Getting Ready for Saturday Night

Getting Ready for Saturday Night

8.5" x 11"

ink

Girls in a dorm, getting ready for Saturday night dates. Girls are busy checking themselves in the mirror, putting on makeup, fixing hair, deciding on what to wear, talking about the boys who will be calling for them soon. Music drifts through the suite from a radio.

One girl, in the foreground, waits. Is she waiting for the phone to ring for her? Perhaps her boyfriend is elsewhere and can't come to see her this Saturday night. Could it be that she is hoping that the girls will ask her to come along, with their boyfriend bringing a blind date for her. Or maybe she has a big problem to think about.

Will she spend a Saturday night, almost alone in the dorm, listening to romantic music on the radio, while the other girls are out dancing, going to the movies, or partying?

Will she spend the evening catching up on studying or writing a paper?

Could it be that she might spend this Saturday night washing her hair, playing solitaire, or Hearts with other dateless girls?

Perhaps she will spend the evening writing a letter or talking on the phone to that boy, so far away.

Or maybe, she will stay in her room and worry about her problem.

Possibly, the phone might ring down the hall, and she will rush to get dressed and go out and have a good time, with almost everyone else in the dorm.

What will Saturday night hold?

After I had decided to share this drawing on my blog, I found a new blogger who is writing about her dating experiences. I do remember a lot of mine, but the experiences are not new, by any means! I'm sure that the new blogger is young.

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I hope that you got to go to First Friday in downtown Bryan last night. So much to do. And, if you are on campus at A&M, they are running a shuttle so that students can go more easily.

If you didn't get to go, plan on going next first Friday. I'm sure that it is a lot of fun.

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My computer has been acting up again. I spent hours and hours trying to select and make a slide show of pictures from the last Sketch Crawl. I put those pictures on several sites including the Sketch Crawl website, Flickr, Brazos Valley Sketchers on Face Book, and BrazosValley_Sketchers on Yahoo. But, I haven't been able to do that slideshow. It hung yesterday and I lost it all, so I gave up and just scanned some pictures. I guess I will have to post them in small groups.

Nothing, computerwise, worked very well yesterday. It seems worse since I added IE8. That changed everything over to Yahoo instead of Sudden Link. More computer problems to try to figure out!

I did start on my blog, several times, but just gave up the whole business and shut off the computer.

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If you are stork watching, there are several eggs in the nest in Poland. Be sure to look at the sites under Stork Sites in my sidebar. They are very interesting to watch. You can get attached!

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Sketching the Park

Barbara sketched Virginia Field Park
Calvert, Texas

My photo of the bandstand in the park is at the top while Barbara's sketch from about that same angle is below. This is a great old park dating back to 1868. It is across the street from the cemetery.

As we were sketching, I looked at the tree lined street we were on and thought about an article I had just read saying that children who live on tree lined streets in cities were less likely to have asthma.

Growing up in this area of many trees along the streets and in yards, as well as the park and the cemetery, I think that might be true. I never knew anyone who had asthma in our town. Sinus trouble, yes, but we blamed that on many things like the cotton gins in the summer and early fall, or flowers or weeds blooming. I never heard of mold, or mildew, unless it was on clothing that had been left wet too long before it was washed.

This park has changed some over the years. It used to have huge Crepe Myrtles and shrubs, along with many flowers growing from bulbs, filling the flowerbeds and surrounding the park. There was a circular drive around the park, just on the other side of the flower beds, and one corner of the road was very sandy.

My dad liked to tell about driving around there as a teenager and almost wrecking cars when they hit the sand. Personally, I got my great-aunt's 1950s model Nash hung on a big rock, when my aunt was teaching me to drive. Her husband had not wanted to let an inexperienced kid drive his car, so, when he was at work, she took me out to learn to drive. She said that I had to learn to drive. We made it through the wide streets just fine, but I was sweating bullets on that curved drive in the park! I just turned a bit too wide and ran over a huge white rock that marked the entrance. She had to call her husband to come get the car loose from the rock.

I was scared to go over to their house for a while after that! I was sure that my great uncle would be angry with me for running over that rock with his car!

But, my great-aunt just laughed about it. She told me of the time when she, my grandmother, and my grandmother's sister first got automobiles. Their husbands didn't have the patience to teach them to drive so, while the men were at their stores during the day, the young wives took one of the cars out into the country to teach themselves to drive. All went well and they were having a good time together. That is, until they tried to turn around and come home. They couldn't turn or change gears, so they backed all the way back into town. The husband who owned the car just tried to remember backing the car into the garage instead of driving it in forward. The wives never said a word to let on what they had been up to during the day!

The Nash didn't have any damage, except for a tiny scratch below the door. But it stood out to me-a glaring reminder of my attempt to learn to drive.

Beside the drive around the park, there was a large bandstand in the center, with a walk around it, and walks coming up to it from all four entrances. At each corner, there was a smaller gazebo.

