Physical Education

-Systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school program. (Dictionary.com)

The Internet is a dangerous place. Ran across this photo and had a flashback of myself wearing one of these and standing in the Morey Jr High School gym. The gym had a strip of wood about a foot wide just above our heads that went around three of the walls. There were number painted on it from 1 to  somewhere in the hundreds. After we changed into some version of this lovely garment, we had to line up along the walls and under our assigned number. When the gym teacher blew her whistle we put our hand over our number and she walked by us and marked down any number not cover by a hand. It was a good system but it seemed to take forever. I swear my number was seventy-two. 

They Paved Paradise To Put Up A Parking Lot

I was walking down an aisle at the Goodwill in Fort Collins when I looked up and saw this hanging from the ceiling.  It stopped me in my tracks.  I remember this building. It was one of the Goodwill stores that my mother bought our clothes from when I was a child.  It was also the first Goodwill store in Denver.  I loved that building.  It was big and old with creaky wooden floors and smelled of  wool clothing that had been on the hangers too long mixed in with the smell of dust and old books.  I am not sure when they tore this building down but the land is now a parking lot.  So much of old Denver gone now just so developers could make money.  It breaks my heart.

I've Been Away From Blogging For So Long I Forgot What I Do Around Here 2

Second, I was feeling run down so I bought a juicer and started juicing.  It has made a big difference in my life and I'm feeling more energized.  Green drinks for everyone!

Draw Me! (part 2)

As you recall I was very upset and disappointed with Art Instruction Schools after they came to my house to try and sell my mother art lessons for me.  What I forgot to tell you is that in addition to advertising in comic books and magazines Art Instruction Schools used matchbooks.

As I grew older my disappointment with AIS did not diminish. While looking at one of their matchbooks I decided to fight back. At that time matchbooks were advertising for businesses and could be found in easy-to-get-at bowls, just like mints, almost everywhere- restaurants, bars, lunch counter, gas stations- anywhere you could buy cigarettes. I started borrowing matchbooks, any matchbooks but Draw Me!, and then I would print my own ad inside the matchbooks:

Then I would drop the matchbook back into bowl.  I know it was childish but, what can I say? I was a child.

Draw Me!: Or Yes, When It Comes To Art Dreams, Sometimes You Can Go Home Again

You may remember Winky from your comic books.   Winky,  Tippy the turtle and Reggie the raccoon where all come-ons for the home study Art Instruction Schools out of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  See how they offer scholarships and cash prizes?  That is the reason why I sent away for one of their art tests (which graded your artistic ability) when is was thirteen years old.  I filled it out when it came and then sent it back. What I did not know is that they would send two men to my house to try and convince my mother to pay for art lessons for me even though they gave me a "C" grade on test.  That is when I figured out the prizes and scholarships were a scam.


I think I instinctively knew it was a scam but was willing to take the risk because the school I really want to get into was the one I knew I never would:

Yep, the Famous Artist School. Founded by the great Norman Rockwell and a bunch of other illustrators whose names I did not know but whose work I probably saw all the time in the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines.  I knew Norman Rockwell would never try to rip me off but, alas, I also knew I could never afford the tuition.  So every time I saw one of these ads for the Famous Artists Course my heart broke a little.

Flash forward to last week.  My husband and I went to lunch after swimming and then stopped into our favorite antiques store Dickens Alley.  As I perused the art books I noticed four large binders stacked one on top of each other on the bottom shelf. On the spine of each binder was shield with the letters fa written inside it. At the bottom of the spine of each binder were numbers.  One binder had the numbers 1-6 written on it, one had 7-13, one had 14-19 and the final one had the numbers 20-24.   I lifted the top binder and turned it over and saw on the cover  the  same shield with the letters fa written inside it and, to the right of the shield, the words Famous Artists Course.  I almost started crying.  It was like finding the Holy Grail.  I picked the stack of binders up and made my way to the counter and bought them all.  It seems the store owner had three of the course series books for the longest time and the week before someone had walked in, saw the books, and said he had the final book and asked if the store owner want to buy it.   The store owner did and there I was a week later ready to buy them all. 

My set.

A page from Lessons 1-6 binder.

Now, I may not be able to become a commercial artist by studying these books and I know I can't even enroll in the school now since it has been closed since 1981, but I will be reading these lessons because understanding how something is done can only increase a person's appreciation of it.  Sometimes your dreams come true in ways you never expect.


(If you are feeling inspired, below are links to all the artists listed as faculty in the Famous Art Course advertisement above. )

Norman Rockwell

Jon Whitcomb

Stevan Dohanos

Harold Von Schmidt

Peter Helck

Al Parker

Ben Stahl

Robert Fawcett

Austin Briggs

John Atherton

Albert Dorne

The Neon Lights Were Bright

There is a facebook page called Save the Signs which posts old photos of neon signs in the United States.  Since it started out as Save The Signs On Colfax, a great number of the photos are about Denver.  The above photo was taken in 1974 and shows the signage for Hertz Rent A Car, the YMCA, and the old Centre Theater in downtown Denver.  The Hertz and the Centre Theater are now gone but the YMCA is still there.  When I first saw this photo it took my breath away because I found I wasn't just looking at the photo, I was in it.  I had walked down that street (East 16th Avenue.) in the winter of 1974 and could feel the freezing cold air on my face, hear the sound of snow and ice crunching under my feet, and smell of snow and automobile exhaust in my nose.  A flash to the past.

