Preserving History

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I went to Montreal, Canada where the Pam Schwartz, director of the Orange County History Center gave a talk about preserving history after the Pulse Nightclub shooting tragedy where 49 people were murdered in a mass shooting.

The Pulse Nightclub and the Doctor Phillips Center for the Performing Arts became locations where people went to leave memorial items and flowers.

Rather than allow all those items end up in landfills, the Orange County History Center mobilized to collect the memorial items. They were categorized organized and are now at the History Center’s offsite warehouse. Each year after the tragedy the mounted memorial exhibits to honor those who were lost.

I went to several of the History Centers collection days and it was certainly not easy work. Collecting had to be done in the hottest months of the summer. The once beautiful flowers were dead and had a highly pungent smell. The director once told me that she would be happy if she never saw a bouquet of flowers ever again. It is very possible that breathing all that decaying matter affected the lungs of History Center staff.

Some Orlando citizens did not appreciate the work the History Center was doing. To them the collection process looked like grave robbing. There were several people who were combative as the staff did there work on site. The same people would be thankful when they saw how much thought and love went into the memorial exhibits.

Pulse: First Responder

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Yesterday I saw an article in Watermark that Barbara Poma and her husband Rosario were cleared of any wrong doing in relation to the Pulse Nightclub shooting that resulted in 49 deaths.

The shooting happened June 12, 2016 and the wounds are still raw.

This sketch was done in the office of Pam Schwartz, then the director of the Orange County History Museum. She conducted an interview with Mathew Hairs who was a first responder at Pulse after the shooting. I loved that Mathew’s pup was so attentive. Maybe an hour into the oral history the pup curled up on the floor.

The History Center’s One Orlando Collection

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Pam Schwartz the Director or the Orange County Regional History Center and Jeremy  Hileman who is in charge of the One Orlando Collection gave a Lunch and Learn talk about the collection that was build after the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

The shooting happened at about 2AM on June 12, 2016 killing 49 people at the Pulse Nightclub, and injuring about 68 others. The survivors have to live with the horrific memories.

The History Center has to decide what their roll would be in the community following the massacre. Pam immediately drafted a 5 page collection plan. Within a week, the museum became the collection entity following the tragedy.

Six years later, the collection is still growing. It has some 12,000 plus objects, oral histories, and terabits of video and photography. Some of the items predate the tragedy some are of the tragic event itself and some are of the love and support that followed and spread worldwide.

Many of the items in the collection are from the spontaneous memorials that cropped up following the shooting. People place items to try and replace the loss by giving. They don’t think what may eventually become of what was left behind. The History Center didn’t want to have that love and support just go away. There was no manual on how collect following a tragedy. The History Center collected for 32 days straight.

White crosses were donated by Greg Zanis, a midwestern carpenter, (now deceased) who brought crosses to a number of sites of mass tragedy. Memorial items were left on and around the crosses. The crosses were saved and put in special storage boxes and the items left behind were stored in a box for that individual whose name was on the cross. The Orange County Regional History Center will host the Pulse memorial crosses from Friday, June 10, 2022 through Sunday, June 12, 2022 in honor of the 49 and all others impacted. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

 

 

Family History

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On Sunday, Pam Schwartz held a zoom meeting with a former museum colleague whose family history she had researched. When Pam begins researching a person’s genealogy she works incredibly fast scouring though millions of online resources to look deep into the family’s past.

Many evenings we sit together on the couch and work on each of our family trees. Back in the 1990s I started researching my tree using the New York public library in New York City to find links to the past. Pam introduced me to online research and I re-worked my research entirely using online documents to verify each fact found. It is possible to find the smallest details of a persons life at the touch of a button.

I lost two relatives recently and their loss renewed a need to piece together moments from their lives. I feel like that is an artists propose to document personal history through sketches and paintings. It is rewarding each time I find that a distant relative left behind a paper trail that has hints about what their life must have been like. Very often they are stories of human resilience and perseverance all of which offer lessons for life today.

Cone of Shame

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This is Sprout‘s enclosure for now while he recovers. We finally went a whole day without his wound opening up. The vet supplied this plastic cone to keep him from getting at the stitched leg.

The cone freaks him out. He keeps bumping it up against the cage and we discovered that he can not drink from his water  bowl while it is on. Pam ordered an inflatable neck cone which resembles an airplane pillow. It is rather large and makes him look like he has a lions mane. It doesn’t restrict his movements as much or freak him out and he can drink from his dish. We take it off any time we are there watching him now. but it goes back on when we leave the room.

He was very restless this first day. He would lie down then get up then lie down again over and over. He was never comfortable. Pam got in the enclosure with him and kept him company for much of the afternoon. Donkey lay outside his enclosure jealous that he was getting so much attention. Friends got him several stuffed toys and this was the first time Donkey could not steal them from him and destroy them.

Pam put a bath mat down so he cant slip on the wooden floor. he spends most of his time on the dog bed sleeping now and Pam brings him outside alone when it is bathroom time. Donkey gets locked in the back bedroom so she can not terrorize him when he goes outside. She had been rather good about his confinement although she still lusts for his stuffed animal.

