Howie in the Hills Christmas Festival

Posted on by Thor

I went to Howie in the Hills to sketch a small town Christmas Festival. I fell on love with a home in Howie in the Hills which looked like a 1920s Hollywood hacienda. The home was on the main road where traffic is supposed to travel at 35 miles per hour, but the huge 18 wheelers seem to roar by at 55 miles per hour. The studio would have faced out on that main road.  I returned to the home a second time to see if the noise was an issue. The first time the real estate brokers had been talking constantly. This time I wanted a moment of peace to stop and reflect. There was a tall grouping of bamboo between what would have been the studio windows and the road. I considered planting more bamboo to further muffle the roar of traffic.

On the second floor the real estate broker confided for the first time that there was termite damage to a door frame. The termites had infested the home starting in the kitchen and then migrated through the walls upstairs. The door frame was so hollow that the door higes had nothing to hold onto. The door was resting 0n the floor. I hadn’t tried closing the door on my first walk through of the home. I abandoned the idea of buying that home. It was also too far from the events that I love to sketch each day. I like being able to walk to coffee shops and arts venues to sketch at a moments notice. Howie in the Hills is about an hour and a half drive from any Orlando events.

I am 0n a staycation at an AirBnB in Thornon Park, Orlando Florida. Since staying here, I have been doing several sketches every day. After I teach a virtual class tonight, I will be walking down the street to City Arts Factory to sketch Story Club. If I was still out in the country the hour and a half drive would have made the sketch opportunity a no go. The AirBnB is in a great location, but it has no WiFi, so I have to move again in a couple of days.

I parked across the street from the Howie in the Hills home I had decided was all wrong for me and I walked to the Christmas Festival. There was a stage for performers and I leaned against it to sketch the inflatable bounce houses. One of the staff who were supervising the bounce houses and slides set up beside me to eat lunch. He explained that he had to ask one kid to leave because the kid was bullying other children. By refusing the bully admission, the other kids could play without the harassment. If only politics were so easy.

I enoyed watching the kids trying to scale the rock climbing tower. One boy kept trying and failing at reaching the top. I admired that he never gave up. An older girl managed to get to the top on her second try. She raised her hands in victory and was lowered to the ground swaying on her safety rope. The little boy looked on in wonder and then attempted his climb with renewed determination. He failed again. He was dropped to the ground swinging on his safety rope with his arms dangling. I don’t know if the little boy ever made it to the top of the tower. As I packed up my sketchbook he was in the midst of another attempt.

I walked down the street filled with tents where vendors offered their Christmas knick knacks. I wasn’t tempted to purchases anything. To be honest I kind of skipped Christmas this year. My Christmas highlight this year was a Christmas market in Plettenberg Germany and sipping mulled wine while overlooking Wiesbaden Germany from a mountain top. This small Howie in the Hills estival felt overly commercial and shallow in comparison. There wasn’t much history behind the festivities. Being single and completely unattached, the holidays have less meaning. I might just treat myself to a new sketchbook or some new tubes of paint. I can’t order them online, since I don’t know where my next address will be.

March 1, 1945: Trier Germany

Posted on by Thor

After visiting my Thorspecken cousins in Wiesbaden Germany, I had hundreds of miles to drive to get to back to Paris France before my flight to the States. My three months in Europe were quickly drawing to a close. I divided the drive in half and decided to stop on the first night in Trier Germany. The drive to Trier was 100 miles. Trier is a historic old Roman city on the border of Germany and Luxembourg. It was a long day of driving on winding mountain roads and quick sprints on the autobahn where there is no speed limit.

In Trier I stayed at a quaint historic hotel on a hill overlooking the city. There was a walking trail down into the city which would have been lovely but it started to rain. In the morning I decided to sketch the glorious panoramic view from my hotel window.

Prior to the Allied advance, the Jewish community in Trier was harassed, with roughly 600 people deported between 1941 and 1943. In September 1944 Trier was subjected to almost daily bombardment by American artillery. Allied forces carried out three large-scale aerial attacks on the city later in the same year. On December 19 at 3:30 pm, 30 British Lancaster Bombers dropped 136 tonnes of high-explosive bombs over Trier. Two days later, on December 21 at 2:35 pm, 94 Lancasters and 47 American fighter-bombers dropped 427 tonnes of ordnance (high-explosive, and incendiary bombs). Another two days after that, 700 tonnes of bombs were released over the city. At least 420 people were killed in the December 1944 attacks on Trier. Numerous buildings were damaged. During the entire war, 1,600 houses in the city were completely destroyed.

