Carolers singing outside of Preservation Hall

Newburgh began their Historic Newburgh Celebrates Christmas Celebration December 2, 2011 with a Festival of Trees party benefitting Warrick County’s Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program. Preservation Hall  downtown Newburgh was adorned with a dozen fully decorated Christmas trees and other Christmas items donated by individuals and area businesses. These items were available for viewing and silent auction throughout the weekend. The party was the kick-off to a fun-filled holiday weekend.




Kate Fischer, who is both Chairman of Christmas in Newburgh and President of Warrick County CASA, reflected on the origin of the Festival of Trees party: “We needed something that would create a draw. Carol Schafer and I sat down and brainstormed and came up with this.”

Carol Jones at Preservation Hall in Newburgh

Christmas Trees for auction in Preservation Hall

The Festival of Trees party had beautifully lit trees giving the room a dreamy holiday atmosphere. The trees were all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some trees were traditional with beautiful ribbon bows while others were pink or white with an eye for a child’s room. There were trees that came with extra features, such as a free tooth whitening visit and take-home kit offered by a local dentist! All trees were accompanied by a description of the tree and wishes for the holiday season.

The party featured food from: Café Arazu, Edgewater Grille, Tin Fish, Turoni’s, Knob Hill and Mulberry Jean’s. It was A Taste of Newburgh as all of the restaurants were from Newburgh. Steve Small and Jon Lutz filled the room with holiday music as people ate their goodies and admired the Christmas trees.

Aimee Gina McCalaster from Mulberry Jeans

Carol Schaefer, Executive Director of Historic Newburgh, Inc.
and Phyllis Bussing pose by the Cat In The Hat Christmas Tree in Preservation Hall

Christmas trees in general fill us with hope; when we look at a Christmas tree, we remember that sometimes dreams come true and there really is love in the world.

Most of the trees were claimed by 5:00 pm Monday evening, but the room was filled with the memories of the weekend. Tom Burkhardt was there to pick up the tree his wife bid on and took a few minutes to share his thoughts on the event: “My kids, my wife we all enjoyed it—it was neat. There’s not too many throw back towns like Newburgh. It’s really neat to see this kind of experience it kind of brings you back to when you were a kid.”

 Newspaper boys/men were in costume handing out

 the news about all the Events in Newburgh outside

 Preservation Hall where the Festival of Trees took place 

on this Historic Newburgh Celebrates Christmas weekend. 



Janet Stout, retired costume designer, helped Newburgh travel back to the 1800’s on Saturday December 3rd.  Walking the sidewalks to the quaint restaurants or shops is always a treat, but on that day there were musicians on the corners, ladies with big hats warming their hands with muffs and men with top hats using canes.  It was exciting and the town was abuzz with shopping.  Stout has much experience in costuming having worked in Hollywood with television and movies for twenty years.  She is now with Castle High School in the Drama department

Susan Stein, Kate fischer, and Pam Lene' standing by the Warrick County CASA Christmas Tree.  Money collected from the Festival of Trees celebration went to Warrick County CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and Historic Newburgh, Inc.  Kate Fischer (the woman in red) is the executive Director of CASA and the other two women are Advocates (retired school teachers).

EPO Concert

This charming couple accidentally dressed in similar colors and attended the Evansville Philharmonic         Orchestra concert at the Victory Theater downtown Evansville.  The concert was titled Raise the Roof .  And raise the roof they did!                                                                                 

                                                                         

This is what Dr.Michael Daugherty, composer, has to say about his unusual music.  (The quote was taken from the Evansville Philharmonic program book.)  "Raise the Roof brings the timpani into the orchestral foreground and is the foundation of a grand acoustic construction.  I have composed music that gives the timpanist expressive melodies, and a tour de force cadenza.  The timpanist uses a wide variety of performance techniques; extensive use of foot pedals for melodic turning of the drums, placement of a cymbal upside down on the head of the lowest drum to play glissandi rolla, and striking the drums with regular mallets, wire brushes, maraca sticks, and even bare hands."

