How to Build a BoatiGras Float.

Or, How I Built Leslie, the Sensuous Jester, for BoatiGras.

Its not that hard and its a lot of fun.  First, you need a boat.

Then give it some thought about how you want to decorate it, what would look good on the boat and then how much time and effort you want to spend on it.

I decided Leslie was my center-piece.  The rest of the decorations were easily added.  They were cheap but colorful. It took less than an hour for those things.  Most of it came from www.mardigrasoutlet.com.

Step 1:
It started with a couple of saw horses, some leftover chicken-wire, a piece of re-bar and the metal rods from political yard signs I'd picked up after the election for my candidate. Thanks Troy Braswell.  ( He won.)

Step 2:
I bent the rods from the political yard signs into 3 circles. One for the hips, then the waist and then the chest. I wrapped the chicken wire in a cylinder around the rods and attached it little pieces of twisted wire.

HELPING HINT - Use 1" chicken wire instead of 2". It's more work with the wire cutters but well worth it when trying to shape the figure. It also adds a lot more structural strength that needs less of an internal frame.

Step 3:
I started attaching, connecting the cylinders together end-to-end connected to a piece of re-bar I had bent into the curve of a backbone to be the main structural support for the whole body.  Again, small pieces of twisted wire to fasten the re-bar and chicken-wire.  The cylinders were connected by twisting the ends of the chicken-wire together.  Where I twisted these end pieces all the way around, it actually turned out to be the strongest part of the cylinders because the wire is doubled up.

HELPING HINT - Get some thick rubber fingered garden or work gloves (Walmart - $3.79) to work with the wire.  It will save a lot of pain and cuts to your finger tips.  I did a similar project last year and paid the price of not having a pair of cut resistant gloves on.

Step 4:
I added the limbs which started as smaller rolls of chicken wire attached the same way to the body by twisting the cut ends together.  Since the limbs were going to be extended weight I went a step further. I threaded some baling wire through the overlapping chicken wire like I was sewing the limb onto the body.

HELPING HINT - Use baling wire to reinforce your structure.  It is simple before you start applying the skin, almost impossible afterward. I chris-crossed and tightened wire between the political sign rods that made up the ribs which distributed the forces on it to the whole structure.  I learned this too, the hard way last year when Chester the Jester's head almost bounced off his shoulder when the boat moved.

Step 5:
Finish up the detail in chicken wire:  the hands, feet, head and breasts. As you can see with the body, you shape the cylinder by pushing in pulling the wire to the desired shape. If it is a drastic shape that needs to be reduced, use pliers and twist the chicken wire in tight little circles along a line as much as needed.  I did this on the wrists and ankles as well as behind the knees and elbows.

You can add the appearance of mass where needed by simply cutting a shaped section of chicken wire and using the loose ends to wire it into place bubbled out.  I needed to do this because the hips were too thin. The new section chicken wire straddled the hip and upper leg. Once I wired it in place it had the added benefit of it strengthening the connection and reinforcing the holding up the weight of the leg. Instead of the weight of the leg pulling on the one connection of the leg and hip it was spread to the added pieces two connections higher on the hip and lower on the leg.

I added a small cylinder of chicken wire that connected the legs on the inside of the knees.  It couldn't be seen once on the boat but, it provided a great deal of stability to the legs and helped distribute the weight of the legs.

The hands and feet where more time consuming but, finished quickly.  More cutting, shaping and twisting was involved.

The breasts were formed by first shaping a round-cut piece of chicken wire over a large bowl and wiring it into place. My sister likes to refer to it as having been a "Tupperware Family Casserole Sized bowl."

HELPING HINT - Before you go to Step 6, two things: 
      1. Attach mounting hardwarew to the hard points of your 
          structure.  I added 4 cheap carabiners to the frame of 
          Leslie extending to outside the skin as attachment points 
          to hold it to the roof of the boat.  
      2. Don't attach the head yet so you can complete other tasks
          inside the body.

Step 6:
Add the skin to the outside of the chicken wire.  You can use paper-mache but I found something better from experience. I used cloth instead.  I found quiet a bit at a local second hand store for next nothing.  I cut different size strips as need and dipped them in liquid starch (again, Walmart, $1.59 a large bottle) You can mix flour, glue and water but this was way more convenient and it was cheap.

