Park King

Hector Morales has been training with Black Bamboo Pavilion Taijiquan since 3/27/14, obtaining his senior status Red Sash this past summer on 6/1/19. Hector had previous training with a Taijiquan Master in Puerto Rico. Besides taijiquan, Hector is a sign maker extraordinaire! This is his latest creation of a Chinese-style (along with appropriate color scheme) Parking Sign for our parking bays. He says the sign is authentic Chinese because the characters say, PARK KING😁!

In this “Time of Coronavirus,” he is also taking time out from home projects (are he and I the only two people heavy into home improvement and pre-spring cleaning?) to restore a sign made by my oldest friend from Norfolk, Virginia days, Stain Glass Master, Jerry Brannin (now, perhaps on John Prine’s welcoming reception committee in the Other Place). He made this sign some 45 years ago based on Dynastic eras when each Chinese city had signage of a uniform color and design. Beijing, as I was to discover in Grad School, had all shop signs in black and gold, hung vertically over the street, and had a single character or symbol painted in gold on the black background. Being left here in a shed for a quarter century has not been kind to my wooden sign or the metal bar from which it hung. Hector will resurrect it in all its past splendor, and it will be as good as when it was originally created!

Hector’s wife, Claudia, is aso a Shufa/Calligaphy sudent of ours, and so the couple that trains together...stays together!