Welcome to Patricia Walter’s World
Music • Poetry • Art • Rescue Dogs • Websites • Hip Resurfacing • Life
I’ve never been very good at doing just one thing.
Over the years I’ve played music, written poetry, painted hundreds of pictures, helped rescue dogs from local shelters, built websites, and somehow ended up becoming a rather unlikely hip-resurfacing information resource.
Some of those interests became websites of their own. Others simply became part of my life.
I don’t consider myself an expert at everything I do. I’m just curious, I like to learn, and when I get interested in something, I tend to really get interested in it.
So this website is a place to bring some of those pieces of my life together.
Come on in and have a look around.
Music Has Been Part of My Life Since I Was Six
My first piano lessons began when I was six years old. I started accordion lessons in 1951, according to the date written in my very first accordion book — which I still have. Music wasn’t just something I learned as a child. It became something I kept doing throughout my life.
I started playing alto saxophone in sixth grade and played in concert bands throughout high school and college. Later, I played in a local big band for about 25 years and a local concert band for about 35 years. I belonged to the Musicians’ Union and, for many years, music was a regular part of our lives. My former husband and I often played every day of the week. We performed together as The Good Time Two, playing formal dances for the Shrine and other organizations, as well as many community events.
We played at the bicentennial celebration of the City of Marietta and with many other musical groups over the years. We also played for free for several months on the levee in Marietta, where crowds of 300 or more would sometimes gather to listen and dance. The Marietta Times even photographed us and the people dancing.
I’ve also played in many musicals and other bands whenever I was asked to join them. As a woodwind player, playing in pit bands and musicals often means playing several instruments. Over the years I’ve played alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute and piccolo.
I played in The Threepenny Opera, where I had an especially varied assignment: accordion, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, clarinet and flute.
I’ve never been particularly interested in limiting myself to just one kind of music.
If I like the song, I play it.
These days, I especially enjoy making music videos. I’ve made hundreds of them and share them on my YouTube channel, Keyboard Player Pat.
🎹 Keyboard Player Pat
Music, memories and a whole lot of songs.
Visit my music on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@keyboardplayerpat
🪗 Accordion Player Pat
Accordion has been part of my life since 1951. It’s hard to believe sometimes that something that started with those first lessons so many decades ago is still part of my life today.
Visit Accordion Player Pat → https://accordionplayerpat.com/
Art & Making Things
I Have Always Wanted to Make Things
When I left my engineering job in Cleveland in 1981 and moved to Marietta, Ohio, I decided to try something completely different.
I had always enjoyed making things, so I began doing woodworking and woodturning full time. I made all kinds of things — plates, wine glasses, miniatures, round covered boxes, bowls and other turned-wood pieces. I entered juried craft shows, including Winterfair in Columbus, Ohio.
Then one day I saw a man turning a cedar egg on a lathe. I decided to try it. The cedar eggs eventually became a full-time business. I designed and made the pieces myself, and the business grew from there. We wholesaled my cedar eggs to boutiques and galleries, including stores in California, and eventually I opened a local retail store in Marietta called The Cedar Egg Factory.
From there, I moved on to other creative adventures. I worked with glass, including glass blowing, and also did clay sculpture. Then, when I was 50 years old, I decided there was something else I wanted to learn: I wanted to paint.
I took private watercolor lessons from Lee Fritch, one of our wonderful local watercolor artists, for two years. I became deeply involved in watercolor painting. The art group I belonged to often took trips to zoos for a weekend or several days. We’d sit, sketch and paint the animals around us. That’s one reason I have so many animal paintings.
I painted portraits of many of the dogs I adopted, as well as dogs I helped get into adoption. For a while, I also did pet portraits. I participated in many juried art shows and had several gallery shows. Over the years, I painted more than 400 paintings.
And then something unexpected happened.
When the Paintings Started Telling Me Stories
I’d never written poetry before.
But after painting more than 400 pictures, I began to feel that the paintings were telling me stories.
The first poem I wrote was “Dad’s Thermos.” I had painted a pastel of my father’s actual thermos, hammer and toolbox. Looking at the painting brought back memories, and I wrote a poem about it.
That opened a door I hadn’t expected. I began writing about the dogs I had rescued, the dogs waiting in shelters, the ones who found homes — and the ones who didn’t. I wrote about memories, people, growing up, things I loved, things I didn’t like, difficult experiences and the ways I had changed over the years.
In many ways, writing poetry became a way of reviewing my life. Teachers have asked to use some of my poems in their classrooms, and I’ve had students ask if they could do school reports about me as a poet. That still surprises me because I never set out to become a poet.
I was a painter. Then my paintings started telling me stories. And I started writing them down.
✍️ A Poet’s Corner
Poetry, paintings, dogs, memories and stories from a life that turned out to have more chapters than I expected.
