Later this week I am going to a Social Media, Blogging and Branding Conference in Bentonville, Arkansas called SoFabCon. It’s close by, is partially led by a very cool dude, Ted Rubin of Collective Bias, and promises to enlighten me about all sorts of things. Plus I get to go buy crazy socks for the parties they have. It’s a rule.
I thought I would investigate the idea of Public Relations over the week since that is so intertwined with the subjects of the conference.
Her Hidden World
I have a friend and client in Australia, Natalie Tucker of Defined Image, who recently wrote an FB post about getting 2,000 likes on her Personal Stylist business page. That is a big milestone for her. She credited me with helping her do that by listening to her very traumatic, personal, private and revealing life story, one that would not fit in most PR firm’s bio of their client.
Her World Exposed
After I heard the story I told her that while her first instinct was to hide that story away (that it wouldn’t be good public relations in other words) I thought that telling the story to the world would be a huge moment for her and her business. It would turn her from this perfect woman in a perfect marriage with perfect kids, somewhat unrelatable in her public relations perfection, into a real and relatable woman with an incredibly powerful story of how she got where she is today.
She agreed and found the courage to tell the story. That was 1 year ago when she had 100+ followers. A year later and she has 2,000 followers and her business has grown by leaps and bounds. The story being told to the world was the turning point. She is an incredibly hard and dedicated worker, no story can replace that. But it was the entry point for so many to know and love her and give her a chance to prove what she can do for them.
True PR
What does that story say about your own PR? It says you let your PR, whether DIY or through a company, be the best version of you, but you make sure that best you is real, authentic, genuine and true. It says your Public Relations efforts should include who you really are. That way you don’t have to try to remember what false mask you are suppose to wear. You just wear yourself as best you can be.
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman. I also designed Natalie’s website. Check it out.
Quote by the Doris Fleming, mother of Peggy Fleming, the 1968 Olympic gold medal figure skater. She told it to her daughter after she won so she wouldn’t be fooled into thinking she was something she was not. She also won 3 world titles and 5 national titles.
Peggy Fleming, Gold – USA; Gabriele Seyfert, Silver – East Germany; Hana Maskova, Bronze – Czechoslovakia
Here is the story of my Oklahoma City Marathon, 2013.
Noticed while leaving the hotel at 4:45 am. Team running for OKC and Boston
I ran the final leg of a 5 person relay team in the 13th Oklahoma Memorial Marathon yesterday. I wanted to be in the race to honor not only the 168 innocents who lost their lives in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, but to include the 4 innocents who lost their lives in the bombing and aftermath at the Boston Marathon just 2 weeks ago.
Oklahoma City National Memorial: 5:00 am Race Day
The race starts at 6:30 am so we all arrive before sunrise. The cubes of light you see on the left are the 168 chairs representing the people who died in the bombing. The gate on the left is the 9:03 gate. I am standing at the 9:01 gate. The bomb went off at 9:02 and is represented by the reflecting pool in between the two gates. You can see the crowds gathering for the race in the dark. Later towards the start you can see the crowd a little better.
The start line is WAY down there.
I was at the start of the Marathon to support a number of my friends and fellow coaches, Stephanie Greenquist, Angelika Carpenter and Courtney Johnson among many others. Due to the massive crowds we were stuck at the 7:30 pace sign with a thousand other people who should have been at the 9 or 10 minute sign. We didn’t get trampled.
Four Pathways coaches and great friends!
Since I was on a relay team I didn’t have to run then but I wanted to be part of the moment, including the 168 + 3 seconds of silence honoring the dead of OKC and Boston. It’s a long silence and makes you feel many things, including for me a deep sense of gratitude. I ran about a 1/2 a mile with them, back to my hotel, so I could take off my sweats and get a quick breakfast. This was the scene when I stopped.
About a 1/2 mile into the race
I took a shuttle to my relay stop and waited for the arrival of Louis, who was running the 4th leg. I would be running the 5th and final leg. Shortly after I arrived my boss at Fleet Feet Tulsa, Tim Dreiling, ran in to complete his leg. Two of the other relay members, David and Joel, were waiting for him. They are FAST!
