We Love Kelcie!

(Miss Kelcie with one famous find!)

Our dearest Kelcie is out in Kilgore TX, working and acting in the Texas Shakespeare Festival. A few weeks ago she took a some pictures of this piano she stumbled across at the and sent them to me. THIS Piano dear Readers is THE piano that the music and lyrics to the "I Love Lucy" theme song WERE COMPOSED ON!!!

Kelcie reports that- Lots of people donate things to the TSF every year and this came to them through the estate of Harold Adamson, and has been in Kilgore ever since!

Kelcie further reports that- Adamson was a heavy smoker, as the keys are covered in cigarette tar, and littered with water rings.

Can you even BEGIN to imagine the history on these keys!


Readers let me tell you, I have a SERIOUS case of the "Wants" haha! I would do just about anything to drag that piano back to the Casablanca, but Kelcie doesn't seem to think the folks at TSF would want to part with it! Trade you a piano for a piano! Oh what I wouldn't do to be able to lovingly "store" it for them in the living room... maybe if we told them that were friends Billy Mendieta and Sirena Irwin!

Keep working on them Kelcie! 

Just the other day we received a postcard from Kelcie, she is the BEST at sending us cards from her summer travels. This one is a vintage postcard from Kilgore staring the "Texan" movie theater!

Look at all the vintage cars, and the iconic oil derricks of East Texas.

The Casablanca crew will be road tripping to Kilgore to see Kelcie in "My Fair Lady" later this summer, and we can't wait!

BREAK A LEG Kelcie, and keep us posted on that piano! ;)

-Mick-

My Problem Corner...

No, its not quite a corner where I go when life's problems have me down, its just a tricky spot to decorate! The bedroom at the Casablanca is split 50/50 one side acts as a "den" with the television set...

While the other half is set up with two twin beds and a night stand...

My problem falls in a tiny spot at the end of Patricia's bed. When the bedroom was added on to the house back in 1956, they did not line the new back door up with the rest of the doors in the house. (that would have been to easy and solved a lot of problems.) So when you look into the bedroom from the kitchen you can see that little piece of wall. Over the years i've tried many was to fix it up, but nothing fits just right. I once had a dresser in that spot (but dressers at the Casablanca tend to just be clutter catchers, and on rare occasion a winter home for mice.) The for the last few years, it has been home to a drop leaf table that I refinished, which looks very nice but is CONSTANTLY covered in stuff.

I have these two orange vinyl chairs to work with (for now) if additional seating is what I add here, i'd much rather it be black vinyl to match the couch.  Here's one of the options to set it up- chairs facing the kitchen, lamp on the left.

Here again, chairs facing the kitchen, but in front of the old door we don't use and stool at the foot of the bed.

This time with the chairs against the foot of the bed facing the TV set, lamp in front of the the door.

Aaaaaand that's all the ideas I currently have. I'm hoping the fabulous Dana at Mid2Mod will swoop in and show my a piece of furniture that will be just perfect for this weird little spot. that falls in the "no mans land" between "bedroom" and Den". It would be great to have a little more seating in this room. Everyone piles on the couch and the beds to watch movies. But that hot orange vinyl wont be a staple for very long.

What are you're thought Readers?

Seating? Some piece of furniture I haven't thought about?

What do you think?! Feel free to take that first photo  and photo shop if you feel like!

-Mick-

Wednesdays Just Aren't The Same.

Not without out $2.58 special Coca-cola's, and all the gossip an afternoon can handle!

I love you Miss Daisy.

-Mick-

About Time.

Well another weekend has come and gone here at the Casablanca dear Readers, It was a highly productive one too!  In the above photo Dad was trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my 1954 stove. Just after the Spring Break dance the oven went out and has been out ever since. Saturday after about an hour of searching (and fearing I was going to have to have the whole stove rewired) we found the problem with a delay switch on the back splash. *Whew* So the stove is back in action!

Flashback to Friday night, Patricia and I had just gotten out of the show "Shrek", in route to the lake, and my mother calls to tell me I have NO power at my cabin...and everything in the fridge is provably ruined. When we arrive the power is still off and it was hotter than blue blazes (Yay summertime in Texas!) I called my power company which is actually based out of Altus OK. They called their people in Vernon TX (about 45 min away from the lake) who sent a truck to come fix the problem. That was at 2:50A.M. by the time the guys figure out where the problem is, call a second truck for backup, and resolve said problem it is 4:00A.M. I was so thankful that they could fix it that night! There had been bad storms in Oklahoma that had caused a power surge to blow the transformer out on the electric pole, as well as the fuses in the house. It was a drag however that we had a show to be in the next day, yikes we needed sleep!

For my birth month of June I have displayed all my turquoise Pyrex! (Turquoise is my favorite and signature color!) And my birthday will soon be upon us. I wonder what Patrica and Missouri Michael are cooking up this year...

