RED RIVER, ROMANCE AND A HALF-CENTURY FILLED WITH LOVE

This blog will be pretty long since it will cover a lot of our married life together and that’s been going on for a very long time.



Frank and I met when he was in dental school and we had a whirlwind romance that lasted for 2 years until we married in 1958. During our courtship we did a lot of special things including going to fraternity parties and dances. He was a member of Delta Sigma Delta. One night we went to a fraternity dance which was at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas and the zipper on my dress broke just as we arrived.






Being the gentleman that he always is, he asked the concierge where we could go to fix the problem and they let us go to a room where Frank literally sewed me up in my dress while I still had it on (heaven forbid that he saw me with my dress off at this stage of our relationship!)
We were married in Springer, NM in Frank's church. Since I had been married before, my dress was taupe and made from Peau de soir and silk ... an original by a designer in New York. That dress was a really big deal and the talk of the town in the small town of Springer.






Take a look at the cowboys and cactus on the coffee cups at our wedding breakfast, and don't you just love the feathers on my hat!!! We married in the morning and then headed for Red River. There were nearly 100 people in attendance and almost all of them were Frank's family. Since I am an only child of 5 generations of only children, needless to say, I was overwhelmed.
In the weeks before we married, Frank wrote me and said that there would be cool days and hot nights in Red River. Now things are just the opposite ;-)
My going away outfit was special made as well. His family had a "Squaw Dress" made for me and bought me moccasins. The dress was yellow and had brown and silver ric-rac on it, SOO TACKY , but I was so much in love that I didn't care.






The style was much like the red one in the photograph above.
When we arrived in Red River, we stayed at a place called the El Sombrero Lodge. All we had $100 to our name for our honeymoon, so in order for us to be able to stay for a week, Frank would literally fish for our dinner.





If you brought you own fish, they would cook it for you, give you a baked potato and a salad for only $1.00 per person per meal. What a deal! Here is a photograph of the place today.





It’s still there and looks the same on the outside, but it has changed hands several times over the years.
Frank’s family has a history of having reunions in Red River. Here are a couple of old photographs of times there when Frank was a very little boy. In the first photograph, he's the tiny boy on the left in the front row and then in the one that was taken about 10 years later he's the 4th from the right on the back row. He is the youngest in the family of that generation, so he always got to go everywhere with the family, not unlike our Franklin now. He's the baby of his generation as well. Like Father, like son!!!







Back then, Red River was a wide open town and gambling was legal, so it was the hot spot of Northern New Mexico. All the women would cook everything from scratch. They would even bring live chickens and they had to kill and clean them before frying them for dinner. Times have certainly changed.
We arrived in Red River for our 50th Anniversary celebration on the 12th of July. Our actual anniversary date is the 2nd of August, but we selected a time when the majority of the family could be there. Franklin and Beth had wanted to give us a party in Arlington, but we decided that a family gathering in the place where we spent our honeymoon was more appropriate. We were right.

We all gathered together there for 4 days and a wonderful time was had by all. Franklin and his family were there along with Nicholas and Dayna. Our granddaughter and her family couldn’t make it, but our nieces and nephews along with their families were all there, so there were 23 all totaled.
We ate, drank, played cards,

took hikes, swam and just reminisced and enjoyed each other's company. It was a glorious time.

The swimming pool was heated, but Connor even decided to go for a "dip" in the stream (I'd personally rather eat the dip rather than try to swim in it. It was icy cold but he didn't mind. After all, he was making mud pies!

We even took the ski lift to the top of the mountain one afternoon and took our refreshments with us.

Getting off the lift was exciting … especially for Nicholas who was the official keeper of the libations!

In the evenings Ian would entertain us by playing some of his original music on the guitar and Baby Jack would dance. We'll probably enter them both in America's Got Talent in a few years.

They have little surries that you can rent and those certainly brought back memories for us. Kwane rented one for the entire family to ride around town on and so we took turns filling it up with family members for a couple of hours.

Our oldest children, Jim and Courtney, had a “Surry with a Fringe on the Top” when then were young children in Raton, NM. It was so cute and they were very popular in the neighborhood with the only Surry in town! (Do you recognize me with the scarf and the skinny jeans? I don't!)

Their surrey had been advertised on the Art Linkletter Show on television and my Mother insisted that they have one.
We stayed at The Eisenhut this visit and it was the perfect setting for our group.

We rented 3 condominiums that surrounded the swimming pool. Since there were 3 families involved, each family had their own 3 or 4 bedroom unit. We would gather early in the day and spend the next 16-18 hours together. We ranged in ages from 18 months to 74 years, so with these living arrangements there was a lot to do and the little ones could take a nap as we were always near by.

