Libre Released

Posted on 12/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

This week I had the distinct honor to set my American Bald Eagle free to the world. After laboring for seven months cutting shaping, fitting, sanding, finishing, and framing I finally completed an intarsia project that I call Libre. In Spanish that means free. Since the Bald Eagle is the national bird of the United States of America, and freedom is the name of the game I found Libre a fitting title for this piece.

The work is based on a calendar photograph in the Heritage Foundation yearly calendar for 2023. It struck me when I saw it and immediately stopped, and set aside the eagle I was then working on in favor of this one. Libre is more animated than the work I abandoned which was a soaring bird at level flight. Libre is an action bird. One can vision him as in the act of landing, trying to gain altitude, or getting ready to pounce on prey.

As I cut the pieces and began to see the bird come to fruition, I was disappointed by the colors of the wood I selected. I felt they were not as accurate as I would like them to be. It wasn’t until I began to apply the finish that the true colors of the wood and the direction of the wood grains popped into view. Another disappointment came when I lifted the weights off the final feathers that I glued on. One of them was out of place by a millimeter. I lost sleep over that defect while mentally developing fixes to cure the problem. I decided to wait, and to hang the piece “as is” before attempting to disassemble the work to make a correction. Thank God I did that because the defect is barely perceptible from a few feet and only another intarsia artist would find it from up close. Since I’m the only intarsia artist I know I think I am safe to leave Libre alone to remain “free”.

Filed under: Arts, Biography, Birds, Government | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Parallel Lives

Posted on 10/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

The challenge today is to describe my life in a parallel universe. I can do better than that. How about three parallel lives?

Number One is a life here on earth, but idyllic. The main character is a fifty something perfect body specimen who lives with several women, and partakes of bodily pleasure often. Enough said about number one.

Number Two is about a man who loses his wife, and is living through deep grief. In this grief he gets an idea to find his wife in heaven. He truly believes that heaven is real and exists somewhere in the universe. In the meantime, the widower meets a stranger while transporting his newfound dream truck home to Illinois from upper Michigan. His mission is to rebuild the new-old truck into a modern street rod. The stranger learns of his dream to convert the truck, and also to find his wife. The two of them become fast friends and agree to allow a third man to build this truck into a vehicle that can help lead them to find find heaven.

This story jumps into the universe outside the realm of planet earth, and as one might guess the lonely man gets involved in many outer space skirmishes as he tries in vain to find his dead wife’s soul in heaven.

Number Three is an alternate-history tale which takes place in the 1776-1976 time period. America loses the revolution and remains under the rule of the English king, and the U.S.A. as we know it today has never existed. England loses World War Two to Germany. Life is very different in Europe and in North America. The story tells the tale of a single family from Illinois who refuse to give up on the dream of Washington from 1776. The father of this family finds a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and decides to rekindle the flames of revolution but this time against Germany. The story is complicated, intriguing, and suspenseful. The ending leaves the reader thirsting for more, and the writer contemplating a series.

Too many ideas, too little time.

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Shift the Focus

Posted on 08/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

It has been awhile since my last post, but it doesn’t mean I’ve been sleeping. Although I have slept during those hours, just not during all of them. My body odometer turned another year, I have taken multiple baby steps on my latest project and have concluded that I am ready to finish. From this point on all I want to do is to admire my completed work. The admiration will begin within the week.

I had a lovely time visiting with all three of my kids at the same time. They presented themselves as birthday gifts, and I absolutely loved it. The only one missing from the fun was their mother, but I know she was with us in spirit. On August 17th, I celebrate Barb’s twentieth year away from me. Thank God that among her last words to me were, “It’s time for you to move on with your life.” I’ve done my best, but it would have been infinitely better had we spent these past 7200 days together. Grief still appears out of nowhere, and now it comes from two directions, one from Barb and the second from Peggy. My dreams, however keep them separated from each other. I think that is a good thing.

Throughout the many visitors and celebrations I managed to continue taking baby steps on my work which I have decided to call “Libre” which translates from Spanish to “free.” I began reading again, but to give myself a vacation I have sworn off books by William Faulkner. He didn’t resonate with me. His writing style was good, but his vocabulary. dialect selection, and story lines were out of this world. I found myself hating to read. I completed “Go Down, Moses” and began a second story from the same volume called “Requiem For a Nun,” After one chapter I closed the book and returned it to the library where is will reside collecting dust until the end of time. In order to catch up with my reading goal, I have selected large print stories that were copyrighted in 2023. Both of them are stories about super human CIA warriors fighting battles in mid-eastern countries.

This morning I followed up on a pledge I made with myself to begin walking again. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. What amazes me when I am walking is that so many people pass me by. In my mind I am putting a lot of effort into speed walking, but in reality I must be doing the deed in slow motion. I guess I have to give up on competing with the youngsters, and forget about how fast I can cover the miles, and shift the focus on finishing.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, Book Review | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Four Score and Five

Posted on 04/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

years ago a thirty-four year old lady from Hungary, and living in Chicago gave birth to a boy. He lived. Back then many new borns died at birth, but this boy survived. His father who was also from Hungary named him Joseph. Two years earlier this father lost his first born son Joseph Junior, age six, to scarlet fever. This new son was a replacement for his namesake and first born.

The sadness associated with these circumstances has always placed a damper on my birthday celebrations, and throughout the years I have spoiled many a celebration on this day with my sullenness and refusal to show a hint of happiness. This year seemed no different, even though my friends came, and we drank wine, and we had a seemingly great time. I shifted my paradigm however, by claiming it was not my birthday because my birthday was the next day. Instead I told them we are celebrating a going away, I am leaving 84 behind and going toward 85.

My three kids all called me to wish me a happy birthday and that made me happy. My oldest son has reached the age at which I had retired from my job to live happily ever after with my wife Barbara. He will not be able to retire yet for a number of years, and it is the same with my daughter and youngest son. They all live lives raising their children and working like we are all supposed to do. My grandkids are all responsible citizens, and that makes me very happy.

With each passing year I develop a new sense of urgency. As my time on earth shortens, the fire to complete my goals increases with intensity. Like my current intarsia art project burns inside me. I keep telling myself that I can’t leave the planet with an unfinished pile of wood pieces which my kids would not know how to deal with. At least a completed work could become a reminder of who I was, but a pile of wood?

The next project on my list before I start a new intarsia work is to complete the manuscript for my first novel, Space Rod. As with many projects I put writing a book aside when my second wife Peggy needed my help to negotiate Alzheimer’s dementia. She has been gone for four years now, and I either have to finish the work or find a new reason to use for not doing so. Unfortunately, finding reasons to blame are a whole lot easier to come up with than putting in the hard work and time to finish. My story line has had a lot of time to fester and I’ve had many ideas for how to change the story, but in the end I think I will proceed with my original line of thinking. I always thought it was a good story idea so why should I change it now. I can’t rest until I send the manuscript off to be published.

So many things to do, and so little time.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, family | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

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