Shelly Belzer
A boyhood love of cowboy movies isn’t unusual, but Tom James, now chairman emeritus of Raymond James Financial, turned his love into a lifetime of art collecting and then founded a museum to house part of the collection that he and his wife, Mary, have amassed. The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg opened in April 2018, holding 400 paintings and sculptures, a bit more than 10 percent of the James collection. (Most of the rest of the collection fills the Raymond James corporate headquarters.) Word about the museum got around, and one day in August the OLLI Shutterbugs went to see for themselves. (More…)
I’m a transplant to Santa Fe. I grew up in Miami, graduated from FSU in Tallahassee, lived in San Francisco, Bern, Switzerland and Los Angeles. Finally I settled here in 1994 at the age of 35. No regrets whatsoever. I chose to live in Santa Fe after compiling a list of pre-requisites that included: small-size city, diverse population, vibrant arts scene, and proximity to nature.
It is 5:30 on a beautiful evening in New Mexico, and I am going to the pre-opera dinner at The Santa Fe Opera Theatre, where I will be fed a meal in keeping with the evening’s opera (tonight it is Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, so Italian wines and pasta will be served). The dinner speaker will tell us about the music, the performers and the stagecraft of this particular production.
To the Editor:
Last November, the McAuliffe family celebrated my brother John’s 70th birthday in New York City by attending the Syracuse – Notre Dame football game at Yankee Stadium. Syracuse and Notre Dame were part of my late parents’ legacy. They were from Syracuse, my mother graduated from Syracuse University and my dad was a Notre Dame graduate. My father would have been happy that weekend because Notre Dame won, but few of us watched the game because we spent most of the time doing what McAuliffes do when they get together… we tell stories. 
Some people love the theater, because it gives them a chance to be on stage—to be the star. I love it, too. But I have no interest in being out there in front of the audience. My place in theater is behind the scenes, creating the world that the stars perform in.
David Campbell
The OLLI Connects blog is almost a year old, and in its first few months of life it has showcased the writing and photographic talents of over two dozen OLLI members. We’d like to recognize and applaud them here. (Well, most of them. We don’t actually have photos of every one of them.)
After breakfast, after the extra cup of coffee and the tidying up of our room, we have nothing to do now, except wait. I remember now, that this is a commonplace phenomenon in the taurine world. One finds oneself waiting for someone who is usually waiting for someone else, or for some event of some kind. One is assured that the event, or person, is going to materialize imminently, “ahorita,” – – any minute now. And no one, no one is concerned – – except the Anglos.