Cassius Lewis Davis

 At 9:49 am on November 18, Cassius Lewis Davis came out into the world.  He was 18 inches long and weighed six pounds and one ounce.  We have waited to write about him until his official photographs were just released!

Cash snoozing.

His parents are our son, Jonathan, and his wife, Kahran.  They live in Greensboro and both work from home, Kahran as a Civil Rights lawyer and Jonathan for Cisco Systems.  Cash does not work!

Kahran, Cash, and Jonathan.

Named for Cassius Clay and John Lewis, both of whom worked for Freedom, Equality, and the Dignity of all people, he will be called Cash.

With Trish.

We all got to spend last weekend together and had a wonderful time!  

Getting ready for his first Christmas!

Fearrington Holiday Stories

 McIntyre’s Fine Books is a wonderful independent book store located in Fearrington Village half way between Chapel Hill and Pittsburg, North Carolina.  Since 1991 my last storytelling performances of each year have been sponsored by McIntyre’s in the Big Barn at Fearrington Village.  We call these performances “Stories for a Holiday Season,” and there are always some childhood Christmas stories in the mix.

The full moon rises over Fearrington Village.

The traditional admission cost for these performances is that people bring non-perishable food items to go to the CORA Food Pantry.  People can also make CORA donations on the spot.  In normal years these performance times have resulted in more than 3,000 pounds of donated food.  This year, with attendance limited to 200 people due to COVID wisdom, there was a five dollar charge to supplement smaller food donations.

CORA volunteers collect food and financial donations.

If you wish to learn more about CORA, go to Corafoodpantry.org

Last year there were no performances here due to COVID.  This year everyone was very excited to be back together.  There were vaccine and mask requirements and audience size limits, but, we all rejoiced that we could have even limited live stories again.  It marks the arrival of Christmas for Trish and for me.

The spaced-out and masked audience.

Grand Canyon Train

 On our drive home from California, Trish and I stopped for two nights in Williams, Arizona, so we could ride the Grand Canyon Railroad Train up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon for the day.

We boarded the train and departed at 8:30 am to take full advantage of the daylight hours.  Our tickets were in the Mary Colter Dome Car, named for the architect who designed many of the historic Grand Canyon Village buildings.

We had the front row seat in the Dome Car.

The trip to the Canyon took a bit over two hours.  Then we had  three and a half hours to explore along the rim before our return trip.  There was a lot of ice and snow everywhere, so, this was actually plenty of time to make our way to many safe overlooks and also have lunch at the El Tovar Hotel on the rim.

The long view up Bright Angel Creek toward the North Rim.

We carefully crept over the ice to get as many good views as possible.  It was a bright sunny day and the colors were very vibrant in the Canyon.

Looking down the Colorado River, but not quite to see the water.

Our return trip departed at 2:00 pm and we got back to Williams just before sunset.  We only wished we could have spent a night at the Canyon and returned the following day, but, that is for another time.

LaBrea Tar Pits

 The LaBrea Tar Pits are right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles.  In the early years of the 20th century, oil was drilled at and around the Tar Pits.  Then some amazing discoveries were made.  Skeletal remains began to be found that turned out to be from extinct animals that lived and roamed around this area millions of years ago.

Prehistoric camels lived here.

In pre-History  crude oil began to seep up through a fault in the ground and gradually evaporated into natural asphalt.  Since leaves and grass covered the asphalt, animals did not know it was there until they became trapped in the pits. They were preserved by the asphalt and gradually petrified.

A Columbian Mammoth skeleton from the Tar Pits.

More than 1,600 Dire Wolf skeletons have been recovered. The Dire Wolf lived from about 125,000 to 10,000 years ago.  It is thought that the Dire wolves spotted other animals trapped in the pits and when they sought to prey upon the trapped animals they themselves became caught in the tar.

California Sabre Toothed Tiger.

If you are in Los Angeles, don’t miss this often overlooked destination.

Petersen Auto Museum

 Trish and I are in Pacific Palisades, California, for several days visiting our friends, Tanis and Bill McGregor, where I have a party performance at their home on Saturday evening.  On one of our days we took the car in for service, and, while that was being done, we went to a place I have wanted to go for some time: the Petersen Automotive Museum.

The building itself is something to behold.  Red wrapped with silvery metal ribbons it is like nothing we have ever seen.

The Petersen Automotive Museum.

The Petersen collection is vast and the portion on display changes some from time to time.  Right now the emphasis is on unique one-of-a-kind vehicles of all kinds and concept super cars.  There are so many vehicles that you would never see anywhere else as they are hand built and totally unique.

This gorgeous DeLahaye was the one Trish wanted.  Beautiful paint and finish.

What we saw ranged from 300 mph racers to historic and movie set vehicles.  There was also such artistry in the ways they were displayed.

Original Aston-Martin DB5 from first James Bond.

We loved the uniqueness of the museum and many historic inclusions we saw here.  We wished we could have taken a tour down into the collection vault, but, alas, those tours were all sold out for the day.  We will surely come back some day.

300 MPH Bugatti.

Carlsbad Caverns

 From Midland, Trish and I traveled to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and spent the night at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  We went into the park and received our spaced out COVID entrance time to enter the Caverns. There were two choices: take the elevator seventy-five stories down to the bottom of the Caverns, or walk down the long way.  Not wanting to miss anything, we walked down the long way.

On the way down.

We were very glad that we walked down as you would have missed so much if you did not go through the region where the bats breed and live or experience the descent as the first cave explorers did.

In the Big Room.

Once at the bottom, 750 feet below the surface, we entered the Big Room.  More than a mile around it, it simply is filled with every imaginable wet cave formation.  We could have spent days here slowly absorbing the beauty created by thousands of years of cavern developmental evolution.  It was spectacular!

Wondrous!

Because we were in no hurry at all, we were the last people to leave the Caverns at almost the five o’clock closing time.  This time of year the bats have gone to Mexico, so, we left with a good reason to come back: to see the quarter million bats during there summer sojourn here.

Back on The Road

 This past week Trish and I drove from home out to Midland, Texas, for the Thirtieth Annual Midland Storytelling Festival.

Thirty years ago Rex Ellis and I traveled to Midland to work with a special group of teachers in the Midland Independent School District called the Dream Team.  While there we had an evening community performance that sowed the first seed for the Midland Storytelling Festival.

While I have been here all thirty years, I have gradually been joined by a wonderful group of tellers who now come together here each year for this festival.  They include:  Barbara McBride-Smith, Charlotte Blake-Alston, Willy Claflin, Laura Pershin Raynor, Antonio Rocha, and Bil Lepp.  

Telling at Hillander School.

On our first day we all split up and made school visits.  I had the best time ever at Hillander School.  The kids were so perfect and responsive and we had fun together.

Friday night we were all at the Basin PBS studio to tell on television.  We started with four youth tellers then four of us told.  There was a small audience there but mostly it was a TV audience.

Getting set for television live!

Saturday was the live festival day.  In the morning we had two shows each for children and adults and then the big finale Saturday night.  We will all be back next year the first weekend of December.