Arizona Star, Guy Clark, Nashville, and Us

Me with my cousin Gary and his wife Carol.  Beautiful new home...exciting that they are living so close now!

Yesterday as we were returning from visiting my cousin who has recently moved to Granbury, we put the radio on a Guy Clark channel, and his tune ARIZONA STAR played.  That is so reminiscent of our life in Nashville in the beginning, that I just had to share it with you.  Here is a page called Girl George and Arizona Star in Nashville, Tennessee.  There is a link to the song here, too!

And, I have to mention Guy Clark, who was the best singer/songwriter of our generation, in my opinion.  We followed his career from beginning to end, and Raf even jammed with him once!

This is lower Broadway in Nashville where Arizona Star was often spotted and where Raf worked as a Grayline tour guide when we met.

Star is at the bottom of this poster, while her girlfriend, George...who did carry a sword...is at the top.  Star had tattoos that were rendered by Lyle Tuttle, a quite famous tattoo artist in San Francisco.  Raf got his one and only tattoo from Lyle after Star had hers.

This is the way Lyle looked back in the day.  From what I've seen of his recent photos, he mostly wears shirts and looks like your average "little old man".

Nashville, back in the day, was exciting, musical, artistic and quite alive.  There was no sign of Nashville Hot Chicken which seems to be the rage for culinary artists today.  The good eating places for common folk and the music industry were places like Mac's where you could get a hardy "meat and three" for about $2.50!

Star once toured with Dr. Hook.  Their tune, A LITTLE BIT MORE, is "our" song!

That was all in the 1970s...long ago...almost 50 years.  But it was a kinder, gentler place for all the hype it had.  Would that we could go back to those days...would that we could.

Great-Grandma's Second Flower

This is our second great-grandson, Bryson McDougal Kurtin.  He is two months younger that John Carl.  He is a beautiful baby with big brown-turning eyes...his daddy is half Native American, which works really well with our northern European-looking family.  His mommy and daddy chose the name Bryson, not from the Texas town of that name, but from a baby book of names.  His middle name, McDougal, is his paternal grandmother's maiden name.

Bryson and John met for the first time here at our home on Thanksgiving 2018.  This photo was taken then in our back yard, and his momma used it on their Christmas card.

I don't think John and Bryson thought much of each other at Thanksgiving, of course, but we pray they will grow to know each other and to become close family, even though they are second cousins, as their grandmothers are sisters and our daughters.

This is Bryson with his Uncle Tim who was home from university where he will complete his MBA at St. John's in Queens, New York, in May.  I think Bryson is totally proud of his uncle!

Both our great-grandsons live about half a day away in different directions, so we don't see them often, although John's parents come to Mineral Wells more because this is his father's hometown.  However, both grandmothers get to visit their grandsons a lot, and that is just amazing!

We are blessed to have both little boys and are extremely happy that Bryson will be baptized in March!