The Foundation

Posted on by Thor

After driving for several thousand miles, too and from Oklahoma City, it felt good to get back to Lake County and relax. The second I arrived however, I had a virtual student online waiting to join the zoom classroom. With the last tank of gas I had been racing against the clock. Google Maps showed my exact arrival time and when I stopped to get gas, that arrival time slipped by 4 minutes. I had to start speeding to be sure I got back in time. Driving 5 or 10 miles per hour over the speed limit slowly gained me a couple of minutes.

I was in charge of taking care of Boo Boo, an adorable grey toy poodle,  for a couple of days. When I got in, he was locked in a bedroom. It turned out that the robot vacuum cleaner had managed to close the bedroom door, locking him inside. He was beside himself frantically barking to let me know how horrible it was to be locked up for several hours. While consoling him, I set up my iPad and tried to join the Zoom meeting. Since I had used the computer in Oklahoma City, Zoom didn’t accept my present location. It took 10 or 15 minutes for me to wrangle the settings and get online.

To say I was stressed starting the lesson is an understatement. However as the student and I started animating that stress melted away. By the end of the class the student had to remind me that the lesson time was over. I could have kept animating for several more hours.

I needed a nap. Sitting still, I still felt like I was in motion. My seat swayed with the imagined bumps in the road. I sat down on the couch but outside the lawn guy had decided it was time to trim and cut the lawn. Despite the racket, and the occasional stone striking the window next to me, i nodded off for a much needed rest. Boo snugged up next to me in his dog bed made from a small wicker basket and a pillow. When I awoke it was past midnight. I wanted to write an article, but decided I had lost the day anyway. I stumbled off to bed.

At 7am the next morning, I awoke the the sound of construction. A cement truck was churning out cement and an M shaped crane was pumping out the slurry next door. One particularly big fellow, that looked like John Henry was smoothing the surface with a trowel. I was wide awake at this point, so Boo and I set up in the shade of a tree in the front yard and sketched the proceedings. The foundation is much higher than the foundations of the houses on either side of the construction site. When the next hurricane blows in there will be no flooding on that property, but all the water will drain down onto the much lower property I was sitting on which will become a lake.

Woodring Wall and Museum

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The 75th Infantry Reunion crowd walked into the Museum after seeing the Vietnam Woodring Wall outside. There was a huge artillery cannon outside the museum. I thought it might have been from WWII but it was built in 1998. I decided not to stop and sketch it. Inside the building was a small museum of WWII to present military memorabilia.

There was a whole wall bookcase full of military books. I picked up one book and immediately found chapters of the Colmar Pocket and Ruhr Industrial Area Battles of WWII. Unfortunately there was not enough time to just sit and read.

The next room had some round tables set up and a podium at the front of the room. Here Bob Ford introduced himself and gave us a brief talk on his military carrier. Bob was particularly proud that there was a living WWII vet in the audience in Charles, who served with the 75th Infantry in WWII at the Battle of the Bulge. Bob said that he wanted to serve to honor the men who fought in WWII.

Bob handed out photos of himself posed in front of the 282 Assault Helicopter he piloted in the Vietnam war. The photo was taken in January of 1968 in Hue, South Vietnam. In the photo Bob was wearing a bulletproof chest protector and he was holding an M16. His command signal was Blackcat 21. Bob praised the accuracy of his machine gun crew. Any time the chopper was getting flack from the ground the gunners would hit the ground guns with absolute accuracy.

Outside I was speaking with a 1st Lieutenant Colonel who said that there were not enough troupes sent into Vietnam. Even so, he felt that the battle could have been won.However the media went in and started to claim that the was was not winnable. That message gave the enemy hope and a conviction that they should hold out and keep fighting. He felt the media had committed treason.

Bob Ford got choked up as he spoke about loosing an entire crew in Vietnam. When an audience member asked if he ever had to deal with napalm, he said that the photo he had handed out showed barrels of napalm in the background. He instructed his crew to stay clear of the stuff. Bob is incredibly fit. It wasn’t until the next day that someone from the reunion told me that Bob is 88 years old. He was wearing the uniform that he was wearing when he was 23 in the photo. He works out every day. He wrote a book about his Vietnam war experiences called Blackcat 21: The True Story of a Vietnam Helicopter Pilot and his Crew.

