“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Juliet, in her soliloquy, diminishes the significance of a name; in this instance Romeo’s surname, Montague.
Romeo would be the same “dear perfection,” she proclaims, if he were a mere Smith or Jones.
But maybe not a Trump.
Unlike a rose, which would always be pleasantly fragrant even if it were named, say, “dung,” a name can still carry a distinct odor about it. Take the name Trump for instance. Nothing rosy there. More like the stench of a mackerel after ten days under a broiling sun.
That rot was made even more conspicuous and all the more foul when “The John F Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts” was suddenly and somewhat quietly renamed “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
When I heard the news, my reaction was the same revulsion as I might have had if I’d opened my front door to get a whiff of that rotting fish. My response on social media included not one, not two, but a total of four “fucks.” And a follow up post included yet one more “fuck.”
As someone who was just hitting double digits in age when John F. Kennedy was in office, and whose parents shared the national fascination with JFK, this renaming to include Donald J. Trump struck me as particularly revolting.
‘Mer·i·ca /ˈmerəkə,ˈmərəkə/ nouninformal•US English America (used especially to emphasize qualities regarded as stereotypically American, such as materialism or fervent patriotism).
Banner photo: A drive through liquor store in Sheridan, Wyoming. What could possibly go wrong?
Strip the color from an image and what are you left with?
An ordered story.
A quiet, pointed narrative free from the screaming intrusion of color.
It was the works of three photographers who inspired me to pick up a camera when I was approaching my teenage years.
Ansel Adams, the genius who captured the magnificent colors of the American landscape while doing it all in monochrome.
Dorothea Lange, whose black and white images of America’s Great Depression still go straight to the heart.
David Douglas Duncan, whose documentary photos captured the emotions and tragedy of war. Maybe it was Duncan who captivated me the most. Duncan brought the faces of war to the American living room.
And so naturally when I picked up a camera, I shot everything in
color.
It was only recently that I realized my first photographic love.
Black and white.
Following are some photos of ‘Merica in mono.
Crum, West Virginia.
This may have been the most welcome sign I saw on the afternoon of October 14, 2021. It was the waning days of a six week road trip and I was lost in the hollers of West Virginia. Once in the rolling forested hills, Google petered out and I drove for a good hour looking for a connection or anything that would tell me where I was so that I could turn to the paper map sitting next to me. It was not a pleasant drive in the country.
Between the proliferation of MAGA signs, Confederate battle flags and the hard stares I got from some locals I had to wonder what had happened to that famed Southern hospitality. It certainly didn’t reside in the heart of the man who glowered at me while he tended a trash fire. as I passed his plot of ground where his ramshackle double wide sat. I’d reached a dead end and on my way out of the cul de sac his scowl seemed even more menacing. When I told a friend of mine that I’d been through the hollers of West Virginia, he said, “Oh hell no. That’s not for me. That’s duelin’ banjos country.” That friend happens to be Black.
A victim of the death of coal, Crum, population 143 suddenly just appeared in a clearing in the West Virginia forest. It’s one of those, ‘don’t blink or you’ll miss it,’ towns. I didn’t blink. I still didn’t know where I was until I spotted the post office. Crum provided the starting point on the map that led me to Huntington.
“I love the autumn—that melancholy season that suits memories so well. When the trees have lost their leaves, when the sky at sunset still preserves the russet hue that fills with gold the withered grass, it is sweet to watch the final fading of the fires that until recently burnt within you.” ~ Gustave Flaubert, Memoirs of a Madman and November
Seriously Gustave, you can take your autumn and stick it where the sun don’t shine. And it don’t shine so much in autumn.
Don’t let the title of this little ditty fool you. I don’t celebrate autumn. Poets, authors, and songwriters like to romanticize the “snap” in the fall air. “Snap in the air,” is just verbal ornamentation for “it’s f’ing damn cold.”