Part of the Elite Fleet Feet Tulsa Relay Team: David, Tim and Joel
Everywhere you looked there were people showing support for those hurt and killed in Boston. I liked the eye black this woman was wearing, as well as her headband.
Messages
As we run the OKC Marathon there are 168 flags along the route. Each flag has the name of one of the murdered. I read a number in a row, turn to face the street ahead and then look back up to read another 10 or so in a row. I did that the rest of the way in. It is a very moving and unique way to bring it home for all to see, and to put the pain of your own run in perspective.
credit to Oklahoma Marathon Facebook Page
I was also thinking about the survivors of these sorts of tragedies. The dead lost their lives, but in the here and now those who are still suffering are those who were not killed but were forever altered; physically, mentally or emotionally. This was brought home to me when I sat next to Robyn Pendleton on the shuttle bus to the relay exchange spot. She told me of a very personal connection that made her whole family want to run the OKC Marathon.
18 years ago she was a young mother with 2 boys. Both boys usually went to daycare but that morning the older child went to a birthday party at another location. Her husband dropped the younger son off at the downtown daycare and was driving away when it seemed like he got rear ended by what had to be a very large and fast truck. It threw his own truck a few feet forward with incredible force. But it was not a truck. It was an explosion. The Murrah building had just been blown up by a truck bomb.
Murrah Building Before
Murrah Building After (May 5th 1995 memorial service)
Robyn worked at a south Oklahoma City YMCA location. She actually heard the explosion from where she was and saw the mushroom cloud rise in the distance. Inside her building they were quickly getting news that there had been a huge explosion downtown that had almost completely destroyed a building. They were all listening and watching reports when someone asked her where her sons were. Then it hit her.
This was in the days before ubiquitous cell phones. It took her over 2 hours to find out what had happened. Via about 5 or 6 connections she found out that her husband had gotten back to the day care at the downtown YMCA, less than a block from the Murrah Building, and had successfully retrieved their son, who was not injured but for a small cut below is eye where glass had hit him. She was able to get a ride downtown and was eventually reunited with her family.
Overview of the OKC National Memorial – The building was on the right of the reflecting pool. Photo credit – OKC Memorial Organization
If you have never been to the OKC National Memorial and Museum it is a site to behold. There truly is not a more moving and profound memorial to be found in the US if you ask me. One of the elements I like is the survivor wall, with all the names of those who were injured or impacted by the bombing, those who were within a certain radius. Robyn’s son’s name, Evan Pendleton, is on that wall. Being 3 years old, he doesn’t remember a thing but nonetheless it has impacted his life in a profound way, as it has for all his family.
As we ran the final leg of the marathon I caught up with Robyn. We high-fived each other as we moved at different paces to the finish line. When I found my other running buddies after the race we walked over, as many do, to the memorial. It was filled with people contemplating the 9:01 and 9:03 gates leading into the reflecting pool that takes up the symbolic 9:02, the moment of the explosion.
The Survivor Tree, Reflecting Pool and 9:01 Gate
People sit and contemplate, resting after the race, meeting up with family and friends. People can be seen gathering around many of the 168 chairs that symbolize their loved ones. We stopped to take a photo of a group of women who were doing just that. Their departed loved one is gone, but is still present for them. It’s as powerful and beautiful as can be.
Running and Remembering David Neil Burkett
Each chair is individually sized. The children all have very small chairs.
A Medal in Honor of 2 yr old Elijah Coverdale left on his chair. His older brother Aaron was also killed.
As we went over to the map to see how the memorial was laid out Robyn was there with her relay team mates. I introduced her to my friends and told them the story of her young son.
Robyn Pendleton in front of the Survivor Tree
Just then a good looking young man walked up. Robyn turned and introduced us to Evan, 18 years later, now a strapping 21 year old just off his very first OKC half Marathon.
Evan and Robyn Pendleton, 2013
It was great to see that out of something so negative and hurtful something powerful and positive had emerged.
