"Rekindling A Love"

 

San Antonio Zoo 1981

            We moved from College Station, Texas to San Antonio in December of 1979, without jobs and on an extremely tight budget. Our finances allowed few luxuries during those first years as an old Honda Civic needed constant repairs, and I still had school loans to repay. We purchased bikes that provided many hours of entertainment. We found a few parks and preserves that offered escapes, all free, from our small apartment. Our favorite splurge, though, became a day at the San Antonio Zoo.

1985

            Eventually, parenthood meant even more frequent trips that included train rides and sky rides.  The zoo provided rides on elephants and camels during the 1980s as well as a petting zoo that our son grew to love dearly. Our traditions over the years included photographs with the lion sculpture. If family or friends came along, they struck poses, too.

1988

            Life took us along different paths that led us away from trips to the zoo as we spent weekends at the family cabin and discovered our love of Renaissance Fairs. Music lessons, art classes along with more demanding careers and aging parents shifted the zoo into an extremely fond memory.

            Then in December 2023, my son started wanting to visit this treasured place once again.  For our 45^th anniversary gift, we decided to purchase new zoo memberships as we found ourselves falling in love once more with all of the changes entwined with our special traditions.

1990

1990

2023

IOUNIO's "Time Traveler" taps into my longing to rekindle parts of my past within my persent. 

I'd love it if you'd listen to this song. 

Then go the next step: LIKE, COMMENT, REPOST and SUBSCRIBE

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Geeks-R-Us"

Super Bowl or a Star Trek marathon?  

The choice is easy for me.  

I’ll take Jean-Luc Picard all day long.  

It’s my “geeky” destiny.  

I will avoid the drunken crowds at night  

to put on my Ren faire dress.  

I’ll opt to play with a red saber light  

and consider my life blessed. 

An awesome evening spent online in WOW  

will beat out any party.  

I know you will never understand how  

I embrace this “geeky” me.  

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"First Impressions"

David, my husband, didn’t make a good first impression on my parents. As a matter of fact, he dressed so shabbily the first time he came over to their home in League City that I almost didn’t let him into the house.

His shoulder length light brown hair, streaked with blonde highlights from exposure to the summer sun, formed a tangled and windswept halo around his head. His t-shirt, yellowed with age, had no arms and had a chewed collar. I wondered if David had chewed the mangled fabric himself, or if one of his Westies had mistaken the shirt for a dead animal and mauled it.

I almost didn’t want to check out the rest of David’s attire, but my eyes shifted downward on their own accord. His shirt perfectly matched the condition of the bleached cut-offs he wore. Below the ragged hems of his shorts hung frayed front pockets. The back of his cut-offs had no pockets at all, and I fleetingly wondered where he kept his wallet and keys. However, a look at his hands answered that question. He carried a pair of relatively new Converse high tops in his hands, the wallet and keys stuffed inside. In horror, I looked at his bare feet.

As my mind wrapped itself around the image David would present to my parents, I heard my mother come up behind me and say, “Well, Lizzy, let him in!”

Over the years, David took quite a bit of teasing about his appearance on that first meeting with my parents. Being gracious and loving people, they set aside their misgivings and looked beyond the rags to find the richness of David’s character.

To this day, David always manages to find his favorite black and orange flower print shirt no matter how deeply I bury it in the back of his closet (I’m thankful he’s up-graded from the tattered white t-shirt). I do manage to keep him in respectable shorts most of the time, but I suspect he’s just humoring me. Although David does wear shoes now, he kicks them off as soon as he crosses the threshold!

Copyright 2005 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

David didn't change his "look" for the first few years of marriage!

This is the way I think David would like to dress every day! Oh well . . .

I'll admit, I like garb, too!

“Geeks-R-Us”

Super Bowl or a Star Trek marathon?  

The choice is easy for me.  

I’ll take Jean-Luc Picard all day long.  

It’s my “geeky” destiny.  

I will avoid the drunken crowds at night  

to put on my Ren faire dress.  

I’ll opt to play with a red saber light  

and consider my life blessed. 

An awesome evening spent online in WOW  

will beat out any party.  

I know you will never understand how  

I embrace this “geeky” me.  

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“The Places We’ve Been”

            Over the years, we’ve taken about seven or eight vacations. When David worked as a freelance illustrator, we often couldn’t take trips because we couldn’t absorb the loss of a one week or two week’s pay on top of the cost of a vacation. Many people take for granted the paid vacation time they receive from companies; but for the self-employed, it’s an entirely different story. With our family escapes coming years apart, David never liked returning to a place we’d already stayed. A couple of times we visited friends, but most of our excursions took us to some place new to all of us. Sometimes, we stayed in Texas to enjoy local outings at Renaissance fairs, or we ventured to Galveston or Padre to worship sand and sun. A week at Big Bend National Park remains one of my favorite memories, and we fell in love with the town of Gonzales with its marvelous homes and quaint shops.

            When money and time synched up, we ventured far from home. We took Paul to Washington, D.C. to see Fonzie’s jacket and the Washington Monument, dipped into Virginia for rollercoaster rides and walks along battlefields. A trip to Georgia to stay with friends found us climbing Stone Mountain. We journeyed to San Francisco for cable cars, Height Ashbury, The Exploratorium, and Chinatown. Our stay in Seattle found us at museums one day, the Pike Place Market the next. We delighted in rolling in several feet of snow on Mount Rainier. Last year, David and I finally took our honeymoon with a trip to Ireland!

            I don’t know exactly when we began commemorating our vacations with decorations for our Christmas tree. On one trip, we longed to have some little token of our travels that didn’t cost too much and wouldn’t break on the return trip. Somehow, we settled upon an ornament. We thought it the perfect souvenir because we knew we’d take a moment to relive our trip each year as we adorned our tree. We’ve had to create some unusual mementos since we took several trips during the summer months when stores didn’t have Christmas ornaments on their shelves. The search for the ideal keepsake often became a family quest as each of us sought the finest reminder of our travels.

Copyright Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 2011