Tampa Time 2025

SZ expense reports

Lindsey picked me up at the airport in Tampa but she has some work to do. I love just being around my baby girl and she allowed me to hang with her at her place of business while she managed coding and submitting receipts for countless programs for which she is responsible.

Go Aviators! (Meet that outstanding teacher - who went to Ocean Township High School). Lawton's third grade teacher is tops and an advocate and ally. Classroom is lucky to have the support of Lawton's mom too. 

Dave and Busters (Minecraft in Brandon) - Lawton convinced Papa to sit back and enjoy car crashes, near misses, free falls and pure simulated terror before he builds, defeats foes and plays with TNT on the big screen with Minecraft.

 

Cigar Factory Tour (Coming to America through Baltimore and Cleveland to Ybor City) Julius Caesar Newman family come to American from Austria-Hungary in the 1880s. Young J.C. Newman learns how to roll cigars in Cleveland before building a Cigar Business in the 1900s. 

Flan Factory is Flan-TASTIC (and makes mean Empanadas too). Thanks to Cody, our 25 yr old cigar factory guide, for the recommendation.

St Petersburg Mural trolly tour with Crit! and Pedro. We spent an informative and entertaining two hours with ongoing information from our guide Miss Crit! She is an artist and muralist and one of several featured muralists on display and with credibility enhanced by participation in annual showing at "Shine". (Miss Crit!, Derek Donnelly, The Vitale Brothers, Ben Johnson, Sarah Sheppard, MadC, Tasko, Taj Tenfold and more)

Big City Greens on Disney + and NHL on TV - The Big City Greens Matriarch has a wooden leg (Ha Ha). Lawton programing introduces me to the Big City Greens. Between events and evenings at the Dewey compound we enjoyed The Big City Greens on Disney+ and/or Florida Panthers Hockey vs. Carolina Hurricanes (Panthers Lead) -  Florida NHL Hockey is alive in the playoffs even though the Tampa Bay Lightning  are not.  

Columbia Restaurant (Flan with a birthday candle, Flamenco Dancers, Yellow Rice, Coconut Ice Cream and more)

Splash Harbour, Indian Rocks Beach (The two big water slides, a lazy river and the HOT FOOT). Ice Cream with Coach Roush and visiting Wendy Leigh.

Three Birds Tavern (Eggs Benedict) - After a full afternoon on the hot surfaces and wet waterways at Splash Harbour, Greg treated us to Three Birds Tavern for a feel of Old Florida in St. Petersburg. I had a favorite - Eggs Benedict.

Indian Rocks Beach (Coach Roush, Wendy Leigh, and Splash Harbour). We had a plan to meet up with coach Roush and his wife at Kooky Coconut Ice Cream but it was closed so we moved to the Yellow Banks Grove for the orange swirl cones. Coach says the Lakewood High School class of 1974 was a favorite of his. It was a thrill to be with this former Marine and outstanding coach. When he revealed his age at 91, I confirmed that I appreciate his generation as my amazing mother-in-law, our Matriarch, is 94.

Tampa Junior League is located in Tampa on a beautiful waterway that looks like a premium piece of real estate. Lindsey scrambles to break down 6 display stands that she felt needed to be out of view and stored away for another occasion. 

Dunkin (Bagels, Donuts and time for school in uniform) Last Day in Tampa begins with a drive through experience at Dunkin for bagels and donuts before Lawton's school drop off and Papa's shuttle to the airport. (Southwest Airlines Wanna Get Away fare brought me into town via Baltimore and returning via Denver. By the end of that travel I was in a "Wanna Get Away" from the Airlines and holiday week travel. It was a full and fun week nevertheless.

P.S. This account is surely out of sequence as the whole trip was packed with moments to be remembered and cherished.

Lakehouse Meet

 

"Wes, there is someone I want you to meet, I think you'll like her, Dude..." says my good friend Perry Drake. The Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC 25) is winding down and Dr. Drake is again trying to facilitate a connection for me.  

We missed a couple of opportunities to meet during the busy two days at The University Missouri - Saint Louis event on campus on May 13 and 14.  Perry and his gal, Beth, have already been busy hopeful matchmakers with Beth's bestie, Donna. Now, Perry is determined introduce me to Bonnie. Perry is a believer in digital solutions to human dilemmas and probably has more confidence in on-line matchmaking that I ever will. Bonnie, has personal experience with finding potential soul-mate this way and takes some credit for helping Perry find Beth. 

