MrNewportCustom
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,265
- Location
- Outer Los Angeles
Today, while delivering flooring to the home he's rebuilding after it was burned down a few months ago during the fires in the San Bernardino Mountains, I met Actor Art. I spoke with him for half an hour after I'd finished hauling boxes into his soon-to-be-completed home. By the way, his new home will have 1,600 more square feet than his old home, solar water heating, stairs down the outside, stonework on both sides of the driveway and several other features that he didn't have on the old home. And after the house is finished, he'll still have money left over from the insurance. The new home is on the site of the old home. That fire didn't scare him away!
Art is eighty years old and shows no sign of stopping. He works out every day, recently learned stained glass window making, and doesn't have any health problems at all. Not even arthritis: He showed me that by wiggling all of his fingers in front of me.
He's also an actor, as you may have already guessed, and if you watch Boston Legal on the first Sunday in October, you just might see him. He told me that he once spent a day on the set of a movie talking to Jack Lemmon. He's spoken to several actors from the era we on the Lounge adore.
Art is also a voracious reader, and his favorite subject is World War II. He told me that he hated history when he was in school, but it's ironic that he ended up teaching it for many years. He still substitute teaches at his local high school, and when students ask him his age, he just laughs and tells them that he lived through a lot of what they've read in their textbooks.
In the 1970s, Art built a sailboat (with help) of about forty feet, as I estimated from the pictures he showed me, and, launching from Huntington Beach, sailed it around and through the Hawaiian Islands and back, facing thirty-foot seas (he said one cannot be a real sailor just puttering around the bay; it's the thirty-foot swells that prove who is and who isn't a sailor). He showed me pictures of the boat, the Atkins Eric, and pointed out all the wood work he'd put into it himself. He pointed out species such as; teak, mahogany, ironwood, maple and several others. He started it in '74, finished it in '76, sailed around Hawaii in '78 (with his family) and then sold it in '81 to buy another boat.
He said he didn't see any action during WWII, but that he had flown in several planes: B52, B25, and half a dozen others that I can't recall. After learning that about him, I told him about the Fedora Lounge. He told me that he has a fedora. I told him that I do, too. I told him that many of your fellow Loungers would love to learn from him about WWII and pretty much anything else he's experienced during his life. He told me that he didn't type very well, and I told him that we wouldn't fault him that.
I wish I could have spent a lot more time talking with Art. Let me correct that: I wish I could have spent more time listening to Art. He told me many stories, and says he's a people person who loves to tell stories. When I regretfully told him that I had to go, he apologized for "boring" me. I told him that he hadn't bored me and that I wished I could stay. But, the company wouldn't approve of paying overtime to me to stand around talking.
It was a delight meeting Art, and I hope he will visit us here on the Lounge. He's a bundle of energy and laughs and I am privileged to have met him in person. I will remember him for many years to come.
If you do join us, Art, you'll be welcomed here with open arms and plenty of opportunity to tell us your stories.
Lee
Art is eighty years old and shows no sign of stopping. He works out every day, recently learned stained glass window making, and doesn't have any health problems at all. Not even arthritis: He showed me that by wiggling all of his fingers in front of me.
He's also an actor, as you may have already guessed, and if you watch Boston Legal on the first Sunday in October, you just might see him. He told me that he once spent a day on the set of a movie talking to Jack Lemmon. He's spoken to several actors from the era we on the Lounge adore.
Art is also a voracious reader, and his favorite subject is World War II. He told me that he hated history when he was in school, but it's ironic that he ended up teaching it for many years. He still substitute teaches at his local high school, and when students ask him his age, he just laughs and tells them that he lived through a lot of what they've read in their textbooks.
In the 1970s, Art built a sailboat (with help) of about forty feet, as I estimated from the pictures he showed me, and, launching from Huntington Beach, sailed it around and through the Hawaiian Islands and back, facing thirty-foot seas (he said one cannot be a real sailor just puttering around the bay; it's the thirty-foot swells that prove who is and who isn't a sailor). He showed me pictures of the boat, the Atkins Eric, and pointed out all the wood work he'd put into it himself. He pointed out species such as; teak, mahogany, ironwood, maple and several others. He started it in '74, finished it in '76, sailed around Hawaii in '78 (with his family) and then sold it in '81 to buy another boat.
He said he didn't see any action during WWII, but that he had flown in several planes: B52, B25, and half a dozen others that I can't recall. After learning that about him, I told him about the Fedora Lounge. He told me that he has a fedora. I told him that I do, too. I told him that many of your fellow Loungers would love to learn from him about WWII and pretty much anything else he's experienced during his life. He told me that he didn't type very well, and I told him that we wouldn't fault him that.
I wish I could have spent a lot more time talking with Art. Let me correct that: I wish I could have spent more time listening to Art. He told me many stories, and says he's a people person who loves to tell stories. When I regretfully told him that I had to go, he apologized for "boring" me. I told him that he hadn't bored me and that I wished I could stay. But, the company wouldn't approve of paying overtime to me to stand around talking.
It was a delight meeting Art, and I hope he will visit us here on the Lounge. He's a bundle of energy and laughs and I am privileged to have met him in person. I will remember him for many years to come.
If you do join us, Art, you'll be welcomed here with open arms and plenty of opportunity to tell us your stories.
Lee
