Guess what I did today?

After completing a caricature in Orlando I headed to Ocala to work on the float for the Republican Federated Women’s group. I wanted to be involved earlier, but the cold a couple weeks ago severly messed up my schedule from the float to my annual Christmas card.

Above and below are photos of the faux book I created. I expected this to take me 12 or more hours. Being out of time I somehow pushed this out in three hours. I still had an editorial cartoon to scan in and color. I didn’t finish the cartoon until the wee hours of Friday. That messed with the ability to get it to Glenn’s site in time.  For some reason I decided to get a bit more complicated with color with an already complicated cartoon. I ended up spending more time coloring the cartoon than making the art in the photos shown here. By the way that’s Ann Archer standing by the giant “book”.

What has Obama wrought onto his administration?

My drawing of Hillary is off. I was aiming for some artistic trickery with no reference except a photo of a smiling her. I was trying to render more scheming than some evil making plans. I goofed somewhere in the eyes. I guessed to much and missed.

Butch Wilson is the curator of the Clewiston Museum. He also has a large family. He left his home with forty people there to open the museum for our group of mostly hikers the day after Thanksgiving. He gave us a tour, a twenty minute talk and all the courtesy one could. It is heartwarming to see such dedication to educate and inspire others of the history, heritage and culture of our great state of Florida. A sketch of Butch is below along with sketches I made of inhabitants of the Lake Okeechobee region at one time.

Sandra has been hiking around Lake Okeechobee for the past week plus and I headed south to join her and her hiking buddies for Thanksgiving vittles at the Clewiston Inn. I picked up my father and brother, Jeff, in Maitland and we took the backroads through St. Cloud, Kennansville, Yeehaw Junction, Okeechobee and round to Clewiston.

We had a fine meal and with us at the table is one of the longest members of the Florida Trail Association who I sketched to the right.

Wrapped three books that started with the crash of ’26 in Florida and lead me to want to learn more about Palm Beach County.

The first, ‘Panic in Paradise’, is a terrific book that unveils truths still generally unknown to the general public since it was published in 1994. The truth of the crash sealed for nearly 60 years because the banks had a neat law crafted to keep Americans in the dark. To this day the belief is that irresponsible free spending people downed the banks in Florida in 1926. It was far worse and I believe we’re repeating the same stupid moves today. This book should be a must for Floridians and those wanting to better understand what we’re going through today with these banking “troubles”.

‘Panic in Paradise’ lead me to those involved with the crash which lead me to ‘Boca Rococo’. ‘Rococo’ covers the life of Addison Mizner, an odd ne’er do well who stumbled into Palm Beach and made a short success of things. The book is an over glowing account of the fellow. Perhaps the involvement of family had to do with this. You can kind of read between the lines. The book is expertly researched and very well written. It also gives a glimpse into the odd mentality of Palm Beach and how some scatter-brained ideas can get out of whack.

Next stop, ‘Palm Beach’ by John Ney. The book written in ’64-’65 starts with a very riveting view of John F. Kennedy. Ney lived next door to the Kennedy compound and pours out his, what I feel are, delusional feelings of JFK. Hampering my understanding may be not being there at the time and that Ney’s emotion is not including the death of RFK, Ted Kennedy’s bad driving and daddy Joe’s bad behavior. The first chapter does somewhat clue me into the adulation of Obama, which I also feel delusional.

The book goes on like a written and bound version of Hedda Hopper. Written as if Palm Beach was the beginning and end of life for humans. It’s all a bit much at 300 pages. My feeling was that Ney had lost his bearings and fallen into some Palm Beach worm hole writing this book. Then I went on to read more. More of that as I finish the next three books.

Here are folks I drew in Gainesville at the Thomas Center. For more of the Thomas Center click here and see more at Genuine Florida.

To the left is a sketch I drew there.

After the gig, I headed home at about 2 something in the morning. I stopped at the Steak ‘N Shake on US441. I ordered a steakburger meal. I got cold unslated french fries, oddly drained baked beans, a chocolate shake with strawberries in it and a very odd burger. See below. I guess they ran out of buns. That and proper training.

I’m too much a fan of Steak ‘N Shake to know this is NOT the norm. I’ve never received anything like this before and I’ve been a devoted fan for since I was consious of being taken to the Steak ‘N Shake on 17-92 in Winter Park. This is strange and indicitive of something very wrong at this particular Steak ‘N Shake.

It’s been a week of fighting a cold. I started this event feeling lousy. Somehow five and a half hours later, non-stop drawing, I actually felt better. These three photos are from very near the end of the gig.

This was the last one drawn. A lady who is a fan of comics and fantasy. It’a always fun drawing monsters. See the Stephen King cartoon I did Friday fro Glenn Beck below.

One of the simplist I drew of the adults. She’s a steak fan.

I learned alot about this fellow including his love of James Bond and heading to Clearwater Beach. So here I have him being chhased around what’s left of the giant round-a-bout just east of Mandalay Drive in Clearwater. The bad guys are in hot pursuit going around with him.

A nod to Glenn Beck’s new book, The Christmas Seater, and Glenn nabbing the  #1 spot on the New York Times best seller list and just what King’s “friends” might do about it.

This morning, Sandra and I attended a special event just for US Forest Service employees, volunteers, and partners. It was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Ocala National Forest, which happened on November 24, 1908. 160,000 acres in north Central Florida were designated by President Teddy Roosevelt as public park space which is still being enjoyed bt Americans today. For more click here for Sandra’s entry at Florida Hikes!

To the left is an early water fountain in the Mill Dam section. Below is a windy spot of the park off a lake. It was rather chilly and the wind chill in the low 30s didn’t help the cold I’d developed overnight. Despite the runny nose, I didn’t want to miss this special event I got to attend.