A Fun Craft Day and A Visit to Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum

After the long trek to Clarkson Covered Bridge Park from our home on Friday, March 19, we had a fun craft day with our church school in the old dog trot cabin that is located on the property of the park. The children were able to make chickens and octopuses from crochet yarn and styrofoam balls. It was a fun craft for them all to do. Afterward, most of the children were able to run and explore the park. They all seemed to enjoy watching the ducks swim the most. It is a beautiful park to visit.

Our next big adventure began with a trip to Lawrence County, AL to visit my cousin. If you have never visited this area of the world, it is quiet beautiful and very peaceful. I guess some folks would not like it, but it has the rural farmland look that always intrigues my family and me. We enjoyed seeing the many horses grazing out in their pastures. Cattle were also just about anywhere you looked as well.

While visiting my cousin, we decided to see a museum in Lawrence County called Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum. Jesse Owens was an Olympic track gold medalist who captured four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Mr. Owens was born on September 12, 1913 in a little shack on the property where the memorial park is located to a family who were share crop farmers. In 1922, he and his family moved to Ohio to try to carve out a better life for themselves in the still mills. In high school, Jesse began running for the track team even though he worked after school. Around 1933, Jesse began attending college at Ohio State University in Columbus where they valued his track and field skills. In 1935, he broke the world record in the long jump, 220-yard dash, and the 220-yard low hurdles. As my daughter said this was an awesome field trip. We love learning about those who came from such humble beginnings, worked hard, and accomplished a lot.

www.jesseowensmuseum.org
http://www.co.cullman.al.us/Parks/Clarkson%20stuff/clarkson_webpage.htm
http://www.cullmancountyparks.com/clarkson.htm

My Review of the Theatrical Performance at Wallace State Community College

Yesterday we were able to attend the performance at Wallace State Community College featuring the enduring story of Beauty and the Beast. Years ago we’d been able to attend at the same theater and see the performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we’d been pleased by the quality of the play, but the lighting and sound were not good at all. Therefore, we were pleasantly surprised by the improvements that had been made in the areas of lighting and sound. There were still some problems with the sound which occasionally had the sound of a jet passing overhead. The last song of the play was hard to hear most of the way through, and there were a few occasions when it was hard to hear one or two of the actors.

It was remarkable to me that there was an orchestra that played throughout the entire performance. They did an excellent job although I did hear a sour note a time or two. The conductor of this little orchestra was actually one of my high school band directors. When he was let go at the school where I attended K-12, he took a job at Wallace State Community College, and it is good to see that he is still there after all these years. I was certainly impressed by the orchestra which played along as the actors sang their way through their singing parts.

This theatrical rendition of Beauty and the Beast followed almost exactly the Disney’s cartoon version of this musical. We were pleasantly surprised by this since the last theatrical performance we’d seen of Beauty and the Beast had been a fairly original version that was quiet good but lacked the humor and fun found in the Disney version. We loved the humor of Lumiere and Cogsworth, and they garnered many laughs during the two and a half hours that we watched the play. Belle had a fantastic, professional quality voice that amazed us. The silly girls did an excellent job, and I’m not just saying that because one of them happens to be a homeschooled girl that I’ve know since she was a baby. I also thought the young man who played the part of Lefou did an excellent job of acting his part.

We look forward to the next production from Wallace State Community College, and maybe we need to look into performances that may be taking place at other colleges. The children really enjoyed this outing as did my husband and I. We haven’t been to the Birmingham Children’s Theater in years, but maybe we need to plan on going to a performance next year. I am glad that we took the time out of our busy schedule to see this theatrical musical.