Before the concert began, they demonstrated these different techniques-- I liked the maraca drum sticks and the wire brushes the best.  It was nice to get that preview and then to experience the techniques in action when they played the piece.




Dr. Michael Daugherty, Composer

 

Twenty two years ago I spent the day cleaning our house and I remember finally collapsing into a chair at around 9:00 pm when the phone rang.  It was the doctor and the question he asked was, "How would you like to have your baby tonight?"  I didn't answer right away because I was plenty tired already but I was also very ready to have my baby.  I was just about ready to say, "Well, I'd rather not.  I'd rather have a long bubble bath and then hit the sac.  Maybe another time," when he said, "I have a couple women in labor right now and have plans for the weekend so it would be good if you came in..." 

  I delivered Janine in 45 minutes.  She's always been full of life and had that urge to go, go, go...  Happy Birthday Janine!

My friend, Barbara Barrett, is standing in the nice, little cafe off Green River Road in Evansville called Cafe 111.  We enjoy having lunch there and right now they have pumpkin spice coffee too.  Anyway, note how Barbara and the man in red are dressed for the fall weather.  I ask, 'What was the guy between them thinking?'   Maybe he's been asleep for a month--just woke up and decided to visit the cafe-- shocked to find the season autumn--ya know all damp and cold?




Cold Legs



People at the Writers Retreat

Some of the writers at the Inn in McCormick State Park.  My roommate was Aimee Blume who is pictured in the light blue shirt.  As writers we are constantly thinking about our manuscripts and the writing process.  This picture shows four people sitting in the presence of one another, but I bet deep in thought about things that are very far away.  One of the words I used to describe my weekend in Spencer, IN was excitement.  I find it exciting to be with other people who love to use their imagination and care about writing fiction as much as I do.                                                                                              

Writers Workshop

This weekend has been both challenging and relaxing.  I am at a Writers Retreat/Workshop in Spencer, IN  staying at the Canyon Inn in McCormick State Park.  It's just beautiful here with all the large trees.  Most of the leaves have fallen. The silence of the woods speaks louder than thunder...

An added bonus to this beauty is all the learning and work I have been doing on the craft of writing.  I have much to learn.  I think I am drawn to writing because I am naturally a creative person, but also because I have trouble expressing myself.  With writing you can work the problem until it is right. 

 Although I don't have any people pictures at this point, I promise you I have been able to talk with my friends from Evansville.  And, it has also been great to make new friends! 

Annabelle enjoyed looking out the window today.  It was raining and both of us needed to go for a walk...  The closest we came to it, however, was looking out the window.  This is what Annabelle saw:

I love the color on our neighbor's cypress trees!

This is the Mimosa that has those beautiful pink flowers in the spring and early part of the summer.  It isn't as bright right now, but the fern-like leaves and pods make it interesting to look at.  I'm thinking we are going to have to rake those leaves into a huge pile just for Annabelle.  We'll wait until it stops raining first, though.

Tiger Lily

                                                  A Tiger Lily from my parents garden.
If this flower could speak, what would it say?  Does it appreciate the lake view from where it stands?  Does it know how beautiful it is?  Does it feel vulnerable or Tiger Fierce?

Halloween On My Street

The Body Farm (I must share again being it's Halloween)