HELPING HINT - apply several or many layers, letting each layer dry thoroughly before applying another.

Step 7:
Finish any thing you need to do on the inside before you attach the head.  I used spray Styrofoam to reinforce the legs and arms and along the hip and backbone to tie all the internal structure together further strengthening the form. I also foamed the breasts and head. With the re-bar, metal rod ribs and cross wires hard-foamed together it was a sturdy yet light form.

Since this Jester is named after a friend of mine, I had to add a heart to her.  Since she is a hardcore liberal Democrat I saw no need to also add a brain to her head.

Step 8:
Add the head and finish touching up the fabric-mache around the head and shoulders. Then paint with an oil based paint. I had planned on adding a flesh colored paint to the whole figure but, just 4 days before BoatiGras the water pipe to my house blew out.  I had no water.  That meant no water to clean up with or anything else.  I went with the white cloth.

 Step 9:
Cloth her.  I went to Walmart in Heber Springs and found felt clothe in purple, green, gold and black. It was easy to make up a costume for her.  I just draped the material over her and safety pinned it to her underneath and cut off excess material.  On the arms, the visible parts of the legs and the black boots I sewed the seams with easy to do large knot stitches using a curved needle.  I also cut out some yellow felt diamonds and glued them to the ends of the sleeves and pants legs.

Step 10:
Finish up. I added the hair, face and other details.  The hair was Mardi Gras purple/green/gold foil stringed fringe, using  clear packing tape, attached to the head.  I had planned on detailing the face but I had a large over-sized decorative Mardi Gras mask my sister gave me last year.  It was a perfect fit on the face so I used that and saved a lot of time (and it looked great) I got over-sized beads from Mardi Gras Outlet and it too was the perfect size. The fingernails were made from cutting them out of purple paint sample sheets from the paint department at Walmart.

That was pretty much it.  Just some imagination and throwing it together. You could make a whale, a unicorn, a space alien: anything you want. This took a couple of weeks working an hour here and there.  This could be easily done on a weekend or a couple of people could knock it out in one day. Most of the time I spent on it was actually looking at it thinking how I could make it better and remembering the mistakes and issues I had making one last year. I figure I spent a total of $50-60 on the project.  Worth it.

Leslie would be 17 feet tall if she were standing.  At first I thought I move it to the boat down at the lake in a pickup truck or hanging out of my sister's van.  She was too big.  Leslie is larger than life.  My sister talked a couple of guys into moving it slow motion down to the marina in the back of a flatbed truck. She is light, one person can easily pick her up but she too bulky for one person to maneuver by their self.
.

She looked good on top of my boat for BoatiGras. When we rounded the boat slips approaching the marina, the large crowd gathered there all stood up as one, approached the water's edge pointing and taking pictures with their phones.

This is a picture once the boat was docked at the marina.

Boati Gras 2014

BoatiGras 2014 was a wild success. There were over 20 boats in the parade - all decorated to the hilt. There was also a large crowd at the Marina for Second-lining with the Krewe of Jesters Magnificent Brass Band and the coronation of the new King of Jesters.  It was a perfect day weather-wise.  The Red River restaurant had muffalottas, crayfish gumbo and Jambalaya. 

Leslie the Sensuous Jester was atop my boat. She was so big she had to be brought in by flatbed truck.

Billy Fountain, of Dallas, TX was crowned the 2015 King of Jester by outgoing 2014 King of Jesters, Bob Ayers of Memphis, TN. Both in modest dress.  Billy was approached by a lady who fondled his necklace and said, "I really like your huge balls..." A good time was had by all.  

This the Moon Jester by King of Jesters, Bob Ayers and family.  My personal favorite.

My favorite daughter showing so love in matching BoatiGras T-shirts.

Leslie the Sensuous Jester enjoying a few rays out on the lake.

I Had a Dream...!

After a heart attack and major car crash with a concussion this year, my doctors said I wasn't breathing properly at night. I was sent in for two nights of "sleep study." I really didn't have to do much of anything but sleep. I didn't get much of that.