Apple Store

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In preparing to go to Oklahoma City for the 75th Infantry Reunion, and Oregon to screen my short animated film, COVID Dystopia, I felt I needed to replace the faulty chord on my iPad. Apple sells chords that are made to fall apart in a year’s time.  The chord Apple included with the purchase of the iPad was only about a foot long and some hotels and motels don’t have outlets conveniently located. I needed a longer and more robust chord.

 The Apple Store at the Millennia Mall was insanely crowded. Apparently everyone had faulty power chords. Tourists were coming in and buying chords using their foreign currency cards. I went up to the iBar and waited. Someone asked what I needed and pointed me towards a table covered with boxes of power chords. I wasn’t sure which plug s were needed. I should have brought my iPad, but I came in on a whim while shopping for clothes for my Europe trip.

The sales person was able to scan my iPhone to figure out exactly which chord I needed. I was impressed with his digital detective work. All my devices seem to communicate to one another and are shouting out when they need better power chords.

After I purchased my chord. I decided to stay and get a sketch of the digital chaos. Some people took more than an hour to buy a digital device wile others were in an out quickly. My purchases was pretty easy, but others must have been considering life altering purchases.

The lady in front of me was agonizing over her purchase of an Apple computer. She wore a Lady and the Tramp tee shirt. The Tramp would have made a decision quickly but Lady needed to weigh every option. She did make a decision before my sketch was complete.

Bus Ride to The Woodring Wall and Museum

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Mt father was a 1st Lieutenant of the 75th Infantry Division. The 2025 reunion for the 75th was being held in Oklahoma City, so I had to go to see what I could find out that might help as I make plans to follow in my fathers footsteps through Europe.

There were several day trips planned. One to the Oklahoma National Memorial & Museum and the other to the Woodring Wall & Museum. The bus ride was a solid one and a half hours, so I had plenty of time to get a sketch done. I was also given a paperback book that was a history of the 75th Infantry so I read that on the bus ride back.

The bus driver gave us all one important warning. He said that there was a bathroom at the back of the bus but he advised against against any number twos. I’m guessing the thing doesn’t flush very well. He also advised that men sit down since he didn’t want anyone falling down with all the side to side movement of the bus.

What I recall most about the bus trip was all the gorgeous wide open countryside and and endless line of wind mills. Like an airline, there was a safety video on the multiple screens hanging over the seats.

When the buss pulled into the air field, I could see the Vietnam memorial wall. There were few name to start and then each panel filled up to it’s full height. At the far end of the long wall the names compressed once again as the wall angles down in a triangular fashion. This wall is a miniature replica of the Memorial in Washington, DC designed by then undergraduate,  Maya Ying Lin. To find the name of a loved one it is best to use the index which tells youo what panel to look at. Names on the wall are arranged chronologically, so it might take a long time to search the 58,318 names of Americans who had been killed in action. The printed index allows you to search fr the name alphabetically.

On the bus ride back to Oklahoma City, I read the 75th Infantry history ind underlined sections to double check against the list of cities and engagements I was compiling for my trip through, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Many accounts of what happened in the later days of WWII don’t pin point the actual days or even the cities, so I have to cross reference everything to come p with a unified plan of attack.

Zam Zam

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After arriving in Oklahoma City, I hiked to downtown to find a restaurant to eat in and sketch. I settled on Zam Zam which is a Mediterranean restaurant. Since I was eating on my own, the hostess asked if I wanted to eat at the bar, but I wanted a table with a view of the room, so I could sketch.

A large table of eight people were seated across from me. It was the birthday of the little girl at the head of the table.

With this sketch, I used a large one inch brush for the first time to block in the watercolor. It was liberating being able too cover the page with just a few brush strokes. I used a pill bottle to hold the water. I need to rig up a way to clip the water container directly to the sketchbook, since holding the water container and the palette is impossible. In this case I could leave both on the table, but in other cases I need to reach rather far to dip the watercolor bush into the water container.

The one horrible thing that happened while doing this sketch is that I lost the 3 fountain pens that I brought for sketching. This sketch was done with the Sailor Demannin Fountain Pen. But when I went to do a sketch the next day all 3 fountain pens were missing. I searched to hotel room extensively and they are simply gone.

