For the 12th year in row, a Veterans Day observance was held at Sun City’s Georgetown-Williamson County Veterans Memorial Plaza.   After a week of cool, sometime wet weather, the morning was warm and dry, just a little cloudy.  Included here are some of the photos I took for the Williamson County Sun.  One of the more poignant moments happened in what you see in the opening image.  The guest speaker, Brigadier General Kenneth L. Kamper, seeking to point out veterans in attendance, asked for those that could do so to stand and be recognized.   In the back of the plaza, under a tree, was 99-year-old Douglas Smith, a World War II Army Air Corps veteran confined to a wheelchair. Not to be deterred, he moved to stand up.  Coming to his aid were not only his daughter, but two U.S. Army veterans as well.  He stood proud for several seconds before returning to his chair.  The final photo shows family members.  The older gent in the wheelchair, 87, is a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.   He’s been assisted by his 28-year-old nephew, currently an active duty Army Sergeant based at Fort Hood, Texas.  The younger fellow has had deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan.    It was a sweet conclusion to the day. 

111117 GEORGETOWN,

To kick off the weekend, how about something light and colorful?   These photos were taken recently at Taylor’s Liberty Garden, located at Murphy Park.   I’ll keep words to a minimum and let the butterflies (and a bee) do the hard work of communicating this time.

While on the way home from a Georgetown assignment this evening I stopped by the 1400 Field of Honor flags on display near San Gabriel Park.   The flags, each purchased in honor of a veteran, friend, or family member, will be on display through Sunday.   The gentleman shown was locating the flag he purchased in honor of his father, a Vietnam U.S. Navy veteran who died last year. 

While I did do an evening ramble here on the prairie last night, I made it a short jaunt.   After too many months of heat, it turned dang cold!   But these cows, curious creatures that they are, lined up for me in this field a little north of Taylor.   Maybe they were huddling together for warmth during the blue hour?  Y’all know this, but I admire bovine subject matter.

Thank goodness for the conclusion of Daylight Saving Time.   Otherwise, the evening photos around the smoking pits and fires at this year’s Wurstbraten would’ve been somewhat pedestrian.    Wurstbraten (think sausage in German) is the annual fundraiser at Zion Lutheran Church and School in Walburg, Texas.  Church members spend copious amounts of time each year making the sausage by hand, then smoking it on those wonderful pits loaded with coals made in the burn pit (that tall contraption in the first photo).  About 14000 pounds were smoked for this year’s event.   Patrons could get to-go plates in the drive-through lanes, or if they wanted to visit a little, they’d go inside and dine in the massive gymnasium.   Both grownups and kids volunteered, like the 7-year-old cleaning up after diners finished their meals.   Speaking of diners, the kids, as usual, were the most fun.  I like two red-headed brothers, ages 5 and 2,  making fast work of their plate.   And the young fellow in the final image was having a grand time with the marshmallows melted over his sweet potatoes.    Walburg is a very German community, something you figure out soon enough when attending Wurstbraten.

This is as close as you’ll get to a “news photo” from yours truly on election day in the United States.  As is often the case, I was trolling around tonight and wound up in Granger, Texas, population just over 1400.  Granger’s not far from our Taylor home, maybe ten minutes.   Each time I’ve been along Davilla Street, the main thoroughfare through downtown Granger, this building has been dark.  Tonight, however, the lights were on at the SPJST Hall, which turns out to be a polling place.  With my faithful tripod nearby, I snapped a few photos.   Granger is a throughly-Czech community.   The SPJST?  Here you go: Slovanska Podporujici Jednota Statu Texas, which translates to Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas.   There you go.  Admittedly, I look for excuses to document these towns.  Granger’s brick street is reason enough.   There you go.

“People just give me stuff,” explained lifelong Bartlett folk artist Lana Sue Hill, when asked about where she gets materials for her special creations.   I met Hill last year while covering the Bartlett Friendship Days Festival, but didn’t have time to follow up.   After this year’s festival, however, we connected again.    Hill and I are pretty much the same age, both of us Medicare-eligible babies.   So we hit it off pretty well.    Hill’s front yard is hard to miss.  It stopped me in my tracks.   During my Atlanta years, I had the pleasure of photographing Reverend Howard Finster, a north Georgia folk artist from Summerville, at his Paradise Garden.   Google that for more information.  Rev. Finster’s fame grew when the group REM chose one of his works for an album cover.  From there, things took off.    While different in feel and texture, Ms. Hill’s work resonates in its own way.  She event crafts banjos and guitars, using cigar boxes for bodies and frets made of windshield wiper blades.    And I like her little dog, shown in the opening photo.  That rascal’s name is Cindy Walker Cash Daughter Patsy Cline, a long handle that pays tribute to some of her favorite musical artists.   Some of these photos accompanied a recent column I did on Hill for my friends at the Williamson County Sun.   You’ll find more about her on her Facebook page.  Check her out!  

My new friend, Joe, who you might recall from a previous post, has acquired a new bicycle.  “The rim broke on the old one,” he explained.   As mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve seen Joe around Taylor for several years, but only recent met him, on this very bench along Main Street.    Because diabetes has taken its toll on Joe’s feet, he rides the bike a while, then rests a bit.  Sometimes I see him just walking it.    Maybe it’s only interesting to me, but I’ve begun to notice that a lot of folks in Taylor use bikes for their main form of transport.   Joe says that before the traffic on Texas Highway 29 got so bad, he used to ride his bike to Georgetown.   That’s about 20 miles.   I like this in black and white.  No surprise there, right?

During my years in Atlanta we had a gathering of flags similar to Georgetown’s Field of Honor, placed today at San Gabriel Park.  Throughout the week, through November 12, these 1400 American flags, each purchased to honor a friend or family member, many of them veterans or first responders, but not exclusively those groups, will billow in the Central Texas winds.   You could say the flags are pegged to the upcoming Veterans Day, but it’s more than that.   The Rotary Club of Georgetown made this beautiful new tradition a reality.   More power to them.   These photos show the installation of the flags throughout the day and this evening.    If you’re in the area, stop by for some inspiration. 

It’s been a very busy day.  I have no business whatsoever  taking yet more photos of the moon, but tonight, on the way home from paying assignments, there it was … completely full …. and quite lovely.   A second photo, with a few technical challenges, was taken above some grain elevators a little while later.   Gosh, I do love the moon!