HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD, GRANDPA, GREAT-GRANDPA!

84 YEARS YOUNG ON SEPTEMBER 26!

Sharon, Alison, and the Gallery

Way back in my college days, I hung out a lot with Sharon. She graduated a couple of years ahead of me from Northwestern High School, where her mother was an art teacher. Sharon had her mother's passion for art and a lot of talent as well. She lived at home and went to Wright State back in the early days when lots of their art classes were held in places that looked a lot like farm out buildings. One of her favorite parts of the Fine Arts curriculum was the print making. Sharon used to etch the plates and print her own Christmas cards every year . . . and they were beautiful. Most of her prints were produced in quantities of 10 and 20; and I was lucky to get several signed and numbered copies as gifts. Hey! We were poor and made each other's gifts a LOT!

In the early seventies, I was attending Sinclair Community College and commuting into Dayton for my classes while Sharon was commuting to Wright State to complete her bachelor's degree in Fine Arts. We sometimes spent time on weekends going to art shows that Sharon was required to attend as part of a class. What I know about art, I absorbed by osmosis from Sharon. I also typed most of her papers since I was majoring in Executive Secretarial Science for my Associate degree. So when we weren't doing homework or going over to Yellow Springs to the Little Art Theater to see some artsy flick in a small, dark room filled with pot smoke, we went hiking in Glen Helen and swam in the pool at Sharon's house and drove to Fairborn to drink coffee and talk late into the night.

Sharon went on to get her Master's degree, and I got married and moved to Kettering. While Sharon was studying for her Master's, she did a drawing of a little girl named Alison. Sharon rented an upstairs apartment from a woman who took care of a couple of kids during the day. Alison was one of those children. The drawing of Alison was so neat that Sharon did an etching of it and made prints. A framed and matted copy of that print was a gift Sharon gave me . . . maybe it was a wedding present. I have always loved Alison, and she has been a part of every living space I have ever occupied. She makes me smile. She reminds me of a friendship that has faded but not been forgotten.

Alison has been hanging over the mantle in our family room here in Pittsburgh for 8 years. Recently, the print came loose from the mat that Sharon carefully cut. I took Alison down and had a double mat made to help bring out the print; but I kept the original frame since I know Sharon made it. My poor photography doesn't do her justice, but here she is! I moved her into the entry hall where I can see her up close when I walk through to the kitchen. Isn't she pretty?

I tried several times to get a better picture. But this is the best I could do. You'll just have to come over and see her for yourself.

To top it off, I was going through my desk about a month ago and found two other prints that Sharon had given me which I had never framed. Since Joann Fabric was having a special on custom framing, I took these two down and had them framed as well. They are hanging on the opposite side of the entry hall creating a little "Sharon Gallery" in my entry way.

This picture is me at about age 20. I think Sharon sketched this while I was typing one of her papers at my desk one evening . . . or early morning as the case may be. You can't see extremely well, but the print is done in a deep red, so I had the inside mat done to match.

The young woman at Joann Fabric who took my order and did this work was a young artist right out of school. She was delighted with how this turned out and was excited to be working with original art. (It sure beats Steeler memorabilia!)

This second print is some wild flowers that were probably sketched on one of our weekend hikes over at Englewood Dam. Sharon particularly liked trees for a while, but I don't seem to have any of those.

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons we would go to the print shop and I would study while Sharon carefully wiped the plates and made the prints. The students had to take turns with the equipment, and there were a lot of people trying to get their assignments done using the same stuff. The hours were weird.

Well, I still have at least one more print that I haven't had framed yet. I think it is in my cedar chest, and I will probably get it framed the next time I save up the money and get a coupon for some custom framing. I think the other one has a skeleton and an owl in it. That print will complete my collection. Of course, I did get Sharon's wood sculpture called "The Relationship" from my mother a few years ago. It has a place of honor in the living room next to (what else) the piano. :-)

I haven't heard from Sharon in many years although my mother has seen her a couple of times. When I got the gallery set up, I looked up an address for her on the internet and took a chance at sending her a card and a couple of pictures from the gallery. Of course, I sent her the address to the blog and an invitation to get back in touch. I hope I found an address that will reach its destination. It's never too late to find an old friend.

Hilton Head in September!

Just got back from a cool week at the beach. It was a great vacation with the family, and the weather was perfect pretty much the whole time. Emily and Brian and their kids intersected with Melanie last Saturday in Beckley, West Virginia. She was coming back from a week in Williamsburg with Dad and Sue. Granny and Grandpa came to Pittsburgh on Friday and made the trek with us. We did a marathon drive of 12 hours pulling into Hilton Head at about 6 p.m. (Yes, we left at 6 o'clock in the morning.)

We stayed at Turtle Lane Club out on Sea Pines, and our place was on the second floor with a view of the ocean and a big porch that we enjoyed pretty much 24 hours a day. The water was really warm so late in the season. Here's a picture that Greg took on the beach on Saturday night when we first arrived. The sun was getting low, and David's hat is shadowing Granny's face. The rest of us are squinting.

This is Emily and David on our first beach walk on Saturday night. David got the prize for the best beach hats of the whole trip.

