I Pledge Allegiance

… to the flag
     of the United States of America …


Twins Beau and Beck learned the pledge in BSF, or as they call it, BF.


Beck goes first:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkhay0YFX5g


Then Beau, "Can I do it?"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TBS4Uqy9ec 


Yes, you can. 


Pretty sweet for 3-years-old.

Take It Easy in Winslow, Arizona

Uncanny how song lyrics submerged beneath decades of disuse will bob to the surface when certain words fit the situation. 

Well, I'm running down the road… 

headed from Albuquerque, NM to Flagstaff, AZ when barricades, flashing signs and men wearing orange vests diverted traffic off I40 at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Well, unlike the Eagles' song, I'm [not] standing on a corner, but I am in Winslow, Arizona, and I think to myself, of all places to get stuck.

Semis crossed the overpass and simply got back on I40 heading east … don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.

What did truckers know that we didn't?

"We can't turn around," I said to my husband, "we just came from that direction."

From the overpass facing west, seeing no cars or trucks on the Interstate appeared like a scene from The Twilight Zone. Eerie. 

Ignoring our GPS, which showed that if we turned right, the road dead-ended. We felt sure we could find a way past this roadblock. Instead we found ourselves in the middle of the prairie, forced to turn around. This really was the Twilight Zone. 

Merging into the line of cars and trucks funneled to the onramp, my husband rolled down his window to ask, "What's going on?"

The man who leaned into the 50+ mph winds said, "Dirt storm closed the Interstate."

Cheeze, Louise. We lived in the Texas Panhandle east of Amarillo for 25 years and only blizzards closed I40. No blizzards in late April.

Lighten up while you still can

Don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand

And take it easy.

The iPhone to the rescue, first to check the Arizona Department of Safety to see how long we should expect to wait and then, because the recording said the road would remain closed until 8:00 p.m., to find a place to spend the night. We got the last room at a hotel we would never have looked for but which turned out to be a marvel. 

La Posada, a Fred Harvey Hotel built along the Santa Fe railroad, opened in 1930. The entrance pictured here faces the old Route 66. Closed to the public in 1957 when the railroad turned the building into offices, La Posada reopened when the current owners began renovations in 1998.  http://www.laposada.org/ 

The new owner's vision for restoration reveals a labor of personal commitment. 

"I believe we save great buildings in the same way we save families, cities, nations: one day at a time, with constant investment and courage, undaunted by naysayers. I believe in the sacredness of place, and in the power of great architecture to inspire creativity, kindness and civic responsibility." Allan Affeldt, taken from the Souvenir Guide and Map for a Walking Tour of La Posada. 

A desert treasure, the hotel has a 5-star restaurant, a gift shop and art gallery. Designed by architect, Mary Jane Colter who also designed Bright Angel Lodge as well as lodges and cabins at Phantom Ranch located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, everything about this old hotel says grand. 

A list of well-known guests, which included Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, Carol Lombard, Albert Einstein, John Wayne, to name a few, as well as pictures of celebrities from the 1930's–1950's line hallways, and each guest room gets its name from one of the hotel's famous visitors. 

My husband and I stayed in the Jane Russell room, where a picture hangs of the actress in the Howard Hughes movie, The Outlaw. Above the picture was a quote by Bob Hope, "Here's the 2 and only, Jane Russell." In California, I went to school with her niece, Jaye Russell.

Vintage black and white photos displayed throughout the hotel recall a time when passenger trains criss-crossed the country as the best and fastest means of transportation, for soldier, civilian and celebrity alike. Once upon a time, trains were mighty giants, but then Atlas Shrugged. 

Charles and Anne Lindbergh spent part of their honeymoon at La Posada, and later stayed there when they designed the airport at Winslow. In the early days of aviation, Winslow, AZ was a TWA stop and Howard Hughes owned the airline. 

I love taking pictures of pictures. I took this one of Howard Hughes because my mother had a job interview with him in Las Vegas.

My husband and I had dinner in the Turquoise Room, a meal that ranks in our top 5, all-time best. Today the restaurant can seat 100, but during the 1930s and 1940s, it was not unusual for the kitchen to serve 1000 meals a day. The hotel's guidebook notes, "In addition to the main kitchen, there was a full bakery and butcher shop, a maze of store rooms and freezers, china and linen rooms, and a lead-lined walk-in humidor for cigars. They even refrigerated the kitchen trash to keep it from smelling!"

Pictures taken before we consumed every bite: salad with Blue Cheese dressing––the best ever––; grilled chicken resting on a green chile sauce with a corn tamale side––luscious; and a corn and bean soup with a red pepper sauce garnish. Fantastic creations by the "renowned Chef John Sharpe."

Only one of several remaining Fred Harvey hotels in operation, Who is Fred Harvey?, La Posada offers more than a place to sleep. Guests have access to bookcases filled with books in the guest rooms as well as in common areas, a garden, a ballroom and a reading room where all the "Arizona Highway" magazines since 1945 are bound by year. 

Judy Garland starred in the movie, The Harvey Girls , an MGM musical that won the 1946 Oscar for best song, Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe."

To read more about The Harvey Girls, check out this book, The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West. 