Perry prompts me to get to know Bonnie so the texting begins. She wants to meet for coffee but it will have to be after 5pm or on the weekend. I propose an 11:00 Saturday meeting at The Lakehouse Bar & Grill overlooking Creve Coeur Lake. "Sounds great, I look forward to meeting you then," texts Bonnie. 

Saturday morning comes and I'm a little anxious about the meeting but it's a beautiful breezy day and the sun is shining on the lake. The restaurant doesn't open until 11:00 am but I find a spot to read in the open air. (I'm reading a biography of Warhol by Blake Gopnik.) On the other side of the rail tracks, the athletic fields at Lou Fusz soccer park are abuzz with competition. The restaurant opens and I stake a location for us as I read Bonnie's text. "Running late Sorry! No power at home all night. About 5 min." 

"Wes?" she appears, startling me a bit . I give her a hug. She smiles and she considers the menu and asks for coffee. I have a prop which I thought might amuse, an artful mosaic piece with script Bonnie name plate. She was not amused and looking for her coffee. "So, are you dating anyone? (This is he opening line of a task-oriented digital marketer on a quest). She opened the door with this question and I could not help telling her. "I'm in love with my high school girlfriend." This surely was a deal-breaker if in fact I was looking to close a sale. I was not. My naive intent on scheduling this pow wow as just a casual get to know ya. We chatted for 2 hours. But I mostly talked about my episodic life and my family (using a b&w photo inside my 2024 Holiday Card as visual aid to mentions of my mother-in-law, my kids and my two grandchildren). 

We left the restaurant, and I proposed a walk since it was a beautiful day. "I've got to meet a friend who needs to go shopping for a dress for a wedding. We're meeting at 1:30." 

So, in two hours I talked about me. I talked about my family. I talked about Janie. I learned only as much about her as Bonnie was willing to share. She talked about being an entrepreneur and business coach, podcaster and digitally savvy speaker. A bit about the teaching profession. She's a lifelong St. Louis native with Education degrees from Miami University (Ohio) and UMSL. 

Text just an hour or so later on Saturday:

 

Me - Thanks for tollerating me. Next time I'll have PowerPoint 90 minutes qued up. 

Bonnie - Not interested in someone who's in love with someone else. 

That's me trying to be funny and her confirming her lack of interest in a relationship for which I wasn't looking.  

Bonnie Frank meeting at Creve Coeur Boathouse Bar & Grill NOTES

• 1.      Running Late for an 11:00 am Saturday Meeting. (Did you not have enough time       to plan for this very important meeting?)
• 2       Startled me when she arrived.  (Ha)
• 3.       Opening question about who I was dating. (Implies a task-orientation)
• 4.       To my comment about how cool and what an honor to have grandchildren named for my parents Lawton and James – “That’s what Jewish people do.” (Ha. Thanks for the insight I might already have having been married to a Jewish woman for 41 yrs)
• 5.       To my comment on education – glad I didn’t choose it as my career – “Not all schools/districts…” (Implies my sample size is too small to judge even thought I worked for SSD, Riverview Gardens SSD, Winfield and Confluence Academy).
• 6.       Confluence – She had insider info and insight into founder from Clayton (waiting until her kids were out of HS.)
• 7.       I don’t have cable or streaming services. (So my reference to John Walsh and wife and Polo Pony ranch commercial about Omega product not related to… She did recall America’s Most Wanted TV show and maybe Adam Walsh story.)
• 8.       I am not interested in someone who’s in love with someone else. (Okay but I wasn’t tryin’ to hook up, just get to know you – at Drake’s prompting)
• 9.       Coffee, more coffee, reheat….ha. (Funny how many refills. Trying to compensate for lack of sleep?)
• 10      Would not show me her name tag (on her coat in parking lot) – What are you hiding? Maybe a truer picture of job?
• 11.  No insight into her family or relationships… accept her observation when Perry was in hospital. “Marry Her.”  Hmmm (Maybe I was talking too much about me….)

My take is that bonnie was more task oriented in the mold of online digital solution to a human interaction vs. my old school goal in agreement to “get to know her over coffee’ 


 


     
   

A sleek, proud bronze created in honor of the Egyptian goddess Bastet, “Cat” has lived at least six of her nine lives already. She was born between 664 and 332 BC, during Egypt’s Saite dynasty. A collector in Alexandria, M. Dattori, got his paws on her in the early 1900s, but Sage recalls a few cocktail party whispers (later echoed in a 1938 New York Times article) that she’d been sequestered by the German government as French property. She was released in 1920 and later sold to a New York collector—who sold her in 1937 to the Brummer Gallery.

