Elvia and Mariana (Elvia’s niece) have journeyed to Uzbekistan and are sending the most amazing pictures. Mariana and my granddaughter Faith are close to the same age and have been friends since they were very young, so I know they’ve been on the phone together sharing this journey.
Some years ago I read The Road To Oxiana by Robert Byron (distant relative of Lord B.) written in the Thirties, it is a most absorbing book. All black-and-white pictures of course and now Elvia is sending photos and I can see the remarkable colors of the mosaic and tile work on the mosques.
Those columns are just amazing.
May 21/2024
It’s now been almost a month since the dedication of the new, improved town square, where Debora Westmoreland, Diane Causey-Brice, Tommy Brice and many other were recognized, congratulated and cheered. I have been remiss in taking pictures and getting names but hope to catch up. It’s been increasingly difficult for me to sit at the computer, for which debility I am going in for an MRI on my hip a week from tomorrow. I just have so much time at the computer that I can endure but am hoping this will change. At any rate, it was a cheerful and lovely celebration, and hearing about the man-hours of volunter labor it took to haul in soil, repair the gazebo, construct the serenity garden, plant trees, etc. was amazing.
This was all done by volunteer labor and mostly locally raised money.
Think of the work — it needed people to haul soil, people who knew how to lay stone, replace the cupola roof, so many skills and tools.
The best part was the photos of old Utopia in the community center. Photos from 1948. How different it was then. How people hoped it would stay, if not the same, would retain its origins and cohesion.
Our music group played and Tom was loaned the old Stainer fiddle from the museum, which used to belong to the man who was the barber as well as the music teacher at the school. Tom was so happy to be playing it, he says it’s an first-rate fiddle and very old.
I hope to have more pictures and names for this post in a few days.
For the life of me I couldn’t get my own reflection out of the glass, we even took it off the wall and went wandering around trying to get out of the light but at any rate there is Utopia 1948.
And butterflies are back. This is the remarkable design on the back of a Monarch’s wings. I think it was a Monarch. At any rate, there were two different designs on the wings, back and front.
My friend Elvia from Coatepec has gone for a trip to Uzbekistan with Mariana, and has recently sent me some poems by Leon Felipe, which I am trying to translate along with working on the futuristic fantasy, sitting here with an ice pack on my hip.
Okay this is not a monarch. But here’s one like it with the reverse wing pattern.