Sprout is finally on the road to recovery. Over time he will be going to hydro therapy and short walks to start getting using the surgically patched knee.

Knee Surgery

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Pam and I have two dogs, Sprout who is older and Donkey who is a rambunctious and large pup. One day donkey jumped off the bed onto Sprouts back and he let out an ear piercing squeal. He is usually stoic and silent so this was very out of the ordinary. In the days that followed Sprouts back leg began to shake any time we went for a walk. His vet only prescribed pain medications and some vitamins.

Over time however Sprout stopped using this back leg preferring to hobble about on three legs. Pam finally found a better vet who looked deeper into what was happening.

A ligament called the Cranial Cruciate Ligament had torn. This ligament holds the two bones together allowing the knee to rotate. When it is torn the joint floats forward and back grating the bones against one another. A meniscus acts as a shock absorber and because of the way the joint was broken it began to tear.

The vet decided to do surgery. He drilled a hole in the bone and used essentially a string to substitute for the torn ligament. He also removed a bone spur. The surgery resulted in a 4 inch long suture down and over the knee joint. We were given a series of instructions for his care in the weeks to follow. He came home with a cone around his neck to keep him from licking or tearing at the wound. We took off the cone when he got settled in. Pam had set up two dog crates and several gates to make him an open space in the living room. He is not allowed to jump up on furniture or the bed so he stays confined. He was so drugged up and woozy from the gas that he immediately passed out.

That evening however Pam discovered that his stitches had torn open. There was a one inch gaping wound on his knee. Thankfully it wasn’t bleeding but the muscles poked to the surface. I have first aid bandages and let Pam do her best at covering the open gash so we could get him to an emergency vet. The vet who had performed the surgery was out of the office until the next week due to the Labor Day weekend. We waited in the vets office for an eternity. We waited much of the time in our car to avoid the other people in the waiting room. 9 out of 10 people who entered to vet wore face masks. As I did this sketch I could hear a girl crying for about half an hour in the waiting room. I also over heard a phone conversation about a dog that had overdosed on a bottle of its owner’s Claritin.

A vet finally took Sprout out back and we waited for her to sew his knee back up. When we got back home late that night once a gain Sprout immediately collapsed and we went to bed.

Orlando City Soccer in a Pandemic

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In March of 2020 Major League Soccer suspended the season due to COVID-19. That included the Orlando City Lions.  Five months later Orlando City Soccer re-opened to fans. At that time, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said only 20% of the stadium’s capacity would be permitted and those fans must be season ticket holders. He estimated about 6,000 fans could attend. In October of 2020 a match was canceled because two staff were infected with COVID-19.

Orlando City Soccer Re-opened on April 16, 2021. All City Soccer Staff are supposed to have been vaccinated. On May day of 2021 the Lions played Cincinnati at home. Pam Schwartz had been offered a chance to watch the game from box seats so we decided to go. The mask mandates had just been changed by the CDC allowing people who have been vaccinated to not wear masks when outside. The CDC warned that masks should continue to be worn at any crowded stadium setting.

We were able to park right next to the stadium and security was surprisingly lax. There was a temperature check and hand sanitizer available at the entrance. I just had to raise my hands above my head and walk right through a metal detector. I usually have to empty out my pockets which were full of art supplies. My pencils are often mistaken for weapons, but not on this day.

In NYC fans can get a vaccine as they enter Yankee Stadium or Mets Stadium. On top of that the ticket is free if the fan gets a vaccine. A growing number of venues are asking visitors to prove they’ve gotten their shots by displaying what’s called a “vaccine passport.” Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, and Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, are among a growing list of sports spaces that now require digital vaccine verification’s. Those teams and others have been using an app called Health Pass from tech company Clear for COVID-19 screening.

The NBA has employed COVID sniffing dogs. Researches have found that the dogs are amazingly accurate at detecting people who are infected. Anyway other than a temperature check there was no assurance that infected individuals were not entering the Orlando City Soccer game. I had my vaccination card in my wallet but it was not needed.

Pam and I have both had two shots of the Pfizer vaccine so we are both about 95% protected. We were assured that everyone in the box where we watched the game were also fully vaccinated, but how can you really be sure that is true? The box seats offered some separation from the crowd. Fireworks went off during the Star Spangled Banner and I could smell the gun powder through my mask which was a stark reminder that everyone in the stadium was swapping air. The bleachers to my left were full of the more fervent fans. They stomped on the bleachers. A drum corp and flag waving fans shouted through out the match. I noticed many fans felt they needed to remove their mask in  order to shout their anger during the game. That kind of defeats the point of the mask. In those stands there was no social distancing. Shirtless men danced up and down the aisles belly to belly and one guy flung his beer all over the crowd around him. You would think there never had been a pandemic in Orlando. The COVID-19 numbers slowly continue to drop in America but the fervent COVID denial-ism that I saw in the stands will most certainly help circulate more infections in Orlando.

