Once Upon a Picnic

During my week of "unplugged" leisure we visited a few cities in Kansas, including city of my husband's birth and young years, Salina. Our wanderings also took in Hutchinson (known as "Hutch" to locals), McPherson and Abilene. Salina and Hutchinson had their 15 minutes of fame back in the 1950s when scenes in the movie "Picnic" were filmed there. Recognisable locations include the h-u-g-e grain elevators in Hutchinson - biggest I've ever seen:

Riverbank scenes in "Picnic" were filmed in Salina. When, in the movie, William Holden stoops to splash his face, my husband, just a young whippersnapper at the time, recalls that locals leaned over the bridge, to watch filming. As Holden began to splash his face with river water, a communal cry of "EEwwww - urrrr" was heard from spectators, who had direct knowledge of content of that water!

Anyway, no picnics for us, though we did rent "Picnic" via ROKU last evening to refresh our memories of the movie. We enjoyed it - but as, since the film was made, William Holden had become typecast as a quite different type of character, it was hard to "believe" him in this role. If the film had been made a few years later, Paul Newman or Burt Reynolds would have been a better fit.

We had a very pleasant few days away in glorious early autumn weather, lots of antique stores to investigate, and some beautiful Fall colour to be enjoyed; none, as yet, has emerged back home in south-west Oklahoma.

As it's Music Monday an apt offering: theme music from "Picnic"

"Moonglow and Theme from Picnic" is a 1956-released medley of both "Moonglow" (1933) and "Theme from Picnic" (1955), by Morris Stoloff. It is from the film Picnic, starring William Holden and Kim Novak.

The 1933 piece, "Moonglow", was written by Will Hudson, Irving Mills and Eddie DeLange. The 1955 piece, "Theme from Picnic", was written by George Duning. (Steve Allen set lyrics to the tune, and is credited on vocal versions of the song as a co-author, but not on the hit instrumental versions by Stoloff and others.)

The Stoloff version spent three weeks at number-one on the Billboard Most Played by Jockeys music chart in the spring of 1956. The B-side to the Stoloff version is "Theme from Picnic" by George Duning.

The medley was also covered by George Cates in 1956, charting at number 4 on the charts.

This is a nice rendition by the James Last Orchestra (with scenes from the movie)-




The original film version of the piece:

High Pains Drifting

Home again, home again jiggity jig.....

We enjoyed a longer than usual trip - a drift around the US's High Plains, travelling through, or in, three panhandles: Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle, and the Nebraska panhandle. The latter was a new one for us, and very nice too - possibly one of those "hidden gems" travel writers sometimes mention. We also hit the plains of Colorado in Fort Morgan, and the eastern edge of Wyoming at Torrington; home again via Kansas and northern Oklahoma.

We'd have ventured further into Colorado or Wyoming but for the weather forecast. Snow arrived in the Rockies. We experienced just an icing sugar scattering in Scottsbluff, Nebraska where we were staying at the time.

(Clicking on them should bring up clearer versions of husband's photos below.)

Fall has definitely fallen in parts of Colorado and Nebraska. The area around Scottsbluff was especially bright with golden Maples plentiful and practically fluorescent. I like Nebraska! Don't know exactly why, I just do - it feels like "me". I wondered if, perhaps, the feeling connected to the state's latitude. It is nearer to England's Yorkshire latitude than is south-western Oklahoma, for sure, but I'd have to be well into Canada to find similar latitude to my birthplace in the north of England.

Points of special interest were: Carhenge in Nebraska - someone had the peculiar idea of building a kind of stonehenge (as in England) from old cars. The morning of our visit was very windy and plenty cold, though not quite bad enough to keep us inside our car.

Later in the trip, in Kansas, we stumbled upon what was once known as the Cathedral of the Plains, now slightly downgraded from Cathedral to The Basilica of St Fidelis because it's not the seat of a Bishop. In any city the huge church would seem quite unremarkable, but rising from those barely populated plains, it stands out some...well...actually it stands out a lot.

We also stumbled upon Greensburg, Kansas without, at first, remembering its recent history. The cinema caught our attention, named after me too!