They had a couple of dozen wires hooked up to me the first night and a camera pointed right at my bed in the hospital. Results: I moved around a lot, stopped breathing frequently and had too little or no RIM sleep. The tech asked me in the morning "Do you remember any dreams from last night."

"Yeah, but you weren't in them."

It was a serious question and really, I hadn't remembered a dream in a long while. "Duke," the tech noted that in pencil on his purple plastic clipboard. "Well, you really didn't get much RIM sleep and that's were your dreams come in," said the John Wayne namesake. Nice guy but he would never be mistaken for the Quiet Man.

The next night I was hooked up to all the wiring again. I got a nice ponytail out of it after I was all wired in for the night, to keep individual wires from pulling loose. We tried on the first air mask. A couple of hours later Duke woke me up to try a different one. This went on all night. I went home at 8:30 more tired than had I been on an all-night surveillance at work.

I few days later Kim, the air-box tech, came by the house with a brand new breathing machine. It looked like a small vacuum cleaner, only it worked in reverse. It also added moisture to the air and fed it into my new full sized F-14 Tomcat oxygen pressure mask! Not feeling like Tom Cruise (although I have jumped up and down on a couch or two) I strapped it on for the night and tried to sleep.

My first experience with this type of thing was almost 3 weeks of a similar mask regularly pumping oxygen into me with such force that I was pounding the back of my head into a sweaty polyurethane pillow. It was hard to take it off even for a drink of water. Let's just say I was not looking forward to this.

Well, the first night with this one was not much better. But, last night I got a little sleep and I woke up remembering a dream I'd just had.

It started with me in a large elevator going down to the ground flood. It was a not freight elevator, just large like they use in hospitals. It opened up on the outside of the building.

When the doors opened, I saw a small empty parking lot and beyond it rolling grassing hills. Standing next to table on the closest slight hill was Abraham Lincoln. I was a bit surprised.

I walked up to President Lincoln and started a conversation. I don't know what it was about but I was interested in what he had to say. I asked if I could get a photo with him. Mr. Lincoln said, "Sure."

I ran to get my digital camera. The batteries were too low to take photos. My Mom showed up out of nowhere (which didn't seem to surprise me) and we jumped in her car to look for a camera. We found one of those parking lot photo booths you used to see everywhere and tried to buy a disposable camera. We didn't have enough money so we took off again. We went somewhere (home?) and found some batteries to put in the digital camera.

I was walking back up to Mr. Lincoln when..... I woke up.

My wife, Ree Ree was driving me to Home Depot this evening when she brought up a dream she'd had about her Mom. Dreams are always symbolic and hers are easy to figure out, so I told her what it meant.

She asked me, "Do you ever have any dreams about stuff like that?" I told her in fact I'd had one last night and layed the whole dream out for her. She said, "That's easy. You wanted to be associated with greatness or attributes you admire and tried to record it. When you had trouble, your Mom showed up like she always does, to help you."

"Damn," I thought. It's always easier to interpret other peoples dreams rather than your own.

Here's the scary part though. I just picked up the digital camera right here next to the computer and looked the the shots stored on it. There was a new full-color photograph of Abraham Lincoln and I standing together next to that little table on the hill.

Mellow Side of FHH (Part 5)

I got to my sister's house and she wasn't back from Mom's yet. I parked in the gravel next to her driveway and stepped out of the car. All of a sudden a maniac little dog was at my heels going nuts. ( I suspect it was already nuts...) I was doing a little "Avoid-Being-Bitten" dance and accidentally closed the car door.

The dog was still focused on me, growling, baring its teeth but the end of it's tail was stuck in the car door. It was yapping like a Poodle who got a ear cut while being groomed with a #2 clipper at the Hillary Pet Clip and Tuck by a first-time 340 pound "pet stylist professional." The 12 pound maniac apparently didn't notice the tail in the door thing or didn't care because it was still trying to come after me.

It went back and forth following me as I tried to get to the handle to open the door. The dog wanted a piece of me even if it could only move in a half-circle next to the driver's side door, teeth on the outside parameter snapping and drooling. I'm not sure I wanted to open the door.

The scene looked like a slap-stick cartoon as I could almost see the swooshes as the dog bounced back and forth like a pendulum. I could image a chime and a door's window opening with a coo-coo bird popping out to announce the hour.

