The widow of actor Moses Gunn donated memorabilia from the actor's 30 year career to the theatre department at the University of Kansas. Gunn was an alumnus of the university, attending from 1959-1961.

He was known for his Shakespearean performances with the Yale Repertory Theatre and the New York Shakespeare Festival; he played Othello on Broadway, Cominus in "Coriolanus" and Randolph in a production of "King John" in Central Park, part of the New York Shakespeare Festival. He also co-starred in South African playwright Athol Fugard's "Blood Knot" and "My Children, My Africa."

An authoritative black character actor in films and TV, Gunn's many film credits include "WUSA," "Hot Rock," "Wild Rovers," "Rollerball," "Shaft," "The Great White Hope" and "Leonard IV." He played Booker T. Washington in the 1981 movie "Ragtime," a performance that won him another NAACP Image Award. His last major film was Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge" in 1986.

On television, he co-starred with Avery Brooks on "A Man Called Hawk" and appeared on "Good Times," "Little House on the Prairie," "Father Murphy," "The Cosby Show," "Equal Justice" and "Homicide: Life on the Street." He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of African chief Kintango in the first installment of ABC's groundbreaking miniseries "Roots" and for "Of Mice and Men." On PBS, he was featured in "The Killing Floor," "The House of Dies Drear" and "Charlotte Forten: Experiment in Freedom."

His role on Little House on the Prairie as Joe Kagan is small considering his long career, but Joe Kagan was one of my favorite characters on the LHOP series. I looked him up on the IMDB web site and he was only on 5 episodes of LHOP. It seemed to me he was on more often than that.

Joekagan

Gunn died at his home in Guilford, Conn., in December 1993 from complications of asthma.

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Tickets for the new Little House on the Prairie musical go on sale  June 27. The play opens  in the summer but approximately 250 Minnesotans were the first to have a look at the musical based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.
 

The sneak peak lasted for 30 minutes. Kara Lindsay, who plays a young Laura and Ali Litrell, who plays Mary, performed a duet called "I'll Be Your Eyes". Lindsay also performed  a solo entitled "I'm Old Enough".

Little House Musical

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The shad are about to start running and my serviceberry (shadbush) tree is about to bloom.

Rose Wilder Lane wrote about the serviceberry trees that grew in the woods at Rocky Ridge Farm. She commented that the blooms gave a misty appearance to the woods surrounding the farm house. The story is in "Little House Sampler" and I will post Rose's quote here.

The fruit is good for jellies, pies, etc. The size of the fruit is about the size of a holly berry. It would take a great many to do anything with. I usually eat a few of mine fresh off the tree. Most go to the birds, I thoroughly enjoy watching the birds enjoying them.

This link at Wikipedia says more about the genus than I can type here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serviceberry

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Serviceberry

Serviceberry1

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Found a comment in a cooking blog tonight. The blog entry was about pancakes. The person making the comment mentioned Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about using a blanket pancake to keep the smaller pancakes underneath warm. She said LIW wrote it in her book "Little House in Brookridge". This must be one of Laura's books that I have not read, and I thought I had read them all.

As far as the recipe goes, it calls for soymilk. I can't imagine using soymilk in pancakes. It sounds gross to me. I don't think humans were meant to be vegetarians, at least this one.

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I found this book mentioned on Melissa Wiley's blog. It is written by Mary Gildersleeves and contains a collection of great stories for children including one by Melissa and LIW. It also has knitting projects to go along with the stories.

I have never been a knitter. Being left handed, I could find no on who could teach me. I have tried to follow instructions in the needlework books, but my projects never look near as good as the photos. As cyberbessie once told me, it is a matter of practice, practice, practice. Maybe one day.......

Cyberbessie blogged about this book after I did and showed some of the patterns included and how she knits them. Look here for her blog entry. I told you she could knit!

Greatyarns

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One of my favorite Native American actors recently passed away. Floyd Westerman passed away in December from complications of leukemia. Floyd had a very long career in movies, television, and the music industry. My favorite performance was Ten Bears in Dances with Wolves.

Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman was born on the Lake Traverse Reservation, home of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Dakota (Sioux) in the state of South Dakota. As a youth, he attended an off-reservation elementary school where he was forced to cut his hair and forbidden to speak his native language. This would profoundly impact his later life and his restless pursuit of championing his own heritage. At the age of 10, Floyd was sent to the Wahpeton Boarding School, where he first met Dennis Banks of the American Indian Movement. He earned a degree in secondary education from Northern State University in South Dakota. Floyd spent two years in the United States Marine Corps. Before his entry into acting, Floyd established a solid reputation as a respected country western music singer. His recordings offer trenchant inquiry into European influences on Native American communities. In addition to several recordings of his own, Floyd collaborated with Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Harry Belafonte, Joni Mitchell, Kris Kristofferson and Buffy Sainte-Marie. He toured with Sting in the 1990's to raise funds to preserve rain forests. Floyd was a recognized political advocate for Indian causes, working with the American Indian Movement. In 2000, American Indian Expo named Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman Celebrity of the Year. Among other accolades, he received a Congressional Certificate of Special Recognition, the Award for Generosity by the Americans for Indian Opportunity, was named Cultural Ambassador by the International Indian Treaty Council, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Los Angeles and Mayor Richard Riordan, and received the Integrity Award from the Multi-Cultural Motion Picture Association. Floyd passed from this life on December 13, 2007 at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles from complications of leukemia. He is survived by his wife Rosie, his son Richard Tall Bear Westerman, and four daughters: Chante Westerman of Washington State, Chenoa Westerman of South Dakota, Jennifer Westerman of Arizona and Nicky Jackson of Minneapolis. The Producers, Cast and Crew of COMANCHE MOON would like to dedicate our film to the memory of our esteemed and beloved cast member.