I had my 72nd birthday while we were there (I’m not the oldest in the group but you know who is ;-) and after dinner in our condo that night, they surprised us with a DVD of our life together. It was wonderfully made since that is both Franklin and Nicholas’ business and the photographs of us, friends and family over the years were all synchronized with some of our favorite music. They even had movies at the end with each family member making a toast to us from their homes. It was wonderful and something we’ll treasure for the rest of our lives. The “production” lasted for over an hour and I can’t remember when I’ve cried so much or so long, but they were certainly tears of joy.
Frank and I surprised everyone with T-shirts that we had made with photographs of everyone who was there on them. We gave them to them that night and everyone wore them the next day for the group activities as well as a group photograph.

There is an enlargement of the photograph on the front of our shirts at the beginning of this entry.
I can’t begin to thank everyone who helped make this such a special time in our lives. I hope that I haven’t bored all of you too much with my rantings and ramblings, but times like this come only once in a lifetime and we have been very blessed to have been able to live, laugh and love each other for over the half century mark. I wanted to share this time with you.
It was sad saying goodbye to our friends and family, and the place where our journey together started. Frank sang , "So, Long, It's Been Good To Know You" as we left.

We're off to Scandinavia in a couple of weeks and won’t be back for a month, so it's time to go home, wash, iron, re-pack and pay bills.
I’ll be signing off with this edition and you probably won't be hearing from me for a while. Please stay tuned for more European adventures! Until then .....

XOXO, Pcasso

PANCAKES ION THE PLAZA, SHIDONI AND SPIRITUALITY ON THE PECOS

What a glorious time we have had. We are just back from spending nearly a month in the Land of Enchantment. Our computer time has been limited, so I'll try not to bore you too much with an account of our lives during the month of July.

We started out in Santa Fe in a hotel for one night and then and moved into our condo at Las Brisas for 2 full weeks of R&R. We are so blessed to have so many friends there that we know it will be party time as soon as we hit the city limits.
The first night we were there we went out to our friends home near Las Campanas. They introduced us to a new red wine and we went to Gabriel's for dinner and the sunset.

During dinner we planned to go to Vanessi's the next night for dinner and to hear the good, local talent. No trip would be complete without going to Vanessi's at least once while in Santa Fe and Sunday night is a very special time there. Doug Montgomery who is a local pianist plays there and on Sunday he invites some of the local talent to sing.

It's gotten to the place that we know many of the patrons, so it's like being on an episode of Cheers. Great fun!!

We noticed in the paper that the Great Big Jazz Band was playing at the Santa Fe Brewery on Monday night, so we climbed in the car and headed that way.

Our eldest son, Jim, was a professional musician and jazz was his first love, so needless to say, this style of music is always very special to us.

We love their music and try to hear them every time we're in Santa Fe if they're playing somewhere in town. We were not disappointed!

The funniest thing was watching the Percussion player. When he didn't think that anyone was watching him, he would sneak a little "nip" from a flask that was in his bag that he had hidden under his chair. Needless to say, he had a perpetual smile on his face ;-) He also was a singer and he had a good voice ... reminded me a little of Louis Prima.

The band is compromised of all ages and musicians from all walks of life. They are really good.

On the rainy afternoons we would take in a movie when Frank could drag me away from the TV set. I have just found a new game show called "Cash Cab" on the Discovery channel and I love it. I would get so excited when I could answer a lot of the questions that Frank couldn't resist taking this photograph of me at my best.

We also went to the Cowgirl Cafe one evening to hear Alex Maryol. He's a home town boy and highly respected in the music world. His family owns Tia Sophia's, our very favorite restaurant in Santa Fe for New Mexico style enchiladas.

The place was extremely crowded, so when a seat opened up a the bar, I took it and left Papa at the back of the room. I couldn't believe it, but several younger men kept hitting on me. Guess they needed to see their Ophthalmologist and have their prescriptions changed. I was old enough to be their Mother!
We took in a couple of movies and then on the 4th, we went to the Plaza for the 4th of July celebration. The Mayor of Los Alamos was the emcee for part of the program. I loved his Uncle Sam hat with the sequins. Very patriotic!

We then went to our friend's home to attend their annual brunch. Here is our host with one of the guests

and his darling wife is here with this wonderful Frenchman named Patrick, who is an artist and a fascinating man to visit with (but then those of you who know me really well know that I have always been a sucker for a French accent ;-)

His little MG is like the on I had in high school with the exception of the fact that mine was yellow with red leather upholstery. I really loved that car!