The Depression was grinding on. In our efforts to give relief to the poor, St. Louis was about $2 million overdrawn that year. “And St. Louis, whose population has a background in which thrift and conservatism bulk large, does not like to be in debt,” noted the Times.

Hence the catfight. Smitten with the bronze, the Saint Louis Art Museum handed the Brummer Gallery $14,400 for “Cat.” Letters about this cat who was stealing food from the mouths of the poor poured into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Star-Times. One suggested selling the museum’s entire collection and putting the museum commissioners on display, 25 cents admission. Another hoped that all the cats in the city would congregate at the commissioners’ homes and yowl all night. Union leaders picketed, carrying signs that read, “$14,000 for a useless cat—nothing for labor.” Even artists protested the museum’s preference for antiquity over their modern works.

“Cat” sat erect, staring into the middle distance.

When she finally deigned to respond, in a letter to the Star-Times, she admitted being troubled—despite her “Egyptian imperturbability”—on reading a description of herself as an inanimate object. She extolled her own sleek elegance and menace, adding, “I am not vain. I am only truthful.” By then she was close to breaking the museum’s attendance record. New York and Paris had written about her. And soon, screenwriter and director Albert Lewin would beg to borrow her for his 1945 film The Picture of Dorian Gray, saying she was one of the most beautiful Egyptian artifacts he’d ever seen.

Such beauty is fragile, the museum responded, but he was welcome to copy her—so it is a replica of St. Louis’ “Cat” who grants Dorian’s wish that his painting age in his place. For the film (which made almost $1.4 million in U.S. box offices), artist Ivan Albright painted a lurid portrait of Gray’s otherwise invisible dissolution, the cat serene in the background. That painting is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

And “Cat,” in all her mystery, is ours.

https://www.stlmag.com/topics/st-louis-sage/.

This story was published in Saint Louis Magazine in the Spring of 2018. The photo was taken by me at the Saint Louis Art Museum. 

Laumeier Art Fair 2025

 

I volunteered to help out at the Annual Art Fair again this year. Since 2012 I have been a docent and member. My duties over the three day event was essentially to man the Artist Hospitality tent. The weather cooperated and a steady stream of visitors viewed 150 artists work for sale leading up to Mother's Day on Sunday. A robust schedule of live music and lots of food trucks and vendors gave visitors plenty of food options. 

I think this was my 12th or 13th art fair in a row. I think it's fair to say I am a credible judge of the overall quality of this year's show. Maybe my favorite thing is the social nature of just being there.

• Perry Drake, Beth Hammond, Donna Jeffries and another lady (former majorette from Fredericktown).
• Stephanie Camden 
• John Grizzell and Francesca
• Marie Oberkirsch from Central Print (former LSP)
• Sarah Lorenz - Plein Air Painter
• Neil Brown - Photographer
• Liz Murphy Siense (sp?) with husband Chuck and their little girl. Liz if former LSP employee who went to the Science Museum and recently moved to the Federal Reserve. I asked her what I should do with my pennies. Her response "Hang on to them. It will take an act of congress to eliminate that bit of currency in spite of political pressure." She invited me to schedule a tour.
• Maureen Jennings, Ferda, Mary Hansen former docent colleagues.

When I rise up, let me rise joyful like a bird. When I fall, let me fall without regret like a leaf.

 

 

Stuff Wes said (and sometimes still says)

 

Photo is of James O'Connell Morgan and Wesley A Morgan (me) around 2011. Dad passed away at age 95 in 2013. Nothing beat seeing my dad laugh. He wasn't always amused by stuff I said in jest but maybe my favorite was at a gathering of Morgans after mom died in 2011. I was play acting about bragging about my my father's time in the Army when he was a camouflage expert. I postured as a proud son bragging that "My dad was so good at camouflage that there are military installations in California they still can't find. He was that good." (I still smile when I recall his sincere laughter at that wise crack.)

My college pal and long time friend, David Drimer, reminded me on a phone call recently that one of his favorite Wes Morgan quotes is my profound declaration: "Some people say I don't have priorities. I disagree, I have priorities - they're just not in the right order."

