by Marty Coleman | Sep 15, 2010 | Road Trip, San Diego, Seattle Road Trip |
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Southwest Airline napkin.
The hat is formed out of the route I took across the country and back. |
At age 6 I moved away from Del Mar, California. For many decades no one in my family lived there, or anywhere close. Now, 50 years later my father and sister live in the area and I go back to visit regularly. It feels like home, always has and always will. The ocean air, the wispy low beach fog in the morning, the smell of the Eucalyptus trees and the feel of the sun all are as natural to me as can be.
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| Sketchbook – Sleeping Woman on a Plane |
I flew down to San Diego (Del Mar is just north of the city) and spent a few days with my younger sister, Jackie and her family. I also spent a good amount of time with my 92 year old father, Skeets. He is frail and doesn’t remember much, but he is still enjoying life.
He has had a long career in aviation, first in WWII as a fighter pilot in the South Pacific, then as a test pilot, jet salesman and aviation magazine publisher. You can read about his exploits and fame here.
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My father, Skeets Coleman, (famous aviator) and
myself (famous napkin dad). haha |
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 14, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip, Travel Napkins |
Deep Thoughts and the Barista
We have arrived in Seattle, our final road trip destination! My daughter has been a barista for quite some time, as well as a coffee roaster, office manager, and everything else in the coffee business. So, of course the first thing we did when arriving in Seattle was to hit a nice coffee house! I drew this after meeting a barista who didn’t quite look like this (she was happier looking) and having a conversation with Chelsea about obligation. I couldn’t think of a way to succinctly ‘quote’ our conversation so I did a little question/riddle type thing. Coffee will do that to you, you know.
Anyway, the goal has been achieved and she is now off to start her new life!
I am on to visit family in San Diego for a few days before heading home.
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 13, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip, Travel Napkins |
We spent time in Yellowstone National Park, looking at Bison and Waterfalls and bubbling mud pots of steam. It made us imagine what the first people who saw this area must have thought, how scary it must have been for the native peoples to traverse this landscape, for the Europeans to do the same. How that scared quality actually drove them on.
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| Yellowstone River from above the falls |
Chelsea is moving to Washington, 1,000 of miles away from home. That is scary. I know she will do well, but it’s still a courageous move and there are fears and unknowns to overcome. I am proud of her and I think facing those fears will make her an even better person than she already is.
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| Objects in mirror are larger than they appear. |
What fear are you facing down today?
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 12, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
>
The Bagel Maker and the Bison
We stopped at a red light and asked a guy with a very hoarse voice where a good place to eat was and he squeeked out ‘bagels on broadway’ so off we went on a search in Missoula, Montana. What a beautiful town. It’s a college town (U of M is there I think) so it has that college town vibe to it. We found the place and had great bagels. We told them we were from the bagel capital of the world, Tulsa, Oklahoma so they were mightily impressed.
The quote for the napkin came from the magnetic poetry thing that was in front of us at the counter. Here is a picture of it.
I did a caricature of the bagel maker for my napkin. She wasn’t in a great mood but by the end of our time there she was smiling and happy. Our mission to get a bagel and spread joy was complete. Here she is with the napkin.
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| Caitlin the Bagel Maker in Missoula, MT |
Sorry I have been so lame about posting, the trip has been more fun and more time consuming that I anticipated!
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 10, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
My first brown napkin ever! Got it at the Super 8 Motel at breakfast in Buffalo, Wyoming after a day getting to Badlands National Park JUST as the sun set! But we found an ultra cool abandoned church and took some pics there.
And just a few minutes later we got into the park and got to see some bison and witness the sunset. It was gorgeous. We even got a pic of us at just the right moment!
Next stop, Yellowstone National Park!
Drawing and photos (all from my iPhone, ‘good’ pics from my camera to come later) by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily.
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 6, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
A little napkin in a little motel in little Concordia, Kansas during our little breakfast.
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A graveyard named Pleasant Center. Rural Kansas, sunset
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Cuz it costs 15 cents just to flush it, said the man. Pay toilet, rural Oklahoma
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On our way!
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 5, 2010 | Road Trip, Seattle Road Trip |
Hello Napkin Kin!
I am going to be on a road trip this week and a bit into next. I will be driving from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Seattle, Washington (about 2,000 miles) to help my daughter move. I will then fly down to San Diego, California to visit my 92 year old father and my sister and her family.
I will be drawing on whatever napkins I find along the way, at diners, fast food joints, hotels, wherever. It might be a quote, might be something funny I heard, who knows.
I will also be taking photos and posting them. Let’s hear stories of your road trips with links to your photos as well, ok?
If you are on my route go out and wave as I pass by, ok?
Friend,
Marty
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 29, 2010 | Sketchbook History Tour |
In 1981 I was still in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I was contemplating doing a multi-colored woodcut dealing with the idea of distraction. For me, a young male at the time, an obvious example of distraction was a man paying attention to a woman when he should be paying attention to something else. I did a series of sketches on this idea.
Drawing © 2016 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 27, 2010 | Anonymous, Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
There is only one way to know if you are being told lies. You MUST be a self-educator.
Where might you be told lies? We can start with religion, culture, science, nationality, race, education, government, nutrition, fitness, illness, sexuality or history. The list goes on and on.
In those situations (and many more) how do you know if you are being told lies or not? Maybe you aren’t, maybe you are. But how do you know? You know if you seek answers from multiple sources. If you are in a ghetto then you aren’t likely to get those multiple sources. (I don’t use the word ghetto in a derogatory fashion. It’s original meaning was a place isolated from it’s surrounding area for one reason or another. I am using simply as a description of isolation.)
I don’t mean a physical ghetto. I mean an intellectual ghetto, a mental awareness walled off from the wider world. If you only listen to people and ideas that come from within that intellectual ghetto, then there is a good chance you will have a distorted view. At the least you will have a view by default. It won’t be one you came to be exploration, it will be one you came to by taking the path of least resistance and not taking responsibility for your own thorough education.
I have known a number of people, for example, within the Christian community who think they have thought through an issue. But in truth they have simply mulled over a pre-determined, pre-packaged ‘thoughts ready to think’ supplied by those in charge of their ghetto. They haven’t read or listened to ideas outside that ghetto. This is true in both liberal and conservative congregations I have been a part of. So, while they believe they have come to their own conclusions, their lack of objective exploration outside the ghetto belies that assumption.
To be fair, I do know many, including the Pastors of the two churches I attend regularly (one liberal, one conservative), who are constantly exploring outside the confines of their own congregation’s leanings and heritage.
I appreciate and applaud the people who do this. They are the ones I trust to be truly searching for truth.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 26, 2010 | Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
Smiles don’t equal honesty. Beauty does not equal honesty. Handsomeness, charm, sincere listening, thoughtful words…none of those things equal honesty. Honesty is not in a face, not in eyes, not in a voice. Honesty is only in one place, and that is action. That action might be true words spoken, yes. But honesty is most likely to be seen in what a person does, not what they say. And especially not what they look like.
Those who say ‘he has an honest face’ are fooling themselves. Faces aren’t honest, people are.
Drawing by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by ….. Willow from the TV Series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
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