After hard work comes praise.

Down below:  Look at the pot, not the car…

This image is called “Detail from a Vase, c. 1904″… Caladium design.  Incised lines, underglaze painting with glossy glaze.  Esther Huger Elliot, decorator;  Joseph Meyer, potter.  Newcomb College Collection. Tulane University.

I loved the detail on this card — “Detail from a Vase” that I kept it in my special keepsakes box until just now.  It’s at least 2 years old.

Ron and Ellen Swartz oversaw the Gull Wing Group Mercedes convention in New Orleans the year after Vin and I produced ours.

We advised them on how difficult it was, and spent a lot of time doing a ‘white paper’ to explain all the moving parts.

As it turned out, the Swartzes did a fantastic job.  Dixieland Jazz.  Costume ball.  Major dinner at Antoine’s.  All one could hope from New Orleans.

I am sure I wrote a ‘thank you’ afterwards, because I remember I appreciated it when a few people wrote (or sent wine!) after ours.

(We had 250 people with 80+ Mercedes Gull Wings converge for 5 days of non-stop activities in Palm Springs.  Remind me never to raise my hand again!)

Now that I know how hard it is to RUN a convention, I always take time to say “THANK YOU” to the ‘pretending to be perky but actually exhausted’

volunteers standing in the hallways, looking at their watches, clutching their clipboards.

It ain’t easy.  Even in the Big Easy.