Tag Archives: history

January 4, 2026 · 11:42 pm

Bo Sang Umbrella Festival

“Bo Sang Umbrella Festival highlights“


This is held annually for 3 days the 3rd week in January; so in 2026 it will be Friday, Jan. 16-Sunday, Jan. 18th

“To keep its distinctive folk arts & craft alive, Bo Sang Umbrella Cooperative hangs the paper parasols as street decorations on Bo Sang Road, organizes community learning activities, demonstrations, workshops, and painting competitions.

Just Wravel

The festival also features handicrafts from villages of the Sankampaeng District, from the handmade paper of the Ton Pao Village to the woodworking of the Tawai Village. Once part of the ancient Lanna Kingdom, the town proudly presents craftsmanship that has passed down from generation to generation.” ~ Thailand Now

During the day, from 10:30 am – 3:00 pm, Visitors can enjoy the women’s parade cycling down Bo Sang-Doi Saket Road in traditional Thai clothing and holding onto the iconic parasols. This year, there are also the Thailand-Indonesia Sister Cities Cultural Activities from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm. In the evenings, the Miss Bo Sang Umbrella Contest will be held from 7:00pm onwards.

Thai 23

On top of that, the festival features vibrant performances that recall the town’s Lanna heritage, such as the Sabad Chai drums. 

Suriyun – Shutterstock

Suriyun – Shutterstock

Today, Bo Sang artisans specialize in various phases of the process:

1. Forming the structure – each individual bamboo strip is precisely carved out and woven into the wooden axles and finished with delicate threadwork.
2. Making saa paper – mulberry bark is dried and then pulverized into pulp. The pulp is then placed into water, dyed, and spread thinly onto a screen.
3. Attaching the paper – the panels are then glued to the ribs of the parasol, with embellishments added as decoration.
4. Painting the umbrella – After sealing with white gesso, the panels are colored with acrylic paints. The final design is then coated with a natural varnish for some protection.

Chiang Mai Travel Hub

And after dark –

Thailandee.com

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November 11, 2025 · 9:15 pm

Veterans Day 2025

Adobe Stock

We can never thank our veterans enough for all the sacrifices they and their families have made.

We used to live in Greenwood, Arkansas, a community of about 9,700 people. In the center of the ‘square’ is Greenwood Memorial Park where lots of events are held each year. On Veterans Day, U.S. Flags are placed behind the stones of veterans who served us, bought by their families to honor them.

I wanted to get a stone for my husband, Harvey, because he served 4 years in the Marine Corps. He refused, saying he wasn’t in an active fight (although he was on ships offshore several really hot spots ready to go ashore if ordered), but he didn’t consider that enough to warrant a stone.

Memorial Park looks so pretty for this day we honor our Veterans. Assemblies at the schools honor our men and women in uniform. Local veterans attend these assemblies, allowing us to thank them in person with lumps in our throats. A parade goes down Main Street, around the square, and back up to the high school. Bands play and crowds cheer. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Veterans Day from Thailand seems weird to me. It’s the first one where I haven’t been in the U.S. to participate. I even had to remember when to write this post so that it would arrive on Veterans Day in the U.S., rather than November 12th, as it is in Thailand now.

We visit my personal hero tomorrow in the nursing home. I don’t know how alert he will be. I would like to be able to talk with him about his service. He joined the Marines when he was 17 and I was 14. We dated on all his ‘leaves’ for the 4 years, letters flying back and forth as fast as we could write and send them. (No texting or social media accounts back in the Stone Age.)

Even the mailman got into the act. If he saw there was a letter from Harvey for me, he would break the rules and put the red flag up on the mailbox because he knew I would be in the house, face plastered to the window, watching him. If the red flag came up, I would dash out of the house, running to retrieve the mail, smiling like an idiot. We would smile at each other, he would tip his hat and drive off.

Harvey won a medal for his sharp shooting in the Marines. He was proud of his service, but always downplayed it in honor of the ‘real veterans.’

We both honor the ‘real veterans’ today.

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July 2, 2025 · 1:02 am

Going the Way of The Dodo Bird

I got a culture shock this morning.

Brian and I have been straining our brains to think of things that may help my husband adjust to being in the nursing home after his stroke.

We are all making a bit of progress, in that he is not actively hostile at this point and is finding a few things to NOT complain about. 😋

One of the things he has asked for is a newspaper. He didn’t even care if it were in Thai or English. I’m not sure what his thinking is, but we decided we would try to bring him one tomorrow when we visit. It also occurred to me that he might enjoy thumbing through a magazine for the pictures.

So after breakfast, we walked to a bookstore that Brian said was close to the condo building and had magazines. (I was happy, also, to get a bit more walking in. It’s cloudy today, so the sun doesn’t immediately bore right through your brain, particularly at around 10am in the morning.)

We got to the bookshop. It was a nice place with lots of good looking Thai books, but not a newspaper or magazine in the place. Some of the reviews we had read had mentioned magazines in particular. We asked the clerk, and she looked at us as if we had two heads. She didn’t have any.

Brian looked quickly on his phone and managed to find another bookstore close by that might have what we were looking for. We got there, only to find it was closed.

SO – we went to have a chocolate and regroup.

It is obvious that at least in Thailand, magazines have gone the way of the dodo bird. Paper newspapers might still exist, but they are not in the hotels close to our condo building, and we didn’t see ANY of the newspaper boxes where you put in quarters and pull out a newspaper, as there are in the states.

I got online when we got home and looked for both newspapers and magazines. Again, there probably ARE some, somewhere, but this is making me feel really old and that this ship has definitely sailed.

People either find what they want to know on their phones or laptops. Paper magazines and paper newspapers are SO old school…

Brian is going to search again and see if there is a way he can order either one, but it doesn’t look like we’ll have anything to take with us tomorrow. 😒

It’s funny, something I thought would be easy and inexpensive turns out to be almost impossible to obtain.

On a good note, though, the nursing home sent us photos and a couple of short videos of Harvey enjoying a wheelchair ride. He has refused to do any more physical therapy, and gets actively hostile about it, but he really seems to enjoy being wheeled out onto the front porch and the front yard.

Yesterday the nursing home sent us pictures of him petting an afghan hound that someone had brought to the front porch. The short videos were of him outside the fence in the front yard, interacting with three beagle type doggies, offering them treats through the fence.

We will continue to look for other things that will bring him some comfort and enjoyment. Today’s efforts were a bust so far, but we will come up with something.

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December 27, 2016 · 4:19 pm

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

tj

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger

Recently I recommended George Washington and the Secret Six by these same authors. I am again in awe of their ability to make the book hard to put down, even when you know the ending before you start!

These two men make history, and the men who made it, REAL.

My husband is a former Marine, so I’ve hummed along with the Marine Corp Hymn for much of my life –

“From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles
In the air, on land, and sea.
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean.
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marine.”

I’m proud of my husband’s service, but never really thought about what the hymn meant. I didn’t realize that our confrontations regarding freedom to sail in International waters with 4 Muslim worlds began so early, actually starting in Washington’s term as president, but not actually solved until Madison’s.

I have a better understanding of what happened at that time, the reason for the Marine Corp Hymn, and the reason that the dress uniform of the Marine Corp includes a Mameluke sword. I also have a better appreciation for how hard it was to coordinate military efforts at that time.

Again, I highly recommend anything written by these collaborating authors. I’ll watch for their next book.

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