On the west side, there was a baseball field, with bleachers. And on the southeast corner, there were clay tennis courts. There were large gliders beneath the trees on the east side, where people could swing. Nearby, a piece of wood had been placed between two oak trees, and, as the trees grew, the wood became a nice place to sit and talk. A concrete drinking fountain was on the south side of the bandstand. On the northeast side of the park, play ground equipment was added for children. A merry go round, swings, see saws, and a concrete table for playing table tennis .

Inside the bandstand, there were basketball hoops where kids could play before the school built the gym. Benches still surround the interior of the bandstand-a place for an audience. The wooden floor was great for roller skating, dancing, band concerts, programs, memorial services, weddings, picnics, basket ball, and just a shady, spot to talk.

The Crepe Myrtles and flowers were thinned out to make the park more open a few years back. The road was closed and filled in. The baseball diamond was removed. The clay courts were covered in grass after most people preferred to play tennis on the new concrete court at the school. The big, white gliders fell into disrepair and it was decided that upkeep on them was too expensive. They seemed to rot quickly. So, they also were removed.

There also used to be large beds of those big red ants in the park. And lots of horned toads. I guess the fire ants did away with those.

During the park's history, Hood's Texas Brigade of Civil War fame, met there for reunions. And, during the "time of unpleasantness", a sky prison was built at the park to imprison Southern sympathizers. A similar sky prison was at the location where the courthouse is located in Bryan today.

Some things that I remember about the park are the time that the First Cavalry Band from Ft. Hood, and a unit of mounted troops, came to the park to give a concert and to march in our Sesquicentennial parade. Indian dancers from the Alabama Coushatta Reservation also came to perform about that time. We had some art shows in the park and local dancers entertained us. Old restored automobiles looked perfectly at home around the park.

Another memorable event was when part of the Houston Symphony Orchestra came to give a concert. They filled the bandstand, and spectators enjoyed the music from places scattered through the park. Some of us took picnics to enjoy.

Easter sunrise service in the park was nice, and I remember when we, the Calvert High band, played for the service. Hunting Easter Eggs in the park was special too, although I worried a little that someone might think that we were attempting to pick flowers instead of finding eggs that Daddy had hidden while we struggled to wake up.

Twinkling lights at Christmas time, strung through the bandstand, seemed extra bright.

Cool water from the water fountain on a hot summer day, and meeting with friends after school among the shrubs to talk about our "mystery club" or boys, a place to rest or get out of a sudden rain shower when walking from town to home, children's birthday parties, and touching services are all a part of my memories of the park.

At night, I could look out my bedroom window, and watch the streetlight by the park. There was a time during WWII when those street lights were out. The town was dark and we stood as a family at the small bathroom window, watching the searchlights from Hearne, worrying if bombers might have made it through this time and the air raid was more than a drill.

When Barbara and I were sketching in Calvert during the spring tour, we chose to work downtown first, then set up where we could see both the cemetery and the park. It was on the opposite side from where we could watch the park from our house. But all sides of the park are interesting.

Now, I need to work on developing the sketches that I did during our outing. Barbara has an oil painting of Main Street that she did that day also.

I would have liked to have seen Sunday afternoon concerts, with people strolling around the park, when I was growing up. Dances would also have been wonderful. Community programs, too, but most of those were held at the school, the City Hall, or on Main Street.

From what I have heard, the German Park was quite active in the old days. Nothing remains of it, and most do not even know where it was located. My great aunts and my grandmother told me that it was where a cemetery on the south side of town is now. There are a few faded pictures of it, that are in Baker's "A History of Robertson County, Texas". My grandmother wouldn't go to the German park because she said they had beer there, and that was not a place for nice girls to be.

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Stork Update

I just looked at the stork nest in Pryzygodzice and found that 4 eggs have now hatched! And, just as I was thinking that I had not seen the babies yet, the adult bird stood up (I can't tell Mama from Papa!), and there were the tiny little ones, and one egg still remaining to hatch.

So, if you want to see some cute and some beautiful birds, look at the links on my sidebar, under Stork Sites. The Pryzygodzice site is quite interesting.

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Sad News in Stork Land

Looking For Family 8.5" x 11" pencil



There was sad news in one of the stork nests, in Ustron, when the last baby died. Two babies seemed as if they were going to survive out of the four eggs in the nest. One baby died as it was being hatched. The last egg had not hatched, when the babies showed signs of being ill. One baby died, and was removed. The autopsty revealed fungi as the cause of death, so the nest was disinfected, and the last baby removed for treatment . It looked like it had a chance to survive, when it, too became ill, and died. This one died of ringworms in the trachea.

The parent storks had left the nest and everyone was watching to see if they would return. The father returned and looked around the nest, as in my drawing above, seeming to look for his family. He sat on the nest, as he had done to protect the eggs. He also stood on one leg a while, as he often did overnight while the mother stork sat on the eggs.

It became very windy, as I watched, and Papa Stork had to really brace himself against the wind. At one point, he seemed to jump up in the air, flap his wings, and fuss at the wind that was blowing him about.

The next day, Mama Stork returned to the nest.

It was so sad to watch pictures of that empty nest. Poor little things.

It has been very interesting to watch the storks on various webcams, and to read discussions with genealogy groups who have been sharing the links to the stork webcams. This was something I would never have been able to see without the webcams.

