Sandra and I working on a project in Glades County in South Florida. Part of that was getting with Charlie Lykes with Lykes Brothers. He gave a wonderful interview of the history of the company. The interview was conducted in one of the oldest buildings on their property. A very cool early 1940’s cabin that looks nearly contemporary. The results of our interviews will be available later next month.

Afterward I sketched a few cows on the property.

It was around 1989 that I took step-daughter Amber to The Peanut Butter Festival that was at teh Grosvenor Hotel near Disney World. Soupy Sales was a guest there and I was very fortunate to meet him and get the photo above.

I was sad to learn today that Soupy died. Above is the photo taken so many years ago.

I attended the Orlando Remembered meeting. We’ve got display projects cooking! To the right are some sketches I made of Robert Serros, Grace Chewning and Richard Bazzo.

Here are some new covers gathered. The ones above and below are from romance novels. I love the multi-levels of the one below.  Great art for 10 cents each.

I wrapped this piece for a local group. All digital color.

Today is Jacob’s 15th birthday. Amazing but true, for those who know what this is about. I had lunch with my father at Steak and Shake. The sketch (First I’d done in the sketchbook for almost 2 months) is of gumball machines at the restaurant. Later I was fortunate to have the opportunity to spend some time and talk Orlando history with my 101 year old friend, Lucile Fair. Later Met with Tex Ann and Bob Buck to work on Orlando Remembered display. Still later met up with ol’ Ken Culotta and worked on gags at a Denny’s. Below is a photo from that meeting.

I’m digging up all sorts of items from the past as I clear through boxes. Below is a page from a sketchbook from around 1986. I love hearing all sides of an issue. Back then I had more time to do that. A dear friend told me about a retreat with …radical Abbie Hoffman and I went to see first hand what this fellow was all about. During the retreat I made a ton of notes and sketches. Was I shocked to open the pad last night and there at the top is Hoffman’s autograph. I don’t recall getting it, butI did.

After the retreat, which was somewhere near Umatilla, we all gathered at East India Ice Cream Shoppe in Winter Park. I remember former classmate Missy Gaston working there that night. She was shocked when I told her later who she was serving.

What I have always remembered from the retreat was Hoffman speaking of the need for “one world” “an order” “a world dollar”. It was just a couple years later that George H.W. Bush started preaching a “New World Order”, essentially what Hoffman had described at the retreat. A major reason I have a problem with the Bush family.

Another set of books. ‘Glades County History’ is about one of the 67 counties in Florida. It’s well meaning but missing an enormous amount of time. Otherwise it is well written. ‘No House Limit’ is outstanding part of the Hard Case Crime series. This was written by someone living in Vegas and he does an amazing job of depicting the area. A good story, too. ‘Big Sugar’ is an NPR type crying in his coffee about horrendous conditions of workers and just ignoring who they’re working for. If the businesses are so horrible to treat people this way, then why not give the reader at least some benefit of the doubt that the knowledge gained would still have us outraged as to the workers treatment. I read this 20 years ago and I’m wiser now and see through the effort to just rile up the crowd. ‘The Messenger’ is another recent book that could have had about a hundred pages ripped out and still have been in excess. There’s a well crafted plot there, just over produced.

We had our first Suncoast Inkslinger meeting in a few months. We gathered at Bay Coast Coffee Market in Clearwater. Below is a photo of the gathering. To the right is a sketch I made during a discussion with Ron Johnson and Jim Fern about the possibility of Ben Franklin being a mad scientist.