, she just embarrassed us rather than just telling us not to do that anymore or it wasn't acceptable. She called out, not our names, but what the initials might spell or stand for. The first paper was for "Cap". Another was from "Eb", and there was one for "an Oak tree". She pulled mine out from the bottom of the stack and said, "Oh , here is one from the Calvert Chamber of Commerce!" I wanted to melt into the floor! I looked at the floor, and sweated, as I walked to her desk to retrieve my paper, and back. It wasn't such a good grade anyway. I shouldn't have claimed it, but she knew who I was. She knew all of us, despite our efforts to change our identitity and confuse the teacher, with all her many assignments.

Most of those nicknames were wonderful. They made us wonder how they came about, and sometimes they just really fit the person. For some people, we only knew them by nicknames, and their real names just didn't seem to fit, if we ever even knew what those real names were.

Some of those nicknames became legend, in the stories of the school and town. As the older people and families pass on, however, those names and stories are being lost.

I know that some people didn't like their nicknames, or their real names. The more they didn't like something, the more it stuck.

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I can't believe that it is July already. What happened to June! I thought that I had a few days left, and, boom! All of a sudden it was the end of June!

I hope that you are planning some patriotic activities and family events for the Fourth and for the month of July.

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Through The LaSalle Hotel Coffee Shop Window

Texas Reds Festival

View Through LaSalle Hotel Coffee Shop Window

8.5" x 11"

pencil

This is another sketch from the 19th World Wide Sketch Crawl last Saturday. The Texas Reds Festival was getting off to a big start when we started our crawl in downtown Bryan.

This was the view looking out the LaSalle Hotel coffee shop window, where Pat and I sat at a table cooled off a bit. This wasn't all of the festival, by any means. It was merely the view that I could see through the window beside our table. The whole downtown area was involved.

There was a long tent that started in front of us, then went down the street toward the Palace Theatre. A long, covered table held some kind of goods. I really couldn't see what it was, though. I'm not sure if it was food, drinks, or wares that vendors were selling. There were children, and one had a balloon that floated toward the top of the tent. People were strolling by, looking, while workers pulled out things from boxes under the tables, and arranged them on the table.

As we left the coffee shop, to go look for the George Bush 4141 locomotive behind the Carnegie Library, a man, pushing a stroller with a small child in it, was stooping to pick up his wine glass and the shards of glass left when it was dropped and broke on the concrete sidewalk. In my drawing, I just showed the glass, with a little wine still in it, on the sidewalk.

Now that the Texas Reds Festival is over, people are looking forward to next year. The event seemed to be a big success with lots of good food, activities and entertainment, drinks, and things to look at- and attendance was good.

And we look forward to the next Sketch Crawl. Maybe in September? The date hasn't been set, yet.

My sister and I are planning a mini-sketch crawl, on our own, in Calvert, tomorrow, for a little while.

Take a look at the Sketch Crawl site to see some of the work that has been submitted from around the world. Robin Cheers has posted some of her sketches from the beach on her blog. She was on vacation, but participated in the crawl. You can find links to the Sketch Crawl and to Robin Cheers' blog on my sidebar.

Wishing you good sketching, painting, swimming, golf, tennis, barbequeing, picnicing, or whatever makes you happy this weekend. To borrow from Marvin Zindler.

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Here's a site that some of you may enjoy. If you like to use the computer to play with color and design, take a look at http://www.colourlovers.com/.

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If you are interested in genealogy, there is a new pilot program that might be of interest to you. It is through the LDS Family Search site. You can go to their site and click on a link in the upper right hand corner that says Pilot Program, and that will lead you to a page where you can search. Or you can go to

http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=2;c=1320964;t=searchable;w=

Since it is a pilot program, it is not available all the time. There are times when they are working on it.

Also, all the records are not there, yet. They are asking for people who are willling to help them transcribe. That information is available on their site.

It seems to be a wonderful project! I found a lot on there, and have barely scratched the surface.

I started out looking for Texas Death Records, but, soon, found that there were other things there, including some census records, passenger lists, and a few marriage records. There are more states than Texas, too.

This is going to be such a valuable tool for those researching their family history.

