I need to credit my friend and local celebrity Dave from the Kansas City Lunch Spots for this idea – to collect or catalog the unique vintage signs that still can be found in many places around town. From the iconic sign atop the Western Auto Building to the vintage sign in front of Lobito’s Steakburger these historic relics are as important to the city as buildings, streets and parks. Unfortunately they are slowly disappearing from the landscape just like the famous White Haven Motor Lodge sign that used to welcome visitors to the old motel in Overland Park.

Dave writes:

Seriously, how great is it that this business chose to keep the original sign rather than tearing it down or covering it up with a modern one? It may have been purely a matter of cost, but it was also a good business decision because I will always stop at a lunch spot with a good old fashioned sign.

I don’t think even this awesome sign would make me want to stay at the Motel Capri on Admiral and Paseo, but the fact that it’s still standing calls for a show of respect.

With a new wave of revolutions in the Middle East, certain historic parallels come to mind. In the last 50 years many countries experienced revolutions, some were violent and others peaceful; some turned out to be successful and others failed or brought about a slew of unintended consequences. We remember the most dramatic ones, or maybe the ones some of us witnessed in person; others were forgotten or drowned in the stream of worthless entertainment news. Whatever happens in the Middle East, the odds for the positive outcome are not very good.

In 1968 the Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia to prevent it from straying away from the Comminist party line. The Life Magazine covered the events in the issue headlined “Czechoslovakia:Death of the Bright Young Freedom”. I don’t remember this subject being covered in our school history books; if it was, the official version would have likely be completely removed from reality. The only time anyone mentioned it to me was when my Father talked about someone he knew who was serving in the military in 1968 and was deployed to Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia would stay Socialist until 1989.

The events of 1968 play a prominent part in the movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

A full-blown winter storm in March? Check!
An incorrect, rapidly changing weather forecast? Check!
Scary drive home? Check!
Making it home alive to write about it – priceless!

If you don’t feel like getting out, I shot a little clip for you.

And the rest of my photos:

By the way I still think weather forecasters should be arrested for the incorrect predictions.
UPDATE: I mentioned in comments what the weather forecast used to look like in my childhood and here is a video from November 2, 1977. This is for the whole country;they just list general areas, conditions and temperature ranges (in C°).

May, you may want to skip this one.

Sunday’s weather cooperated and, as I as was anticipating, we were on the way to Lawrence to attend Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships. Last year we attended this festival just looking for something to do (for free) and we liked it so much that this year we were actually planning on going. There was a pretty good-sized crowd, unlike the other notable music event, proving again that location matters. The festival had two stages where competitors and performers such as O’Shea Sisters and DeLancey Trio took turns entertaining the public. We spent around 3 hours listening to the music, wandering around and taking some photos and videos. Most of these have heads and other parts of people who decided to park their fat obnoxious asses in front of me, so I forever have memories of these inconsiderate morons. Click on the cover to see the rest of the photos.

Another unexpected and pleasant surprise was waiting for us in downtown Lawrence where The Lawrence Busker Festival was taking place. My daughter and I are big fans of buskers, although until yesterday I didn’t know that they were referring to themselves as “buskers”. I always thought it was “street performers” or whatever. There were quite a few of them – magicians, jugglers, musicians – and downtown Lawrence was alive with crowds. We didn’t leave Lawrence until after 5, after eating at Rudy’s Pizza and finishing with Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream.
And that, May, is what I did this weekend.

On my rare visit to Barnes and Noble, a store that encourages consumer to buy books online, I discovered a new batch of books containing vintage photos of Kansas City and other nearby places of interest. While I admire the effort to collect and annotate enough historic photos for a book, I don’t see myself paying over $20 for one of them. I am afraid many of these will be read at the coffee shop upstairs.

Luckily there are plenty of old photos online to entertain a cheap person like myself and even some books that can be read and downloaded for free. For example, check out A Birthday Book Of Kansas City 1821-1921 by Charles Phelps Cushing (obviously you should do it at work). The following photos and captions are taken from this book.