And it’s getting dark. One of my favorite days outside of spring and summer is December 22nd. On that date the days start to get longer again. I know, the change is imperceptible, but the very fact that the days are getting longer is enough to warm the heart, even if the rest of the body is shivering from the cold.
It’s not as if autumn is completely without value. It’s the season when Cora and I tend to travel. The kids are back in school and the family vacations are done for the year, meaning that many of the tourists are gone.
And
I – can’t – stand – tourists –
said the tourist.
Autumn’s other saving grace is that for a photographer, fall and its vibrant colors is low hanging squash (yeah, I know, squash doesn’t hang, but work with me, I’m trying to stay seasonal). And so here is my ode to the season I like only better than winter.
In the autumn of 2021, when COVID was loosening its literal death grip, I took a road trip through America’s Midwest. On my first day I drove from Omaha, Nebraska to nearby Plattsmouth. In a section of the country where the harvest season really has meaning, the little town was celebrating it’s corn festival.
For six weeks I looped around the Midwest and saw endless cornfields, some bursting with corn waiting to be harvested and others just waiting to be plowed up following the just completed harvest.
Cornfield, Indiana
While I was in Plattsmouth, I sat and talked with a couple of old boys who told me something about the history of the town. They mentioned that one year the organizers of the corn festival decided to think outside the box and name the annual celebration the King Korn Karnival. Sounded kind of cute until they realized that the acronym for King Korn Karnival is KKK. The idea was promptly put back in the box.
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
*Normandy Landings
Omaha Beach – Pointe du Hoc – Sainte-Mère-Église – Normandy American Cemetery
A dog romps around this mostly quiet beach. There’s nothing quite like the unbounded joy of a dog on a beach, kicking up golden sand, and stopping occasionally to inspect the few people on this stretch of shoreline. Anyone walking this beach today is braving fouls weather; rain showers, high winds and blowing sand.
Bravery; it’s a relative thing.
Bravery occurred here eighty-one years ago, when over 1400 equipment laden men of the first wave of the Normandy invasion landed meters from where I’m standing. They were dropped far out in chest deep water and by day’s end the golden sand was stained red and strewn with equipment, the dead and the wounded (the Americans would suffer over 4000 casualties here).
Jesse Beazley, a rifleman with the Second Infantry Division was part of the invasion force that landed on Omaha Beach on June 6th, 1944. When his landing craft was blown up far from shore he was thrown into the water. Weighed down with equipment, he had the wherewithal to shed all his equipment in order to keep from drowning. Many of his comrades were not so lucky. With only his gas mask and his rifle, Jesse swam to shore as German bullets hit the surrounding water. Jesse Beazley survived the ordeal on Omaha and took part in the subsequent major campaigns of World War II.
Omaha is not unlike Utah Beach, which we’d visited yesterday. But for some monuments and plaques that tell the story of June 6th, 1944, this could be any beach in Northern California where I call home. There are of course the ghosts of those who didn’t survive to see the end of that day.
Of those who did survive, and who had the good fortune to survive the rest of the war, very few remain. Most, if not all of the still living, would be 100 years old. (In June of 2024, I was on a plane bound for St. Louis. A frail old man was sitting in first class. I’d first noticed him when he boarded. Needing assistance, he was one of the first to board the aircraft. Once the plane was well on its way, the captain announced that we had a veteran of D-Day on board. The crowd erupted in cheers. A short while later, the captain emerged from the cockpit to meet and shake hands with the old soldier).
The stories will live forever. Though the later generations have been slowly, and unfortunately, forgetting the events of that day, the truth of what happened here will always live. This beach will not forget. In this part of France the memories and the gratitude seem immortal. While the world is content to forget, “la Normandie” will always memorialize the Debarquement.
Just as it was yesterday at Utah Beach, I can only stand and try in vain to imagine the horrors of that day.
“Where tourists and vacationers see pleasant waves, I see the faces of drowning men,” writes Arnold Raymond “Ray” Lambert, in his book, Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach and a World at War. Lambert served as a medic in the 16th Infantry Regiment of the army’s First Division and was part of the first wave to hit Omaha.
