Minnie Mouse's Dirty Little Secret

I was at a dinner party in 1975 in Kansas City. My family and I lived there for a year while I worked at the Kansas City Art Institute, through grant funds, working on a special project.

Moving there with a ten month window of opportunity, we looked to make some friends fast, and we were able to meet and greet some great friends. It was a wonderful place to live and I really enjoyed my stay and subsequent visits.

The dinner party consisted of several couples and a newly single woman. I have no idea who she was, although I know who some of the couples were. I had never met this woman and have never seen her since. I have no idea what her name was.

She did look, I’m afraid, much like Minnie Mouse. This really means she was small, dark and cute, but she had that look that still reminds me of Walt’s best. As well, we were in Kansas City, where Walt had gone to art school.

This was the time of the sexual revolution, and Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying” was riding high! There was some talk at the table about oral sex, for which at least one couple made serious problematic eye contact while other s giggled in delight. But for Minnie Mouse, there was another big problem.

Minnie (as I shall call her) had a hidden secret which she had never revealed to anyone, and with some wine and a sexually charged community, it seemed she was willing to tell.

It seems that she never washed her hands when she went to the bathroom!

She would finish, wipe herself and run the water in the sink in case anyone was listening, but she never really washed her hands!

I didn’t shake her hand goodnight as we left!

Ghost Hunting...Happy Birthday

My 50th birthday (January 16) party was spent at the Hawthorne Hotel, in their Lyceum Restaurant, in Salem, Massachusetts. The Lyceum Restaurant was built on the location formerly occupied by the home of Bridgette Bishop, one of the most famous "witches" to be hanged during the Salem witch trials.

It was a shared birthday party with my Mother (February 8) and my son Brian (January 23) , and together we were having a 158th birthday party on February 2, 1992

We had balloons and great fun. The guests included my wife and my two other sons, Cliff and Josh.

We entered the hotel into a cloud of smoke. It looked like a TB ward in there, as a well known Russian hypnotist was selling his smoke ending class, and the participants were all sitting in the lobby waiting to go in and having their “last cigarette”. Through the cloud of smoke we went, which had dissipated by the time we left.

My new baby was home with a sitter for the first time.

The reason I bring this up was not because it was brought back to me through wondrous nostalgia, but because on “Ghost Hunters”, on TLC, they were all in the Lyceum Restaurant and the Hawthorne Hotel looking for ghosts!

For the most part, this investigation was uneventful except there was an odd incident where the restaurant's computers (where the waiters place the orders and print the bill from) seemed to have their monitors go on and off for no apparent reason other than as a response to Lisa & Grant asking spirits to make themselves known. This event culminated in one of the receipt printers spitting out a receipt that said "1:26 Good Morning" (1:26 am was the time).

The restaurant's owner was asked about the monitors going on and off and about the unsolicited "good morning" receipt and she claimed none of that activity was normal for her computer system . There were many other non technical ghost items never quite proven or disproven.

This brought back the ghost of a memory, and I thought I’d share it with you.
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The Brotherhood of the Traveling Blazer...

Graduation Speech - Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design - May 10, 1997

Good afternoon graduates, stage personnel, faculty, parents, families and trustees. It is a thrill for me to be here with you today! It brings back a flood of memories of so many wondrous graduations I have attended in so many different places. Yet, as each has been, this is a very special day for all of you. This is the day when you go forward prepared for a life in the visual arts. More sure of yourself then when you started this journey, four or more years ago, perhaps a little less scared then you were when you started, and waiting for the new life to begin…

And so I started the graduation speech on a beautiful, warm day in May of 1997. I had come to Milwaukee from Calgary to do the speech at the request of my friend Terry Coffman, the President of MIAD. It was a lovely weekend I spent with Terry and his wife and the students of MIAD and their families, except for one slight flaw.

When I arrived at the auditorium, the stage personnel and the students were sent to a waiting room, and we had the opportunity to change into caps and gowns, as one would do for a graduation.

It being a warm day, I was offered a hanger to hang up my coat while I could do the ceremony in a robe. As a guy who suffers from sweating a lot anyway, this was a great opportunity. I hung my blue blazer next to lots of other, mostly blue blazers.

After the event, we all went into the room again, and it was a bit of chaos, but we were able to change and leave. My size 50L double breasted blue blazer was missing and in its place was a single breasted 42R! Where had my coat gone? Who would have swapped their coat for mine? Mine was a better coat than the one they left, but surely, if you wore in a 42R you would notice a 50L on the way out!

After looking around to no avail we left, and decided it would turn up eventually, and had a nice, rest of the visit.

A week or two passed, and nothing happened. I was concerned as were the folks in Milwaukee. After another week or so, they decided to let me purchase another coat and they would pay for it. While this was a generous offer, I just wanted my coat back and said I’d wait a while and see what happened.

Their Development Officer called and she told me she would write to all the male graduates and explain the situation and see if it did any good. In about two weeks, the young man who had my jacket, read his mail and decided to look. He had seldom if ever worn a blazer, and after his graduation he threw it in the car and later threw it in the bottom of a closet, where it had been for weeks.

The folks at Milwaukee were kind enough to have a cleaner clean, press, box and send my coat back to Calgary where it once again had a place of honor in my closet.

