July 20, 2019 and all systems were go for the reception -- and it was an unqualified success! We had a large crowd that showed up and kept showing up through the two and one half hours that we were entertaining guests. Many old and new friends were there and a number of new faces, including a pair of Chinese exchange students who were visiting one of our guests.
I wore my Apollo 11 50th Anniversary cap and a t-shirt with a full moon on it, but the real star of the evening was my wife, Diane (aka "my Moonshadow") who wore a dress covered with phases of the moon. Diane was the perfect hostess and everyone loved the moon cake and our refreshments, which included Cheddar Rocket Crackers, Moon Pies and, to wash it all down, servings of Tang, the traditional breakfast drink of astronauts! 
The mood was light, the cake and other refreshments were tasty and everyone had a smile on their face. I could not have imagined a better way to celebrate this evening than spending it with all of these fine people! I will remember and cherish this event as a 63-year-old as well as I remember the first moon landing that summer evening as a 13-year-old.
My thanks go out to Kim Frankenfield, Curator of the Elaine Biondi Gallery Space, the volunteers and staff of the Monroeville Public Library, for making all of this possible, and to my wife, Diane, whose encouragement and faith in me made this possible as much as anything I may have done.
The exhibit will continue to hang in the gallery until July 30th, so if you haven't seen it by now, there is still time!
NOTE: If you miss my show entirely, most of my paintings will be exhibited again the month of October, 2019 at the Murrysville Public Library. More about that show will be posted soon. Also, I do intend to post larger images of the paintings here and on my website in the near future.
Finally, I must say something about our experience earlier Saturday morning when Diane and I went to the town of Apollo, Pennsylvania, where they have been celebrating the Apollo missions and specifically, the Apollo 11 mission, for over 50 years. They had a town festival going on and we were able to buy the Post Office's commemorative stamps, Apollo's commemorative envelopes and had them and a couple of my own postcards cancelled with a special Apollo, PA stamp. While we were there, Diane and I also stopped the the Apollo Area Historical Society and took a look at their Apollo 11 museum which had numerous artifacts! It was a blast and I am glad we went. I will have to write more about our little adventure at another time, but this day and the entire week, actually, has been remarkable. I am hoping that this much interest in Apollo might be rekindled someday whenever we go back to the moon. Plans are to do that in the next 5 years. I wish that would happen. Just in case, I think I will do a few more paintings. After all, the 60th anniversary of Apollo 11 is only 10 years away!Additional posts related to this exhibit in Monroeville, PA and one in Murrysville, PA can be found in my art blog posts 101, 100, 99, and 98.
