To the West-Side: Hole N" the Wall Utah

Driving down Highway 191 towards Moab, past Bluff, past Blanding, past Monticello lies an incredible piece of Americana.  The place is as american as Apple Pie Ala Mode and Fried Squirrel.

Your so close to Moab Utah (your final destination) that you might say, "Honey lets keep going." And saying this would be a mistake.  You would pass by an Americana Art Piece.  An art piece that shows the wit and heart of America,  the place is the former home of Albert and Gladys Christensen.

Albert and Gladys were determined to make the most of being settlers in an out-of-the-way- type of place. Albert desired to create a Sand Stone Palace for Gladys. Scrapping out the Sand stone mountainside, patiently he made a home.He painted the Sermon on the Mount above his abode and carved out a tribute to F.D.R.. He worked so patiently that before it was finished Albert died (1957).   Gladys loved Albert with a devotion, and carried the passion forward until she died in 1974.

Its off the map! But hey why not stop by and see what this Hole N the Rock really is.

Link to: Hole N" the Rock Utah

Nostalgia’s Thread Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell Paintings

a compacted punch,

 of literary power 

We yearn for a return to Eden; we yearn to return to commune with the untarnished world, a world that lacks pain, ugliness, and evil.  Nostalgia's Thread by Randall R. Freisinger takes another look at the perfect world illustrated in Norman Rockwell's paintings. Freisinger constructs words that eloquently juxtapose the imperfect world we live in to the perfect 1950's portrayed by Norman Rockwell. 

 He speaks to the desire to be 

"young again, and clean

of conscience, returned to the embrace

of a loving family that never truly existed

and which you mostly now visit

only in fading photos or rote prayers

at church when the liturgy's script

cues you in time for the dying to remember

the dead. You want to recall the vanished home

of childhood without the collateral damage of wrath

and uneasy laughter." (Page 24-25)

Freisinger's thoughtful poems are an invitation to remember our childhood dreams of a more perfect place. We once thought that life could be endemic. We are now older and have hung up those childhood dreams in our walk in closets; and yearn for prelapsarian dreams. Freisinger is a master of creating images by selecting pertinent words: "postman's pouch heavy with grief." Freisinger's book is small, but is a compacted punch, of literary power that knocks the reader out. 


 A definite Cluck, Cluck, Cluck.

  Nastalgia's Thread: Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell's Paintings

Randall R. Freisinger

Holartbooks.com

U.S. $12.95

ISBN: 9781936102037

Genre: Poetry (Secular)

Note from Human Resources, one should update their Read Across the United States Map:  Randall R. Freisinger is from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  One should color in the upper peninsula of Michigan as soon as possible.    

 

120 Minutes Archive.

Do y'all remember 120 minutes?

 Do you remember a time, when MTV attempted to play interesting music? 

When MTV did not become another teen reality network? 

 When MTV mattered? 

 Do you remember these times: then head to the 120 Minutes Archive put together by Tyler C..  

Mayfair by the Lake: Haikus

Dad and I hike up

through dewy laid state park, 

gray slug crawls on moss.

                        - Gregorio Roth

Up way too early, 

have to put up the Artwork,

I need coffee now!

                 - Jessica Baylor Rothbard 

These Haiku were written by my wife and I, the morning of Mayfair by the Lake. The influence for Gregorio Roth's poem is a recollection of a hike my dad and I took at Ecola State Park, Oregon.   It was a rainy day and we witnessed a Slug slurping up a leaf; it was amazing to see something so slow, yet progressing steadily consuming a whole leaf.    I hope you enjoyed them.
Mayfair by the Lake