At La Posada, guests get a glimpse of not-so-ancient American history highlighted by western architecture and artists' creativity. 

If you ever get to Winslow, AZ, dirt storm or no, stop at La Posada and Take It Easy. I'm glad we did.

Grease is the Word

Have you heard? 

Rose Frugé will play Betty Rizzo in Amarillo Little Theatre’s production of Grease.

http://www.amarillolittletheatre.org/index.html

"Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee."

Tell me more. Tell me more.

http://www.amarillolittletheatre.org/calendar.html

Performances start May 6 thru May 23, Thursday thru Saturday evenings, and Sunday matinees.

Tell me more.

Ticket prices: http://www.amarillolittletheatre.org/ShowTicketPrices.html 

 Rose was 

Born to hand jive, Baby …

You’re the one that I want

… to see. Especially since you cut and dyed your hair. That's dedication to a theatrical role.

We're for each other like

A wop ba-ba lu-mop and wop bam boom

Just like my brother is

Sha na na na na na yip-pit-y dip de boom

Chang chang chang-it-ty chang shoo-bop

We'll always be together

Wha oooh yeah!

We'll always, be together …

Elton John in Lubbock, America

As the first concert performance in the Texas Tech Spirit Arena 10 years ago, Elton John returned to Lubbock April 9, 2010. 

Seeing and hearing this music icon perform for nearly 3 hours without a break is believing that Elton John came to entertain his audience. 


Watching the crowd, it occurred to me how to distinguish between performers and entertainers. 


A performer performs because of how entertaining makes him feel. 

An entertainer entertains because of how performing makes his audience feel. 

The audience felt appreciated. The crowd could feel the love that night. EJ wore Tech colors and held his guns up. 

Being there brought back memories as only music can. Doing dishes while the radio played "Your Song," I felt as if the artist "put down in words how wonderful life is while you're in the world." 

Phenomenal. 

James captured some video of "Your Song"which I edited for youtube. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qElk4xQdM


But if you want to hear more, someone posted "Circle of Life," the song Elton John said changed his life.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4GG-K1rlBQ

Ring Bears as Ring Bearers

A movie footnote to Jordan and Stephanie's wedding, nephews Beau and Beck dressed in bear costumes for the wedding rehearsal. No one expected the ring bearers to growl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvdHKL2_JcE

A Pampa Footnote: "Circles inside of circles, inside of circles"

Although a number of women traveled 120–150 miles round trip from surrounding areas to attend, Janice flew from Dallas to Amarillo––up and back in a day––rented a car and drove by herself the 60 miles each way to and from Pampa contending with a 50+ mph crosswind. Janice had dressed for Spring, but nary a complaint about the Panhandle weather crossed her lips.

                                           Janice, me, Pat, Sue and Danina

Thank you, each and every one who got out on such a blustery day, Saturday past, to hear me speak at Faith Bible Church. When I overheard some women saying that the bad weather had made it possible for them to attend because ball games and various outdoor activities got canceled, it struck me how hollow my prayers sound when I ask for comfortable conditions, the removal of obstacles and the wish that things I value would come easy.

Since graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2008, I have sought to discover and develop a speaking/writing platform. Based on remarks and written evaluations, I am encouraged to continue in this direction, to continue as Prof Hendricks tells his Creativity classes, "plussing," to make ideas better.

Several asked about quotes used in my talk, indicating that they wished these had been written out. Most of the quotes came from the books I recommended, titles and authors printed on the back of the outline I had prepared, then distributed.

Without repeating the full outline, here are a few quotes corresponding to each heading. 

I. Reading …
"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." C.S. Lewis

II. Writing …
"You are the custodian of your memories and they are perishable." William Zinsser

III. Creativity…
"All people are born originals, but most die a copy."
"The tragedy of life is not in the fact of death but in what dies inside us while we live." Both of these quotes come from the revered Dr. Howard G. Hendricks, who this year celebrates his 60th Anniversary as a professor at DTS.

IV. Transitions …
"The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask." Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Circles inside of circles, inside of circles …," my story reads better because of you.

Speaking of Pampa

I will be in Pampa, TX on Saturday March 27, 2010 to speak at Faith Bible Church, 10:30–12:30. http://maps.google.com/places/us/tx/pampa/w-kingsmill-ave/110/-faith-bible-church?gl=us


Which, speaking of faith, I must exercise my faith to trust I will have a voice by then. Laryngitis struck with whatever the last 60–70 mph. wind blew into Lubbock the day before yesterday.

My subject is Story. The main points are Reading, Writing and Creativity, with a post script, Transitions.

One of my favorite books, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, offered inspiration underlying the message I hope to deliver.

The movie, Castaway, a portion of which was filmed in the Panhandle, near Pampa, captures visually how like the ocean that part of Texas is. An intentional parallel, I might add.

Vast, with islands of inhabitants, the land creates its own geographic isolation where the treasures of friendship wash up onto the shores of individual stories.

A Gift to be part of and to know some of these stories, I look forward to seeing familiar faces, hugging necks, meeting new people and reinforcing the ties that have bound my heart forever to Pampa.