India is experiencing a devastating Covid-19 second wave killing thousands people every day. Despite the carnage, the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament is playing on less than a mile from hospitals filled to capacity.  “I’m advised that the Indian government is of the view that playing the IPL while the population is in lock down provides a few hours of joy and respite each day at an otherwise difficult time for the country,” Pat Cummins wrote in a statement on Twitter.

It felt good to be out and about sketching in public again, and I hope that the box seats, vaccine and mask were enough to keep me safe. I had a beer, but never drank it since I didn’t want to take my mask off. I thought getting back out to sketch on location would involve incremental steps, but this was like jumping into the deep end of the pool. 11,503 fans filled the stadium which can hold 25,500 fans. Is that too crowded? Only time will tell.

There have been 34,817 new cases of COVID-19 in Florida in the past week. 434 Florida residents died from COVID-19 this week. There have been 3,841 new cases this week. 31 Floridians died today, May 2, 2021.
Orange County Florida does not meet the criteria for the next phase of reopening according to the Florida Community Dashboard.
Decrease in ER Visits for COVID-like illness: NO
Decrease in ER Visits for influenza-like illness: NO
Decrease in new cases by date: NO
Decrease in percent positivity OR positivity below 10%**: NO  

Beach Day

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The day before Thanksgiving, Pam and I decided we wanted to get away for a beach day with the dogs. Pam researched and found  a beach near Melbourne that allows dogs. The drive to the beach as fairly uneventful though Donkey kept blocking my view out the back window.

The beach had its own parking lot long with a bathroom and the lot was almost full with just a few parking spots left. Rather than carry the umbrella and towels out we decided to walk out to the beach with the dogs thinking we might have to turn around if it was too crowded.

We both wore masks the entire time and discovered that no one else on the beach wore masks. The beach was crowded but we decided to try and find an isolated spot. My comfort level included at least 30 feet of space or 5 times my height removed from others. That amount of space was hard to find. A sign staked out the limits for the dog beach and all said, maybe 100 yards were allowed for dogs. It was also high tide which meant people and dogs were crushed together. More than half the people on the beach also didn’t have dogs which was frustrating because they could spread out to the vast stretched of beach that were deserted on either side of this crowded mess.

The breeze was coming off the ocean so my other thought is that we should find a spot with no one camped out directly in front of us. We found one spot back by the dunes that was properly isolated. As I held the dogs, Pam started setting up the umbrella. As she was doing that a woman with her dog plopped down a few feet directly in front of us. Pam picked up stakes and we moved about 30 feet south to another spot.

We relaxed for a bit and then took the dogs out to the surf on their leashes. Our masks stayed on, we were no going to swim ourselves, we just let the dogs pay in the surf. Sprout was caught off guard by one wave, but swam back to shore like a pro. Donkey, a puppy, had never been to the beach and she had a blast. We played out in the surf twice. One lady lost her flip flop in the surf and we recovered it for her. On the way back to our umbrella that same lady lost her French Bull Dog and we had to catch it. All three dogs on leashed got tangled up. It would have been funny otherwise, but this lady was not wearing her mask. I worked hard to pull back from the chaos as dogs barked and tugged in all directions. When we got back to the umbrella two college girls had plopped down a few feet from us. We decided to call it a day rather than constantly having to pick up and move. The congested strip of beach kept getting more crowded.

We actually did spot one other responsible dog owner who wore a mask as she walked her pup. Several mask less children flew kites.

Bubbles

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Pam Schwartz‘s family was in town and we went to a lake where you could float on the water in these bubbles. The bubbles could be blown up with a leaf blower and then you could roll down to the water. Standing in the water was close to impossible resulting in many prat falls. Navigating was possible by running on all fours like a dog or horse but there was still little traction in the water. Each ball was tethered to a rope and when the time was up, they were pulled back to shore by the bubble herder. Her niece and nephew loved the experience.

Now I am thinking it  would be nice to have these for simple everyday tasks like walking the dogs. Of course the clear plastic would likely get scratched all to hell on pavement and cement but I still would love to see people walking the neighborhood in these. It even settle for a Jurassic Park bubble vehicle.

Local Varkers Market

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Pam Schwartz and I went to Aardvark Beverages (2610 South Ferncreek Ave, Orlando, Florida 32806) for the Local Varkers Market. This market was weekly on Tuesday Nights. Pets were encouraged, so we brought our pup Sprout. It is a vintage and handmade market with 20 Vendors, Live Music, Craft Beer, Wine, Coffee, and Food. The Free outdoor market ran from 5pm until 9pm.

All ages were welcome. With all encouraged to bring the whole family out for a community celebration!

If you are interested in becoming a vendor please email Suzette. It was bitter cold that night so I decided it was best to sit close to the open fire to sketch. Sprout made friends with many of the vendors as I sketched. It was a community effort to get the flames started and well fed. The logs crackled and spit out sparks which rose up. blending with the cold evening stars.