That is how it is with tragedies, isn’t it, especially those purposely inflicted. The desired death and destruction by the criminal may occur, but it never lasts. Love and purpose and resilience is what lasts. That is what makes running this race so powerful, making this particular Marathon an amazing one to participate in and remember.
I work from home. I usually stay home unless I have a specific thing to do. When I travel afar I find myself gravitating towards coffee houses, and I have been thinking I really should do that more often when I am home, not just when I travel. Why not draw my napkin there instead of at home, right?
The ‘Boston Strong Chick’
That is what I did today. I had to go to downtown Tulsa to pick up some artwork I had in a recent group exhibition. Afterwards I decided to stop by the Phoenix Coffee House. I gathered up a humongous Mocha and a scone and settled into a chair where I thought I would have a good view of this woman with a ‘Boston Strong Chick‘ hat and shirt on. I figured she was likely a runner and that she might be there a while, long enough to start a drawing at least. I started to draw her and got through her head, shoulders and most of her arms when she got up to meet someone coming in the door.
OKC Marathon Connection
It turns out the friend she met was Michelle, a running friend of mine. We had just talked on Facebook earlier in the morning about running in the OKC Marathon in two days. We recognized each other and I got up to say hello. Turns out the person I had been drawing was the person she had told me about in our conversation, her more experienced running friend who is going to run the marathon with her. She introduced Brooke to me, explaining how we knew each other . I showed them the drawing in progress and after some talk about the marathon and our various strategies for the race they went off to get some coffee and I went back to drawing. When I was done with the line drawing I showed it to them again and Brooke was kind enough to let me take a photo of her with the napkin.
Brooke Martin (gotta love the cute bunny photo bombing on the TV in the background!)
It also turns out that she had come to the coffee house from being interviewed about her participation in the Marathon by the same reporter, Max Resnik, who interviewed me yesterday. Small world.
Here is the segment that includes me in it (Brooke was in a different segment).
Watching Me Drawing
In the meanwhile, while I was drawing Brooke, someone was watching me drawing. When I was done she came over and asked to see the drawing. She told me she had texted her husband while watching me draw that she was watching someone who could be him in another 20 years. You can see her on the far left (and Brooke on the couch) in this photo I took using my brand new wide angle lens (I am obsessed with it) when I first sat down.
The scene before me
Turns out good things, good connections and good people come from getting out and about. I shall have to do it more often.
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who is running the last leg, (6.2 miles) in the marathon relay, not the entire race. But I do get to cross the finish line, which will be very cool.
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By the way, the Tee and Cap came from www.happyfirst.com and the profits are going to the One Fund Boston.
I got into a long and deep discussion today on FB over a story on ABC News/GMA about girls not being allowed to wear strapless dresses to a middle school prom because they were deemed ‘too distracting’ by the principal of the school. Click on the pic or link to read the story.
There were a lot of points of view, mine primarily being that what is needed is proper training for boys on how to respond to girls, no matter what they are wearing. Limiting girls because boys might be distracted is placing the blame on the girl, just as when someone blames a rape victim because she wore too short a skirt or too dark of eyeshadow. Not only is that not the reason behind rape, even if it were, the solution is to get the boys/men educated and trained about appropriate and moral behavior, not telling women they have to wear clothes that conceal.
In 1971 we bought a 47 ft houseboat. We lived in Darien, Connecticut and had it at a marina on the Long Island Sound in a town nearby. We spent the next few summers out at the far eastern tip of Long Island, in the town of Montauk, New York, at Captain’s Marina.
Floating
In the summer of ’72 Hurricane Agnes bore down on Long Island. It was close to a direct hit as those things go. The tidal storm surge made Montauk Lake rollick violently. Many of the boat owners on the floating docks decided they would ride out the storm in the middle of the lake instead of risking having their boat get out of synch with the dock and smash down on top of it, ruining the hull, propellers, etc.
Tightening
Our boat was tied up to a rigid dock, not floating with the tide. At first we thought that meant we would be safe as long as we kept the bumpers between us and the dock. it was unlikely we would go up and down so much as to put the boat in danger. What we didn’t realize was that once the boat started going up and down, even mildly, the ropes tying us to the dock were getting tighter and tighter around the cleats.
