February 2007 Archives

Through Our Parents' Eyes includes a rich collection of audio and video. We are now podcasting selections from that audio and video. Just click on the iTunes 1-click button and the podcast subscription will automatically be added to your personal copy of iTunes. That way, whenever you want to watch or listen to a selection you will find there. It's free and it's easy.

Don't have iTunes? It's free -- download a copy. New to podcasting? Watch an 8 minute Flash movie guiding you through subscribing to podcasts using Apple's iTunes

Our first two podcasts are audio performances of the cowboy classic, Sierry Petes (or Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail). We have two performances from past Tucson Meet Yourself Festivals that you will enjoy. One is Dudley Whitlock's October 1981 rendition and the other is Marvin Bennett and Slim Kite's October 1985 performance.

In his chapter "The Mormon Cowboy An Arizona Cowboy Song and its Community," from the book A Shared Space: Folklife in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands, Dr. James S. Griffith wrote that "this song was "

Composed as verse by Arizonan Gail I. Gardner in 1917 and set to music by Gardner's fellow Prescott cowboy, Bill Simon, in the late 1920s, "Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail" was disseminated by radio, record, and dude ranch performances at about the same time "The Mormon Cowboy" was recorded. Gardner's song rapidly gained considerable currency in tradition."

Tucson's La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros runs Feb. 17-25, with the Rodeo Parade on Thursday, Feb. 22nd.

Roy Drachman, Sr., During a Rodeo Parade from Just Memories

Celebrate La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros by visiting Cowboy Songs and Singers, It's Rodeo Time in Old Tucson sheet music, and Southern Arizona Folk Arts' Cowboy and Western Folk Art section

Congratulations and be prosperous!

Image courtesy Esther Tang

Chinese New Year celebration beings on Feb. 18th. Watch The Tapestry of Tucson: The Chinese American Heritage, a 45 minute video produced for a Tuscon community history project. It is available on the Promise of Gold Mountain website.

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February is Black History Month. Visit In the Steps of Esteban for biographies, interviews, photos, and reports on Tucson's African American Heritage.

If you are a teacher, or if you know teachers, tell them about In the Steps of Esteban and let them know that we have a ready-to-use curriculum module to it. Arizona teachers can take advantage of the suggested areas mapped to the Arizona Department of Education's Standards-Based Teaching and Learning.

The image above is from a photo of an oil painting that Patricia Peters Stephenson painted while a UA student in 1950. The painting was for an art class and is included in her remembrance of the University neighborhood. The website is in-development at this time. The text from the OCR scanning has been added and Patricia is combing through her personal photo archives to match photographs with page sections. It is such a nice painting that I wanted to share it here.

In her book, A Personal Journey Through The University Neighborhood Built By Louise Foucar Marshall 1901 - 1951, she has this caption.

MY OIL PAINTING was made in a University oil painting class in 1950. The assignment was to paint a landscape; I looked over the wall and painted the College Shop, "College Street" and former College Ice Cream building. (None Nicer Creamery had leased it starting in 1933). August 28, 1952, I took the painting to show Mrs. Marshall. I was pleased that she gave constructive criticism to me. After my visit, she wrote in her diary, "Patricia called and we discussed her picture. I think she was convinced of my criticisim. Her line perspective was perfect but her surface perspective was very faulty. Hope I convinced her. Unfortunately, her professor had made no criticism." I thought, "How long ago it was that she studied perspective and had art lessons, how wonderful she can remember so many things!"