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Sketch Crawl Yesterday

Here are some of my sketches from the Sketch Crawl in downtown Bryan yesterday. There was a lot going on that I would have liked to have seen during the Texas Reds Festival, but the heat just got to be too much.
It took us forever, it seemed, to get to the Frame Gallery because of the streets being blocked off. More than had been planned, we learned. We ended up with my daughter dropping me off and I had to carry my chair, art supplies, and purse to the gallery.
Pat met me at the Frame Gallery after 9 a.m. After a little visit with Pat, Greta, the owner, and Sarah, her beautiful dog, we decided to venture on toward the LaSalle Hotel, where we hoped that others interested in sketching might meet us.
Walking a couple of blocks doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but you must understand that Pat has trouble walking, and I need a new pair of knees, and can't see worth a hoot from a distance due to wet Macular Degeneration and cataracts.
We put my things in her car, which she had parked before the baricades went up, and drove, as we had been directed, thinking we would find close by handicapped parking. We were told that a shuttle or tram would pick us up and take us to where we needed to go.
Since every street had barricades, we drove around the west, south, and finally on the east side of town, we found one volunteer who would move the barricade and showed us where handicapped parking was supposed to be. We found it at the BTU building, and walked to the street to wait for a shuttle. We saw people who were walking with someone in their party who had an electric cart or chair to ride around in. We asked a volunteer about the tram, since it was getting hot even under the shade of a small tree. They had not seen one all morning and didn't think there was a tram. They explained that parking was across town at Blinn college, and buses could be ridden to the festival. That wouldn't have helped us.
Beside the BTU building, a fire truck was parked and a first aid tent was set up. They had golf carts to ride in with their medical supplies. The volunteer asked the EMTs to take us to the LaSalle Hotel in one of their carts. So Pat rode on the back seat, and I rode up front with a very nice young EMT. They explained that, when we got ready to leave, we could ask a volunteer to call them and they would come back and pick us up. They took us to the LaSalle courtyard and we found the coffee shop.,Pat could get her coffee and we could cool off, while looking for other crawlers. We didn't see anyone else who looked like they might be ready to sketch, and, by that time, we were just ready to sit somewhere and cool off!
We sat by a big window of the lovely restored hotel. Outside the window was a long tent with various food items. Behind the hotel, there was smoke from the grills for the cook off. Further down the sidewalk at the Palace Theatre, a stage was set up and there was music playing. Directly across the street at the Carnegie Library, a stage had been set up with bales of hay for seats. The big grape stomp would take place there later.
We took a few photos with Pat's camera. When those come back, I'll post some to show where we were for the crawl.
I did a sketch of the street where we finally got through the barricade and called it "You Can't Get There From Here". I also sketched the area by the door, across from me, in the hotel. By this time, it was already 11:30.
We walked over to the Carnegie to see the George Bush engine, 4141, that was parked on the tracks between the Carnegie and the Bryan city library. There is a shaded area with a little garden between the Masonic Lodge, with a barber shop downstairs, and the Carnegie Library. Concrete seats and low walls provide a nice place to sit among shrubs and pink and white Crepe Myrtles. I thought that this would be a nice place to work, so we picked out a bench with a good view of the engine and the Library and the Childrens Museum, the old City Hall. All kinds of activities were going on in the area of the library and the museum with a rock climbing wall, something to do with bungee cords, etc. Inside the library, there were programs like the chemistry road show. And we could hear music from performers in that area, too.
I pulled out my sketching things and started to draw 4141 among the Crepe Myrtles while Pat decided to take pictures. The heat was bothering her a lot. Roaming mascots like the HEB bag of groceries and a baseball, the mascot for our new baseball team, the Bombers, stopped to have their pictures taken. A very nice young police officer stopped to see what we were doing. I explained about the sketch crawl and gave him information to pass on. As he left, he shook our hands. We all laughed as he said that we had now shaken hands with Buck Rogers. Sure enough, his name was B. Rogers. I wonder if he got teased about that, or if people expected superhero level things of him, when he was growing up.
