"Baseball Trading Cards... Repurposed!"

Trading Cards...

 Where did the "weekend" go?

Well, okay... Good Morning, Monday, all bodies!

Nick Pechon, created a fun project and asked me to participate. When he explained his concept to me, I thought it was hilarious and just had to play the "Junk Era Gems" game.

The concept is to repurpose old and at one time slightly valuable baseball "trading" cards. Nick sent me a Frank Viola card ( I remember him! ) in the mail to trade one of his abstracts at 2.5"x 3.5" with one that I'd create on a gessoed card that he also provided for me.

I remember the Twins and Met's Pitcher, Frank Viola!

Nick's abstract offering for a trade!

I thought about painting a kid's bicycle wheel with trading cards clothespinned to the spokes, but it was too difficult to do at that size. I definitely wanted to keep my vision baseball oriented. I decided to paint from my "little league" files a scene that kids, who played the game, created to pick sides and win home team status.

Leave it to kids to invent a game within a game. Anyway, I named my creation, "Pickin' Sides" and mailed it back to Nick. It seemed to arrive in good shape.

Nick showed in his original post some of the boxes of baseball trading cards he knows not what to do with...

"Hey, Nick, checkout my son Brian's collection!"

Man, he was SOOOOooooo, into it. The three long cardboard boxes in the upper left of this photo is completely filled with cards... baseball, basketball as well as football...

Our little entrepreneur!

Copyright2021/Ben Bensen III

"Wow, Safe At Home Again."

Safe at Home!

 Good Friday morning, y'all.

Gotta find a way to get into the studio today. I spent one afternoon rearranging work stations to make things easier to move around in. But, I have to crack open the tubes of paint to find out if it truly works.

The image of home plate on a sidewalk brings back so many memories. There are lots of allegorical stories, plays, poems and such about the game and the symbolism of being safe at home. The one that sticks in my mind involved my older sister.

It was a time when kids played with jacks, fiddle-sticks and marbles... and hopscotch.

To me, hopscotch seemed a girly game. At the age of five or sixth, that was my perception. To my sister, as long as she had girl friends from the neighborhood around to play, she was fine, but she always recruited me when there were no friends around.

I didn't want to play and I didn't want to play until she came up with an idea. I don't know if mom was a part of this devious scheme, but it totally changed my attitude when Adele took a piece of chalk and drew a home plate on the sidewalk to replace the number one. What a great way to start and finish the game.

Wow, safe at home again. The trials and tribulations of life, All those numbers, maintaining one's balance and trying to hop over the white clam shell that marked the square you couldn't step on. Home was the place to be!

If baseball is life, maybe... hopscotch is too!

First cup...

"Happy Independence Day-2021"

One of many fruit salads I make for my wife...

 Happy 4th of July, everyone.

Although I parked too far away from the park, the Fourth of July celebration called, "Sparks in the Park" was worth the trek. En route, I saw Tim Lantrip waving to me on Columbia Street as he drove by.

"Haven't seen you in a while. Why don't you drop on by," he yelled.

He's right. I've been kinda incognito for a while now!

The park was packed with lawn chairs facing in the direction of the bandstand and with good reason. The Covington Concert Band was phenomenal playing stirring patriotic classics by noted American composers including John Phillips Sousa.

Since I had never been to the park, I grabbed a beer and strolled around. There wasn't anyone I knew, which was alright with me. Mayor Mark Johnson with the assistance of Amy Tucker did a bang up job putting the show together.

As the evening grew darker, kids with glow sticks and necklaces became more noticeable as they seem to run in and out of the trees and the audience. People in their seats also lit up their faces blue messing with their cellphones. All we needed to further light up the night would have been fireflies.

Later in the night, the sky would be all lit up!

One man dressed completely in black was wandering to and fro with his iPad. Willing to give up my spot next to a large tree, I walked over to see what he was doing.

It turns out he was the band's sound engineer using his iPad as a mixer board. Eventually we got to talking about the music and the genre of marching music. He told me of all the songs that were played so far, Richard Roger's "Victory At Sea" gave him goosebumps.

Though I could have, I refrained from telling him how I was as a seven or eight year old, starting my summer vacation listening to the main theme of that NBC soundtrack. With my clothers folded and put away and having made my "bunk" military style, hung my "Fanner Fifty" pistol and holster on the bedpost.

Dusting away the dust bunnies from under the bed and setting my shoes perfectly under, but in line with my bed, I'd finish up with a salute, at attention, as the main theme of the soundtrack faded away with that great rolling wave ending.

I don't remember when it all stopped. It was probably the start of school or a hurricane... or whatever. I just remember the feeling of being disciplined and having my day starting off in the right direction.

Ah, the Fifties.

Copyright 2021/ Ben Bensen III