The storks remind me a bit of the Whooping Cranes that winter on the Texas Gulf Coast. In reality, they may be quite different. I haven't studied birds that much.

Back in the 1960s, I went to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge, but I don't remember actually seeing any Whooping Cranes. We did see wild turkeys and large bushes with sage. I think I may have seen some flying over Central Texas one time, as a flock of large white birds flew over and circled the school where I was teaching. I was in the parking lot at the time. They were making the strangest noises. I guessed they were Whooping Cranes, or Canadian Geese going back north as the weather was warmer. I stayed in the parking lot as they circled. For some reason, they reminded me of Indian designs. I thought of them along with turquoise and silver and incised designs.

On a happier note, the drawing below is of a different nest, this one in Germany. These babies are thriving and growing. They were so cute. They look like they have on fluffy little bloomers! As I watched them and sketched, it seemed to be raining. I couldn't see any rain, but the wind was blowing the trees behind them. This mother stork pulled her neck in and provided protection for the babies. After a while, the wind let up, and she stretched and the babies spread out a bit, until it started again.

There seem to be several stork projects in Poland and Germany where there are webcams. Another group in Germany has a webcam on a nest of Black Storks in a forest. The light and colors, as well as the sounds, are really interesting. I haven't been watching that site as long.

Of course, while it is the wee hours of the morning here in central Texas, while most people are asleep, it is daytime overseas. Fortunately, we can see the storks with the webcams at night, there, although the pictures are in black and white.

I had intended to post something different, but I was thinking of the loss of all the baby storks in that nest, and the parent birds. They have given so much pleasure to so many, I wanted to remember them.







Rainy Day in Germany 8.5" x 11" pencil

Studying Storks

White Storks in Poland 8.5" x 11" pencil

As I have been watching several nests of storks in Poland and Germany, and one nest of black storks in Germany, like many others, I became fascinated with their grace, strength, loyalty, and abilities. High up in their huge nests, they swooped in to balance on the edge of their lofty home, tidied up the nest, touched and rolled the eggs, endured strong winds, heat, and even attacks from another stork. An online group has been sharing information and events as the eggs approached time for hatching, and the subsequent efforts of the parent storks to care for their babies.
I couldn't help but think of the old cartoon at the movies in which an elephant was tricked into sitting on a bird's nest while Mama bird was out having a good time. Through fair weather and foul, the elephant sat there, waiting for the mother bird to return. The elephant would say, "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, 100%." These storks have certainly been faithful.
But in one nest, which was online as a school project, there was sad news, and now there is an almost empty nest. Out of 4 eggs, two eggs hatched. A third egg hatched, but the baby died before getting all the way out of the egg. The last egg has not yet hatched. Then, one baby got sick and died. A crew went in and took the dead baby and removed the remaining living baby to go to a veterinary hospital. An autopsy revealed that fungi had attaked the nest. The remaining baby is undergoing treatment now. The nest was disinfected and there were plans to take a baby from a zoo in Poznan so the parents would have a little one to raise and migrate to Africa with, when the time came. But it was decided not to try that plan, thinking that the parents might kill the strange baby.
One stork did return to the nest. He really had a lost look about him. I guess it was a him. I really can't tell. Maybe one stork flew off in grief, looking for the babies, or just gave up and moved on. One stork went back to the nest, not knowing what else to do.
Looking at the empty nest was really sad.
I didn't know much about storks, and really had not looked at them much, but, once I started drawing during a couple of evenings, I did about 14 sketches. I need to do more. They really are beautiful creatures, and very interesting to watch.
I don't usually draw animals, but I think that these drawings turned out pretty well. Sometimes, I could swear that those storks were posing for me, or looking at me! They made excellent models.
Most of the time, I think that I can't really do justice to beautiful animals. Sometimes, my animals have the expressions of people, or a cartoon look. Other times, they turn out very well. I usually try to capture animals with a camera, if I see something I really like; but, occasionally, I do try my hand at drawings or paintings with interesting poses. I had to sketch these storks, if I wanted to capture them, because I couldn't take a picture over the internet. It was certainly good practice for me.
I do need to do some more stork sketches as the babies grow stronger and will fly away before we know it, just like our own children.
The drawing above is of the nest where the babies died. One parent had just flown in and was checking the babies, and turning the unhatched eggs.
I began with a gesture drawing, using a Sanford 314 Draughting pencil. I thought that it should be kept fairly simple, just to capture the pose as other interesting movements were happening about the time I would get a quick sketch done.
By the way, be sure to check out the Links section of my blog. I've listed the websites of some very interesting artists and writers. I know that you will enjoy those. At this point, I am listing websites of people whose work I admire or who have some connection, possibly through their art, to my hometown of Calvert, Texas.
I hope you are enjoying my blog. Be sure and tell your friends to come by. I don't have that subscription link on, yet, but, I think I am getting close to figuring out that feature, with some help. Until then, just click on my link. I'm trying to put something new on daily.
As my grandmother used to tell people as they finished shopping at the dry goods store, "Call again!"