“The noise of war does more than deafen you,” he writes. “It’s worse than shock, more physical than something thumping against your chest. It pounds your bones, rumbling through your organs, counter-beating your heart. Your skull vibrates. You feel the noise as if it’s inside you, a demonic parasite pushing at every inch of skin to get out.”
Wounded twice, Lambert saved the lives of more than a dozen of his comrades. Having administered a morphine shot to himself to mask the pain of his own wounds, Lambert rescued men from drowning, bound wounds, and helped to get other wounded to the shelter of a steel barrier. Lambert’s day ended when a landing craft ramp slammed down on him, breaking his back, as he was trying to rescue a soldier drowning in the surf.
Situated near the center of Omaha Beach is an imposing stainless-steel sculpture designed by Anilore Banon. It consists of a set of three wings and towers. A nearby plaque describes, in Anilore’s words, the meaning behind her work.
I created this sculpture to honour the courage of these men: Sons, husbands and fathers, who endangered and often sacrificed their lives in the hope of freeing the French people. Les Braves consists of three elements: The wings of Hope So that the spirit which carried these men on June 6th, 1944 continues to inspire us, reminding us that together it is always possible to changing the future. Rise, Freedom! So that the example of those who rose against barbarity, helps us remain standing strong against all forms of inhumanity. The Wings of Fraternity So that this surge of brotherhood always reminds us of our responsibility towards others as well as ourselves. On June 6th, 1944 these man were more than soldiers, they were our brothers.
Below: If there’s any saving grace to the stormy weather, it’s the dark clouds looming over the English Channel, that make for some dramatic photos.
Banner photo: Fort la Latte, Plévenon, Côtes-d’Armor.
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.
Whether it’s a market stall, or a vast garden surrounding a chateau, or a just a bike parked in front of a bright building, France is a gala of colors.
It was our usual ritual. After getting up early and having cookies and a quick cup of coffee, I was out the door while Cora slept in. I took the metro to the historic 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris.
Just browsing.
When it comes to capturing a good color photograph produce markets are always
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
*Normandy Landings
Gold Beach,October 2, 2025 It’s chilly, windy, and threatening rain when we arrive in Normandy. We’re renting a house in Ver Sur Mer, a small community near Gold Beach. Gold Beach isn’t a name that the local tourist bureau thought up as a gilded draw for tourists. The approximately five-mile-wide stretch of sand between Port-en-Bessin and La Riviere Mer (just east of Ver Sur Mer) that makes up Gold Beach, was likely named in 1944 by British General (to become Field Marshall) Sir Bernard Montgomery.
Gold Beach,Eighty-one years ago At around 05:30 on the morning of June 6, 1944, the area was rocked by a naval bombardment, while seven kilometers off shore in a pitching twilit sea, elements of the British 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and No. 47 Commando of the Royal Navy were being loaded from ships onto landing craft.
At 0:615 the boats were launched on a journey that would take approximately one and a quarter hours. Upon landing on the beach, the British soldiers faced fierce resistance by the German defenders but by the end of the day the beaches were secured and nearly 25,000 Allied soldiers had landed at Gold. The cost was approximately 1100 British casualties, with 350 killed.
Gold was just one of five landing beaches that were assaulted on June 6th, 1944. In addition, Allied soldiers were parachuted or transported by glider farther inland.
In all, it was the largest amphibious and airborne assault in history, 160,000 men, 5000 vessels and 11,000 aircraft. And it all took place on the shores up and down the Normandy Coast. The peace of the region was shattered in the dark, early hours of June 6, 1944. The ground was pounded by a naval bombardment while aircraft roared overhead.
Most people are drawn to France by Paris, the City of Light, or for the chance to break out the Speedo and bake under the summer sun by the crystal blue waters of the French Riviera. There’s food, culture, food, the arts.
And did I mention food? The French may not have invented cooking but they sure as shit elevated it.