Pat took a couple of pictures of the back of the library, with a blossom of Crepe Myrtle hanging down, the train, the mascots, etc. I got enough of the train drawn as a sketch so that I can do more with it later. And we agreed that we needed to go somewhere and cool off. I wasn't sure about a restaurant where we could sit down and draw and cool off. I'm sure there was something, but, with my blurry vision, I couldn't find a sign, and, too, the tents in the middle of the street were blocking my view.
We went back to the LaSalle coffee shop and asked a volunteer to call the Fire Department to take us back to the car. They did and the Fire chief arrived in his little golf cart. A young woman was also there with one of those gator things, a golf cart with a pickup bed on the back. Pat rode with the chief since his vehicle had a top and more shade, and I rode with the very nice young woman. There was some discussion between the hotel people and the city people about who was supposed to be providing tram or shuttle service between the handicapped parking and the festival.
We got back to a very hot car, and thought of where we might go. I told Pat to just head down Texas Avenue, and we should see a sign of some place. Whataburger seemed close and had a big sign, so that is where we stopped. We told them that they were lifesavers! Pat had lemonade and I had a sprite. But, what I really wanted to do was to sketch some more.
So, I sketched Buck Rogers, since that was a fun memory. And the cup with the wonderful cold drink!
We decided to go home, and, I thought that I might go out and sketch some around where I live, after it cooled off, later. Pat brought me home and I decided to just sit in the cool and scan my drawings and darken them a bit. You can tell something about our day from my sketches. The scan of 4141 didn't work out so well, though. The paper was too big for the scanner. I guess it let light in, or something. As a result, it has a green tinge on one side of the paper.
It never did get cool, though. When it got dark, it was still 94. I learned on the news that it reached 99, which, of course, gave us a heat index of over 100. Pretty hot, but, as long as there was shade and a little breeze, and something cold to drink, I was okay with it.
I looked at some of the posts on Sketch Crawl http://www.sketchcrawl.com/ as people have been posting their results. When I last checked, there were posts from 12 different countries and 16 states in the U.S. There is some very nice work, much of it much more finished than mine.
I estimate that I must have spent maybe an hour or so actually drawing, but I did get some things down that I could do more from later. It was all pretty quickly and loosely done.
Sweden had some nice work and photos, and it seemed like a great place to be that day. It was cool there!
Barbara sent word that she, Lynn, and Virginia Vaughan were among those doing art during the Sketch Crawl. Virginia did a workshop in Rockport on that day, so they painted the Cove, and trees, the sunrise, etc. You can read her comment under my last post.
I haven't heard if anyone else in this area was doing the sketch crawl.
If you want to be involved in the next one, you can go to the Sketch Crawl website and get more information, register for your area, if you want to. If you are in this area and want to participate, that will be great. We can work as a group, or you can work on your own, start your own group, or whatever you want to do.
I just think that there are an awful lot of things out there that need to be recorded through art.
I sent out information to area newspapers, and Greta was on "Brazos Arts" on KAMUfm, talking about it. I only saw it used in a couple of calendars. And, just try to send anything to the local paper or tv station by e-mail. Doesn't seem to work very well. Boxes are full, e-mails bounce, or there are no sections online where things I am interested in can be found. Online is best for me, these days, since I can't drive, and gas and things like stamps have gone up so much. I guess that I should have just mailed out press releases.
Maybe next time.
The next sketch crawl should be in 2 or 3 months. That would make it August or September.
I would love to hear if you participated in the Sketch Crawl where ever you are! And, if you are in a surrounding area, I would be thrilled if you would start a group in your town or city, to help Draw the Brazos Valley.
To do the sketches above, I used pencil, on the train engine, on watercolor paper. The others were all done on sketching paper using a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen, superfine. I really like the way that pen works, and it is a permanent india ink pen. They come in a variety of sizes.