I returned to the restaurant the next day in the rare hope that they might have a lost and found. Most people might not consider a fountain pen useful, but to me it is like loosing my Stradivari. Unfortunately the manager didn’t find the blue box that contained my precious pens. My heart sank. I wanted to eat at the restaurant again if the pens surfaced, but now I will never return since the place is like the Bermuda Triangle where art supplies disappear.

Since I will be needing good fountain pens when I head over to Europe, I went ahead and ordered several more and they will hopefully be at the studio after I drive back to Central Florida. I fully packed the backpack that I will be taking to Europe to figure out what I truly need. I am traveling with just a backpack which can be slipped under an airplane seat. For winter supplies I have a down jacked and a shell that is light and compact. I am realizing that I need a light fleece sweater for the times a hotel blasts air conditioning too high. A down jacket seems like overkill, but maybe not.

Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum

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The 75th Infantry Reunion had a trip to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum planned. After a quick scrambled egg and bacon breakfast in the Founders Room, we all met in the lobby of the hotel to car pool over to the Memorial. For former military, we weren’t exactly keeping a tight schedule. The military pastor was the one to keep us moving along, to get to the entrance by 10am which was the scheduled entry time.  The calendar of events is in military time so I spend some time each night converting the plans to am and pm.

The museum and memorial were quite impressive, it is housed in a former newspaper building. We were taking up to the second floor of the museum and we were told we would work our way downwards. April 19, 1995 began like any other in Oklahoma City. One of the first rooms showed the history of the site where municipal building was constructed. There were several churches just blocks from the building. From there the pastor an I entered into the municipal room, where audio was playing of a mundane water resources meeting. Just as I started to loose interest, a huge explosion was heard and the lights flashed in the room, as panic could be heard from people trying to escape the devastation. This was live audio recorded on the day that the Municipal Building had been bombed. On the wall across from us the faces appeared of all those who had lost their lives on that fateful  day.The faces slowlu faded away and a set of doors opened to the next room.

With the meeting concluded we entered the chaos. The fractured sign of the municipal building was on a wall and across from it were a few letters that had been pulled from the wreckage. Walls were charred and there was the smell of sulfur. in the air. Glass enclosed exhibits in the next room had everyday office supplies that had been crushed of destroyed. I focused on an electronic pencil sharpener which was broken in half and partly crushed. That caught my attention since I use a pencil sharpener often back at the art studio. One display told the story of hearing a survivor buried under the rubble and setting all other concerns aside to try and rescue that one person. Over the course of the day, the numbers of reported dead continued to rise. Anyone who had walked away from the explosion was encouraged to call in since there were so many people who were missing.

The investigation began immediately and evidence began to mount that this was a domestic terrorist explosion. The back axial of a u-Haul rental truck was recovered and it had a serial number on it. That serial number lead to a Miami u-Haul dealership. The truck was supposed to be at a Nebraska site for repair and it had been sold to the perpetrator under an alias. The needless violence had been inspired by the Waco Texas incident where a compound had been burnt to the ground with many inside dying.  Violence begets violence. The perpetrator was getting away in a 1977 Mercury Marquis and he might have gotten out of the state but he was pulled over for not having a license plate on the car. The officer who pulled the vehicle over noticed that there was a concealed weapon so he was arrested on a weapons charge. Only later did they realize that they had the bomber under arrest.

One full room is dedicated to remembering those who were lost. The explosion killed 168 people and injured over 600 others. Rebecca Anderson, was a 37-year-old licensed practical nurse. She showed up at the explosion site and immediately went about trying to save others. She pulled one person out of the building and then went back in to find others. While inside, she sustained a head injury. She managed to get back outside and collapsed in the arms of another rescue worker. She was brought to the hospital where they performed an operation to relieve pressure on the brain. Despite their best efforts, she died three days later. 

There were so man interviews of survivors. One man wondered if he had lost faith in human nature and should isolate himself from humanity. After seeing Oklahoma Cities response to the tragedy, he decided that despite the horror of what he had witnessed, he felt there was so much good to be found in the world. Outside the museum is the Field f Empty chairs with one chair for each victim. The chairs occupy the former sire of the Municipal building that had been bombed. On Harvey Avenue, there is a chin link fence where people still leave mementos for those who have been lost. The fence reminded me of so many others that I have seen a Pulse in Orlando, Las Vegas, and Park land High School in Parkland Florida.

