Photo I took YEARS ago pairing with headlines

Today when I was going through my Google alerts, I got a BIG blast from the past. As in my Independence past.


For a couple of years I covered the William Inge Theatre Festival in a photographic capacity. A lot of plays. I never much thought about it until today ... here was Romulus Linney's obit in my inbox with my picture on it.

Wow. I actually remember that evening. Honestly, I wasn't all too crazy about the play's content, but I did stick around because I liked Linney. It wasn't until today that I knew he was the father of Laura Linney, an actress I simply adore.

Small world.

Neewollah

Yeah, I'm a slacker. So deal with it! ;)


This week is Neewollah in Independence, Kansas. Oh my! (For those of you who are in the dark, Neewollah is Halloween selled backwards! It's a week-long party in that town). I lived there and worked 2 Neewollahs.

When I left, everyone asked "Are you coming back for Neewollah?" ... because it's like the big homecoming. My answer was usually a stutter. How could I explain to those who just loved this week of mayham that it was completely and utterly exhausting!!??!? Yeah, it's fun if you show up, eat carnival food and watch the parades. But what about if you've been working your booty off to put out a special tab before the event? That's a 60 hour work week. And the week of? Count on 80 hours easily.

I'm tired just thinking of it now.

Anyhow, tonight is the Doo-Dah parade, where local businesses try to outdo one another in silly floats. Let's just say that if my memory serves me correctly, copious amounts of alcohol is also involved.

Anyhow, last year, I found a webcam of downtown Independence during Neewollah!!!!! How fun is that!??!?! To check it out, CLICK HERE. :)

A BIG shout out to my homies who are still working their booties off to cover it: D, C, G, and A. I wish the Independence Reporter (the town newspaper) actually had an ONLINE NEWSPAPER (what a CONCEPT!) so I could read about the events. Guess I'll just remain in the dark. :(

;)~

Independence — The Carousel

The carousel!!!!! It's a whopping nickel to ride. Fabulous. :) Evidently the people who donated it to the city stipulated that it stay a nickel to ride forever and EVER. Nice, eh?


Erik shunned the horses. He opted for a seated ride.


Check out the horses.


The horses were evidently painted (actually, re-painted) by a local painter. Just a little detail.


For those of you who care .... here are the hours.


They didn't turn the lights on for us .... and Erik tried to get a free ride out of that. SHEESH!


And this was the concert in the park ... no photos, just video to share.

Know what? This is a really random fact, but I lived in Indy for 2+ years and know what? I NEVER attended one of these. Seems rather odd. Like, I should have photographed it at some point. But no. I never did.

Glad there's something new I could experience while I was there. :)

AAAAAAAND, this concludes my posts on our trip to Independence, Kansas. Phew!

Independence — Food!!!!!!

Ok, I have to say, John's Kitchen and Pub is like my FAAAAAAAVORITE restaurant in Indy. When we showed up for lunch and it was CLOSED, I almost cried. Truly.

They have the best bread on the planet there. And some pretty good BBQ. My favorite part is you can dip your own sauce .... it's not slathered in sauce. Oh ... the meat ...... yeah, I'm getting hungry just TYPING about it. You walk in and you just smell that they've been smoking their meat all day.

Ok, I have to stop talking about the food.


This is amusing: we were parking and there was this fake owl (I'm guessing it was designed to scare off the pigeons). But, as you can see, the pigeons just didn't care. They sat next to it, in fact, on TOP of it. Sheesh!

Independence — Swimming Pool

Another James pic!


Oh yeah ... Erik and I have been hitting aquatic parks around the state ... and Independence was one of them. Especially for the slide.

Erik didn't like the slide too much. Said it threw him around too much.

I like it OK.


James gave those floating lilly pads a run for their money!



Then, Erik bet James on the pads. He told him if James could go on them w/o using the rope, Erik would get him a Sno Cone. Nice.


James is a clever little fella.


Eventually something got bet (I don't remember) and Erik lost .... and had to go down the toilet bowl slide (again).


James was jubilant.

Independence — Burmese Brother :)

Ooooooook, so we were driving down to Independence .... and who should call me but my Burmese Brother, James.


Let me rewind here. When I was living in Indy, James and his family moved in upstairs. They are immigrants from Burma. His father was a freedom fighter and they're a lovely family. Anyhow, James basically adopted me ... and I he. He calls me "big sister" and so he's my Burmese Brother.

So ..... he called Sunday afternoon to tell me he and his mom were going to see Fr. Steve, who lived about 30 minutes from where we were traveling. COINCIDENCE!!!!!!!!! We could have tried to plan a rendezvous for MONTHS but it would probably never have worked out so well. :)


We went to the Tropical Sno stand ....


