WGS Open House

The Washington Glass School will have its 10th annual Winter Sculpture Show and Holiday Open House, featuring works by artists and instructors of the Washington Glass School.

Some of the region’s leading mixed media sculptors and artists work from the studios on the edge of DC, and artwork both large and small will be on sale.

This event is more than an art open house – its an experience! I get a lot of Xmas presents there each year.

The adjacent artist studios - FluxStudios and Ellyn Weiss Studio will also be open on the day.

Washington Glass School Winter Sculpture Show
1pm – 5 pm
Saturday, Dec 10, 2011
Free and open to the public

Washington Glass School
3700 Otis Street
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
phone: 202.744.8222
website: www.washglass.com
email: washglassschool@aol.com

December 7

This story has been a perfect guiding example for me most of my life: seeing the silver lining in every possible aspect of life:

Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him.

When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat—you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?"

Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.

Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?"

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"

Nimitz explained: Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow everyone of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is on top of the ground in storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.

That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, or God was taking care of America.

-- "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz

Manon

Today at 3PM you can come to say a final Adios to Manon Cleary, a spectacular and talented artist, and wonderful mentor to many DMV artists. At Joseph A Gawler's Funeral Home, 5130 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016.