Trier Germany was captured and liberated by American forces, specifically Task Force Richardson of the 10th Armored Division (Combat Command B) of the U.S. Third Army on March 1-2, 1945. The troops secured the city and it’s historic Roman Bridge during the Allied offensive to clear the Rhineland before crossing the Rhine River. The capture was highly significant with General George S. Patton and Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight D. Eisenhower visiting to honor the success. The quick capture of the historic bridge lead to the quick fall of the city. Around 3000 Wehrmacht soldiers surrendered when Trier was captured.

The 75th Infantry Division was not involved in the capture of Trier. On March 1, 1945 they were liberating Venlo Netherlands from the Nazis as part of Operation Grenade which pushed the Nazi troops back across the Rhine River into Germany.

March 28, 1945: Hessian State Theater, Wiesbaden Germany

Posted on by Thor

After sketching in Plettenburg Germany, I arranged to visit distant Thorspecken cousins in Wiesbaden Germany. Back in 1994 I visited all of the Thorspecken relatives I could find based on researching my family tree. One relative was a professional flute player for the state theater in Weisbaden. When I interviewed her back in 1994, she was nursing her newborn baby girl. That child was just married, and she helped me on this project by agreeing to allow me to ship the empty sketchbooks to her home in Koblinz Germany. When my first sketchbook was completely full, I drove to Koblinz to pick up the other 6 sketchbooks and was treated to a delicious traditional German breakfast in their home..

We all agreed to meet at Hessan State Theater in Wiesbaden. This is where my cousin performed fin the orchestra for so many years. She retired recently from performing in the theater, but she knows every nook and cranny of the place. One entrance of the theater was for the king and all his horses. She showed me the kings box seating which was of course the best seat in the house.

I loved when we explored the prop rooms and the huge scenic shop. Large scenic drops were on the floor being painted. Another theater had a rehearsal going on but my cousin marched in with confidence, and we watched for a while from the back rows. Another rehearsal was going on in a lobby which was super elegant with highly ornate gold trim. We watched that rehearsal which was in English from an upper balcony. The theater was a buzz with activity.

Wiesbaden is situated above natural hot springs. Steam can be seen rising from the ground in many spots. A fountain allowed people to sample the sulfur flavored water which is supposed to have healing properties.

My cousin used to live in Weisbaden but she just recently purchased a home out in the country. The home had a wood burning stove and a balcony that has a gorgeous view of the valley surrounded by large hills. I loved the way her home was decorated, it had an elegant old world feel. She practiced her English and I practiced my limited German. After a day of exploring Wiesbaden with my cousins, they insisted we go to a spot high on the mountain that overlooks the city to have a hot mulled wine. It was the perfect end cap to an amazing day.

Wiesbaden became a military base during WWII for the General Command of the XII Army Corps and the 3rd battalion of the 38th Infantry Regiment. It was also a target for Allied bombings because of its industrial support for the Nazi war machine. Allied bombing raids targeted Wehrmacht facilities, the Glyco-Metalworks production plant, the Dyckerhoff and sons cement works, Kalle chemical works, the Albert chemical plant among others. There were frequent attacks on both industrial and residential areas. By the end of the war, around 30% of Wiesbaden’s buildings had been destroyed.

The Hessian State Theater that we visited, had extensive damage to the north side during the Allied air raid of February 2 to 3, 1945. In that air raid, nearly 500 British aircraft dropped 1,251 tons of bombs, including several so-called blockbuster bombs, which could destroy entire city blocks. But the city was lucky — heavy cloud cover meant it was spared the destruction suffered by many German cities in the war.

Wiesbaden was liberated from Nazi control on March 28, 1945, by the U.S. 80th Infantry Division alongside elements of the 4th Armored Division during the drive to the Rhine. On that morning at 5:45 a.m., a white flag was raised on the bunker at the museum, marking a peaceful surrender despite the Nero decree which insisted on evacuation and destruction of all infrastructure. My father, 1st lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken would have been much further north, crossing the Dortmund-Ems Canal on the way to attacking Dorsten Germay. The 75th Infantry Division did not take part in the liberation of Wiesbaden.

After Wiesbaden was liberated, it became a major hub for American forces. The city served as a major U.S. Air Force base (crucial during the 1948–49 Berlin Airlift) and housed the “Central Collecting Point” for art recovered from the Nazi’s by the Monuments Men.