"Looks brand new, but who would build a new cinema in a tiny town these days?"

Hey, look - they spelled theatre the British way - just noticed!

The whole of Greensburg looked new too - strange indeed, in these parts, where dilapidation and abandonment are common. We found the small town's antique store where the answer awaited, in newspaper cuttings and photographs in the store's entrance. "Of course! I remember now - a tornado devastated this town some years ago!" Ten years ago, in fact. The antique store owner told us that the town had been in the middle of painting and tidying itself up, when the tornado hit and undid the handiwork. Still, Greensburg looks great now, and, we were told, it has been rebuilt to be, appropriately enough - "green". Locals have no argument at all when they see the drop in their energy bills each month, we were told.

We arrived home Sunday afternoon after our High Plains drifting. We forgot to take our whip along but, happily, didn't meet this legendary fellow-drifter! We did have a little "excitement" one evening though. Husband accidentally pressed the emergency button on the phone in our room, while shifting the telephone. Next thing : cops at the door wanting to know....Oops! Indeed!

A little contemplation of where the next trip might take us needed a hat (TSK!) and a drink:

Back home...

We arrived home yesterday afternoon after a strange but very enjoyable trip which entailed retracing our steps/wheels after the first 5 days, then setting out again, due to unforeseen circumstance - long story - "another fine mess I got us into" kind of circumstance. Anyway, we spent several days in central Nebraska, where the wind really was sweeping down the plain - and much more so than in Oklahoma where it has long been reputed, in song, to do just that. It was a flippin' cold wind too!

On the way back south we stopped off at what is said to be the central point of the 48 contiguous states, in Lebanon, Kansas. However, I think there are claims elsewhere to this central position.

Nearer to home, in a little town called Watonga, Oklahoma yesterday morning we spotted this, which made me chuckle:

Hmm - I wondered if the "Ye Olde" part meant that on entering, the customer is handed a washboard and scrubbing brush, then directed to a row of wash tubs. Or maybe, taken through to a back door leading to a river, where other customers on the river's bank are busy bashing their dirty undies against rocks.

Back to it...

The blog's been on hold for a couple of weeks - what's been goin' on? Nothing terribly inspiring on the political front, for sure!

There was the TV debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump - the one when Trump said Clinton would be in jail if he were to become president. That brought on a wan smile. Then there was the debate between would-be vice-presidents, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence. Well, that one had me yelling at the TV, "Kaine, can you not shut your flippin' mouth for two minutes together and let the other guy speak?!" I was not impressed with Tim Kaine, at all. Mike Pence's politics makes him a no-no for me, but can't argue with the fact that he did come over as far more presidential/vice-presidential than either Trump or Kaine. Clinton darn well ought to be coming over as presidential - she has been aiming for the job her whole life!

Then during last week ...oh dear! But really, was anyone surprised to read about Trump's past unpleasantnesses? Haven't we seen and heard enough over many, many months to realise that, if someone began digging through old records and videos, something nasty would emerge - it'd be more surprising if it hadn't. What has emerged, so far, is nasty, but par for the course from a guy like Donald Trump, I'd have thought. It won't change many minds, nor will anything worse that might be presented for our disgust during the next weeks. I wish all media would be silenced, blinds down, by presidential decree, until 8 November at 10p.m!

What else? During the first week of bloglessness we had a surprise and lightning fast visit from husband's younger daughter, who lives in Austin, Texas. We'd intended taking off for a few days before that, but one or other us us feeling one degree under resulted in our sitting tight for a while longer.

We left last Monday, heading for Kansas, ended up in Hutchinson for a night or two. We really wanted to visit the Cosmosphere there - a museum affiliated to the Smithsonian. We arrived there at around 9.30 one morning, to a car park full to the gills, and two school buses just arrived, also full to the gills. The foyer was heaving, very noisy, with several teachers trying to keep the excited chit-chat down to a dull roar. We thought it best to postpone our visit, and instead drove around a couple of nearby small towns discovering antique, vintage and junk stores. Looked again at the Cosmosphere later in the day, but the car park was still overflowing. Another time, perhaps.