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Happy sketching, or whatever it is that you love to do. Get ready for a super week to come!

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Please sign my guest book at the bottom of the page, if you haven't already. And check out my group, Art-By-Cecelia.

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If you see something of interest, let me know. Click on the Contact link.

Sketch Crawl Today

Brazos Bankful

sketch

8.5" x 11"

pencil

This is it. The day when we all need to be out drawing things around us-all over the world. The 19th World Wide Sketch Crawl has arrived.

Here's the plan for Bryan:

Meet at the Frame Gallery in downtown Bryan about 8:30 or 9:00. Sign in there so we will know who is participating.

Those who need coffee and may want to get together as a group, might meet at the LaSalle Hotel. There, people can decide where they want to work.

Spend the morning and afternoon sketching. Some may want to stay in downtown Bryan where the Texas Reds Festival will be going on. Others may want to spread out in other areas of Bryan/College Station, or across the Brazos Valley.

At the end of the day, those who want to may like to meet back at the Frame Gallery to discuss experiences and share their work. Since entertainment will be going on, some people may like to stay on and sketch the rest of the Festival.

In Calvert, people can meet at Mud Creek Pottery to check in and decide where to work for the day. They could meet back there at the end of the day to share what they have done during the day.

I'm anxious to do some work, and to see what everyone else sketches tomorrow. Hope that everyone has fun tomorrow.

I tried to get the word out to others in our area through press releases to newspapers and tv while Greta Watkins appeared on "Brazos Arts" on KAMU fm radio.

Hopefully, the weather will be beautiful and everyone will have an enjoyable and productive day.

The sketch above is one that I did last year while we were going for a drive in the area of the Brazos Bottom. The Brazos River was full to the top of the banks and there was concern about flooding. It didn't flood at that time, though.

So far, this year, it is hot and getting really dry here. Thankfully, we have not had the bad flooding in this area like they are having in the Midwest, since they built the dam on the Brazos at Waco. We did have one bad flood back in the spring of -04, but that was more localized after around 20 inches of rain-15 of those in about 3 hours time. A couple of earthen dams broke, which made things worse. I hope that we never have those kind of problems again. And I am really sorry for what is happening to the people and the land to the north.

The above sketch is a plan that can be used in something more finished later.

Get out your sketching things and join us in drawing something today!

And if you are near downtown Bryan, enjoy the big steak and wine festival. I was hoping to see Big Otis who is one of the performers, but I realized as we were eating supper, that he was appearing on Friday night, not Saturday. But there will be lots of other things going on.

Have a great weekend!

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Time To Plant

Grandma's Backyard

Ft. Worth

8.5" x 11"

pencil

According to the Moon Phases in my sidebar, there is a full moon. That means that it is time to plant, according to what I remember "Toot" telling me. Yet, I hear the news people say that it is too late to replant the crops that were destroyed by the floods in the Midwest. Here, it may be getting too hot. I really don't know.

My "gardening" seems to work like this. Throw something out in the yard. It may grow, or the birds, deer, or ants might eat it. We actually did plant some things that have thrived over the years, Crepe Myrtles, several rose bushes, a Mimosa tree, and a couple of Lantana plants. One small place with Day Lilies keeps coming back. But, the gorgeous Hibiscus plants that I once had didn't make it. They were huge, with blossoms the size of dinner plates. But, one morning, I went outside and there wasn't a trace that there had ever been a plant there. I don't know what happened to them. I would say that a deer ate them, but there wasn't even a little hole where the stem came out of the ground.

One year, I threw the old still life materials I had from my fall arrangement that my students had been drawing, out by a fence. Was I surprised when I had corn growing and vines of gourds that covered a fence. The gourds came back until we removed the fence.

With rapidly rising gas and food prices, along with everything else, and we hear that people are needing to grow some of their own food, I feel like we should plant something. We have room for a big garden in back, but, between fire ants and critters, and no one who wants to get outside and work , that is not going to happen.

Several years ago, I bought a few packages of seeds. I thought that I might plant something, when the moon is full, or on Good Friday. But, those days always slip past and I forget about it. I've even saved egg cartons to start some plants. I thought of starting seeds in the egg cartons, then transferring them to flower pots, or even the plastic ice cream buckets that I have been saving.

We tried to have plants in our windows and indoors, but the fire ants found them, and the plants had to go outside with some ant poison. By then, the plants were about dead. The last plants we had indoors were seeds that my grandson's teacher had sent home for the kids to plant. Our plant grew and my grandson was working on his project. However, it soon had mildew on it and we threw it in the trash.