All this activity attracted the attention of the driver of an Gene Petty Power and Light utility truck driver going by. It was Roberto, who does part-time tree-trimming work for the old man that cut down the dead pine in my back yard last year. The first thing out of his mouth as he walked up, hands on his hips was, "I wish I'da brought my video camera. America's Funniest Videos would give me some money for this one...."

The dog got even more excited, somehow, when Roberto stopped and sat on the back of one-heel just an inch and a half outside the dog's bite range. Close enough to get dog spittle-splatter on him but just a quarter-inch out of the extreme limit of it's teeth. Roberto turned his head back toward me and said," What ya' going to do?"

"Wait on my sister, I guess. I'm not turning that loose."

"Why don't you just get in the car on the other side and crack the driver's door open enough to let the dawg go?"

"Somehow in the excitement I closed the door with locks on and don't bother asking: the keys are in the ignition..."

"Well, gawd d....."

"Yeah, well."

Just as I thought things couldn't get worse and I would be able to explain this to my sister, I smelled smoke. Did I mention that I'd left the car running? There IS a reason you should cut the grass growing up through the gravel on your auxiliary driveway.

I didn't think it would be too good an idea to point that out to my sister because I love her so much and I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings. That and the fact I had her dog's tail was trapped in the door of my car in her front yard. Occasionally, timing can be restrictive of light criticism.

I could see flames then, lapping out from under the car and licking the dog's butt. The dog had re-doubled it's efforts to escape and seemed little concerned with us. It howled and was less-threatening and more desperate in the nature of its escape. Roberto, big man that he was; however, was quick to act.

He ran to his truck and grabbed a large set of heavy duty cable-cutters. He went to the passenger side of my car and used the tool to bust the side-window. He reached in and unlocked the door and jumped in. I just stood open-mouthed watching the scene like it was a slow-motion sequence from a Quentin Tarantino movie.

His first move was to try to unlock and open the driver's side door. It had one of those tiny little button knobs that are hard to grip and Roberto's hands were already sweaty. He hit the electric lock (after accidentally opening and closing all the windows in the car) but nothing happened. I found out later that the lock-out switch had been hap-hazardously turned off and on in the desperate hurry to locate the right door-panel button to unlock the door.

Robert was quickly behind the wheel and had the transmission in reverse. He did get the window open somehow and looked down at the dog. Every time he tried to back it up a little dog almost ended up under the front left tire until Roberto hit the brakes. This weren't a-working. Roberto was getting frustrated, the dog was getting hot, already in a panic and I just stood there looking pretty.

That's when I saw a light-bulb turn-on above Roberto's head. It was the interior dome light because the passenger-side door was still open. Still, I could tell Roberto had an idea and being a man of action had started the commission of his plan. I thought it was a no-win scenario.

I was, again, wrong. Or, maybe not.

In one swift, almost rehearsed-looking movement, Roberto swung the cable-cutters out the window and down. Before I could look-away he had small blunt scissor-like cutting blades around the base of the dog's tail. The dog stopped barking and looked back. In that moment of silence, Roberto, hands solid around the red-rubber grips, slammed his big muscular lineman's arms together releasing the dog from the car.

It was at that very moment my sister drove up.

Evelyn Gonzalez @ FHH Mardi Gras

Why You Don't Jump on Trampolines in Van Halen Co.