And it doesn’t hurt that France is conveniently located right next to four other popular destinations; Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. And it’s just a short Chunnel ride from the U.K. “Hey Sheila, since we’re in the neighborhood why don’t we drop by and see what the French are up to,” said Norman.
D-Day brought Cora and I to France. Everything else is whipped cream on the eclair.
It started with New York. With everything American going sideways and listing to the right, we were afraid that leaving the country, (unless the leaving was permanent), might be a bad idea. It wasn’t so much the leaving but the potential problems reentering as U.S. Customs has been feeling its violent, unconstitutional oats since January 20th. We originally had planned on New York, until the Big Apple was taken off the menu because of an unexpected illness, thus setting aside any further talk of travel.
One evening in June, inertia compelled me to pull up a documentary about the D-Day invasion. Cora stopped what she was doing in the kitchen and through tears we watched. Tears over the bravery and the sacrifice. Maybe it was sorrow over ideals that were fought for by so many brave men; ideals that have been fading from a troubled nation’s memory and falling into disfavor. The documentary ended and I said to Cora, “Fuck it, let’s go to France.”
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
*The road less traveled.
When I told friends that Cora and I were going to venture outside of Paris during our trip to France I was advised to take the train. “The trains in Europe are great,” they (the ubiquitous ‘they’) all said.
It’s an open secret that, by and large, European trains are a great way to travel and that America could learn a lot from Europe about train travel (America could actually learn a lot from Europe about many things, but that’s another multi-volume set of books).
I have no argument with the argument for taking European trains but for my purposes the train presents two problems. One, it follows a single track, with no veering onto an intriguing track less followed, and two, the train only stops when and where the schedule says it will stop.
When you’re on the train you can’t just stop whenever you spot something interesting that captures your imagination. Sure you can pull the emergency stop handle but that only works the first time around. After that you’re no longer welcome on the train.
The train does stop in Bodilis, France. To get there you pretty much have to know the place exists and then have a reason to buy a train ticket to get there. It’s only by car that one can make a rewarding unplanned stop at Bodilis or most of the other French villages.
An American’s observations from a first time trip to France.
“To be treated well in places where you don’t expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, well that can’t be a bad thing.” ~ Anthony Bourdain.
“The French don’t like Americans.”
“Snobby.”
“Arrogant.”
“Stand off-ish.”
Those were the admonishments we received before getting on a plane to Paris.
How many times did I hear how rude the French are?
Once was far too many.
We’ve completed nearly a week in Paris and I have to say that Cora and I have experienced none of that. What we have encountered is friendliness, hospitality, and –
good manners.
Plenty of good manners.
In the good old U.S. of A, good manners are not only headed towards extinction, under the current administration, graciousness is a bad thing, something to be frowned upon as soft and effete. In America rudeness is the next big thing. “We’ve never seen anything like it.”
If you want to know if a people are well mannered and courteous just take a ride on their urban public transportation. It’s a rare occurrence when Cora has to stand while riding in a crowded metro in Paris. By and large my experience in Europe is that women who have more years behind them than before them are readily given a seat (A gentle reminder that I’m fossilizing was the young French woman who offered me her seat on the metro).
Maybe more to the point is that by and large the French treated us like, well, regular people. No extra deference and certainly no hints of disdain.
And in France treating someone like regular people means they greet you even if they don’t know you and may never see you again. People greet perfect strangers at a nearby bistro table with a bonjour. They greet people they pass on a trail with bonjour. Bonjour when you enter a shop, a bar, a soccer stadium – damn near anywhere.
There’s one exception to this rule and that is when it’s evening. Then it’s
bonsoir.
Yes, they even greet Americans. And make no mistake, Europeans can spot an American a mile away. I don’t know if it’s a vibe or an odor or the cheesy t-shirt and the ball cap (two things which I didn’t bother to pack this time), but Europeans have radar that’s sensitive to Americans.
Wanna make a good impression? Return the greeting.
