The Stylish Blogger Award

As June leaves for her week-long Easter break, “June and Art” is pausing for a break in routine.  While June and Art prepare to meet at the train station at 8, here we’re celebrating Stylish Blogger Award Day!

(Cross-posted on the Preserving a Family Collection blog…)  Caftan Woman, who writes a lovely blog about classic films, has been a friend and supporter of “June and Art” since the very first week.  A few days ago, I was surprised, thrilled, and humbled to receive a “Stylish Blogger Award” from her.

Purely intended for fun and promotion, the “Stylish Blogger Award” offers an opportunity for bloggers to honor their fellow blog stylists.  After all, blogging is hard, lonely work… and it’s particularly challenging if one is expected to maintain a high standard of “style.”  At the very least, we workers in a virtual medium deserve an occasional virtual award.

And now for the award obligations…  As a recipient, I am required to post seven facts about myself and then present the award to seven of my favorite stylish bloggers (yes, it is something like a chain letter, but infinitely cooler).

7 RANDOM OBSERVATIONS ABOUT ME

1.  I had a wonderful childhood.  It was great growing up with my sister Jamie, my cousins Teddy, Debbie, Carol, and Tommy (Anderson), Mark, Ricky, and Billy (Scholl), my Uncle Ted and Aunt Diane, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Dot, my grandparents, and, of course, my parents (June and Art).  You couldn’t ask for a better family.

2.  I loved dinosaurs as a child (okay, still do!).  My father painted a large mural on our basement wall of a prehistoric world replete with dinosaurs.  I’ve searched through all our old photos but haven’t found a single one that captures even a part of the wall.  Our basement was a magical
place, now only retained in memory.

3.  Today's blog entry is illustrated by Wayfarer cartoons drawn by my father from 1985 to 1988.  During those years, I published a tourist newspaper called The Wayfarer of Central Bucks County (that’s the New Hope area of Pennsylvania).  My father had recently retired and became thoroughly involved in the business.  He created the central image of the Wayfarer for the newspaper, drew dozens of cartoons over a 3 ½ year period, helped deliver each issue of the biweekly paper to over a hundred locations, and sold ads.  Many people in the area came to think of him as the Wayfarer.

4.  I’m a long-time fan of classic film.  My dozen favorite movies of 1949 (the year June and Art met) are:  The Third Man with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, High Diving Hare (my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon), The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland, Late Spring by Japanese master director Yasujiro Ozu, Intruder in the Dust from the novel by William Faulkner, Mighty Joe Young with special effects by animation wizards Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen, The Window with tragic child star Bobby Driscoll, The Set-Up with Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, Kind Hearts and Coronets with Alec Guinness in multiple roles, Fast and Furry-ous (the first Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon!), Adam’s Rib with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and A Letter to Three Wives who were played by Jeanne Crain, Ann Sothern, and Linda Darnell.  My mother’s favorite film from 1949 was Whiskey Galore (then known on its American release as Tight Little Island – it was one of the first of the new wave of distinctive comedies from England, many of which would star Alec Guinness).

5.  I grew up attending the Southampton United Methodist Church.  I began attending Mennonite when I met my wife and we were married in the Mennonite Church.  Now we live in New Jersey and there isn’t a convenient Mennonite meetinghouse nearby, so we’ve been Methodists for the past 15+ years.  We consider ourselves Mennonite-attending-Methodist and our core convictions remain Mennonite (very liberal Mennonite, that is).

6.  We often visited historic sites and reconstructed villages like Williamsburg when I was growing up.  I work in the field of history now.  My wife’s hobby is historic hearth cooking.  When we were looking for a house to buy, her only demand was that it have a fireplace large enough to cook in.

7.  I worked at Art’s Market, my father’s grocery store, from 1973 through 1985. 
Many of our regular customers were low-income, seasonal workers.  We had a metal box under the front counter where we kept track of their credit on filing cards.  Payment was on an honor system.  Over the years, we lost a lot of money through this old-fashioned system – but no one went hungry.

THE ENVELOPES PLEASE…

While the coveted “Stylish Blogger Award” appears to have its roots in movie blogs, my interests are fairly broad as reflected by my choices:

Kissssing

Porter Hovey manages this unique love blog.  It’s the only competition that “June and Art” has for the title “most romantic blog on the internet.”

If I Ran the Zoo

I’ve praised Tom Hilton’s real-time history blog Up and Down California before, so this time I’ll happily drop a plug for Tom’s joyous Sierrablogging and Wildflowerblogging on “If I Ran the Zoo.”  He handles the microcosmic details of flowers and the macrocosmic beauty of landscapes with unfailing style.

Basket of Kisses

It may take place in the same city as “June and Art” and in only a slightly later time period, but the Mad Men series celebrated in this blog exists in a wholly different universe.  Fortunately, New York City is big enough to accommodate both.  Always best wishes to the ultra-stylish Deborah Lipp and her sister Roberta!

Diary of a Mad Movie Fanatic

Robert Gelpi is one of my old IMDb Classic Film buddies where he went by the moniker Hal900 (and a fellow essayist in the book Horror 101 where I wrote about Der Golem and Jurassic Park and Robert examined The Stepford Wives).  Nowadays, he’s got this fine and stylish blog where he incisively reviews old movies and new.   He’s got a great eye for a screen capture, too!

The Uncataloged Museum

Whether leading the delightful Ukrainian Pickle Project or discussing the dung exhibit at the National Zoo in Washington, blogger Linda Norris is unfailingly entertaining, witty, and stylish.  As a fellow fundraiser and museum lover, I tip my hat to her charming and informative blog.

“Know Your Own Bone…”

Colleen Dilenschneider is my social media guru.  Museums and other nonprofits are rapidly changing in this new electronic world, and I am extremely dependent upon Colleen as my tour guide in this bewildering environment.  I think she has style in abundance.

Easily Distracted

I discovered Timothy Burke’s blog through his upbeat endorsement of College of the Atlantic (where my son will begin his freshman year this September).  I stuck around because his blog entries are consistently intelligent and thought-provoking.

So there they are:  Seven stylish bloggers deserving of awards and applause.

All of today's illustrations are by Art Price.

(For Sunday – piecing together what happened on that Saturday night in March 1950.)

 © 2011 Lee Price