Making Peace With My Memories

This is a photo from 1974 of Sullivan's Lounge and Grill in the 1400 block of Court Place in downtown Denver.  Every building you see in the photo is now gone except for the old Victorian house that still stands behind the iron fence at the right.  At the time the photo was taken I used to go to Sullivan's on St. Patrick's Day and for lunch with my mother as it was across from her work.

Sullivan's was one of my dad's drinking places when I was a child and Danny Sullivan was always good to me. My dad would take me with him when he drank at Sullivan's back when the bar was on the corner of 14th Street and Court Place. (If you look down the street to the left of the white building you will see the empty space where the building the old bar used to be in stood.) My dad would order me a Roy Rogers and a packet of Beer Nuts and himself a beer. When I had finished my drink and snack he would give me a quarter to play the bowling machine (The kind with a metal puck as the ball.) while he ordered more beer and continued his discussion with Danny. This is bittersweet to admit but this is actually one of the best memories I have of my father.

Club News

Earlier this month I went to Starbucks for a hot chocolate. I am proud to state I am now a member of the Starbucks Can't Spell My Name Club.  I don't mine it being spelled with one L or one E since some people misspell it that way but this is ridiculous. So ridiculous the barista who was making the drinks didn't even try to pronounce it.
"Grande Hot Chocolate!," she shouted, as she placed it on the counter.

Age, With His Stealing Steps, Hath Clawed Me In His Clutch.

-Hamlet (5,1,73-4), William Shakespeare


When my mother had her first heart attack I flew out to New York to see her.  One afternoon while visiting her in her hospital room she stopped talking and gazed sadly out the window.  When I asked her what was wrong she turned her face back toward me and said, "When I was young I used to think that seventy was so old."
She died three years later.

This article brought this memory back to me. 

Hanger Bar

This photo was on the Colfax Avenue facebook page and shows the mural painted on the side of the Hangar Bar at 8001 E Colfax Ave in Denver, CO.  I used to walk by this bar on the way to school when my family and I lived in the Compass Motor Lodge at 8675 East Colfax Ave.  I wrote this in the comments section:

I used to walk past this bar twice a day when I was at Ashley Elementary School. Some days on the way home, if I was feeling extremely brave, I would push open the front door and yell into the darkness, "Are there any airplanes in here?" And then run like hell.
Gosh, I was such a witty fifth grader.

Father's Day 2015

My father late 1950s. This is how I remember him looking- crew-cut, ears that stuck out a bit, and blue eyes.

-My sister's beautiful story about searching for a connection to our father.

Moving forward,  Father's Day When You Have A Bad Dad

"I kept a diary right after I was born...

Day 1: Tired from the move.
Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot."
-Steven Wright

New Sunglasses

Bug eyes!

Bobby Baby, Bobby Love!

Happy Birthday to one hell of a fisherman!

All Those Years Ago

My mother, my sister, "Not The Pope", and me. (Long Beach, NY c.1980)

My Mother My Villian

My sister has her own blog, Yup, it was my life, and this post about our mother is her latest. I found it so beautiful, truthful, and loving that reading it made me cry.

My mother.
The villain of my childhood for “Not”


Not making me go to school
Not making me do homework
Not attending school performances
Not taking me shopping for clothes past age 15
Not keeping her ear off the phone or nose out of a book long enough to see what was going on with her children
Not making her not-working-not-going-to-school-not-helping-at-home asshole son (my brother) move out before he was 26
Not asking where I was when I would be gone overnight or for days
Not being worried when at 8 I spent the night at a new friend’s home (who had no phone and Mom didn't know where the friend lived) and didn't come back for 3 days.
Not making my ER visits for migraines a priority and making me go by myself
Not helping me before helping strangers
Not making me bathe
Not making me brush my teeth
Not raising me herself but leaving it, by default to my sister
Not leaving the abusive man she was married to, my father
Not keeping the house clean which embarrassed me when friends came over
Not protecting me from my verbally abusive brother
Not telling me no, when I started working at a job that I was suppose to be 21 and I was 15
Not protecting me from the abusive boyfriend after she knew
Not protecting me from dating grown men when I was a teenager
Not asking about report cards
Not giving me a curfew
Not making me, as her child, feel like I was more important than her causes
Not parenting me
Not protecting me from...
...others
...her
...me


I no longer see my mother through just a child’s eyes, I have come to understand my mother with adult eyes and while all the above is true, I also now have come to know