My Daddy surprised me with it. I had a great "following" after he purchase of that little mode of transportation for me, needless to say! It was a real "guy" magnet. I didn't have that car when I met Frank but had a red '55 Thunderbird convertible that also had a hard top. I still claim that he married me for my car :-)
One afternoon we went to Tesuque to an art show opening at Shidoni. It is one of the top fine art foundries in the United States, located just a few miles north of Santa Fe. Shidoni Foundry's galleries offer bronze sculptures and other art works, and a rare chance to find out what goes on behind the scenes when a bronze statue is created.
Adjacent to the foundry you'll find a bronze sculpture gallery where you can browse among sculptures in styles ranging from contemporary to traditional. Across the grounds, the Shidoni Arts Gallery features works in other media, such as glass and wood. The most spectacular sight here, though, is the outdoor sculpture gallery that's situated between the two indoor ones. Here you'll find a rotating display of large sculptures, notable for their sheer size and created in enough styles that just everyone will find something they like. I have published a slide show at the end of this blog where you can see some of the pieces that were in the show.
We had brunch after church the second Sunday that we were in Santa Fe with some dear friends that we met in our travels with Bishop Marshall.

Father Stasney and his wife are from Midland, TX and they invited us to join them at a Benedictine Monastery near Pecos, New Mexico several days later for noonday prayers and lunch. It was a beautiful setting and a very holy place. You could feel it as soon as you arrived.

Neither of us had visited there before. They were taking a 2 week workshop in Spiritual Direction along with about 20 other church leaders.

When I was studying the Enneagram, I knew about this place. Father Richard Rohr taught there and so I was this place was familiar to me.

Richard Rohr O.F.M. is a Franciscan priest ordained to the priesthood in 1970.

He is an internationally known inspirational speaker (best known for his recorded talks) and occasionally a writer. Rohr was the founder of the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati Ohio in 1971 and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1986 where he presently serves as Founding Director.
Scripture as liberation, the integration of action and contemplation, community building, peace and justice issues, male spirituality, the Enneagram and eco-spirituality are themes that he addresses in his writing and preaching.
He is best known for his writings on spirituality and his audio and video recordings. His most popular recording is The NEW Great Themes of Scripture.

We had wonderful meals with several other friends while we were there. In fact, we ate out with friends every night for two solid weeks. My jeans will never fit the same!

When we left one restaurant, we were really surprised to see what was waiting to greet us in the back of a pickup truck. These beautiful Pyrenees dogs are mother and son and they were as big as a small bear.

We also ate at a wonderful place on Marcy Street that used to be named La Traviata. We had pasta and it was delicious. Everyone had come by our place for cocktails before we went to dinner. It was a fun evening.

The day that we were originally scheduled to go to the Pecos, there was a change in plans, so we headed for Albuquerque so we could see our dear friends, Ray and Eleanor.

We have been friends since we all lived in Raton 50 years ago. Ray is recovering from back surgery and he looks great. Please keep him in your prayers for a speedy recovery. At our ages, we tend to get in a hurry to get well and don't want to take the necessary time to heal. I think that certainly comes with the territory, at least it does in my case!

A trip to Santa Fe would be incomplete if we didn't get to spend some quality time with our friend, Young Woo.

He has houses in Santa Fe, London and Beverly Hills, but we always let him know well in advance when we'll be in town so we can have a good visit. He's a very talented man and an exceptional artist. Here is one of his pieces that I really love.

He works in watercolor and was the one who introduced me to Charles Reid and his wonderful technique in working with watercolor. They are good friends, and now, thanks to Young, I'm in touch with the Reids on a regular basis and had the pleasure of studying with him.
Back in the early 60's, we built there first condominiums in Santa Fe.

There are 10 units and they are located on Bishop's Lodge Road, which is the address everyone wants. Everything in them was hand carved, such as the vigas, doors, etc. and the walls were double adobe which was made on the premises. They were 4 feet thick, so the units were very cool in the summer and very warm in the winter. Most units had a little over 3,000 square feet in them.

We went in on this business venture with Frank's cousin, and she was so afraid that they would not sell since this was a new concept for Santa Fe, that she sold the entire complex to a single buyer without consulting us first.

We're still kicking ourselves for not keeping one for ourselves! We recently found out that an individual unit sold a few months ago for nearly three times what we got for all ten condos. Live and learn!!!
After a wonderful 2 week visit with good friends, good food and good times, we packed up our car and headed for Red River, NM, the place where we spent our honeymoon 50 years ago. Stay tuned!
XOXO, Pcasso