Untying
As the storm got more violent one of the cleats tore out of the boat. At that point we made the decision that it would be best if we waited it out in the middle of the lake instead of at the marina. We tried to untie the remaining ropes but it was hopeless. They were way too tight, and even if it were still possible to untie the ropes, the violent moving of the boat made it very dangerous for fingers to work with rope that may snap tight at any moment. Our only choice at that point was to take an ax to the remaining rope and cut ourselves clear. It was quite a dangerous scene making that happen.
Cutting
We were able to cut 2 other ropes and had one remaining rope at the bow. But because that was the only remaining rope tethering us to the dock and the wind was blowing us away from the dock we were not in immediate danger of hitting anything. Getting up on the bow in the storm to chop away at the rope was considered too dangerous and we chose to ride it out with that one tether, as long as the wind didn’t start to bring us back to the dock, which it didn’t.
Decisions
After the storm passed we saw almost all the boats that remained at the floating docks had been damaged to some degree. Those that had gotten free had some seasick captains but were not damaged at the end of it all. Our boat only suffered the one cleat having been pulled out and some chop marks on the teak walkway.
We learned an important lesson that day. You can’t wait until the storm is at its worst to make your decision. You need to figure it out in advance, just as in life.
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Drawing and life story by Marty Coleman, who a year later got blown up on that same boat.
Quote by Joseph Joubert, 1754-1824, French moralist and essayist
Do you excuse your snark and judgment as being hip? They aren’t hip, they’re thorns. Thorns meant to hurt and denigrate. You might get followers and fans and people laughing at your words, but you are hurting others and you will, without a doubt, be hurt yourself in time. The path you covered in thorns will one day be the path you yourself must follow, and the thorns will be even more plentiful. Even if you avoid the thorns on the path, more thorns than that will have grown inside your heart and will strangle your love, compassion and care.
In remembrance of violence, no. In remembrance of love, yes.
Impotent Hate
Can you barely see the quote? That’s because it’s hardly possible to see clearly in the ‘fog of war’. It seems scarcely possible to see anything else when blood is all around. It seems beyond possible to hear love when hate is so loud.
Potent Love
But barely does not mean can’t. We can see love. Always triumphant, always victorious in the end. That’s because violence is a symptom of impotence. Though it seems so powerful at that moment, so strong, so hard to overcome, it can’t sustain itself. It falls because it is a lack of power, a lack of ability that led to it, not the opposite.
Love on the other hand is the essence of power itself. It is power. It is potency. It is capability. It is triumph. Always.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, a runner.
I went down to Dallas this past weekend and bought 5 new quote books. I an going to take a quote from each one over the next 5 days. Today’s is from ‘Language Is a Place of Struggle – Great Quotes by People of Color, Edited by Tram Nguyen.
Facts
I often think about how much people depend on facts and statistics. It’s 3 hours driving to Wichita so we better leave by 1 if we are going to get there by 4. I ran my last 10k in 55:54, a personal record and the first time under 56 minutes. One of those facts is neutral, not a lot of interpretation to it. The other, the one about my run, is also a fact, but it has some emotional or psychological meaning to me, and perhaps to others who hear it.
Unfacts
But what about facts that aren’t facts at all? For example, Rebekah Evans (my daughter) wrote an article in her blog ‘The Cellular Scale’ titled, ‘Do small men think like big women?‘. It’s a great read about flawed science, gender bias and ‘facts’ that aren’t. It’s about the Corpus Callosum, a part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. It’s been said for many decades that women’s are bigger than men’s and that as a result women have a more unified brain, can multitask better, etc.
But the truth is that is not true. Later studies showed that it isn’t based on male or female, but on the actual size of the brain. The larger the brain, the less proportion of the brain the corpus collosum is, leading to the wrong assumption it had something to do with women or men. Check it out and see how a ‘fact’ can be delivered and believed by many people due to many reasons not attached to the veracity of the truth. In this example it lead right into already existing gender bias.
What do you believe, not because it is true, based on facts, but because it feeds into a need to control yourself or others, or fits a bias you have?
