March 11, 2015
Home in Cave Creek after an all day travel day yesterday. Returning from the Williamsburg Film Festival. On the first day of the festival, our host, Larry Floyd, gifted me a sketchbook and so I made a vow to fill it with whip-outs and return it to him on our last day there.
Daily Whip Out #37: "Little' Johnny Crawford"
Johnny Crawford told a wonderful story about being on the Disney lot and going into the commissary as Walt Disney was coming out. Walt said, "Hello, Johnny," and Crawford was beaming with pride. Later, he told his mother how Walt Disney knew his name and she said, as only mothers can, "Honey, you have your name on your shirt."
Of course, Johnny grew up to be a crooner and he has a big band that plays at the Cicada Cafe in downtown LA.
Daily Whip Out: "Johnny Crawford Crooner"
We are planning to go over and see Weston on May 30, and treat Deena and Mike to a night on the town to see Johnny perform "When The Folks High Up Do The Mean Low-down!"
One of the problems for the festival is, by this late date, most of the big time B-Western stars have gone over the divide. In fact, Johnny, 68, is kind of the last wave of stars who still have the bonifides to draw a crowd at the festival. I was at the festival three years ago and a couple of the stars who were there, have since passed. Even the fans are disappearing! This tragic realization led me to this sketch:
Daily Whip Out: "Last of The Silver Screen Cowboys"
The festival ended on Saturday night, but some of us stayed over to see the area history, which is quit amazing.
Daily Whip Out: "Mucho History In The Neighborhood"
Larry asked us if we wanted to stay over for an extra day to visit Jamestown and Yorktown and since Kathy had never been to this part of the country, we agreed, along with Johnny Crawford, Jeff and Belinda Montgomery. We spent Sunday at Colonial Williamsburg:
Daily Whip Out: "Richard And His Tri-Corner Hat"
I spent about fifteen minutes quizzing Richard on the courthouse steps about the history of wigs and tri-corner hats. After a carriage tour of the 600 acre park, we retired to a taven for lunch.
Johnny Crawford Mugs It Up at Kings Arm Tavern
Our waiter said he was a slave and between 9 and 11 years old. Since he more than a little resembled Chris Farley, this was quite amusing to all of us (although still educational).
On Monday Larry drove us out to Jamestown, the first English settlement in the New World. Great exhibits there:
Daily Whip Out: "The Jamestown Skulls"
One of the coolest exhibits is a full skeleton, with a rifle slug still embedded in his knee. The poor guy obviously died with some major pain (that's his excruciating face, at center) and the archeologists named him "J.R." as in "Who Shot J.R?"
A very impressive statue stands at water's edge in old Jamestown:
Daily Whip Out: "Captain John Smith Looks Out On The James River"
From Jamestown we motored over to the location of the decisive battle of the American Revolution:
Daily Whip Out: "Yorktown, Where The French Saved Our Bacon"
A great battle and a great story about our debt to the French! Of course, the whole dang war was caused by taxation without representation and some stupid stamps:
Daily Whip Out: "The Stamp Act Cover of a Local Newspaper"
Handed the sketchbook to Larry in the lobby of the Holiday Inn as we got ready to go to the airport There were 50 sketches, most of them bad, but all of them earned.
"You can't stay revelant unless you're pushing yourself out onto the razor's edge of life on a regular basis. Once you become comfortable, you become complacent, then you don't want to throw yourself into the icy cold water. You just want to sit in the sun."
—Madonna, in Time magazine