ICE STORM SETTLES OVER FAIRHAVEN HARBOR & VAN HALEN COUNTY

Well, the ice storm is now history and the Harbor has electricity again. Last week was a different story as temperatures dropped and the rain turned to freezing rain. Everything in the Harbor was covered with an inch or more of ice. Power poles and trees snapped under the added weight. That second night, it sounded like a battle was raging outside with the shotgun blast echos of branches popping and breaking away. Roadways were covered with ice, trees, and downed power lines. It was a sight to behold. Somewhat reminiscent (though on a smaller colder scale) of the tornado which dropped in on us a year ago today.
My job is being the Office Coordinator at the Fairhaven Harbor Community Club's Public Work and Wastewater departments. We do not get snow or ice days. I reported to work only to find the power was out there as well as at home. Our wastewater plants and lift stations were running on generator power as was the coffee pot in the main shop. That was it. I spent the day answering the phone by lamplight. I left my gloves on.
Keep in mind that all the roads and driveways are covered in ice. I got lots ( and I mean lots of phone calls ) with people wanting to know if the garbage truck would be running. I was tactful. I really was. What I wanted to ask was, "Can you get your bony old butt to the end of the drive to put your trash out? No? The trash truck will not be running."
I had calls of people wanting to know when the power was coming back on. I had to explain repeatedly that we were not the electric company and assure them that Little Jean Electric was out in force and doing the best they could.
One man called to ask where he could get a cup of coffee.
Another caller wanted to let me know that it was a terrible time to be working on the power lines with all this bad weather and all. It took me awhile to get her to understand the weather caused the power outage. She said, "Fine, but I'm freezing and shivering in my own home. What do you want me to do?" Hunker down, lady. Wait'll the sun goes down. No, once again. I was tactful and suggested options for her to stay warm or to find accomodations elsewhere.
One lady called because she was out of bananas.
A property owner from Houston called because she had called the Main Office to let them know about her new mailing address, but no one answered. She just kept called Club offices until someone answered. I explained to her about the ice storm and that the Main Office was closed and asked her to try back next week. She said, "No, I'm calling you." She proceeded to give me the new information. She then told me to pass it on to Owner Services when the office opened again and to call her local condo association and give them the information, too. Then she hung up. Did I just pretend to write it all down? No. Did I promptly throw it in the trash after she hung up. No. I thought about doing both, but hey, I was here. I forwarded the information this week. I am just way too nice.
We also had lots of calls from folks on the sewer system with grinder pumps. When the power goes out, it is a good idea to stop flushing the toilet. Each pump has a fifty gallon tank. After more gallons than that, the "liquid" has to go somewhere else, usually back in your home. The problem is, one doesn't know how many gallons were in the tank when the power went out. (Kinda like the Russian Roulette of the poop world). It can get a tad messy.
Our guys had to stop some folks from driving around road barricades. One lady said, "Oh, I didn't think that was for me." Another said, "I was just moving this thing someone left in the road out of the way." The elderly man who couldn't get out of his car (which was in a ditch) without his walker said, "This is nothin'. I'm from Nebraska. I know how to drive on this stuff." Apparently not, Mr. Omaha. There are lots of people in the Harbor from Nebraska and Minnesota and Illinois and Iowa and Michigan and New York, etc. etc. etc. They all know how to drive on "this stuff". They just forget that the roads from wherever they were from were relatively straight and flat. We're in the Ozarks now. That ain't the lay of the land. Add to that, "this stuff" "at home" would be snow. Here, it's ICE. No one knows how to drive on ice.....not when the roads are winding and steep. But hey, I guess that's just my simple Southern opinion.
I felt for each and every one of them. I did. (Okay, well, not all of them) I did, however, thank the powers that be that my home is on a septic tank....And for the gas fireplace.... And that the Water Company had generators on the water tanks. Tap & I were good. Mom (Evelyn Gonzalez) lost power for only a couple of hours total. Tap & I were out for about 36 hours. Others persevered through four days.
Little Jean did an amazing job getting all those poles and lines back in place as fast as they did. Our Public Works guys were genuises at clearing roads of ice and trees. Our Wastewater guys managed to keep the poo flowing and out of people's homes.
And me................I was the voice of all of the above and managed to make most (if not all - you just can't please them all) of the callers feel better or solve some problem or just let them know we were all in the same boat and that this too would pass. No, really. I did. I DID TOO. Whatever!
The sun is starting to come out and warm us up again. This weekend is supposed to be in the 60s and the Harbor folk are happy once again.
We like it when the Harbor folk are happy.

Patterns of Intrinsic Beauty

Patching together dissimilar pieces of loose individual materials from worn out clothing and cloth into patterns of intrinsic beauty that butterflies into a quilt is what my mother has done all my life. One Christmas a few years back she sent to each of my children a quilt she had made uniquely for each one of them. She started working on them after each of them were born years before. As the youngest got to around six and it was pretty obvious that we were “done” having more children, she shipped ‘em our way. Included was a quilt she had put together for me. It was made up of pieces of material she put back in a bag since I was a little boy.

