April 21 2020 - May is Mayberry Month

Mayberry is in North Carolina.  The Andy Griffith Show made it come alive from 1960 - 1968.  The show was considered amusing and much loved. Here's the summary: Widower Sheriff Andy Taylor, and his son Opie, live with Andy's Aunt Bee in Mayberry, North Carolina. With virtually no crimes to solve, most of Andy's time is spent philosophizing and calming down his cousin Deputy Barney Fife. Creators: Sheldon Leonard, Aaron Ruben, Danny Thomas Stars:  Andy Griffith, Ron Howard, Don Knotts The top-rated episodes are: Convicts-at-Large Barney and Floyd are held hostage in a cabin by three escaped women convicts. The Pickle Story No one will admit to Aunt Bee's homemade pickles being the worst they've ever tasted. Andy switches them with store-bought ones to avoid eating hers, but her decision to enter them in the county fair... Barney's First Car It's a red-letter day in Mayberry when Barney decides to join the motoring world, but things go sour when his cream-puff turns out to be a lemon. Here's the strange joke that I found: Andy Griffith's family are undecided on funeral arrangements. They may cremate, they Mayberry Here's a picture from one of our stops on the way to Augusta, Maine a few years ago.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://www.blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Urban Attractions

Wikipedia says: Urban exploration (often shortened as urbex or UE, and sometimes known as 'roof-and-tunnel hacking') is the exploration of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or not usually seen components of the man-made environment. Photography and historical interest/documentation are heavily featured in the hobby... I found a website that identifies urban exploring sites in Toronto here.   However, as I scrolled through the list, so many of the abandoned buildings have been demolished and are gone.   Today's images might also capture urban components that will become lost.  Our Piano Keyboard in the first image has been added to the loading dock in recent times and brings a sense of delight to a back alley. It could disappear quickly with graffiti or demolition to make way for grander buildings. Our second image is a "preserved" painted billboard for Tip Top Tailors.  It is located on Richmond Street West - you can see the 'suits and coats' quite well.  I found a posting on it which says the building was once 5 stories with a small painted sign, and then become 6 stories, with the large sign painted over the first. As they have decayed, the original sign has shown through.

At the Ringling Museum

Ringling Museum     The historic mansion is a delicate beauty, with complex colours and textures in terra cotta, tile, and marble. Built with a similar intent - to create the most striking of private homes - as Biltmore and Hearst, this mansion is elaborate. The antique roof tiles come from Barcelona where John Ringling salvaged them and sent them home, filling two cargo ships. There were too many for the house, so some were sold to neighbours.  One can still see roofs that match Ca' d'Zan's. The house is Venetian in design. In keeping with the theme, Mable Ringling kept a gondola at the dock. After John Ringling's death, the mansion was neglected for decades.  Its transformation back to its original beauty was completed in 2002, with a six year effort to restore it. There is the Art Museum, Circus Museum, and also an 18th century Italian theatre on the ground.  It sits inside a new structure.  Ringling had it shipped from the Veneto to Florida in 1930.

An Historical Home

Can you imagine moving a log house from Quebec to Croydon, north of Napanee, in Ontario?  And then to place beautiful historical furniture in it.  What a celebration of our history and culture.