Landmark of the sad state of Oklahoma

Landmarks: the State Capital building from inside the Blue Belle Saloon

If there is a symbol of Oklahoma's sorry condition, it may be the historic old State Capital printing building in Guthrie.
This is personal to me for two reasons. I have many fond memories of the place, having taken University of Central Oklahoma journalism and photography students there when it was The State Capital Publishing Museum. And I'm a newspaper man.
It's full of antique hot metal publishing equipment, presses and more, dating from pre-statehood. It had operating Linotypes, job presses and more, which delighted my students as a peek into the early days of journalism in this state. 

My students in editing and advanced editing classes on field trips helped with printing and more, getting  hands-on education. You can literally smell history inside.

Then several years ago, the boiler in the building quit and the state and Historical Society couldn't afford to replace it. It's been closed since.
I read  a valuable article by Laura Eastes in this week's Oklahoma Gazette, "Historic Guthrie building's future is uncertain," about a possible developer wanting it, and the city wanting it to be restored as a museum.
That brought to mind a recent visit to Guthrie, an easy Saturday trip on the back roads, and we ate at the

It's a sad sign for our state

equally historic and reopened Blue Belle Saloon,  just across the street from the impressive old building. That's when I took these photos, waiting for a prompt to write about them. 
To me, the dangling sign on the front of the locked and decaying building says everything about the sad state of Oklahoma.

Getting there, fourth try

Watercolor is always an experiment in learning...I won't duplicate the photo,but I'll try to capture the essence

Head in the clouds, and paint

Photo by Susan

We saw this beautiful thunderhead building west of Oklahoma City  this week. It just demands to be painted, if you've grown up on the Great Plains.
Or at least try to paint it, which is sort of my holiday weekend ordeal.
So far, two tries, and obviously from the flaws, more to come.
Here are the stages of the first one, and the completed larger second one. This deserves better. Time to start over. 

Two more books as the year is half gone

Does rereading books count toward a year's total? In this case, yes, and I finished two more this month, bringing to 15 read as the year is half gone.
When cleaning out books to give to my daughter, Booked to go, I parted with my Tony Hillerman books, except for one I had forgotten about.
It is a tattered and signed 1970 first edition of his first book, The Blessing Way, before he became famous. I bought this book at a Society of Professional Journalists silent auction here years ago. 

If you didn't know, the late Hillerman was an Okie and first a journalist and covered Oklahoma politics and more for UPI. In fact, his novel A Fly on the Wall, set in a fictional state capital, which is obviously Oklahoma City and the state capitol building. 
 He'd given this book to a friend and another Oklahoma journalism icon, Carter  and Loretta Bradley, and they donated it to the auction. 
 Reading it again was like reading it for the first time, because it had been so long ago. In it, Joe Leaphorn is a young Navajo cop and Jim Chee hasn't been created yet. Leaphorn aged with Hillerman.

The back cover, young Hillerman

Reading this and seeing his inscription and photo on the back cover brings back memories, especially of my beloved New Mexico, and of the passing of time.

***

The second book I reread was Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, a musician and a writer
I needed to go back through this heavily marked-up book, mark even more, to get me off my duff and back into watercolor painting.  Books like this are food.
I won't give you many excerpts without almost reprinting the entire book. 
But one stands out to me as a journalist:

"To the artist, art is a verb."

Here are pages I've obviously read well. It's not so much advice as philosophy and common ground on the emotions and mind set of what happens when you decide to make art.

'That's my boy. I'm proud'--Clark version, Matt. 3:17, 17:5

 I remember holding him in my arms on the first day of his life, full of pride and wonder.
This week, I've hugged him, bigger than I am, and I'm still full of pride and wonder.
To quote the Bible, my version: "That's my boy. I'm proud!"
It was my privilege and honor to attend the emotional Air Force retirement of my first born, M/Sgt. Vance Conrad Clark this past week, at Beale AFB, north of Sacramento, Cal. He's spent 23 years of his life passionately serving our country, traveling the world, meeting and serving people, and more.
I wish you could have been there, and witnessed the honors bestowed on him, officially and unofficially. I wish you could have heard his Colonel's remarks. Lt. Col Michael P. Healy, Commander of the 13th Intelligence Squadron, 548th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group,  did his homework in his speech, mentioning Vance's grandfather and my Dad for his art work and draftsman work on WWII aircraft, and spoke of Vance's several career assignments and deployments, and his leadership. Younger airmen really look up to him. (Oh, by the way, Beale AFB is where the famous "spy plane," the U2, is based.)

I wish you could have heard Vance's remarks about me, about his mother, about his wife and children and many others in the room. I wish you could have heard his oldest daughter Katherine surprise him and sing the national anthem, a capella. I wish you could have seen his daughters boo-hoo as he gave them flowers. I wish you have tasted his wonderful wife Kerin's cake, knowing that both of them had only had about three hours of sleep the night before. I wish you could have heard his eloquent extemporaneous speech about serving our country, about his Christian faith in God, about responding to a higher calling, about our freedoms in America. I wish you could have heard his conclusion, "God Bless the United States of America." I wish you could have heard him and his Colonel leading the rousing Air Force Song at the end. 
Here's a summary of his accomplishments, his biography, and many photos I took. I know I'm no different than any parent, and I've been blessed  and am so proud of my four terrific children, all of whom make you "bust your buttons," as they used to say.
 

That's my boy. I'm proud.

From Vance's biography, and his record

M/Sgt  Vance Conrad Clark is a fusion analyst assigned to the 13th intelligence squadron at Beale AFB. Born in Lemars, Iowa, as the oldest of four, in 1985 he graduated from Waurika High School, and enlisted in the USAF in April 1993 and entered basic training. He has served in career fields to include F-15E crew chief, weather observer and his current field. He took part in major exercises such as VALIANT SHIELD and B-52 operations on Guam. 
He was deployed four times, two tours in the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosovo), Iraq and Turkey. Some of his favorite accomplishments were planning demonstration resultant fury, overhauling the USAF influence Ops curriculum authoring the Air Force's first ever cyper-OPSEC course and establishing the USAFE/AF AFRICA A2  training program. Most of all he loved mentoring, teaching and recognizing people for their efforts. He thoroughly enjoyed two mission trips to western Samoa and Romania where he helped prepare children for a better life. He married Kerin on Aug 5, 2003 and they have been blessed with three daughters, Katherine 10, Sarah 7 and Neysa 5. After retirement he plans on spending more time teaching his daughters to fish, finishing a masters degree, staying proficient in Russian and traveling more places to help people out. Above all, he thanks Jesus Chist,the creator and redeemer of the universe, for the blessing,s opportunities and great people with whom he was privileged to serve.

  
 

Col. Healy and M/Sgt. Clark

Honors from his peers

A special citation for Kerin Clark

Citations for Neysa, Sarah and Katherine

Vance's remarks  on his retirement

Leading the Air Force Song

The proud father

To read about his "birthday," here's the link: Birthday thoughts.