I was at the Orlando Remembered meeting this morning. Here’s Santa Lucile Fair and her jolly elf, Jack Kazanzas.

My next stop was at Jim’s Barber Shop to have him fashion me one of his outstanding hair cuts.
	Next it was on to Orlando’s Veterans Administration nursing care facility to draw some of our mighty soldiers.Here’s Richard’s drawing. He’s 99 and once owned Longwood Nursery.

We attended Criss and Steve Specht’s annual gathering fullof good food, fun and a roaring fire.

Here’s their fish tank in the Specht house.

This morning someone I truly admired passed away.

Andy Serros was the heart and soul of a group I’ve been with since 1986, Orlando Remembered. The group gets displays placed in buildings of what used to be in Orlando back in about the 1950s. Andy was a founder of the group back in 1979 when the storied San Juan Hotel got prematurely demolished. He and Dan Acito and Bill Demetree came up with the idea of historic displays to be placed throughout Downtown Orlando to remind people of Orlando’s greatness. The group had chalked up many a display by the time then Orlando City Clerk, Grace Chewning, introduced me to the group that was meeting in the Orlando Mayor’s boardroom. It was clear from then on that Andy Serros, insurance executive (and self-proclaimed bottle washer), not only created the group but was leading the way.

Andy was amazing in his ability to know every project. He would know the various objects from various businesses or individuals that was to be part of a display.  He was quick to advise where to find artifacts or what to do if such an item souldn’t be found so that the project would keep moving. Andy hated a dormant project. A phrase I will never forget that he used alot, and I picked up from him, was to get something “off dead center”.

Besides Andy’s leadership abilities, I also admired his incredible good humor and bright outlook to life. I’m sure Andy got mad. In all these years I missed that. I saw him get testy and frustrated but never actually angry. More people should have his good nature.

Andy’s health had been deteriorating this past year. He was brought back to the hospital a week ago. His brother Robert reported that just before Andy died he gave Robert some advice reguarding Orlando Remembered matters.

I last saw Andy at the Orlando Remembered meeting in September. He had arrived in the parking lot when I did and we made our way to the meeting. He was moving in a way I had never seem. A bit of a shuffle. Clearly all was not right. He still was his humorous self. I now treasure that last handful of time I got to experience with the great and always to be missed Andy Serros.

Today bloggers are suppose to blog about their volunteering. Sooooo, I have to pick one of the issues I volunteer for. That one is the Veterans Administration visitations I make. One of the missions of the National Cartoonists Society, of which I belong, is to visit the V.A. hospitals around my state of Floirda. I help our members get to the ones in our state and often go myself. We’ve visited a number of places around the state. Most specifically in Orlando and Tampa.

There I draw our greatest American heroes and try to bring a brief bit of laughter in their life. The Orlando V.A. location is a nursing home for American veterans. I’m usually in the cafeteria area where most are confined in wheelchairs. Also usually Bingo is being played or some such. Natalie, the activities director, will point out folks who want to be drawn or have a drawing of something made for them.

In Tampa, Steve (Dang! I forget his last name again!) is the leader. There we’ve mostly gone room to room to draw folks. Unlike the nursing facility, in Tampa I’ve mostly seen soldiers who have recently returned home for treatment from the current war in Iraq. One of the great experiences I had there was making a recently returned soldier have the greatest laugh he’d had since arriving at the hospital. This fellow came back in a state where he could no longer communicate or functionally move. He had a very reduced ability to make noises to let people know how he was. He no longer had the realization of the world around him and was basically back to being much like a baby. His method of laughing was by crying after I drew the drawing and his wife showed it to him, he bawled nearly out of control. Steve let me know that was the most he’d reacted since arriving at the hospital. The drawing above is of that brave soldier.

My next stop to the Orlando V.A. is Wednesday and I and ‘Marvin’ cartoonist, Tom Armstrong, will hopefully be back in Tampa in January. Below is from August and is of Tom, myself and a REAL volunteer. The lady in the middle had clocked in over 32,000 hours of volunteer work at the Tampa Haley V.A.

We had a Christmas gathering at the Belleview Biltmore with lots of friends and family of the Suncoast Inkslingers. Lot of art talk and the passing around of cards and gifts. It was a great time! Here are some photos.

Above is “Chainsaw” Chuck and one of his new achrylic paintings. He temporarily used a bit of Biltmore wall space. Below  are a few more attendees: Ann Sabo, John  Stevens, Dan Smith and Sioux Hart.

We got a surprise visit from Sandra’s longtime hiking buddy Linda Patton, who was passing thorugh. We met for a great meal at Wolfy’s in Ocala. We all collectively raved about the food. The drawings are of the restrrom sign and a lone chair.

We were speaking about my annual Christmas card and I mentioned my plan to feature the Wakulla Lodge in Wakulla Springs State Park south of Linda’s home in Tallahassee. Linda and Sandra insisted that I include in the Christmas card the Gill-Man from the Creature of the Black Lagoon. So I whipped up the Santa Gill-Man for them.

Here’s a happy fellow with his happy caricature from this evening!

While not travelling, I thought I’d post the pencils to a caricature that’s currently on the drawing board. It’s been approved. Next is ink and paint. I’ll post that when it’s finished.

I love the Mike Shayne series that started in 1939 by David Dresser writing as “Brett Halliday”. The books from the ’30s until the late ’50s were smashing detective fare on the streets of Miami. Around 1960 something happened to Dresser and Dell had a zillion writers pose as “Halliay”. The covers swung from the beautifully painted to being badly photographed and tasteless.

This is the first non-Dresser book I’ve read. I knew it wouldn’t be the same and have put it off for many years. After the last book I read, I decided this was a good time to be disappointed. Boy, was I. This was terrible! The main character miswritten and tons of holes in the plot. What a mess! I’ll stick with teh Dresser books…..until I get brave again….