Lunar Eclipse 2010

 Last night there was an event we will never ever see again in our life time...a total lunar eclipse...Check out the photo taken from the National Post magazine credited to ...Doug Murray/Reuters...What a fantastic shot...Please check out the other photos on their web site...

And now check out the one taken by yours truly ....hehe

Pretty similar ...don't you think?

SCETV Retiree's Luncheon

Every three months we meet for lunch at beautiful Banquet & Conference Center....I call our group..."the Oldtimers Luncheon"...because most of us are old...We all have all spent some of our lives working for a wonderful educational facility called ETV... It began in the late 50's in a Columbia high school and was headed up by it's principal, R. Lynn Kalmbach...It's first art director was Jerry Tiemann (we call him Tee- Bobber)...

From that high school, it moved to an old vacant Winn Dixie Store...where it grew and grew and grew...Jerry hired me around 1962...We have been friends ever since...Here is a group shot taken of us last Thursday...I would like to name them all but I can't...but I will name the guy who's sitting down...That's Jerry!

Jack Palance and Me

Hi Folks...

Most of you know I like to read Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon in the AM...Recently I came across one of my favorite actors in it...Jack Palance...He is one of the few movie actors I have personnaly met in my life time...He has played a major part in my life unbeknownst to him...Read on...

In 1954 I apprenticed at an Art and Photography Studio in downtown Chicago...At that studio was a young woman model who posed for a fashion artist...She looked at a pastel portrait I did from a photo in Life magazine ( The article was about the "Shane" a western movie starring Allen Ladd and the deadly gunfighter he had to face)...It was of Jack Palance... The portrait here on my blog is one I have just done in the style I did back then (the first one was better)...Well...She wanted to buy my sketch and asked me my price...I had never sold a piece of my artwork (I was 18 years old at that time) and did not know how to price it...She said she had never bought an original piece of artwork and did not know what to offer me for it...So....I said "How about $5.00?"...She was happy and so was I...That was the first five dollars I earned from my artistic ability...

Now let's come forward in time...I read in the newspaper that Jack ws coming to columbia promoting his book of poetry...Wow...I decided that I would meet him and tell him my story about my first sale of the portrait I did of him as a young man...Here's a photo of Jack and my grandson David and I (check out my ponytail)...

Oh...did I tell you I bought his book?

And he signed it to Uncle Ron...