Hate groups were on the rise in the 1990s with the KKK and Militias and anti-government extremism. It would be nice if humanity had moved past hate, but hate groups are on the rise in America now more that every. 168 chairs sit silently in a beautiful empty filed in city center looking towards a tranquil reflecting pool. At the top of a stair stepped rising across the reflecting pool stands the Survivor Tree. It is the highest pint in the Memorial and stands for strength and resilience in the face of hate.

75th Infantry Reunion

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I drove for two days to get to Oklahoma City for the 75th Infantry Reunion. The drive was gorgeous at sunset and early in the morning when the golden light lit up the wide open landscapes. Huge hap cylinder shaped hay bales were arranged in neat rows in lush green fields as far as he eye could see.

A registration table was set up in the hotel lobby. Each attendee had a yellow manila envelope with all the events and plans. I met a 75th Infantry historian who is going to arrange for me to swing by the 75th Infantry museum on my drive back to Orlando. The museum is in Texas, so I would just have to take a more southern route to get back to Florida.

The lobby buzzed when Charles Atchley entered in his wheel chair. Charles is 99 years old and is the oldest and only living veteran form the World War II Division.

I sat down with Charles for maybe an hour before the room grew to loud to talk any further. He explained that Germany didn’t have an access to the sea in WWII. They had a lot of Submarines. One submarine went into New York Harbor and sunk one ship. Charles went to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth. They went to Glasgow, Scotland in four and a half days. The USO would have supper and then a show. The troops went on a railroad and went all the way own from Glasco to South Hampton England, where the troops got on three ships to go to France. There were 19,000 in the group. From there they went up to Belgium. All up north, there used to be camo caravans. They would bring food and supplies for Europe.  That trail was as wide as a football field. On the American side there was a swamp. The German tanks if the got too gar off would slip into the mud. General Eisenhower had four divisions. The 290th Division was among the four.something else. The Germans had to stop because they were running out of gas. Charles survived the Bulge he said because he was so small. He only weighed 102 pounds. He was also had some incredible luck. The one thing he could not escape was the cold. The troops were not outfitted with winter clothing and it got unbearably cold in the fox holes. Charles had to go to several hospitals to treat his frozen feet.

Charles was in the mortar squad. He had a backpack that two mortars in it. If those got hit by anything, they would explode. There were two men carrying the mortars. Charles learned to run in a zig zag pattern to be sure the mortars were never hit. The army would get the soldiers a hot meal every day which was hot oatmeal with raisins.  Charles sill had hot oatmeal with raisins every morning. He had oatmeal in the morning of the reunion.

After the battle of the Bulge the 75th went to the Colmar Pocket which was in Alsase France. The day the 75th got to Colmar, Charles was 19 years old. Charles was in the A-Company. He was one of 10 soldiers to get a blue Combat Infantry badge that day. Audie Murphy was already stationed in Colmar. Audie was 10 days older than Charles and he grew up kn the next town. Audie was from Princeton Texas and Charles was from Lucas which is close to Allen Texas. He never saw Audie when he was in Europe. Audie was in the 3rd Infantry. Audie made a lot of movies. Charles graduated from high school in 1047 with a friend, Charles wanted to join the navy, but you had to be 18 years old.

Hiram Caulder Utility Box Composition

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Hiram Caulder worked at an Orlando Butcher shop for many years. About 1914, he developed a terminal illness. On his death bed he confessed to his doctor that he was born a woman. The story was a news sensation at the time.

Hiram was born Hannah. After Hiram’s death, he was buried in an unmarked grave on Michigan Street in Orlando. Rather than tell Hiram’s whole story, I would suggest you read the article by Whitney Broadaway.

I have been asked to paint a utility box on the Corner of Michigan and Ferncreek Avenue across from Johnnie’s Other Side Bar and Grill. The utility box is right next to the cemetery.

I am writing this article from  Super 8 motel just outside of Little Rock Arkansas. I am two thirds of the way through with a drive out to Oklahoma City where I will be attending a reunion of the 75th Infantry that served in Europe during WWII. My father was a replacement 1st Lieutenant.