I find myself gazing at the multiplicity of designs on each piece of cloth that make up the members of that pattern. As I scan my eyes back and forth, I find myself zeroing in on a particular pattern here and there that position me back into a different place, setting, and time. Each singularly possessing a unique memory: “Oh – I remember that shirt!”; “Hey… those are my jeans!”; “Wow, I forgot about that table cloth!”; “Is that my old sheet?” Every recognition has attached to it recollections wrapped around a journal of times past with family, friends, and relationships long floated down the streams of my mind.

Every family has its own way weaving and stitching together the treasure and the trash of those memories. Some are extremely precious, others are overtly perilous; some are exuberantly happy, others are extremely and overwhelmingly sad; most we want to remember, a few we would just as soon forget. Patiently with time and wisdom, we forgive and forget, acknowledge and honor – then we sew it into intrinsically beautiful patchwork quilts in our mind.

The Fruit of the Christmas Spirit

As a father, I find myself reliving nostalgically in my mind parallel experiences to what my children are living today. Being a tightly budgeted family of six with limited income we have to be committed to not dousing the spirit of Christmas by worries of affording the season. All four children find themselves most excitedly and with great anticipation shopping at the local Dollar Tree. Each child is assigned to buy a gift from them to the other three siblings and two parents. A grand distribution of $5.00 each ($20.00 total) is divvied out. The joyful hunt is on that doesn’t neglect the whole spirit of giving. It makes Christmas morning package opening a grand round of joyful expectation and satisfied anticipation.

Years ago, back in the day (as my oldest son Joel likes to say), our mom (Evelyn) dropped us off from an older model metalic blue Oldsmobile station wagon at the Whitehaven Plaza to do Christmas shopping with money that my brother saved from his neighborhood paper route. It gave her time to do some other Christmas shopping that needed to be finish up. Mom had given me a little bit of change and a bill or two to spend at what was even an obsolete name back then … the "Five and Dime store". Our sister (Elizabeth Ann) was still too young to go along.

At the local McCrory’s in the plaza we would shop in the downstairs basement. The staircase was right at the front entrance as you stepped through the inside door. It was just fun to run up and down the stairs (this was before malls). I remember looking everywhere making “little kid” suggestions out loud to the almost irritation of my older brother (didn’t want to mess up the whole Christmas spirit thing). We’d go up one aisle and down another.

Though we got a little something for everyone, Mom’s gift was pretty much the priority. She collected salt and pepper shakers of all types, styles and shapes. “Oh look over here!” I’d bellow out in excitement. Big brother (Jimmy) would make a considering short gander for a quick contemplation, but – ultimately (over and over) would say a thoughtful “Umm-naahh! Uh-uh”. After getting nearly to a point of total frustration … finally – as if by divine calling, we both wide eyed a whole aisle (both sides) dedicated to every kind of realistic looking fake plastic fruit you ever saw. This was almost as fun as the toy aisle, but not.

We carefully selected just the right bowl that we thought “fit” mom. We didn’t even verbally agree that this was it, but … this was it! So we collected and threw into this perfect round basin just the right bananas, oranges, green apples, red apples, green grapes, purple grapes with leaves on a vine, a lemon and a lime ... and then the final touch – the coolest looking pineapple (at least I thought so) we’d ever seen. Now to pay for it, Mom was waiting upstairs out in the car.

When we made our way to the counter with our bounty of booty it seems that we were a little short of the cost of our synthetic Christmas surprise for Mom. The cashier, after carefully counting the loose wadded bills and various change we dug out of everyone of our pockets, informed us that we “… didn’t have enough”. It was Christmas time; we were cute; we were sincere; and it was the late 60’s. She reached under the counter and pulled up her purse paying the remainder out of her own money.

With a great deal of humble thank-you’s, we scurried off with our various paper bags to meet Mom upstairs who was waiting in the station wagon with a few Christmas surprises of her own behind the back seat. You know ... Mom kept that bowl of artificial fruit for years and years as a center piece on her kitchen table even after we both got grown. The fruit was fake, but the love that brought it together wasn't.

Merry Christmas!