Body Farm


My second manuscript turned out to be a middle grade novel called Murder on Sprinkle Lake. When I first started writing this, I thought it was going to be a YA novel and had an older audience in mind. In that story there is a murder; a character is hit on the head with a heavy object. I wanted to know what the result of the hit would be like as far as blood and stuff goes. I also had questions about the condition the body would be in if found several hours later. My questions took me to the University of Tennessee where my cousin works in the Forensic Anthropology Dpt. She gave me a very interesting tour (including a room filled with boxes of skeletons all neatly organized). She told me that she could tell an awful lot just by looking at the bones. She used to assist in autopsies and explained about that. Basically, I found out that the character in my story would have been a bloody mess. When the tour inside the college was over, she took us (my husband and two of my adult children were with me) to the Body Farm. Yup the very Body Farm Patricia Cornwell went to when she was writing her book, Body Farm. If you haven't read it, you should. I happen to like her writing in general--keeps you on the edge of your seat. Anyway, the Body Farm is as creepy as it sounds. Interesting though. My cousin is doing research on what sorts of animals munch on the bodies. She wasn't the only one doing research, the FBI had a garbage can with a body in it. They were studying the decomposition rate with the lid closed being they find a lot of bodies in garbage cans I guess. Most of the bodies were pretty decomposed. I guess a gossip magazine got in there once and took pics of the bodies and put them on the internet. Nearly closed the place down. So--now the bodies are covered until they are pretty far along in decomposition. In the end I didn't use much of what I learned that day. It is tucked away in my head, however, and may come out in another story. Maybe the one I'm writing now, who knows? My current writing is for a YA audience. An agent at a conference in Ohio told me that if my protagonist is less that twelve years of age, it is a middle grade novel. This time my protagonist is sixteen.

Posted by Lola at 1:31 PM 0 comments

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Creepy Halloween Poem

                                                                                                                            

The Poor Dead Witch Watches Bats Fly


She was just a head and couldn’t move

Those cursed bats could groove and groove.

“It wasn’t fair!” she cried.

How her head was chopped and then she died.

To watch bats swing and sway

Was oh so irritating on

Halloween Day .

It was just too much,

she had to plan

she had to touch.

Spell Book!                                                         

Come to me!

Let’s mix a recipe!

“Bosh Bosh Bish Bish”

Let’s make a magic dish,

squash a bat and find my body.

Then sing and dance

And have a pawty

  

This Trick or Treater liked me even when I was just a green head stuck in a bush.



Well  as you can see my spellbook came to me and I got my body back.  The couple on my right were ready for a pawty!





Some of my fans.  They enjoyed my cackle from the bush.



A wonderful Halloween Night!

A Castle In Kentucky

Family Literacy Day

Washington Square Mall located in Evansville, IN is where a celebration of literacy took place last Saturday.  Kids and sometimes adults stopped at the Altrusa table to make  cute Humpty Dumptys.  
The entertainment last weekend, besides all the crafts and books, was stories told by Tales and Scales.  I would have been sitting there with my mouth hanging open (as a child) totally into watching the people involved with that group.  The music bings and tings to add expression to the stories they tell. One might say it's like jelly in the roll... Take a look at my photo below.  Tell me- don't you agree they have quite a bit of expression? 

Melvin Ortez of Newburgh: Lover of Birds

           The Acapulco restaurant in Newburgh, IN     Great people, good food, and what a view!

The pictures in this blog post were taken by me last year.  I thought I'd write something up for the paper.  It wasn't printed so I thought, hey, why not share this story here.

Melvin Ortez, owner of the Acapulco restaurant in Newburgh, Indiana, has always loved animals, especially birds.  As a young child in Honduras he was surrounded by Amazons, Quakers, and other sorts of colorful birds we only see in zoos and pet stores.  Sadly, when Melvin goes back to visit his mother in Honduras now most of those birds have disappeared making their homes away from people.  He feels it is because they are hunted so much.  As a child he remembers taking part in that particular activity too. However, unlike others, he kept the birds he caught.

                                                                                                              

"Me and my dad and my brother we used to go up to the mountains and catch them when they were babies.  It was a fun thing.  They did it for business.  When I catch a bird, I don't get rid of it.  I fall in love with it and so I had several birds at home.  Green Amazons, Quakers (little green ones-- very beautiful)--now there aren't as many because too many people kill them.  The people that live in the woods kill anything they can to eat.  Some people catch those little birds to sell them.  They used to make their nests close to where people lived, but now you can't find them anymore."