During the War, (WWII), we had a Victory Garden in our back yard in Calvert. A lot of people grew something, and still had cows, chickens, etc. at their homes. Even people who had grocery stores. One year, my dad had someone plow the middle of our back yard to make a garden area and I was to plant it and take care of it. I actually had some very small lettuce, some small potatoes, and lots of carrots! The lot was higher on the north side, toward the front of the house, and sloped back to the street behind us. So our Victory Garden did very well on the north side where it drained. But the rains kept the south end of the garden underwater. We didn't get anything from that side.

Grandma and Grandpa Miles moved from their farm in Navarro county to Ft. Worth about the time of the War. They lived in a small apartment in Victory Village, housing for Air Force families and workers at the aircraft plant. After the war, they bought a little house in the new housing that was springing up.

Most people who bought the little houses, were planting some trees and fixing up their back yards for children to play or for entertaining. But not Grandma. In the spring, Grandpa had someone come plow up all of the back yard, except for a strip around the edge of the yard. Grandma planted her garden and spent every morning out chopping and tending her garden.

In the summer and fall, she would have fresh things to eat, and spent time canning and preserving for the winter.

In the drawing above, I was remembering Grandma, with her hoe, out working in her backyard garden, until almost noon, when it started to get too hot. Then it was time to come in and cook dinner. And after that, she and Grandpa just sat in their room, in the sweltering heat. I wrote about that in an older post.

She always wore her sunbonnet out in the yard, with long sleeves and those separate sleeves that ladies wore to protect their arms from the sun. Her cotton dresses were simple, sometimes with a little lace trim, rick rack, or tucks for decoration, and always with a somewhat long skirt. She wore cotton stockings and her yard shoes, galoshes, if it were wet outside.

Grandpa is shown standing at the back of the yard, pointing out things to my sister. To one side, my friend, Eddie Grace, and I are standing, talking, probably about movies and movie stars, or boys.

Grandma would show us how to pick various things in the garden and how to know if it was ready to be picked. But we had to be very careful, in case we might do something that would harm the plants or disturb the garden.

We could go sit on the back steps in the afternoon when the house made a little shade, or walk on the grass around the garden. But we knew to stay out of that garden unless Grandma or Grandpa were supervising.

Remember that, in those days, there was no air conditioning, and even fans were rare. So, we looked for shade and a bit of breeze.

Wish I could plant a seed and grow the things that I seem to eat most. Potatos and potato chips, M&Ms, ice cream, chicken, tomato soup, bran flakes. And even gasoline! And in that line of thinking, I'd like to be able to grow a money tree, too. Pure fantasy, just like a garden in my yard would be.

Seriously, though. The rising prices for everything are really scarey. It makes my head swim to try to think of how this has happened. I always thought it was a shame that we have so many huge grocery stores, packed with food. There aren't that many people to buy all that food. And in other parts of the world, people have so little and are starving. So, what happens to all this left over food? But, now, we are hearing of looming food shortages and higher prices. I don't know how much more some people can cut back on things.

Glen Beck, on tv and radio, has been urging people to stock up on food and necessities. He predicts that it is only going to get worse. We may need to all take a cue from Grandma Miles and plant a backyard garden. I'm sure that we would starve, if we had to depend on my gardening. Being a picky eater, I probably wouldn't eat what I could grow anyway.

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Saturday June 21

19th World Wide Sketch Crawl

Click on the Sketch Crawl logo at the top of my page, for more information . I hope that everyone will join in and draw their surroundings on Saturday.

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Downtown Bryan

Texas Reds Festival

Friday Evening and Saturday

I have a link to the festival below the Sketch Crawl links. Sounds like a lot of fun, and that will give Bryan sketchers even more things to draw. The 4141 locomotive is going to be parked and there will be lots of food, activity, and entertainment.

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Please share this with anyone who might be interested.

Let me know if you see something that particularly appeals to you. I appreciate your support and your comments. Most of the work is for sale. Click the contact button and let me know if you are interested in one of my creations.

Thank you to all who have signed my Guest Book and who have joined my group.