 (Jennifer, Wes, Emily, Patrica & Seigen!)

Saturday afternoon before the show, we were visited by friends to cool lunch and celebrate the reinstatement of the oven! We had fun eating and chatting the afternoon away before showtime.

(Cora taking cover from Thunder.)

Hands down though, the BEST part of the weekend was the RAIN. We have needed is SO bad and late Saturday night/Sunday morning we got 1.3 Inches!!! IN our drought stricken state that is a HUGE blessing, and it further rained all Sunday night into this morning Hopefully slow enough the ground can soak it up and help our the trees and grass. Let it rain! Let it Rain! Let it Rain!

I apologize this post is so scattered, but between Shows, the power being off and fixed, The stove being fixed, and that blessed and much needed rain. I'm finding that I need "a weekend for my weekend" haha.

Hope all of you had a good weekend as well!

-Mick-

Wish You Were Here!

(Circa the year of our Lord- 2002)

Before we even knew there was a "Mick's" to go to!

-Mick-

It's A Whole New Era...

FIRST Readers, let me HEREWITH AND CLEARLY STATE that "Patricia and I are NOT having a baby"! Haha. But the Casablanca has entered a whole new, and unexpected era of its own. The Baby Boom! I do not report this fact to make our friends and members sound "busy", but the fact is we have four going on five sets of married members who have family's of their own. The Noble's, The Williams', The Maxwell's, The Daughtery's, (and very soon) The Jarvis's!

As luck would have it in the midst of our "boom" I inherited this vintage baby play pen. NOW before you all go shrieking "THAT THING IS A DEATH TRAP! IT'S NOT BABY SAFE!" The Mothers of the Casablanca (Ha! That sounds like a club in its own right.) have inspected and approved this piece.  As a further testament to its safety, my Dad and his siblings were kept in it way back in the late 50's and early 60's and for the most part came out unscathed. Dad seems to think that my Great Grandparents had this collapsible crib at their lake house up on Grand Lake in Oklahoma. (Isn't that fitting? From one Jordan lake house to another!) What I like most about it, is that it folds up small and can be stored out of the way. It will be great for parties!

(Cora was NOT a happy camper...)

I used to joke that when the time came for us to ad an "nursery" to the Casablanca, that we'd just put a play pen in the lounge with the bar... that way both Baby's and Adults could have bottles!
Speaking of the Lounge-

(The leg looks crooked, but i assure its not.)

This wooden folding/card table is a treasure saved from the trash heap, also from my Great Grandparents house on Grand Lake. It is OLD. At some point someone painted a checker board on its top, in good think oil/lead based paint! It doesn't bother us though...

(We were going to play Checkers, but couldn't remember the rules... so we switched to Chess!)

I already had a nice set of wooden chess pieces that I got in Kansas years ago, and they were just perfect for this table.  It was nice to sit in the evening cool of the screened in lounge. I couldn't help but imagine how many times the same scene must have played on the porch of the house at Grand Lake. I bet many a card and board game were played on this through the years!

Once again isn't it funny, and kind of charming that these things ended up at another lake house.

How they ended up in "a whole new era"!

-Mick-

Trash to Treasure!

Let me tell you dear Readers, with 90 years worth of stuff in the barn, (including my Grandparents AND Great Grandparents things) there was a LOT of "trash"! It seems like they held on to just about everything, and I am a fourth generation pack rat. I picked out several "treasures" to fix up an work on, mostly just stuff that otherwise would have went to the land fill.
The Jars pictured above were filthy when they were uncovered, but with a good scrubbing and a long soak in Alka-Seltzer made them shine like new.

The jar lids were a bit rusty, so I sanded them down painted them with primer and spray painted them my favorite color of turquoise!

(Ta-Da!)

This old TV had a few rusty spots on it, but I was able to buff them off with steel wool. It will be great for outdoor entertaining!

When this was pulled out of the barn, I thought it was an old plant stand base. As you can see it was rusty and since it was missing the planter it was bound for the trash.. so it came home with me.

However picture my surprise when a few days later I got to pick it up, and realize... it spins!


It's a Lazy Susan base! So as planned I primed and repainted the metal...

And since all the little ceramic pieces that go in the metal holder were gone, I put this cut glass dish of my Great Grandmother Jordan's in it and it works just fine!

I really don't think our kitchen table at the Casablanca is big enough to constitute a lazy susan being on it, but I will keep it out for a while. It's neat, and I'm sure it will provably get more use than I think!

This was a really cool save as well, I wish the lettering as a little better but it suits me fine! a "Tropi*cal*lo" Orange juice glass jug! I have one like this that we have lemonade in at the ready, so I was super stoked to pull this one out of the heap for Orange Juice.

(Back in action after a 60 some-odd year hiatus!)

It just goes to prove, "One mans trash is another mans treasure"!

-Mick-