Who doesn't love a good tropical sno?

Independence — The Reporler

I call it "The Reporler" because the sign in front of the newspaper where I worked for 2+ years .... and the sign out front was (and still is) broken. The 't' has broken off ... and looks like an 'l.'


I always loved that you could look at the presses as it printed.


However .... there are still some things that never change .... like the holes in the carpet. The carpet is admittedly the running joke of ... lots of places in town.


And we were going in through the back door .... and this sign was up. Amusing .... I'm sure there's some sort of story that goes along with this....

Independence — The Quilting Girls!!!!!

When we decided to go to Independence, I told Erik "We HAVE to go over a Tuesday."

I'm suuuuuure Erik internally rolled his eyes. But I spent quite a bit of time with the ladies on Tuesday mornings.




We each made a quilt square .... which was fun.


This was mine .... a blue work square. :) I am currently "working" on my bluework quilt. I have about 2 more blocks to make ... then gotta piece it and quilt it. Yeah, it's been sitting in a box for 4 years. I have been a SLACKER on that front.


Erik took over the camera .....


I'm looking pretty un-stellar here. I think I was trying to figure out if I missed some stitches....


This little mint tin is where I keep my quilting thimble and needles. :)


Pearl and .... Rita, I think.


There's sort of a running joke about me and quilting. The ladies have snack time ... and let's just say I generally showed up right before snack time, would put a few stitches in .... and then have snack time, then have to go back to work. Evidently they STILL talk about it .... evidently, it's called "doing a Karen."


Here's Pat. She's just one of my favorites. I don't want to sound like a meanie by picking faves, but Pat is just a darling!


Check out this cute baby quilt the ladies did!


And of course, they put their tag on it.


Last few of the quilt I was working on. They used gold thread, which was difficult to see.


Pat's comment is she could always tell where I had been working because I quilt so evenly. Interesting comment. I denied it at first, but eventually, I guess she's right. :) I had to traced the stitches with a little line .... the stitches are just below the lines ... but it's a little tough to see. Just in case you care. ;)

Independence — my old house

I used to live here .... on the left side of the house, there's an entrance, which is where my apartment was during my time in Independence. Of course, the house was a DIFFERENT color. It was a minty green, so to see it during our recent trip, it was a SHOCK to say the least.

Oh, and that big picture window in the front .... DRAFTY. I woke up one winter and felt a BREEZE coming through the window toward my bed. Ugh. LOVED the look of the house + its character. Un-loved the drafty/uninsulated walls, though!


We went up and looked around (I don't think anyone was living there at the time). When I saw this was still there, I got sort of excited. I added that when I lived there 4 years ago. And my touch still lives!


I don't have a photo of the exterior handy, but see the Boog there? By my little bitty flower bed. You can also see a *little* of the light green color ... but not as much.

Independence — random factoids + the park

The wall along the cemetery is also another Depression project .... workers got creative, though. THey put people in the wall. I think there's even a horse somewhere.

But I must admit, Erik was not as thrilled with/entertained by the wall as I was .....

BUT he loved the monkeys!


The first monkey from space .... originated from Indy.






The park also has cement animals ... sort of interesting. :) I think I once took a photo of a kid sticking his face into the alligator's mouth...

Erik took that tortise foe a ride, though!!!


I was certainly thirsty!!!!!!




This is also interesting ... Lillie's Quilts used to be located in Sedan, but everyone from Indy went to Sedan to go to the shop, and so it was moved to Indy. Niiiiice. :)

Speaking of Indy ....

So, as I said, living in Independence was a fairly lonely experience for me. I'll talk more about that later ..... but today I want to encourage you to vote for good old Indy. Why? They are one of the top 10 tennis towns in the country, and they want to be No. 1.

Having lived there, I can attest that this town is GAGA for tennis. And I think all of the other cities up for the title are BIG places .... Independence has probably 8,000 people in the entire town. C'mon, root for the underdog!

To vote, CLICK HERE. You will have to give them your e-mail, and confirm the vote from your e-mail.

Thanks!

NOTE: I have a TON of posts about our trip to Indy, so I'll probably be making 2 posts/day. Can you handle that?

# 90 — Visit Miss Susie in Independence

YAY! Glad to knock one off the 101 in 1001 list!!!!!

I have a LOT more to share about our trip to Independence .... but there are 180 photos to go through and prep for putting on this blog. :)

The reason I wanted to go visit Miss Susie is that I lived in Indy for more than 2 years .... and guess what, folks? It gets LONELY down in the southeast corner of the state. Heck, I even felt that way out in Hays. My friends + family are so far away ... so I like living where we are, because I'm close enough that I get visitors more frequently. :)