Westerman-250x375

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One of my favorite western genre authors has brought the final book in the Lonesome Dove trilogy to the small screen
this week. Comanche Moon is being shown in three parts. Part one was Sunday night and part two aired tonight.

Larry McMurtry's Comanche moon is the second installment chronologically. McCrae and Call are in their 30s and become Captains in the Texas Rangers. They set out with their Ranger unit searching for Inish Scull, their former Captain in the Rangers. Scull set out looking for his stolen horse and disappeared.

Unbeknown to Call and McCrae, Scull has been captured by the Mexican bandit Ahumado. Ahumado has a thing for torture and does not hesitate to use it on Scull.

Wes Studi plays Buffalo Hump in the series. Graham Greene was scheduled to portray Buffalo Hump, but had to withdraw from the part. A funny quote from Wes Studi which is paraphrased here. There are two rumors as to how Buffalo Hump received his name; one was due to a hump like growth on his back. The other was due to his sexual prowess. Guess which reason Wes Studi liked better?!

The last part of CM was shown on Wednesday night. It was the best so far. I am not sure why, but all three TV adaptations have been slow to evolve. But after a while, they kick in and become outstanding.

The women's costumes were beautiful and I am pleased to say they were the most authentic 19th century fashions I have seen. No skirt and blouse, or low cut velvet frocks like you see in a lot of westerns. These were authentic down to the petticoats and hoops. Very rich fabrics and designs and not a zipper in sight. I have inserted a few photos of the dresses to illustrate.

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Wes Studi as Buffalo Hump
Wes also played Famous Shoes in McMurtry's "Streets of Laredo".
He was also the bad ass Pawnee in Dances with Wolves.

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Maggie Tilton (Dobbs)-Mother of Newt Dobbs

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Inez Scull - Wife of Inish Scull. Inez is the Harriett Olson of Austin, TX
She is filthy rich, carries a riding crop and side arm. She knows how to use both.
While her husband is away on adventures, Inez loves to seduce cowboys to try and satisfy her sexual appetite.  She usually tires of them after a few days.

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This was on the editorial page of the De Smet Leader that arrived today. I found it very funny and thought I would share it. I say more power to South Dakota! One of my top 5 favorite states in the union.

WE HAVE RULES TO LIVE BY IN SOUTH DAKOTA

We like to say in South Dakota that the weather keeps the riff-raff  out. But there are some other rules outsiders should be aware of.  Here is list we recently received via e-mail.

1. Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot.

2. Let's get this straight: It's called a gravel road. I drive a pickup true because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

3. You say our lakes smell to you. They smell like 'money to us.  Get over it.

4. So you have a $60,000 car. We're not impressed. We have $250,000 combines that are driven only three weeks a year.

5. So every person in every pickup waves. It's called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.

6. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of ducks are coming in, we will shoot it out of your hand. You better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.

7. Yeah, we eat walleye and northern pike and love it. You really want sushi and caviar? They are available at the local bait shop.

8. The "Opener" refers to the first day of pheasant hunting or the first day of deer season. They are holidays!

9. We open doors for women. That applies to all women, regardless of age.

10. No, there's no "vegetarian special" on the menu. Order steak. Or you can order the chef's salad and pick off the pound of ham and turkey.

11. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes--meat, vegetables and breads. We use three spices--onion, pepper and catsup!

 12. You bring "coke" into my house, it had better be brown, wet and  served over ice. You bring "Mary Jane" into my house, she better be cute, know  how to shoot, drive a truck and have long hair.

13. College and high school football and basketball are as important here as the Lakers and Knicks and a lot more fun to watch.

14. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards--it spooks the fish.

15. College? Try South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Augustana College and South Dakota State University. They come outta there with an education plus a love of God and country and they still wave at passing pickups when they come home for the holidays.

 16. We have more folks in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines than any other state on a per-capita basis. So don't mess with South Dakota. If you do, you will get whipped by the best.

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Irish Washerwoman was one of many songs Laura wrote about Pa playing in her books. She mentioned this one twice, in Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie.

Here are two different interpretations of the song. The first one is very low key with a lone fiddler who just mastered the song after trying for a long time.

The second is a stage production with two fiddlers who are just incredible.

Personally I like the first one best, as it better represents Charles Ingalls version.

Irish Washer Woman

Dubliners & Andre Rieu - Irish Dance - The Irish Washerwoman

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