We then moved on to Emporia a little further to the north and east, wandered around that area, taking in some very nice scenery, as far east as Ottawa, Kansas and Baldwin City - not at all the classic Kansas scenery of featureless flatness, more like wooded areas of Missouri. The trees up there have begun to turn orange and deep red - especially the Maples. One little town was preparing for their annual Maple Festival at the weekend.

We arrived home Sunday afternoon, via Ponca City in the northernmost reaches of Oklahoma.

We kept an eye open, during travel, for election lawn signs. There weren't many. It seemed to us that Trump-Pence ones were slightly more in evidence, but still were few and far between. OK and KS are both deeply red states, of course. A few Clinton-Kaine signs were around too. Most lawn signs, by far, were for local and state positions. Perhaps this indicates that nobody, of either persuasion, is feeling particularly presidentially inspired this time around. I know I'm not!

Weather? A whole year's worth in less than a week! We left with temps in the 80s, an overnight storm, then within 24 hours, in Kansas (maybe in Oklahoma too), temps dropped to mid 40s with a knife-sharp cold wind blowing all day. Two days like that, then a slow climb back to the high 80s by the time we reached home yesterday.


I almost forgot - it's Music Monday... and it's a mad world ain't it? Cue Adam Lambert:

Musical and Meandering Monday

We're back! Our trip led us to the south-eastern corner of beautiful Colorado. On the way we experienced bitter cold winds in Amarillo, just above freezing daytime, freezing at night - donned padded jacket there. Bright, cool and lovely in Walsenburg CO; temperatures heated up to high 80s by Garden City KS and southward, home, bringing attire down to short sleeve weather - still windy though.

For larger, clearer images please click on photographs.

Above: view from supermarket car park in Walsenburg, Colorado. Below: from another angle, without the incongruous inclusion!

We drove The Highway of Legends from Walsenburg - gorgeous weather, some amazing scenery. Also HERE.

Right by that amazing rock wall (which stretched further than we could see due to trees) was the entrance (below) to a World War II German Officers' prison camp. Dang - but they treated 'em well didn't they? At least it'd be difficult to escape though - unless they had a Steve McQueen type resident!

We opted to travel back east on a route we'd never taken before when in this part of the country. A long straight-ish road along the bottom of south-eastern Colorado - H'way 160. Considering there'd be little in the way of civilised pee-stops, we tried not to over-hydrate. It was with great relief that around half way along the seemingly never-ending highway we came upon the small outpost store below - complete with loo/restroom. Ah! Blessed relief!

Not long after a stop at the Kim Outpost we found a memorial, of sorts, to a former town/settlement: Andrix. On the wall of the one remaining building is scrawled "Andrix, gone but not forgotten"

Reflecting on the early settlers are photographer and yours truly:

We crossed into Kansas to stay overnight in Garden City (from the scent on the wind next morning, blowing off the several feed lots in the area, the name might rather be Garden Shitty (and I bet I'm not the first to have said this!)

Onward through south-west Kansas and eventually north-western Oklahoma. There was quite a lot of this - and, by now many bugs on windscreen and front bumper. The car looked as though we'd travelled through some far flung jungle by the time we reached home. We were well in front of a storm line forecast to hit our region on Sunday, which did in fact result in a tornado warning for our town and county, Sunday evening, but we missed all but the thunder.

John Denver sang us in, and sings us out. I miss John Denver, still. I shall miss Jonathan Cainer for ever - and only now do I allow myself to weep.

"Lost in the Fifties..." ~ Class of '55 Reunion

Husband's high school class reunion (60th) in Salina Kansas, as it turned out, was a pleasanter experience than expected - for us both.

There were some 50 to 60 attendees at the casual "mixer" meeting on Friday evening. Some people had travelled from as far away as New Hampshire, Michigan and Colorado. 1955 class members, according to notes on display, are now scattered through most of the 50 states, with Arizona and Florida vying with the home state, Kansas, in the double figure league.