Visit A Poet’s Corner → https://apoetscorner.com/
Rescue Dogs
The Dogs Became Another Chapter of My Life
For several years, I did a lot of volunteer work for animal shelters and rescue groups. I built websites for shelters and rescues, often for free, because I wanted to help animals get adopted and find their way home. I photographed the dogs in the shelters and put their pictures and information on the websites so people could actually see the animals who needed homes.
One of our local shelters, the Humane Society of the Ohio Valley, had never had a website. After I created one and began putting the dogs online, people came from places as far away as Indiana and New Jersey to adopt dogs. The more I saw, the more involved I became. I couldn’t just photograph the dogs and go home. I began adopting some myself and finding rescue placements for others. Before long, I had quite a pack of my own.
One little Sheltie at the Pleasants County shelter was only about six months old and was behaving strangely. The shelter rarely euthanized dogs, but they were considering it because they couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. I looked at him and realized: He was blind. He had apparently never been on a leash and had never even worn a collar. I took him home and taught him to walk on a leash and get around normally. He learned quickly. He ran around every tree in our yard playing with the other dogs. Being blind didn’t stop him from enjoying life.
There were many other dogs whose stories stayed with me. Like two little brothers were dropped off at a shelter and nearly lost their chance. One of them managed to fall through an open cage door that someone had accidentally left unsecured. He broke a back leg and was badly hurt. The shelter called me and asked if I would take him. I took both brothers. I cared for them, had the injured dog treated, and gave them a home. They stayed together and lived to be 16 years old.
I painted and wrote about many of these dogs — the ones I rescued, the ones I helped place, the ones waiting in shelters and even some who didn’t make it. Their stories became part of my art and my poetry.
Dogs, Art and Poetry
Some of my dog paintings eventually became poems as well. “Blind Dogs,” “Brothers,” and “Two Little Pups” are examples of stories that came directly from the dogs I knew.
For me, the paintings and poems became a way to remember them — and to tell their stories when they couldn’t tell them themselves.
🐾 The Dogs I’ve Known
Stories, photographs, paintings and poems about some of the dogs who became part of my life.
Visit the dog stories and poems → https://apoetscorner.com/category/dog-poetry/
Surface Hippy
The Unexpected Chapter: Surface Hippy
One of the most unexpected chapters of my life began when I needed a hip replacement.
While researching my options, I discovered hip resurfacing. I became fascinated by the procedure and wanted to learn everything I could about it.
I eventually traveled to Belgium for my own hip resurfacing. Afterward, I began sharing what I had learned with other people who were trying to make decisions about their own hips.
That eventually grew into Surface Hippy.
I started the website in 2005, never imagining what it would become. What began as one patient’s effort to share information has grown into a large international resource for people researching hip resurfacing, with thousands of articles and patient stories and a long-running discussion forum.
I’ve spent many years collecting patient stories, researching medical studies, talking with surgeons and following the development of hip-resurfacing implants and technology. The site has continued to change as the field has changed.
Today, Surface Hippy is still a big part of my life. I continue to update the information, add new patient experiences and follow what is happening in hip resurfacing around the world.
I never planned to spend so many years running a medical information website.
It just grew out of something I needed to know for myself — and then I discovered that a lot of other people needed to know it, too.
Surface Hippy
Hip resurfacing information, patient stories, research, surgeons, devices and support.
Visit Surface Hippy → https://surfacehippy.info
I feel very lucky to have leaned about hip resurfacing and been able to find enough money on my credit cards to fly to Belgium to have my hip resurfaced. I simply could not afford surgery in the US. This is my story about my new BHR that I received in Belgium in March of 2006.
About Patricia's Websites
Surface Hippy https://surfacehippy.info is Patricia’s largest website. She developed the website in 2005 just before hip hip resurfacing. She wanted to share information about hip resurfacing since very few surgeons were offering the option. Surface Hippy continued to grow and is one of the largest patient information websites. It features a Hip Talk Discussion Forum About Hip Resurfacing.
Pat has returned to playing mostly piano and keyboard due to back problems. Accordions are heavy! LOL She continues to add to her YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@keyboardplayerpat
She has a website featuring her piano music. https://pianoplayerpat.com/
I am not a professional accordionist, I am just an oldster having fun with old music. I hope to bring a smile to a few faces. I have made over 500 videos on my YouTube Channel
I played accordion most of my life. Started in 1951 when I was 6 years old. During the 80’s and 90’s, my ex and I played as a duo known as the Good Time Two. We parted ways in 2008 and I did not play much after that.
Then several years ago I bought a Roland FR 4X Digital Accordion, which I love. Also have purchased a couple acoustic accordions since they are fun to play too. I hope you enjoy my music.
The Six Dog Studio was my original website I developed in 1999. It featured many of my paintings and photos. Since then, I have written a large number of poems about animals, cats, dogs, friends, love, life and nature. So I developed A Poet’s Corner to feature all my work. I became an artist when I was fifty years old and painted about 450 paintings. Each painting seemed to be telling me a story, so I started to write poetry about the paintings.