Reunion

Because my life is not complicated enough, I am leading the efforts to organize my high school class's 50th reunion.

I send out notices; receive money and make deposits. With the checks received, I am creating a directory using their addresses, etc.

The group meets once a month and I am thinking we need more meeting times. Our reunion is scheduled for the weekend of November 6, 7, 8.

On the agenda is a Friday night football game and a gathering at a local spot for drinks and karaoke.

On Saturday, we have an optional lunch scheduled. In the evening is the main event, dinner and dance. There is little dancing at these events. We spend the time socializing.

On Sunday morning we have a farewell breakfast.

Items that need/ needed to be addressed:
reserve hotel rooms
arrange catering
find a photographer
buy the football tickets
Set up the hall
table decorations
???????????????????

Our class had a reunion after 10 years, 25 yrs, and 40 yrs.

Pictures will follow.

Museum Part 2

The Museum saga continues. The director quit toward the end of May. He left the building the day he gave his notice. Who would work to keep the museum going - opening the doors, paying the bills, etc. Yes, I raised my hand and became the Interim Director. It will be two months on Tuesday.  We have been busy writing procedures and fixing some things that were not addressed. In addition I had to come up with an exhibit for display at the end of June.

The title of the exhibit is Evolution of Communication - from cave drawings to smart phones. It took a while to think it out and then to find artifacts that fit the title. Here are pictures from the exhibit. I did not include pictures of the tin can phones or the evolution of radios. I included period clothing with each communication period.

This section included a 1918 dress, a switchboard and the candlestick phone.

 The dial appeared on the phone in the 20s and so you see a flapper dress.The first models did not include letters nor symbols.

 The touch-tone phones appeared in 1963, with President Kennedy using one at the World's Fair. These phones did not dominate until the 80's. The dress below is an evening dress used in the 60's to attend the theater and the opera.

The mannequin has a WWII WAC uniform. The jacket is not quite on because it is a male mannequin. We ere doing a "Caitlyn Jenner." The radio is a 1934 Majestic table model.

The oldest typewriter is from 1909 and the youngest is the IBM Selectric.

Now I am challenged to think of an exhibit for September. October and November are set. Life goes on. Inow live in the past.

July 2015

My last post was in January. WOW! I am still alive and kicking sometimes. I really could not give you specifics about the event since January. However, I will focus on three topics.

Weslaco Museum
           There is good, bad, and mediocre to report. The bad is that I have to learn to keep my hands in my pockets and not volunteer. Early in the year I had two projects in development. One was the Texas Blvd project. Years ago, the city gave the museum a stash of tax records and they sat waiting for someone to throw them away. I started looking at them and found a treasure.
            The records were on large index cards and documented the size of the property, a list of utilities, the owner of the property (the person being billed), and on the back a photo of the property. These photos are from 1960. I know this because the Kodak photo has the date printed along the edge.
            My project is an exhibit of photos documenting the businesses along Texas Blvd (the city's main street). Since the Museum has little from the north side of town, Hispanic side, this exhibit would put a spotlight on that neglected part of the city's history. The pictures are in order 300 S. Texas, 301, 303, 305, etc. The exhibit will show the 1960 pictures and the 2015 photos showing what is there now. Iam hoping to have it up by November. Here are some pix.

                                         

I recently commented that history is getting younger. A 45 year old Museum visitor with two kids and a wife is clueless about the high school I attended or that the picture of French's Lawnmower Repair above was a 5 and 10 called Perry's after 1960.  That's my ongoing project. I am also working on a lecture for the Winter Texans,"South Texas During the Civil War: The Captain, the Bandit, the General, and the Emperor." I will talk about Capt. King (King Ranch), a riverboat transporter of southern cotton and guns from England. The General is Robert E.Lee before Virginia joined the Confederacy. The Bandit was Juan Cortina. He was a bandit to the Gringos. He lost land and cattle when the border was moved after 1848.. The Emperor was Maximillian in Mexico. Still in the works.

Continue on the next port: Museum Part 2

January 2015 - A crafty new year

It is the start of a new year and I am determined to be a better blogger. Since my last entry, I started crafting. In October, I was in a store and thought of buying a Halloween item, a burlap witches hat. I saw the price, and looked at the item , and said, "I can make that." That was the beginning of this crafting stint.

Since it was October, I also made other Fall and Halloween related items. The bottle decor took on a life of its own.

I drilled a hole in all of the bottles and inserted a small string of lights, battery operated. Unfortunately these were completed too late for Halloween shoppers, but have been stored for next year's early shoppers.

Enter the Christmas Collection. The constant is the drilled hole, the lights and the "grape cluster." My sister has a stash of antlers that she found on her ranch property. She has always said that she does not know what to do with them. I asked her for some to see what I could make with them. I made her a Fall themed centerpiece and added antlers to the wine bottles.

These projects got me started into doing more of the bottles - to sell at a craft show. I also found some glass bricks that I have had for many many years, They were reincarnated into something new. Christmas decor was in full swing with wine bottles and burlap items

This was my display at the craft show at the mobile home park. These shows are popular here in December, January, and February when South Texas hosts the Winter Texans. I sold the wine bottles for $10 or $15 if I used antlers. The glass blocks also went for $15. Several people were surprised by the prices, too low. Hummm!

The wine bottles were a hit and the burlap items were not. After Christmas, all the burlap items went into storage for next year. I have to remember to start selling and making these in October.