The Lidice Event

There were 82 children murdered at Lidice, in the Czech Republic, in June of 1942. This photo is the monument to these children at Lidice, and the impetus for the long standing show of children's art each year in the museum.

Earlier this year we participated in an annual international exhibition of children’s art at the Lidice Museum in the Czech Republic. 21,000 entries came in from 55 countries, and 1,200 were chosen for the exhibition.

There have been few (if ever) Canadian entries in this exhibition.

We sent the work of 10 students to this exhibit. We focused on two of a list of themes suggested by the museum. The theme chosen for use by the kids was, “ I Wonder what there is on other Planets?”

Two boys (ages 10 and 11) and one girl (age 5) were chosen by judges at the museum to receive an award.

The children came from a DVSA class for the Riverwalk Montessori School and from a DVSA Saturday class.

This award was presented on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. by the Ambassador to Canada from the Czech Republic, Karel Zebrakovsky, at the Dundas Valley School of Art.

The Ambassador. Mr. Zebrakovsky was accompanied by his wife Mrs. Marketa Zebrakovska and Mr. Zdenek Ulc, from the Embassy staff.

They arrived at 3 pm, and we had a presentation ceremony, where each child was presented a certificate of Honorable Mention and some souvenirs from Lidice. The two boys had practiced with a coach and were able to give greetings in the Czech language. The Ambassador was very impressed by their efforts. He then gave greetings to five year old, and said she probably didn’t know his language, and her parents said that she speaks fluent Russian. So he greeted her in Russian and she responded. It was amazing!

Members of our Board attended as well as the children, their parents, teachers and honored guests. We gave the visitors a signed copy of the DVSA history and a mug from our pottery, and we toured the school.

It was a meaningful event, and will never be forgotten by the participants.

The dance that never was...

It was Friday, November 22, 1963 and I was working with a group of teens preparing for the Thanksgiving Dance at Waterloo Junior High School in Howard County, Maryland. The group consisted of a number of kids working on the decorations. I can no longer recall what the decorations were, because they never were used.

Earlier in the day, the Vice Principal had come around, with tears in his eyes, to let us know that the president had been shot in Dallas, and it was not hopeful. I was, like all others, stunned!

The Vice Principal asked us all to keep doing normal activities because they didn’t want to tell the kids as the day would have been a write off and none of us knew what we would do. So, it was business as usual until five minutes before the end of the day, when the Principal would come on the loud speaker and tell the school what had happened, would cancel all activities for the weekend and send the kids home.

So, in the last period, I was making decorations with my kids and holding back tears myself. At five minutes before the end of the day, the Principal came on the loud speaker and told the students what had happened.

When he came on, I left the room, trying to hold myself together. The kids did many things; some laughed, some cried, some cheered and some did nothing. No one understood what had happened, nor even believed it. I don’t think it sank in until everyone got home and got to a TV and saw what had happened.

It didn’t really sink in. I had the news for hours before the end of the day, but it didn’t really sink in.

It was the dance that never was, and it was the dance I had to be positive about until five minutes before school ended.

I went home and hugged my wife and my little boy and stayed in front on the TV for the next few days.

It's a tree job!

I got the call at 3:30 p.m. yesterday,”Our tree is gone! “
“What do you mean, our tree is gone?” "The Linden tree has been destroyed!”

Now this scenario can be played out in many ways, but I thought I’d go for calm. “Explain it to me, please”.

It seems the city fathers, in their wisdom, sent in a crew to trim the trees on our street. They were a bit overzealous in their work ethic, and kind of over pruned by my estimate. On the other hand, they did about $500 worth of tree trimming on my property for free!

My neighbor said she asked them what they were doing and they told her the garbage truck people were complaining about the overhanging branches.

Now, I discover, the city listens to the garbage truck guys. I knew they must have listened to someone, surely it’s not me.

Locked in the John

A few years ago I sauntered into the washroom (a bathroom for my US readers) at the office, happily singing a little tune. We have a single washroom on the first floor, which is a handicapped accessible washroom and we have a regular ladies room on the floor. By the process of elimination (sorry about the pun) , the single usually becomes the men’s room.

After a period of time (the euphemism) I went to leave. The door refused to budge. It seems the lock, which was buried within the handle, had ceased to work.

I worked at the handle for a while, and looked around for tools, but alas, no such tools exist in the washroom. I fell upon my only hope, I had to bang on the door and scream!

It was a quiet time at the school, and students were not around. The staff was all over and I knew someone would hear me. However, the seriousness of my plight was not considered by the staff, as I became the object of ridicule!

OK, I know it’s funny. The boss is locked in the toilet! But, truly, we couldn’t figure a way out.

WWKD (as in another post or two, it was What Would Klaus Do?)

We called him and he worked his way over to us. The staff was working on a lunch for me, sandwiches on thin bread slid under the door one piece at a time!

With a bit of pulling and shoving and cutting, I was saved! Thank God this didn’t happen at the end of a day, or when no one was around.

I would still be there! Who knew I was claustrophobic? I had never been locked in a little room for an extended period of time before. I had light, water and a place to sit.

If only the sandwich thing had worked!