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman, factual.
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Quote by Nikki Giovanni, 1943 – not dead yet, African-American writer and activist
I went to Starbucks early this morning to draw and get a cup of coffee before everyone else awoke. A woman was sitting in front of me and right as I finished drawing her head, she left and was replaced by a man. I continued drawing and she became a woman dressed in men’s clothing.
Can see the line about 2/3 of the way down her head where the napkin folds open? I opened it up and drew the woman again on the inside, this time imaging where she had just come from or perhaps was just going.
My neuroscientist daughter, Rebekah, is visiting this week. I am doing a series on science to honor her. She writes an awesome blog called ‘The Cellular Scale‘ that will open your eyes about the amazing world of brain research. I hope you check it out.
The Difference
That’s the difference to me. Both are creative, both are rooted in curiosity and love of exploration. They just go about it different ways.
Science, Creativity and Courage
Science finds hidden treasures that were there all along. It takes creativity and courage. It can be in plain sight but if you are not looking and thinking creatively, you won’t find it. And if you look for something others say isn’t even there, then you have to have courage to pursue the hunt. The scientist has to withstand peer pressure to pursue in a well worn direction, not in a new area that has no history to it.
Art, Creativity and Courage
Art creates treasures, finding them inside the artist’s own brain. The artist also needs creativity and courage. Without creativity the artist is always derivative, a copier machine. The artist needs courage because there will always be someone, often times plenty of someones, who say what you are pursuing, what you are creating, isn’t worth the time and effort. Whether it’s drawing a naked person or photographing the odd angles of a building, someone will say it’s a waste of time. The artist has to have courage to continue pursuing their passion and vision.
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Drawing, Quote and commentary by Marty Coleman
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Morning Haiku
While the cat is on my lap, I read baseball beaning news, After I stretched my unlimber parts.
Last we saw the Bodyless Ghirl Ghosts they were taking bubble baths in various hotel rooms. This is what happened next.
Drying off
After they snuck in and had bubble baths all over the hotel they had to dry off. They aren’t very good with towels, having no hands, so what they do is fly underneath the towels on the racks and float up into them, turning round and round inside to dry off. This is why humans find that towels are often wet on the inside. Humans have been fooled into believing it’s lack of evaporation, but that isn’t the truth. It’s a conspiracy waiting to be uncovered.
The almost got caught when ten of them went in the women’s locker room in the gym of the resort. A little ghirl who can see ghirl ghosts came in and walked past the towels. The bodyless ghirl ghosts acted frozen and stiff, hoping the little ghirl wouldn’t see them. The ghirl did see them but just thought they were the coolest towels ever with faces on them. She even dried herself off with the one that Maranatha was floating in. Maranatha was not happy about that since she got all wet again and got very dizzy when the little ghirl pretended to be a cowgirl and whipped the towel around driving cattle. Maranatha was very dizzy. The rest of the bodyless ghirl ghosts wanted to laugh but couldn’t.
The President recently proposed a ‘brain mapping’ research initiative. I think it sounds like a great idea but it would really be better described as not drawing a map of the brain but creating a key to the map of the brain. Why is that? You think the human genome was tough to catalog? Try doing that for 85+ billion neurons and 100 trillion or so synapses. In other words, there is a lot of ground to cover.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started on it, it just means it will take a while. And a lot of money.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Emerson Pugh, American Physicist, 1929 – not dead yet
My eldest daughter, pregnant with my first grandchild, is coming to visit this week. She is almost finished getting her Ph.D. in Neuroscience so I thought I would do a few drawings about science this week in honor of her.
Late to the Party
I never had a huge interest in science growing up. But the 20 year influence of my ex-father in law, who was an engineer and had a huge knowledge of many scientific principles and Rebekah starting in on her studies of the brain, I found myself reading more and more books and articles on science over the years.
Leaving the Other Party
It coincided with a great dissatisfaction and frustration with religious stubbornness about science. Evolution, cosmology, climatology, biology, neurology…you name it and it seemed that religion was dragging it’s intellectual heels in accepting what was being learned about life and the universe. The fear that the discoveries of science could steal away power or faith or something else seemed to lead to a desperation of denial that I have found to be unacceptable for me to condone.