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Happy Father's Day

Indianola Courthouse at Sunset

Family Photo

We don't really observe Father's Day in our family anymore. The fathers all seem to have died. I don't recall that we ever celebrated that day very much. We would get the fathers a card, and a gift like pajamas or a tie. Sometimes we would make something, which really wasn't appreciated. Gifts were taken, with thanks, then put away in a drawer to save for the possibility that they might have to go to the hospital, or if they happened to run out of their closet full of ties.

We often had our special meal of red roast and red gravy, with some of the men being served their favorite, fried oysters and oyster stew, with crackers. Most of the ladies and the children were not going to eat that!

Of course, there was church before that Sunday Father's Day meal.

We had a lot of men in our family who were not fathers. Many, who married, didn't have children. And, many didn't get married to begin with. It took them all to help raise the children, of those who did have families.

In later years, Daddy liked to barbeque, then take a nap before going out to check the cattle. He would put a little stool beside the barbeque pit outside the back door, put a lot of lighter fluid to get the fire going, then put on the chicken, weiners, or hamburger patties. They always were black and tasted like lighter fluid. But he loved to do that. He would sit in the hot Texas sun, tending the fire, and sipping cold "sky juice", as he called water. That was from his Aggie days.

The picture above is one of my favorites. It shows my father, carrying my son, on the old foundation of the courthouse at Indianola, about sunset. This was probably about 1965.

If you are a father, I hope that you had a wonderful day!

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It's just around the corner!

The 19th World Wide Sketch Crawl is Saturday!

Click on the Sketch Crawl logo on the top of the page, for more information and to go to their website.

I hope that you will join in! Remember, it's free, its' worldwide, it's for everyone, all ages, all levels, all media, families, groups, or individuals-just everyone, all over the world, all at the same time, drawing/painting/recording their surroundings through art.

Locally, we will meet at the Frame Gallery in downtown Bryan to register, then gather at the LaSalle Hotel, if anyone needs coffee and such! From there we can see who is working and where they want to work. Then we will spread out and start drawing the Brazos Valley.

We'll spend the morning and afternoon sketching.

Lunch is on your own, or a group could go together, if they want to. The Texas Reds Festival will be going on downtown Bryan, so there will be plenty of food to eat at the festival or at local restaurants.

After working, people can get together at the Frame Gallery to share experiences and their work.

There will be entertainment downtown, so, if people want to hang around and do the festival, they are welcome to do that.

After the Crawl, participants can either post their own work on the Sketch Crawl website, or they can add it under my listing for Bryan/College Station. They can also add it to their own website, blog, or places like Flickr.

People in the Calvert area, can do the same thing, but meet at Mud Creek Pottery on Main Street. If anyone is partial to kolaches, they might be sure to check out Zamykal Kolaches on Main Street, to start the morning. There are other eating places, there as well.

Hopefully, people in other communities will start their own Sketch Crawls for their areas, or they can work on their own, if they want.

Let's draw the Brazos Valley while other people are drawing their part of the world! I think we have plenty of material here to choose from.

Let me know if you need more information, or if you would like to join us in this area.

I would love to see what you create!

So get out your pencil and paper, or watercolors, markers, pens, paint, or whatever you want to work with and join in on Saturday.

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D-Day Memory

Irvin in Milan WWII

Family Photo

I wanted to write something about D-Day and our service men and women. I spent this anniversary date afternoon visiting with Thelma and she asked me what the D stood for in D-Day. Neither of us could remember. But, she told me that was the day of the allied landing in Normandy.

We went on and talked some more. I asked her if she remembered how she first heard of D-Day. Was it on the radio, in newspapers, or did they have to wait on news reels and magazines?

I was pretty small, then, and don't remember exactly how or what we first heard. I imagine it was on the radio, followed by newspapers, and later I do recall seeing the newsreels at the Eloia theatre. And, of course, still later, there was always news in "Life" magazine.

A couple of years ago, I had asked Thelma what she was doing on D-Day. She said that she was on a train, headed for Houston, then to Baytown, with Helen, to visit Helen's family. They were still students at Baylor in Waco.