The unsold glass items were re-purposed for the next selling season Valentines Day and Spring decorated items.

After Valentine's Day, I will do one show a month. Weslaco has an event on Texas Blvd. (main street). Vendors, crafts, foodies, live music at 6 p.m. I learned to restrain myself with this project. Buy materials only as items are sold. At one point, I went to the liquor store looking for pretty bottles, not caring whether I likes the wine or not. I did not buy any. I realized that I needed to look for a 12 step program for crafters.

My former neighbor was a collector of cardboard to sell. He also collected trash that he sold or tried to sell at the flea markets. I asked him to look for wine and liquor bottles and that I would buy them. Three days later he had a load of about 40 bottles. A week later he had more. Currently I am stocked for the next year. I simply have to be very creative and use what I have. A flower stem with leaves is .97 at Walmart. I can decorate 4 bottles from the one stem. The most expensive item used is the drill bit. It has to be a diamond coated bit and I have learned to be very selective of what I drill and how many. The bits do not last and soon the bottles begin to crack and break. Live and learn.

The burlap crafts will take a backseat to wood. I will begin collecting wood planks, scraps and make signs such as 

Stay tuned to see what happens.

New York 2014

         My last trip to New York was about three years ago, and I vowed not to return. The reason was transportation. I use the subway system to get about. Getting down to the subway and out requires many stairways. My knees could not take it.
         Three years later, with a new knee and a new back, I decided to try again. The stairs were not an issue if I took them slowly. I also needed to slow my pace, regardless of what the New York pedestrians were doing. They seem to always be in a hurry and easily take me with them.
          The four days there were pleasant with good weather for the most part. I met up with an old friend from San Antonio, George.

Chinatown:
          George had never been to Chinatown and he wanted to buy a wallet. I was in the hunt for two birthday gifts. every shop seemed to have the same merchandise with varying prices. However, the price would always go down when we started to walk away. It was a warm day and the streets were crowded as always. We took a water break in this park in the middle of the commotion . These musicians were at the entrance to the park, with their starnge looking instruments and odd sounding music.
     

Groups of men and women gathered around tables, engaged in a game of what looked like dominoes. However, the pieces did not have dots, but Chinese characters. The men and women did not mix.

The pavilion was a mix if activities. One side was dominated by martial arts classes or exercises. The other side had a group of elderly women going through the slow motion paces of aerobics.

Of course not everyone was engaged as a participant/ performer or as an observer. This gentleman dozed while his care-taker had lunch and chatted with her friend on a nearby bench.

Little Italy

       While George had never been to Chinatown, I had never been to Little Italy. Canal Street in Lower Manhattan, separates China from Italy. The atmosphere is shockingly different. Chinatown was crowded but quiet. Little Italy was crowded and boisterous. The streets were blocked off and the pedestrians took over

The colorful buildings added to the festive atmosphere.

Sidewalk cafes were the norm. Many of these restaurants had all their doors open, telling me there was no A/C. Some of these restaurants had singing waiters. They may charge more for singing.

We had much here, at Sal's, inside with A/C. It was a warm day at 2 p.m. The eggplant and parmigiana snadwich on fresh bread and a glass of wine was the best. George can be spotted in the photo below, putting on his sun glasses, on the left.

The Cloisters

     On every trip to New York, I go with an agenda of things to do and see. I try to include places that are new to me, or that I have seen in a movie. This year's agenda included the Museum of Natural History and the Cloisters, both new to me. Although I did not make it to the Museum of Natural History, I was duely impressed by the Cloisters. From their website:

The Cloisters museum and gardens, which opened to the public in 1938, is the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Located in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan, on a spectacular four-acre lot overlooking the Hudson River, the modern museum building is not a copy of any specific medieval structure but is rather an ensemble informed by a selection of historical precedents, with a deliberate combination of ecclesiastical and secular spaces arranged in chronological order. Elements from medieval cloisters—Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Trie-sur-Baïse, Froville, and elements once thought to have come fromBonnefont-en-Comminges—and from other sites in Europe have been incorporated into the fabric of the building.

The website directions said that the walk from the subway stop to the museum was 10 minutes. This might be true if you know ehre you are going. The maps along the way did not help much. It is a beautiful place to walk and get lost. The paths go uphill and downhill. The paths also fork this way and that along the Hudson River.

Enough whining, enjoy the pictures. Please note that flash photography was prohibited. There was a "guard" in almost every room. Some artwork, tapestries, and archways from as far back as 1250 are but dark images in my camera. Here are those that made it.

                                                                         (flashed image)

The Cloisters is a must see. Your entrance fee to the Cloisters allows you free entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If I had known this, I would have rearranged my schedule to return to the Met.

Columbus Circle

         

             I have seen this location in many movies, but had never visited the site. I realized how close it was to other places I had been. It is one of the main entrances to Central Park.

Miscellany

        One does not have to go too far in the City to make interesting finds. At the end of the block, almost unseen is this small cemetery. It is next to a restaurant and adjoins residential units, behind the blue wall. It is a Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Cemetery. 

         

This is the Jefferson Market Branch of the NYC Library System. It's history dates back to 1833 and was once a courthouse and prison. The current design is of 1877. I think this is the first time I see it without the scaffolding that came with renovations and restorations.

This concludes my trip to New York City over the Labor Day Weekend of 2014.