A sad, but inevitable, inclusion was a lovingly prepared display, made up of photographs from the school yearbooks, of all those class members who are known to have died since 1955. The proportion is thought to be: around 178 still on planet Earth, from a total of 250 students in the 1955 graduation class. Not bad! It was sad to note, among the memorialised, a youthful photograph of my husband's best friend from school days and beyond, his nickname, "Z". We had attended his funeral in Wichita a few years ago.

On the lighter side, there was a fun display of some pages from the school's yearbook listing graduating students' "Pet Peeves and Future Plans". Husband's contribution went like this:

There he is (in the bottom photograph) with two re-united classmates. The lady on the left very kindly extracted three items from her scrapbook and put them in his keeping: two poems he had written, and an article, with his photograph (below), mentioning some of his doings.

Fall Equinox

 David Palladini's Zodiac, Summer thru Fall +

Happy Autumn to all!

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The American Notebooks in October 1842, wrote:

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

I'm with Nat. So after today the blog will stand still until Monday. We are to attend husband's High School Reunion (60th) this weekend, up in Salina, Kansas. We shall probably only attend the "mixer" meeting(s), rather than any regimented dinners etc. Not sure how I shall feel about it - I resolutely refused to attend any such affairs relating to my own schooldays, back in the UK. Still, I do like Salina, and there are antique stores to explore, should things become depressingly...erm... elderly.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly....

Moments from our weekend trip to Kansas ~

(Click on images for bigger versions)

THE GOOD:

 Solar panels at Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home in Abilene KS

Related: I've just received a "Tweet" from Al Gore with a link to his piece in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, it's much less depressing than many I've read. (Run Al, RUN!!)

 20,000 Re-cycled local newspapers exhibit

THE BAD:

" You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

AND

THE UGLY:

Bluesy & Artsy Interlude

We've been away from home for a couple of nights - travelled with husband's daughter and son-in-law to Salina, Kansas, husband's old hometown, a four to five hour drive from our current abode. We went, mainly, to see Boz Scaggs in concert, Friday, but did lots of other stuff too.

The concert venue was the lovely Stiefel Theater. This is a renovated art deco era movie theater, perfect size for a concert, much nicer than those awful cavernous arenas which hold what seem like billions and billions, you can't really see the artists without binoculars, and even when you can hear the music above the screams and whistles of a hyperbolic audience, it doesn't sound right.

Boz Scaggs, singer/guitar player who started out as part of the Steve Miller Band is still in good shape and good voice, now aged 69. A superb band is touring with him too - even have a saxophone player - can't go wrong when there's a sax around I always think. The many blues-tinged songs he performed came from his newest album, Memphis, including a gentle cover version of Rainy Night in Georgia, and some of what husband whispered to me were his old hits. I wasn't familiar with these rocky styled songs though.

This was my favourite - Sierra

I don't recall Boz Scaggs doing much in England back in the day (or if he did I missed it - rock wasn't my thang). I knew of Boz Scaggs only from one of his more recent CDs I have -But Beautiful - a set of songs from The Great American Songbook. He didn't sing anything from that CD on Friday evening though.

Any vocalist or musician who can sing and play from The Great American Songbook, and do it credibly these days, has to be a true artist. Scaggs, from his But Beautiful CD, did seem to have a feel for the genre, though in the blurb handed out at the concert he's reported as having this to say on the subject:

"I'm not a jazz musician or singer, but it showed me a whole new world of vocal expression. It was important to me in the way that I perceive music, in terms of harmonics and in using my voice as an instrument. These records were incredibly challenging, like nothing I'd ever done before."

Several older rock and pop stars have tried their hand (or voice) with varying success on the Great American Songbook, which contains, in my opinion, some of the greatest songs and melodies ever written. George Michael did, I think, one of the best of such albums, his Songs of the 20th Century. Dang, but he should have been one of the all-time greats. Rod Stewart's versions of Great American Songbook numbers are so-so; Robbie Williams should really have waited a few more years before launching into that genre but did a reasonable job on his Swing When You're Winning, he didn't exactly disgrace himself.