I am still fond of the sliced chicken sandwiches that we used to get on the train, and at bus stations. Thelma usually got a club sandwich. But, she said that they ordered sliced chicken sandwiches on this day in June. She still laughs about the sandwiches. She said that they had so little meat on them, that, the only way they could tell that these were chicken sandwiches was that they found a feather in one of the sandwiches!

Helen's mother was an art major and had decorated her home, and Helen's room , beautifully. But Thelma didn't like sleeping in the canopy bed in Helen's room. She said she felt like she was in a coffin.

They had a wonderful time, visiting with Helen's family. Her brother took them sailing. Thelma didn't know that the sail might come around, so she just missed being knocked into the water as the sail came near her, by ducking.

As they had a pleasant trip, they didn't know about the big battle that was going on overseas, D-Day. The thought of their loved ones who were far from home, at war, like her brother, Irvin, were always with them, though.

I reminded Thelma of the story she had told me of her D-Day, last weekend, but she didn't remember much of it, except about the chicken sandwich and the feather. As she grew sleepy, she couldn't remember what she had told me about D-Day a few minutes before.

Now I'm still wondering how we found out about times like D-Day.

Uncle Tom had a nice radio that had short wave on it. We would huddle close to the radio to listen to the garbled sounds and squawking, fading in and out, to try to hear of news from overseas. I don't think we ever heard anything important, though, and would eventually return to the regular programs that we listened to. And everyone just hoped and prayed for good news.

Irvin wasn't there for the D-Day landings. He was with the 88th Infantry Division, the Blue Devils. They went to North Africa, first, and he finished his days in the service in Italy.

The picture above is one of his photos, of when he was on leave in Milan. (I have to assume that is where the picture was taken as that is what is written on the picture.) I don't have any idea who the other people are behind him. I thought that the soldiers behind him might be someone that he knew because they are in other pictures during that leave.

Margaret told me that she was there for D-Day. She was an Army nurse, and had quite a lot of experiences during WWII.

Of course, General Earl Rudder, of Rudder's Rangers fame, became president of Texas A&M University. Statues of him, and things named for him, are abundant here. His widow, Margaret, belonged to my church, and she was quite well known until her death. Both are still fondly remembered in this area. The new high school is named for him.

I spent some time on the weekend, using the remote control on the tv, trying to find something to watch about D-Day and our history during WWII. I only heard one comment by Geraldo Rivera on the news. And I'm not sure that he was talking about D-Day, but, instead was interviewing a reporter who had been injured in Iraq. He thanked her, and all who have served, for their service.

There were no movies shown on tv, not even on the History Channel. I always expect to see things like "D-Day, the Sixth of June" and "The Longest Day". The closest thing I found was "Darling Lili" with Julie Andrews and Rock Hudson, and that one was about WWI. Later, there was "On The Beach", not about the WWII era, either.

And there was a news item about a new museum near those beaches at Normandy, dedicated to America and 9/11. I guess there are already museums and such remembrances about the battles of WWII in that area. I do know that there are tours and cemeteries.

I started wondering if the younger folks who pick out the programs are just forgetting about times that were so important to our history. And they are just showing anything, rather than what would be appropriate.

Instead of WWII programs, the History Channel had something about men cutting down trees or something to do with axes, that went on and on and on. I thought it was most unpatriotic.

Some of us were thinking about that day, D-Day. And some were remembering what they were doing that day in history, those who served, and those who didn't make it home.

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The Texas Scottish Festival is over and I've heard, from those who were not too tired to do e-mail, that it was a wonderful weekend. There will be more about it as people rest up. I've left a link to it on my sidebar so that you can check it out.

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Now, we get ready for the 19th World Wide Sketch Crawl.

You can click on the Sketch Crawl logo at the top of my page, and go to that website.

I hope that you will make your plans to go out (or even stay inside) and draw something that day.

Let me know if you need more information about participating.

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I hope that you will pass this on to others to read. I encourage you to join my group if you haven't already. Just type in your e-mail address in the subscription box, or click on the form that will take you to my group, Art-By-Cecelia.

Thank your for your comments, and I'm so glad that you stopped by for a visit. If you see something that you are interested in, please let me know.