My Take
DiVoran Lites
In our Sunday school class, we have two drums. One is a Remo lollipop drum on a stick. I bought it at a consignment shop. It has a wonderful sound, and is beautiful with red, green, and blue stripes going around its face. I played it one day in church because it went with my bright red top. The other is a frame drum made by the same company. It would remind you of a tambourine with a drum top but no little cymbals. It also has a strong sound. Every Sunday during the Sunday school, but not in church, children play rhythm instruments and sing while the church music mistress plays the keyboard. Bill comes in to sing and pray with us and the assistant teacher is there too.
The two drums are always the first instruments the kids pick up. We have two ankle bracelets with big bells on them, a crow call, a stick tambourine, a wheel thing that makes a nice sound with metal ball chains, two sets of maracas. Something I’ve never seen before that my friend/associate teacher got at a thrift store is a bunch of plastic bubbles on a stem that hit together when you shake it. We have a triangle too. It is metal and has a metal mallet that makes a clear, ringing sound.
The only problem with the drums and crow call is that the ball on the end of the mallet of each gets such a work out that they take to popping off and having to be chased across the floor (not far) and stuck on again. Bill glues them, but the kids are so enthusiastic that they soon come loose again.
It’s fun to see how the newbies are usually at a loss as to how or when to play, but as the weeks pass, they become more and more integrated and sometimes we all play the same tempo and end at the same time. It must do a lot for us to learn to play together that way and to become cooperative and aware. It’s fun anyhow. Rhythm band anyone?
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together, there I am in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20
Does that mean even when we’re making a clatter? I believe it does, don’t you?
boarded up store fronts, while the Kimo Theater and the Indian Jewelry stores are still going strong. “Old town Albuquerque is a thriving tourist center, and the Rio Grande River actually had water in it. Of course, most of that water had probably come from the heavy rains and flooding in Colorado. The city has expanded toward all points of the compass, and is no longer the Albuquerque where I grew up. Now it’s just another big city, with all the big city problems, as far as I am concerned.
would have been really disappointed if I had traveled all that way for the Balloon Fiesta, only to have rainy and windy weather the only two days I was there. Actually, I hadn’t even realized I was going to be in Albuquerque during the Balloon Fiesta until I had made all my motel reservations, and couldn’t change them. However, the Anderson-Abruzzo International Balloon Museum Foundation has built a beautiful big Balloon Museum since I had last been in Albuquerque, so I was able to visit the museum in spite of the bad weather. 
that had always been there since I was a teenager. We had heard all kinds of stories about the closed society of “Los Penitentes” or “The Brothers of the Pious Fraternity of Our Father Jesus the Nazarene” who lived somewhere in the Tijeras Canon area, and practiced their mysterious rituals there. They were known for their ascetic practices, which included self-flagellation in private ceremonies during Lent, and processions during Holy Week which ended with the reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday. Thus, the crosses we guessed. I never knew anyone who witnessed one of their ceremonies or knew a Penitente personally.
Then it was on thru Moriarty, NM with its Tee-Pee Motel and Santa Rosa, NM, which I had missed on that scary day, on my way to Albuquerque, just a few days before. Then I passed thru Tucumcari, NM, back across the border into West Texas, thru Wildorado,TX with its many wind generators, and finally into Amarillo, TX.
the Texas Air & Space Museum located at the Rick Husband International Airport, and the Kwahadi Museum of the American Indian located on I-40 just east of the city. This American Indian Museum had some of the most beautiful paintings, and when I ask about them, was told most of them were painted by an author named Thomas E. Mails, as illustrations for his book “Mystic Warriors of the Plains.”
a neat old house that I loved. It had a sunken living room – with an even more sunken fireplace. It had what is known as “cove” ceilings – where the wall joins the ceiling in a smooth curve – no sharp angles. Makes for a really nice effect.
Antonio, she owned and operated a small diner in downtown San Antonio, called The White House Lunch. She had a cook, but I know that Granny made the pies – I still have some of her recipes. They were so good that people would come in just for a slice of pie – or to purchase the entire pie to take home!
as the place to go for some of the “best beef stew what am.” While working the diner, Jessie met an Army Nurse, stationed at Fort Sam Houston, and they became very close friends. This nurse would work the counter at the diner in her off-times. This same nurse was stationed in Korea and was the one who brought a pearl ring back for me. They remained life-long friends.
Two of the chests are what we would call “foot locker” size, and the larger one is “steamer trunk” size. All are ornately hand-carved with Chinese scenes on them. And the inside wood is camphor wood, which is deliciously aromatic, and guaranteed to keep critters away from woolens and other fabrics.
Old Things R New 