When Comfort Leads the Way
I have figured out a bit of the reason why that is. It seems to me that it is due to comfort being more important than truth. You might think it is the opposite, since religion often stands on ‘truth’ as a pillar of the faith. There is talk of sacrifice and bowing the the will of God and all sorts of other supposedly uncomfortable efforts we are told need to be made to get in line with God and his truth. But the truth is that truth is not really pursued. What is pursued is comfort (which can also be seen as peace and happiness). I am not talking about material comfort per se, though that is a big part of American life so is pursued by religious believers just as it is by non-believers. I am talking about comfort of intellect. The religious believer is more concerned with the assurance of happiness and peace than truth. It might not be happiness and peace in this life, but it is critical to believe so one can have peace and happiness in eternal life. Whether or not the theological construct they have believed makes any rational sense, is true, is not nearly as important as if it is just believable enough to allow for a feeling of peace and happiness. In other words, comfort.
When Truth Leads the Way
Here is my feeling about it. Science, in all its messy and human pursuit of truth, actually gives me a much more genuine feeling of peace and happiness than theology does. It does so because I trust it. I don’t mean I trust any one scientific discovery. I mean I trust the process of truth seeking that comes with science. I believe it is moving towards truth and won’t be stopped. Religion and theology meanwhile already has been stopped. It has it’s definitions and it isn’t interested in having those changed. I can’t trust a process that is stopped like that.
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Science Trivia Question of the Day
The fixed point on which a lever moves is called:
Fulcrum
Anchor
Pivot
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is by Marty Coleman, adapted from one by Le Bon
Before I met the two Goddesses I talked about in part 1, I visited the home of 2 of my heroes. I met them at the Truman library in Independence, Missouri, just east of Kansas City. Truman is obviously one of the men I am talking about.
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
The other of my heroes is Thomas Hart Benton, the artist. You may have read about him in my ongoing ‘Artists I Love’ series I have been doing the past few winters. He has one of his large murals in the lobby of the Truman Library.
‘Independence and the Opening of the American West’
The Buck Stops Here
One of the most famous sayings in Presidential history is from Truman. ‘The Buck Stops Here’ was his motto and has been restated by virtually every president since. He actually had the saying on his desk, and you can see it right as you enter the museum. Much of the museum is dedicated to the many decisions only Truman, as President, had the power to make.
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WAR
Bomb and Peace
Truman’s most controversial decision of his Presidency was one of his first. He chose to drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan. It led to their surrender but the decision was never unanimous within his inner circle nor among the military. It still is debated today.
One of the things I most admired in the Truman Museum was they did not shy away from bringing this controversy out in the open. they had a whole section dedicated to the arguments pro and con about the decision and allowed visitors to voice their opinion as well.
Here is a book visitors could write in giving their opinion and here is mine, in a drawing.
My opinion has always been that it wasn’t the dropping of the bomb that was the problem, it was dropping it on a population. I think that if they had dropped it 5 miles off the coast of Tokyo, the Japanese, who already were trying to figure out how to sue for peace and still save face, would have seen what was coming and surrendered pretty much along the same time table they did after the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A History of War
Off in the corner of the downstairs are of the museum there are two examples of war. The first, in the background, is a 5,000 year old helmet from a Greek warrior. In the foreground is a small reproduction of the sculpture commemorating the raising of the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima towards the end of WWII. It’s a cruel testament to how incessant war is for us humans.
Plenty and Plenty of Nothing
But often out of the worst of events great efforts can arise. While we in the US were starting to come out of the trauma of war, Europe was not. Truman’s Marshall Plan was our initiative to help Europe make it’s way back.
While Secretary of State Marshall’s name and face was front and center in the plan to help all of Europe back on it’s feet, it really was Truman’s initiative. He knew however that due to his own political baggage a plan with his name on it would not have the universal support it needed to succeed. Marshall, the leader of the overall US War effort was one of the most popular men in the country and he was able to lead the project to fruition.