I am hoping I can figure out exactly when my father arrived in Europe. I printed out my plans that I have been assembling that track the 75th Infantry C-Company;s movements. I am pretty sure I figured out which concentration camp my father would have seen when He was in charge of shipping out displaced persons, by getting them into box cars on a train. I am hoping someone at the reunion can confirm or deny my findings.

Back to the utility box, there is a portrait of Hiram and Hannah on opposite sides of the box. I think Hannah will face the street and Hiram will face the cemetery where he lies. The portrait isn’t accurate. There are no known photos of Hram, just newspaper sketches which were a bit crude. The other two sides are to be coverd with black and white portraits , tightly cropped of man and women, representing the many sides of Hiram or perhaps the many other souls who inhabit the unmarked graves on the site.

I don

t have much time to paint this box in the hot August sun. I suspect I will work at night if the mosquitoes aren’t viscous, or in the very early morning. The above comp is being run past city commissioners. I honestly think the assignment will probably not happen given the present state of affairs in politics. Orlando Mayor Jerry Demings signed on an ICE agreement to shipping off  Orlando residents to Alligator Alcatraz. He had to sign in order to keep his job and to  keep the county commissioners from also being fired.

Market Day

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Stella Arbeláez Tascón and I went to the Webster Westside Flea Market (516 NW 3rd Street, Webster, FL). This is a painting of the combined haul before we divvied up the spoils of the marketing war.

Stella is great at comparing prices and finding the best deal while I just grab on impulse and sometimes forget to pay. I’m just excited to get the produce in my ancient granny cart which was rickety by the end of the shopping spree due to the produce weight.

The jar contains, Tamarind, a hard shelled pea shaped Fruit legume, which is sweet and bitter at the same time. I bit off individual seed pods and nurse the fruit off the seed with my front teeth while rolling it in my mouth.

I have become addicted to having several oranges every day. I am also a fan of cooking corn on the cob every night. It only takes 5 minutes to boil an ear so it is a quick snack.

In the background of the sketch are some ink bottles. Stella was testing each bottle of ink for it’s permanence when used with watercolor washes. It turns out one bottle is not permanent and that is the one she had been using.

My backpack for my Europe trip arrived yesterday. Each morning I put it on to walk around the block to see how it feels. I shopped at REI and maybe packed it 1/3 full. I hope on my travels I can find keep finding lush bounties of fruit as I hike, train and drive from town to town. I am getting close to finishing my itinerary. Which will give me a list of the towns and hamlets I must visit to follow in 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken‘s footsteps as his C-Company infantry unit moved from France to Belgium, Norway and ultimately the heart of Germany at the end of WWII. I think I solved the mystery of which work concentration camp his unit might have liberated and moved the victims toward Eastern Europe via train box cars. The displaced person’s didn’t want to get on the train and his unit had to hammer the box car doors shut with nails. The trip East might have been a death sentence. Skeletal faces started out from between box car boards in sorrow.

Rolling in the Racing Lanes

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One one morning lap swim, at HO Dabney Aquatic Center, (312 Pine St, Leesburg, FL), I got out of the pool a bit early to sketch the high school students as they rolled in the racing lanes. They roll in the lanes just before noon when the lap swim time is over.

There is some contention as to exactly when the lines should be rolled in. Several times Stella Arbeláez Tascón and I arrived rather late and therefor needed to swim right up until noon. The life guard wanted to get us  out of the pool 15 minutes before noon to get the lanes rolled in. Stella pointed out that the web site says that the lap swim time on the web site is for noon not 11:45am.

Stella has downloaded several swim work out apps on her phone and we are getting some really good work outs. One exercise consists of just swimming the pool length by kicking with no use of hands at all. Another exercise has one hand extended up in front and you swim the pool length using just one arm. I can feel my form improving with each exercise.

For the first several swims without the program, I was just doing the froggy style breast stroke I have always done. Now I am swimming in a classic freestyle form and my breathing and endurance has improved. I am so thankful for Stella upping the stakes on our swim workouts. To pay for the sessions we each got a swim card which is punched each time you enter the facility. I just have 4 sessions left. I am sure I will get a workout as I hike and travel from hostel to hostel in Europe. I have so much planning to do this month. I am hoping everything will fall into place by August 30.