My mother, my Hero "Who"...
Who suffered from depression
Who suffered from the hidden shame of being illegitimate
Who suffered in an abusive marriage
Who didn't have the resources in 1950-60’s to get out
Who raised her children alone after her husband left in 1965
Who had no car so all work, school, grocery store, doctor and library travels had to be done by bus or the mercy of people with cars.
Who always kept us out of the Social Service system
Who always kept us sheltered, fed and clothed one way or another
Who pulled strings to get us in subsidized housing without the long wait
Who was raised in privilege but ended up raising her children in poverty, and none of her children live in poverty now.
Who never, for almost 10 years never stopped looking for the father of her children to get the child support due to them
Who taught us by example that all humans are equal
Who taught us among those equal humans, some are assholes and there is nothing you can do about it
Who taught us to fight, not just support ….but FIGHT, for the equality of all
Who never made us wear dirty clothes like some of the other kids did
Who made sure we always had new shoes, not second hand
Who made sure we had a warm coats
Who taught us that words can make a change
Who taught us that reading is wonderful and
Who made sure we always had reading material including comic books if the money allowed.
Who swore like a sailor but was still a lady
Who had a wickedly funny sense of humor
Who put her pride on the line and lost friends asking for favors that kept us sheltered, fed and clothed
Who gave us a love of all types of music (except country)
Who showed me how to fight for ...
...what is right
...others
...me.


My mother, the parent of my childhood who did her best, though it wasn't always enough. I no longer see myself a victim of my childhood needing protection, I only see my unique childhood that was the cornerstone of ...me
-Maura Shannon

Guy America

My airline ID when I worked for Guy America.  The airline, and I use the word loosely since it only had one aircraft (B-707), flew from JFK airport in New York City to Georgetown, Guyana in South America. This was my first job after I got my Aircraft Dispatcher's FAA license. It wasn't until later that I realized this was the reason why they hired me.  It is easier to do shady things when you hire someone who does not know much. 

This cheesy ID tells you all you need to know about the company.  Although it did look more official in this NY Port Authority ID holder.

Curiouser And Curiouser

This is my new "between chilly and very cold" coat. 

This is the pocket inside my new coat showing the zipper pull tab. 

This is the open pocket showing another zipper pull tab inside the pocket. 
Question, just what do they think I am going to put in the pocket that will need to get out?

Twelve Years Ago!

San Diego; Or There And Back Again

From the moment I stepped into my car on August 3th and backed it out of the garage to the moment I drove my car back into the same garage on August 10th, I was surround by noise. It was an eight day long cacophony of sound. Highway noises; the hum of tires and the roar of big rigs thundering by. Street noises; traffic, the squeal of buses brakes, the wail of fire engine sirens, the beep of produce trucks backing up in the morning, the thumping bass blasting out of the open door of the nightclub across the street from my niece's new apartment at night, the loud, drunken voices of patrons at said nightclub. It wasn't until I woke-up my first morning at home after the trip that I realized I had not had a good night's sleep since the night before I left for San Diego.

I went to San Diego because my niece was moving there and she and her mother, my sister, needed my help. We loaded my car and my niece's car with all her worldly possessions, including her two dogs, and head out. She had already found an apartment in the Gaslamp Quarter but, not knowing anything about the area, it wasn't until we arrived that I discovered it is smack in the middle of downtown San Diego and is a known tourist spot with numerous shops, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. Her apartment is in an old commercial building erected in 1907 not far from the Convention Center. Most mornings, as I stood looking out of my niece's living room window sipping my tea, I watched business attired people on the street hurrying toward the Convention Center with their first cup of coffee of the day clutched tightly in one hand.

It's a great area and a great apartment and I understand why my niece wanted to live there; being young all the energy and noise is invigorating for her. Me, I'm old enough to need a little peace and quiet at the end of the day, something that was not available in her apartment as the windows are large single-pane sheets of glass which do nothing to keep the street sounds out. The area's saving grace is the fact that the place doesn't really start jumping until after five o'clock and on the weekends. Mornings are relatively quiet and peaceful and that made walking her dogs during those hours quite pleasant. It became my favorite time of day.

Not all our time was spent shopping for the things my niece needed for her apartment, we also walked the dogs over the Convention Center to the harbor, met relatives for lunch and dinner, and took a short trip to the San Diego Zoo with a cousin. My family had lived in San Diego when I was a child and one of my memories is riding the Galapagos tortoise that they kept in the children's section of the zoo. Back in the late seventies-early eighties they stopped allowing children to ride on the back of the tortoises because they had discovered that tortoises have nerve endings in their shells. The zoo now has a Galapagos tortoise compound that houses the 17 tortoises they now own. All the tortoises have numbers painted on their shells so zookeepers can tell them apart. On this trip I found out that "Speedy" the tortoise I used to ride as a child is still at the zoo and is now 150 years old.  I may have actually seen him in the tortoise compound but I'm not sure.  Some of the tortoise were lying in such a way that I could not see their numbers.   So, if you are ever at the zoo and happen to visit the tortoises say "hi" to number 5 for me.