Outside the Acapulco Restaurant in Newburgh there is a large pond with a fountain.  Two beautiful, white swans swim in that pond; people usually notice them first.  However, Melvin, has given other unusual birds a home in that area as well.  The people at the restaurant like to sit out on the deck when the weather is nice to watch the birds as they eat.  Even the workers and the4ir customers at Subway across the pond appreciate the beautiful view.  There are the two beautiful white swans, two Australian Black Swans, two east African Crowned Cranes, and many different kinds of ducks.

We all know that winter will eventually come with its chill and freeze.  Melvin is prepared for that.  Inside his pond he has aerators to keep the water warm--it will not freeze.  He also has a little shed with heat lights for the cranes.

The birds were actually ordered through the mail.  They are sent by express mail.  Express mail goes by plane and that is good because the animals need to reach their destination as soon as possible.  The more time in transit the more likely they will be stressed.  "All animals have to be vaccinated, cleaned, and fed before they are accepted for Express Mail" said Postmaster Catherine Brackmann.  "When the swans arrived, Ms Brackmann said, Melvin Ortez went to the airport because that shipment was delayed a couple hours. “He wanted to get them as soon as possible to feed them and settle them down. Those birds were heavy too. One box had the two white swans, the other four black swans.”





“When the baby crane was little, he was like a big tall chicken. They don’t know how to run away from animals and stuff, so I would have to put him in a crate and take him home every night. He’s big enough now so I don’t have to do that anymore. A predator would have a hard time catching him--- he can run very, very fast. They are tall but the legs are so skinny, they can break their legs running so I won’t try to chase them down unless I have to.”


“I come out here and have a cup of coffee and look out at the birds—relaxes your mind. At nighttime it’s beautiful.”

Mimosa

Watching TV, I Mean Really Watching

My husband, Bruce, and I had a full day today 'yawn' we helped our daughter, Suzanne, move into her new apartment.  It was pleasant visiting with her and her current roommate, but we forced ourselves to get back into the car and travel home again.  I was very happy to sit in front of the tube and absorb the entertainment.  It actually became very entertaining because we were watching a detective series that had a scene with a dead guy on an examining table. Wow, right?  It was supposed to be a touching moment -- two women took  turns singing by the corpse and guess what happened?  The dead guy swallowed.  This wasn't part of the movie.  I couldn't believe it because I actually look for stuff like that for fun and never find anything. And this time it actually happened.  Bruce spotted it first (didn't spoil my merriment at all) then when we did a rewind,  we saw the dead guy's pulse really moving and his mouth moved.  I think he was trying not to laugh.  Then the whole scene changed for me--my perception was altered you might say. When we did another rewind, you could see that the women in the room who were supposed to be in a somber mood, were possibly holding laughter back.  Made my whole night.

Laundry

 I have been visiting this laundromat in Evansville these days.  Before our dryer recently broke it had been years since I'd been to a laundromat. I admit my memory is nothing to brag about, but my impression of laundromats wasn't very good for some reason.  I was expecting dirty white walls with finger prints, possibly a broken down soda machine, no air conditioning and a couple of chairs.  The air conditioning and bright colors caught me by surprise!  This laundromat had tables and their soda machine worked.  Wow!  I felt like I'd taken a step into the future.  I guess I had.  The last time I remember being in a laundromat was about twenty years ago.

                                                                                  

As if doing laundry wasn't excitement enough, our doggie Annabelle played with a sock.  She knew she had something pretty special when I tried in earnest to take it away.  I decided not to get frustrated over something as silly as a sock and took pictures of her instead.  She was moving around quite a bit, but I think I captured some of her finer moments.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?



A person I drove by in Evansville a couple of years ago.  Look at his hand-- he has a wedding ring on his finger.

