Paul & Mary's Daily Diary

We all got up early (Pete, Lisa, and Robin stayed overnight). I decided to fix the bagels we bought yesterday and found out Oreo ate Bob (Bag of Bagels). The bag was empty, so the little girl had two complete bagels and took two bites out of the remaining bagel! We were surprised that she didn’t wake us up and ask for Creme Cheese!

We had to leave the house by 9:30 am, and everyone decided to head home at the same time.

We had an appointment at the Hilbert Museum. The Hilbert Museum of California Art is in Orange, California, and is affiliated with Chapman University. It focuses on art depicting California and its people, places, and everyday life—especially 20th-century paintings.

Its collection includes California Scene paintings, plein-air landscapes, illustration and animation art, and works by artists connected to Southern California. The museum also hosts changing exhibitions, so what’s on view can vary.

It’s at 167 North Atchison Street, near the Orange train station and Old Towne Orange. Admission has generally been free, but check the museum’s website for current hours, admission details, and exhibitions before visiting.

Hilbert is a member of our Packard International Car Club, so the museum gave us a first-rate tour.

When we arrived, a 1955 Packard Clipper was in the parking lot.

We walked through the museum, and Mark Hilbert told us about the backstory of much of the art (it was originally his). The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University was founded by art collectors and philanthropists Mark and Janet Hilbert.

In 2014, the Hilberts seeded the museum with a $10 million gift from their personal collection (including $7 million worth of art and $3 million in cash).

The artwork below is an oil painting titled “Animal Style” (or part of the burger series) by Southern California artist Bradford J. Salamon. It looks good enough to eat!

When Mark visited a friend, he learned the guy had been collecting weathervanes for 40 years and offered to display the collection at the museum.

Weathervanes—also called weather vanes or wind vanes—have been used for centuries to show which direction the wind is coming from. Their history blends practical weather-watching with architecture, religion, and folk art.

• Ancient Greece: One of the earliest recorded examples stood atop Athens’ Tower of the Winds, built in the first century BCE. It was described as a bronze figure of Triton, the sea god, holding a rod that indicated the wind’s direction.
  
• Medieval Europe: Weathervanes became common on churches. The rooster was a popular design, linked to Christian symbolism and the biblical story of Peter. In time, the rooster became a familiar church-topper across Europe.
  
• Colonial America: Weathervanes were fitted to churches, barns, and public buildings. The facing direction letters—N, E, S, and W—helped people read the wind, while the vane’s broad tail turned it toward the direction the wind was coming from.
  
• 19th century: They became both useful instruments and decorative objects. Blacksmiths and makers crafted them from sheet metal in shapes such as roosters, horses, ships, fish, and arrows. Some were finely made and are now collected as folk art.
  
• Today: Weathervanes still work as simple wind-direction indicators, but many are mainly ornamental—on barns, rooftops, gardens, and cupolas.

A small detail: a weathervane points into the wind, so if the arrow points north, the wind is coming from the north.

Weathervanes of all types were on every wall, and each one had its own story! The museum has many small galleries that hold collections.

It was nice hearing from the man who originally bought the paintings and why he did so!

The paintings also told stories about Southern California. Mark called this one “his Rembrandt.”

• Artist: Erin Hanson (born 1981)
  
• Title: Sunset Lace (2022)
  
• Medium: Oil on canvas (featuring her signature open-impressionism textured brushstrokes depicting a sunset field of Queen Anne’s lace and silhouetted trees)

One gallery honored Disney animator Jørgen Klubien. The Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange has Disney and Pixar animation art, including original storyboards by Disney/Pixar animator Jørgen Klubien—known for work on films such as The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Cars.

Another gallery was devoted to stones. In Asia, deep meditation focused on a “viewing stone” or “scholar’s stone” has stretched back for centuries. This fascinating exhibition pairs, for the first time, a diverse collection of viewing stones (on loan from collectors throughout Southern California) with paintings selected from The Hilbert Collection.

I got interested in the “Art Of The Airwaves” collection. Art of the Airwaves: Radios from The Hilbert Collection features classic shelf and floor radios from the 1930s to the 1950s Golden Age of Radio, highlighting materials like Bakelite, Catalin, Plaskon, and marbled plastics, including designs by Walter Dorwin Teague and the rare blue mirrored-glass Sparton Nocturne.

Mark was amazed I knew about the magic eye (the circular feature directly above the radio dial on the circular blue radio). A “magic eye” tube was a small glowing indicator built into many radios from the 1930s through the 1950s. It let you tune a station without a meter: as the signal grew stronger, a green or blue pattern on the tube narrowed or changed shape. Tune for the clearest signal, and the pattern would close to its minimum.

Inside, a vacuum tube with a fluorescent-coated target glowed. The radio’s automatic volume-control voltage drove the indicator, changing the glowing pattern as signal strength changed. Common types included the 6E5 and 6U5; later versions displayed a bar or other shapes instead of the familiar wedge-shaped “eye.”

They were called “magic” because the glowing display seemed almost electronic and futuristic at the time. The tubes eventually faded from use as radios moved to transistor electronics and cheaper tuning indicators. Today, radio restorers prize working examples—but the phosphor can grow dim with age, and the tubes are no longer as readily available as ordinary components. Be careful around vintage radios: tube equipment can contain dangerously high voltages, even after it’s switched off.

When the tour ended, Mark came up to me and said I looked too young to know about the magic eye. He asked if I knew how to repair these old radios, and I told him yes!!! He and I are about the same age; I think I beat him by two years.

After the two-hour tour, we walked across the street to the Streamliner Restaurant. Orange Station (formerly the Orange Transportation Center, also known as the Orange Transit Center) is an intermodal transit center in Orange, California.

Metrolink trains and Orange County Transportation Authority buses use a small building next to it. In the day, Santa Fe passenger liners would stop here on the way to New Orleans. The station sits adjacent to the Chapman University campus and four blocks from Plaza Park, in the heart of the city’s Old Towne neighborhood.

The station occupies the site of two former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway depots. The present depot opened on May 1, 1938, and closed in 1971 when Santa Fe discontinued passenger service. It now houses a restaurant, and the city designated it a historic landmark. 15, 1990.

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway stopped operating its own passenger trains on May 1, 1971, when Amtrak took over most of its remaining passenger service.

The last Santa Fe-operated trains left on April 30; several famous routes, including the Super Chief/El Capitan, continued under Amtrak. So passenger trains didn’t disappear from Santa Fe’s routes—the railroad’s role as their operator ended.

We went to a “private” room with our party of 24 people and enjoyed a nice meal. We sat with Dianne and Eddie. We enjoyed watching the train run around the top ledge.

Dianne and Eddie are fun to be with!!

We departed for home around 1:00 pm so we could spend the rest of the day with Oreo!

In the evening, I turned on the new yard light which Joe installed for Vicky’s upcoming party. We will have plenty of light! We wanted to test it after the Halloween evening rainstorm.

The light looked pretty good, but later that evening, I learned via text that it was so bright it triggered our neighbor’s motion sensor and lit up his patio. We need to adjust the aim!!

After a few minutes, I heard a “pop” sound, and I looked up to see Joe had added a fireplace feature, which I was NOT aware of! The light worked for a few minutes, then everything went dark, including the neighbor’s house!

I found poor Oreo cowering under a patio chair, mumbling something about biting Joe when he comes over.

We hit the sack around 11:00 pm; it was another good day!! Good night, all!