As well as attending the concert we did other artsy stuff too: on Thursday evening we saw a movie at Salina's tiny Arts Movie Theater: the film showing was "The East". It's not as arty as their usual fare, but a decent enough tale along broad Karen Silkwood-ish lines. We visited three different galleries/art museums on Friday: one in Salina showing a rather weird set of modern art installations which we pondered and wondered over; and two venues in the Swedish-flavoured cute little town of Lindsborg, half an hour's drive from Salina.

Lindsborg is proud of their local art luminary Birger Sandzén, the town has a very good memorial gallery of his works.

We also ventured into The Red Barn Studio which, we discovered, stands as a memorial to another local artist and all-round craftsman, Lester Raymer. We approached the old house in which it's based through an overgrown shady leafy garden, not knowing exactly what to expect. We were welcomed and given an interesting tour of the house and lots of the amazingly versatile artist's work.

As well as being a talented artist in oils and woodcuts, he did beautiful, intricate quilting, embroidery, sculpture, toy-making, furniture making, iron-work, using lots of re-cycled materials. He had worked through the depression era, using whatever he could find to create his arts and crafts. The Red Barn also provides studio space for visiting artists. There were four or five in residence on Friday, all busily working, but more than willing to stop and chat to us about their work.

We did a lot of stuff in a short time - thoroughly enjoyed all of it!

Arty Farty Black Friday ~ Native American Artist Blackbear Bosin

On this "Black Friday", a look at an artist unrelated to the day except (partly) by name: artist and sculptor Blackbear Bosin.
From Native Arts of America.com

Blackbear Bosin, the renowned Kiowa/Comanche artist, was born on June 5, 1921 near Anadarko, Oklahoma. He was the eldest son of Frank Blackbear Bosin & Ada Tivis (a beadworker). His maternal grand mother Kahchatscha was a Comanche Awl Band medicine woman. At 17, Blackbear helped his father run the family farm. After graduating from Cyril (OK) High school in 1940, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps during world war II. Due to family obligations, Blackbear was unable to accept two university art scholarships. painting in his spare time, Blackbear achieved success with little formal training.

Blackbear made his home in Wichita, Kansas. He worked as a color separator & platemaker, illustrator, commercial artist, gallery owner, sculptor & painter, and was featured in numerous publications, and won many awards.

At the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers in Wichita, Kansas stands "Keeper of the Plains", a dramatic 44-foot tall steel sculpture of an American Indian, donated to the city by its creator, Francis (Blackbear) Bosin.

From Kansapedia

Although the "Keeper of the Plains" undoubtedly is his most widely recognized work, Bosin expressed himself primarily through his paintings. He was almost entirely self-taught, and his early paintings were strictly representational depictions of Indian life. Over the years, however, his work became increasingly complex and the subject matter more profound. A spirit of Indian mysticism deeply influenced his work, and he eventually became internationally recognized for his vivid watercolors and acrylics.

By the time of his death in 1980 at the age of 59, the inventiveness and imagination reflected in his paintings had earned Blackbear Bosin a prominent place among American artists.

I have no time of birth for Blackbear Bosin, the chart is set for 12 noon on the date of his birth. A brief look, only for factors relating to his art style. Whatever his birth time Sun, Moon and Mars were all in communcative and versatile Gemini, with Venus, planet of the arts in Taurus, coming through clear and unadulterated from its home sign. Venus forms harmonious sextile aspect to the conjunction of Mercury and Pluto in sensitive Cancer reflecting both power and delicacy in the way he expressed himself through his art. Venus also sextiles Uranus in Pisces - the "inventiveness and imagination" highlighted in the quoted text above. In addition Sun sextiles Neptune (creativity).


Examples of his work:

Prairie Fire

Buffalo Hunt

They Moved Without Him

The Owl's Telling

Blackbear Bosin incorporated Native American symbolism and mythology into his design for this logo. "Dust flies and the earth trembles as man and nature collide in America's quest for energy. Here, man is building a nuclear power plant."
--Fort Scott Tribune, May 21, 1977. The Wolf Creek Generating Station logo is a synthesis of man and nature. Its Native American designer used symbolism and mythology to link nuclear technology to the Kansas landscape.

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