I credit this quote to him. It's sort of the same vintage. "I learn from my mistakes. Given the opportunity, I could repeat them exactly." Dave reminded me of another gem I used to say a lot. "It isn't easy being anybody. But no-one is better at being you." The point is to remind people that in spite of whatever struggles they face, they can approach life with their own unique style/brand. Dave forwarded this cartoon with a chuckle as a Morgan theory "corollary".

My Siblings have heard me say a bit of wisdom that I attribute to observing my mother in action. "The truth belongs to the teller". Mom was a talented actress and director of community theater with a Masters in Dramatic Arts from Case Western Reserve University. (She earned that Masters degree after having 6 kids.) Clearly she understood the art of storytelling. She often repeated her version of of reality. 

• Greg was christened the "navigator" on family road trips. He also "Fixed the vacuum cleaner when he was 4 years old."
• Dan was always "so sensitive."
• Sundance (formerly known as Jimmy) was not responsible and lost every wrist watch he ever owned when he was growing up.
• Mom and Dad agreed that Rob "is the best." That declaration went with the prize of having his aging parents moving close to him in their senior years.

On the occasion of my parents 50th wedding anniversary. I couldn't wait to offer my toast. My punch line was a matter of fact statement: 

"You know I lived with these people 18 years. I don't know how they managed to live with each other for 50."

On more than one wedding occasion I offered this bit of tongue-in-check: "You know Marriage isn't a WORD. It's a SENTENCE." 

I started calling my sister "Zsa Zsa" as a sort of celebration of her surviving 3 marriages. (If you are scoring at home: 6 Morgan Siblings - 11 marriages.)

I love it when my kids quote me is some amusing ways. My son, for example, gives me credit for saying "80% of life is showing up."

Similarly, my daughter remembers that I avoid left turns so enthusiastically that I would prefer to make three right turns to avoid the traffic dilemmas that can come in spite of turn signals and traffic laws.

80% is showing up. 

It's not easy being anybody. (But no-one is better at being you.)

I have priorities...

The Truth belongs to the Teller.

"Having kids takes two things: Money and Energy. If you wait for one you might not have the other." (I used to day that a lot when I was a dad in my 20s and early 30s with Lindsey born in 1982 and Ben born in 1986)

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

― Bruce Lee

 

 

Parker at Hawthorn 4-8-25

 

Parker Millsap, opening for Larkin Poe at The Hawthorn in Saint Louis. I recruited Dave Shogren and his wife Linda and Tom (Scooter Man). The four of us riding with Tom (as our driver in his new car) met at Dave and Linda's place on Gayola in Maplewood. We did a bit of "Front Porchin' " before grabbing a bite to eat at Hi Pointe (on Dave). 

The venue is spacious, The crowd shuffled in as doors opened at 7pm. There was just enough time for us to visit the bar, where Tom bought a round of 16 oz Modelo Beers. The stage is dramatic and Parker Millsap is a crowd pleaser. 

• Your Water
• Front Porchin'
• Very Last Day
• Heaven Sent
• Real Thing
• Dammit
• Hades Pleads

Parker promises to be available for the sale of merch (T Shirts, CDs, LPs, and mini watercolor masterpieces). I was able to update my CD collection with the latest available. Parker was welcoming and with a big smile he said "And I have something for you..." That "something was a Morgan crest pin that explains the Welsh Irish origin of the name and the motto FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD. 

It's always fun to catch Parker Millsap in Saint Louis. I've seen him at the Pageant (twice), Delmar Hall, Off Broadway (three times), The Rock House. 

Planning a road trip to see Parker in Memphis on May 30, 2025. (I will visit with Dr and Mrs. Thomas Farrar and Ryan on that trip.)

MFA Boston

I wandered into this beautiful art class as the instructor was encouraging students to really see the ancient sculptures in the gallery space. It reminded me of a time when my brother and I would catch a bus to the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturdays and participate the same sort of ritual on our fold-out stools. We were just kids but the experience of being around and studying great art is something that stays with you forever (I believe).

I saw this great image of David with the head of Goliath. I could not resist sharing the image via text to two of my friends named David. I have several friends named David. (They are most significant people in my life. Dave Drimer and Dave Shogren each saw the humor in my sharing the image. I would venture to guess that David Cox, David Brunner, David Dassenbrock would also smile at this image.) 

Cezanne self portrait (about 1898-1900)

Renoir 1886

 Helen Sears,1895 by John Singer Sargent