My brother, Nathaniel, is out there somewhere and there is nothing I can do about it.  He is calm.  He does not want to hurt himself or anybody else.  Legally he isn't a threat and can't be brought in for treatment against his will.  But, believe me there is pain.  He went almost a week without eating (he told us he was fasting) and is now without a car and on foot.  We are suffering as a family because we love him.  We want him to have the medicine he needs, a roof over his head, food and water. When I think of my brother -- I think of the guy with a great sense of humor, a person that's thoughtful and caring.  I think about all the shared memories we had as kids.  And then  I think of him walking around in this heat (they're having a heat wave in Minnesota too).  I wonder if he's able to get enough water?  The whole family wonders how he's managing. Where is he sleeping?  Is he safe?  He is bipolar, creative, intelligent and right now not very "with it."  The bad thing about this condition, in my opinion, is it sneaks up on you.  When a person is manic, they are confident and really don't have a sense of cause and effect. 

I can tell you-- I think about homeless people in a completely different way now.  There was a time I had the opinion that soup kitchens and churches ,etc. were enabling these people to be the way they are.  I thought if they didn't get free meals they'd be forced to do something about their condition.  Now I know I was wrong.  My brother would wither and die if it wasn't for the goodness of strangers.  He wouldn't understand that he was killing himself slowly.  There is a heatwave now and that is bad. But, I'm actually thinking down the road to winter.  People around here would be astonished at how cold a Minnesota winter can be.  It's tough when you're all bundled up and braced for a quick walk from the car to the store.  What if you were homeless and living out in it?  Right now I'm wondering-- will my brother survive the winter? 







 Nathaniel thinks that things are going really well with him.  He's writing (it would be interesting to see) and feels more intelligent and creative than normal.  He lives in the moment.  I'm sure winter hasn't even entered his mind, but lots of other cool stuff has.

Oh God bring him back to us...





Challenges

                                                                        

I have been procrastinating on my personal writing projects.  Why I wonder?  Well- if you count all the thinking I do on them maybe I'm not procrastinating--I'm actually hard at work.  I'm "working" on several different kinds of projects.  Some I thought could be graphic novels, but I've decided I have no chance on them getting published that way so I'm thinking they will be picture books or chapter books.  The characters are based off my children.

 I always read to my children before bed when they were young.  It was something I enjoyed and believe me they did too!  In the summer we often went camping, there was a problem when we did this.  I didn't want to bring all those books into the tent.  So what I did was tell them stories using made up characters based on their personalities; the ones I use for these picture books/chapter book. 

When I sent my chapter book, using those characters, out years ago, I actually received a phone call from an editor from a major publishing company.  The call was a mystery to me--I thought it was a prank call at first, but then he sent my manuscript back to me shortly after the call as he said he would.  That should have been very encouraging, right?  However, when I tell that story to others, I'm pretty sure they don't believe me.  That makes me sad and I am discouraged. I also think that others look for my errors and are even more critical.  Whoever that editor was  tried to encourage me I think or maybe he was feeling me out on the phone and I failed that phone interview miserably. Gosh I was stunned--I didn't even thank him. Whatever his intentions, he planted the seed in my mind to write a YA novel.  I've been trying since then.  My biggest help is my creative mind--it is also my biggest drawback. 

Like other writers, I grasp at anything that seems positive. I've had other "positive" experiences-- usually no one believes me (or at least that is how I perceive their reaction).  Then I get full of self doubt.  Could this be the reason I stall? 




  

The Fourth of July




I  enjoy the fireworks our neighbors shoot off on the 4th of July!  The picture above was taken from our deck off the second floor.  It's  difficult capturing fireworks with my digital camera  because of the 2 second delay that happens after I push the button.  A few of my pictures were completely black.  Trust me it was a good show!   I  wonder how much people spend on fireworks... 

 

                                                                                               

Another Fourth of July

As we celebrate the birth of our nation

Let us not forget the many brave men and women

Who fought and died to preserve that dream of our forefathers

... A dream of liberty for all

And those who are fighting yet. Never forget their efforts...

No matter how big or small

To them we owe a debt that we can never repay

Thank them

For all the freedoms that we are blessed with today

Tonight... as you see the fireworks

That honor America

... Remember them

For without those that serve...

This dream of liberty

Would be but a whim...

By Faye Sizemore