Aloha, My Friend,

1st Friday – 2nd Sunday and the April Peace Run and Party.— Big things are coming on up out here at the Railroad Square Art Park.  And I have earlier hinted at the April 13th SECOND SUNDAY PEACE RUN AND PARTY.  Be sure to circle that one on your calendar folks. Be at the ready and awaiting anxiously for more details as they develop.

But this 1st Friday is fast approaching, comin’ at ya on a dusty road. (Remind me sometime to tell you that Jerry Jeff Walker story.) Anyway, 1st Friday speaks for itself so let me say a few words on behalf of the 2nd Sunday Fair at the Square. The whole Art Park is a-bloom in activity preparing for the semi-annual “Artists at Work “experience. This shebang will be taking place on March 9th, a sad commemorative date of the deaths of both Charles Bukowski (1994) and George Burns (1996) at age 100.

I took to reading up on Burns so that I could tell you a thing or two about him and, coincidently, I came away with a thing or two that you might like knowing. Both are really George and Gracie pieces. George and Gracie worked and toured together in vaudeville and, although Gracie was engaged to another performer, George found himself falling out of control in love with her. He tried repeatedly to entice her over and repeatedly failed. Neither shamed nor humiliated but determined and somewhat awkwardly, he continued to woo her. I say “awkwardly” because his success was in accidentally making her cry at a Christmas party. She later told a friend that “if George meant enough to her to make her cry she must be in love with him.”

Saints in Heaven, Laine must love me more than words can ever tell.

When Gracie passed away in 1964 she was interred in a crypt in California. When George died in ’96 he had himself placed in the same crypt but just beneath her because he wanted Gracie to eternally get top billing.

Goodnight, Gracie. Goodnight, George.

In a “neither here nor there moment”, just my ruminating about the afterlife, I suppose, I began thinking about a time when I was wandering some wintery boulevard in Boston when I came upon this wildly painted station wagon. It was like something that Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters might have driven after they settled down and had to drive the kids to soccer. Not to be unexpected, it was illegally parked at a corner so I had to squat in the brown, crusty slush in the street to read what they had painted on their bumper, “When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not kicking and screaming like all of the other people in his car.” I later found out that the quote was from a comic, Elmo Phillips, who also said, “You don’t appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle-aged woman. Stuff you pay good money for later in life. “

So, as I was saying this coming 2nd Sunday Fair at the Square whoop-dee-do will be the Parks semi-annual “Artists at Work” event. This festival will have all the usual and unusual goings on, from food to the unexpected! Bali-HI Trading Company will feature: Doug Chapman and his “Water Wood” sculptures. Gertrude Palmer, a multi-talented watercolorist and jewelry artist whose work ranges from Wedding portraits, en plein air landscapes, abstracts, and Jazz and Blues artists she will show some of her work and do her amazing quick watercolor portraits. Dave Wood from Panama City will be here painting with acrylics his local/nautical themed art. It is guaranteed fun for children of all ages.