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Civil Rights
A number of Benton’s paintings were on display at the museum in a temporary exhibition titled ‘Truman and Benton: Legends of the Missouri Border’ that documented the interrelationship between the two over the course of their lives.
The Negro Soldier
During the middle of WWII Benton painted this painting. It was pretty controversial at the time. It depicted an American soldier, but it was a ‘Negro’ soldier, not something white America was used to seeing or celebrating. His choice to depict an African-American was his way of forcing people to see the black person as equal in war. Not long after the war was over Truman, in spite of a typical Missouri upbringing of his era that was rooted in the racism of slavery and segregation, signed an executive order desegregating the US Armed forces. It was met with much resistance in the south, breaking apart the Democratic party at the time, but very likely helped Truman win the 1948 election due to increased support in the north and west.
One of the reasons I like Truman is that, while by today’s standards he wouldn’t be considered enlightened on race, he certainly grew and moved beyond his own upbringing to move the country forward into racial equality as best he could at the time.
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Communism
Communism and Korea
When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, the cold war got hot. The policy of containment of communism had been fleshed out by the US and allies and it included not allowing the USSR or China to push into any areas they weren’t already occupying. The amount of fear that pervaded the US at that time regarding communism is hard for most of us to understand now but it was real. Some fears were valid but much was due to ranting demagogues like Sen. McCarthy and high pitched propaganda as seen below.
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Later
While the President and the Painter did not enjoy a friendship early on in their careers, they did become friends during the painting of the mural. Benton did a painting of Truman later in his life.
The Old President
Benton’s Tools
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The museum was well worth the trip to Independence. If you are anywhere near Kansas City I highly recommend it.
On Sunday I drove 9 1/2 hours to get to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to attend my Aunt Ann’s funeral on Monday. I left to return home that same afternoon. I could have driven it straight back but it would have had me arriving around 2am, waking up Linda, if she wasn’t still up worrying about me driving home in the rain.
The Fortuitous Stop
I also wanted to to stop for a selfish reason. I wanted to reacquaint myself with some heroes of mine, which I will tell you about tomorrow. But unbeknownst to me I would also meet a Goddess or two on the trip.
I stopped for lunch in Independence, Missouri (That should give you a hint about the heroes I was coming to see). I asked for recommendations after visiting the heroes and was told Cafe Verona was a great choice. It was very cold out so I was happy to sit next to this arrangement in the sun drenched bar area.
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The Goddess and the Mortal
When I first came into the establishment, this is what I saw. Way up high was a huge reproduction of Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ (1485). And below was a woman with a Grecian/Roman look to her. She had a gold band around her hair with an elegant bun, an Aqualine profile and all around her were things that felt Roman; vases, urns, wine, etc.
The juxtaposition between the woman and Venus was just too cool not to capture. I debated what to title the image . Perhaps ‘The Two Goddesses’ would make sense. Perhaps ‘Venus and…’ and who? I didn’t know her name. I settled on ‘The Goddess and The Mortal’.
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Drawing the Mortal
The mortal, who was the restaurant manager, was standing still at the bar, working on some afternoon paperwork. I took advantage of her stillness to draw and came up with this.
When she took a break and looked around I gestured to her, asking her to come over to my table. I showed her the drawing, which she liked, and I asked her to pose with it, which she graciously did.
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The Mortal becomes a Goddess
I told her of my naming dilemma over the photo, that I wanted to call it ‘The Two Goddesses’ or ‘Venus and…’ but I didn’t know her name. She blushed, smiled and then said, ‘My name is Diana‘.
And that is how I met a Goddess living incognito and working in a restaurant in Independence, Missouri. One never knows who you will meet if you are willing to engage.
Here is the drawing after I completed it this morning.
And finally, since I had my good camera with me I couldn’t resist asking the one Goddess who was 3 dimensional to let me take a photo.
Diana of Verona
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Part 2 tomorrow – ‘Meeting Old Heroes’
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Drawing, photos and story by Marty Coleman, who enjoys meeting Heroes and Goddesses.