After we arrived, we started getting phone calls from Ohio saying that the wind had knocked out the electricity and there wouldn't be power for a number of days. It turned out that Em & Brian and Melanie were out until about Wednesday and Grandpa and Granny in New Carlisle didn't get their electricity restored until Saturday afternoon the 20th! So they missed the big excitement; and we were especially glad that Grandpa and Granny were with us since they have a well and would have been without water and everything all week. Our place had high winds, but the electricity just flicked and didn't go out. I think we are on a different power grid.

For the most part, we swam in the ocean, rode the bikes we rented all around, walked on the beach, read books, and generally relaxed all last week. We made one side trip to Savannah, Georgia, to visit the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, which is the unit Dad served in during World War II. This was a really nice little trip on Tuesday; and Dad bought our lunch at the Cracker Barrel on the way back to the beach. Otherwise, Greg made his beef stew (which is more like McHenry vegetable soup with gravy in it) and generally kept us well fed with French Toast in the morning and other treats in the evening. We ate pretty well and just made it out to Hudson's on the Dock our last evening for some amazing seafood.

Here is our week in a few pictures.

This was Tuesday morning on our way out to go to Savannah. Please note Dad's shirt, which I purchased for him on e-Bay specifically for this trip. I think it is the first shirt Dad has owned in about 40 years that is not a solid color. I did stay with 2 colors and made sure one of them was either blue or green. But our deal was that he needed a beach shirt and would wear it in public! He wore it TWICE! Once to the museum and again when we went out to eat on Friday!

This is Dad working with the librarian at the museum to find some of the pictures and books about his unit, the 445th. He updated his information in the database with more details. Some of the info was lost in a fire in St. Louis at an archive center.

Here is a picture of Dad in front of the museum for posterity. Mom is standing in the wing on the left.

Back at the beach, David liked to sit on Grandpa's lap and chew on things. (He is cutting his first two teeth.) Here he sports his second sun hat with Hilton Head on it.

Katy is a real water baby. She couldn't get enough of those waves . . . even when they knocked her down! We had a lot of fun running around playing in the water and . . . chasing those silly birds around, of course.

This was taken Friday night before we went to Hudson's. Emily has another family picture that has everyone in it which I'm sure she will post on her blog as soon as she recovers from the trip. She and Brian had the tripod and the camera with the timer.

It was truly a wonderful week! It is going to be hard to go back to work tomorrow after so much relaxation. The worst part is wearing shoes . . . . .

Blogger Boredom

There is a lot of "stuff" going on right now, but it isn't interesting blog material. I have been doing a lot of cleaning. This is quite uncharacteristic for me. For this reason, I have been taking advantage of the burst of nervous energy to do things like dust and clean the woodwork. Is that pathetic? Is this why I have a blog to bore you with this kind of thing? It is sort of like the "nesting" urge you get when you are nine months pregnant and ready to go into labor. Well, obviously THAT isn't the cause of it!

It is especially pathetic to be in a cleaning frenzy when you consider that we are talking about tearing up some of the floor in our kitchen and replacing it. You KNOW what kind of dust and dirt this will generate. Right? So why am I bothering to clean? Oh, well! It really does look nice.

The funniest thing that has happened this week is that there was a post-it note stuck to the wall today by one of my co-workers. Our women's restroom has two doors with a little hallway between them for privacy like many of them have. It seems that in spite of the fact that the trash can for your paper towels in right next to the exit door in the restroom, someone is in such a hurry that they consistently dry their hands and throw the towel against the wall next to the second door out of the restroom heading into the work area. The post-it note struck me as humorous, so I went back to my desk and got my cell phone so I could take a picture of it. I present it here for your entertainment.

That'll learn 'em!

The post-it note . . . only e-mail can surpass it for delivering bombs to your co-workers and taking out your aggressions on them. At least all the words are spelled right.

Happy Labor Day

I have been really wanting to do some fix up around the house. A lot of the main floor hasn't had any maintenance or changes since we moved in eight years ago. The walls in the kitchen and family room area where we spend all our time were white, and the curtains were "Early American Blue" made by the previous owner. They were fine, but everything was looking pretty worn and dirty.

Enter Sherwin Williams 30% off paint sale!!!! I had found some paint samples last weekend when I was cleaning out my desk, and I really liked a couple of them for the kitchen and family room. So Saturday morning I made a trip to Sherwin Williams and got the paint - - - three gallons. The kitchen paint is called "Pale Brick". The color I got for the family room and hallway to the front door is a Martha Stewart color called "Hatband." I would call it a light taupe. Regardless, Greg helped me remove switch plates, take down the curtains, mask around the woodwork, and move the furniture out after lunch on Saturday. Then I proceeded to paint the kitchen. It turned out so great! The color really brings out the grain in the cabinets.

On Sunday we went to church and then went to our good friends' house to celebrate Bill's birthday. Susie made a killer meatloaf with all the trimmings. She also loves to decorate cakes. For Bill's birthday, she made him a Popcorn Cake . . . complete with Orville Reddenbocker's on the top. I took this photo with my cell phone; quality isn't good---but you get the idea!

Today I worked on the family room and finished all the actual painting by about 1 o'clock. Then it took Greg and I both a couple of hours to vacuum and remove the masking tape and put the room back together. Then we went off to Home Depot to get a new blind for the window. And by 8 this evening, the place looked like this! I'm pretty happy.

But now, I'm just going to go up and sit in my nice, fresh family room. Time to relax a bit before jumping back into the grind tomorrow.