Bonus points if you do it in French.
Double bonus points if you extend the greeting first.
When in doubt, just say
bonjour.
Day one
After our arrival from the airport at about two in the afternoon, Cora settles in to relax, and I’m off to explore. A little aimless walking brings me to Place Charles De Gaulle, where, in the center sits the famous Arc De Triomphe. Fifty meters tall, the structure was built to honor the fallen in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
I’ve seen pictures of this iconic structure. Being a historian, the image that sticks most in my mind is the one of Nazi soldiers passing beneath the Arc after France has capitulated to the German blitzkrieg. I imagine Hitler was overjoyed at the idea of his soldiers goosestepping over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, which lies in a vault beneath the Arc. It was the German Army’s defeat and the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles that stuck in the warlord’s craw and aroused his hunger for retribution, and the establishment of a thousand year Reich. A Reich that fell short by 988 years, and in the end costing millions of lost lives.
Seeing the bulky structure in person gives me the same jolt that strikes me on the first day of all of my European trips.
“Hey! I’m in fucking Paris!
As I stroll towards the giant plaza I pass some crepe carts where vendors churn out the famous stuffed, lace thin pancake. I watch one of the vendors deftly assemble a crepe and I’m tempted to try the popular banana and Nutella (correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that Nutella is one of the food groups). The young woman I’m watching is going pretty light on the filling. I’ll pass.
Besides, there’s something more interesting going on at Place Charles de Gaulle.
On Constitution Day 2025, the Trump Regime tore off yet another piece of the Constitution of the United States of America and tossed it into the dumpster. There, in that dank bin, that poor metaphorical slip became part of a growing pile of bits, pieces, scraps and chunks of a document that was ratified 238 years ago.
On Constitution Day, Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC Chairman, put ABC into a hammerlock and demanded that Jimmy Kimmel be punished for remarks, largely benign, regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Carr’s demand was made in language that’s characterized the regime’s tone since January 20, Inauguration Day. Using language that could’ve come from the mouth of an enraged Tony Soprano, Carr threatened, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Meanwhile, Jesse Watters, a celebrity (I won’t deign to call him a newsman), on state television, AKA Fox News, raged, “We’re gonna avenge Charlie’s death in the way Charlie would want it to be avenged. They are at war with us, whether we wanna accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we gonna do about it? How much political violence are we gonna tolerate? And that’s the question we’re just gonna have to ask ourselves.” Brendan Carr was cool with Watters’ call to “take to the mattresses,” and Jesse is still on the air, happily churning out myths and legends with a few threats sprinkled in.
Two days before Constitution Day, Pam Bondi, the sitting Attorney General, tore off her own shred of the Constitution, by declaring that the Federal Government will “go after” Americans for hate speech. Said Bondi, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech.” Bondi, who will never be confused with Edmund Randolph (America’s first A.G.), should possibly take some time to read the Constitution as it makes no exception for “hate speech.” One has to wonder who, in this ideologically infected administration, would determine what is “hate speech,” and what is not. Fortunately, Bondi was challenged from both the right and the left and was forced to walk back her remark.
All of this was part of the fury following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Trump and MAGA; they aren’t unlike the roadkill skunk decomposing down the block that the animal control boys aren’t getting around to picking up. Festering and funky in the afternoon sun it sits there and cooks, the effluvium is never ending, 24/7/365 – for four rotten years. And there’s no escape.
It’s dark on the Bay Trail this morning. The sun still has a good twenty minutes to climb up and over the backside of the East Bay Hills before it paints the waters of San Pablo Bay in morning pastels. On other sections of the trail, light intrudes from the nearby, just waking neighborhoods. But not on this one short section. This is where the trail plunges down a steep curving hill under a canopy of oaks, and bay trees.
It’s murky black out here.
I could turn on my cell phone flashlight. But why?
The darkness is peaceful. It excites the senses.
It’s noise free in this short dip in the trail. Noise – the sounds of neighborhoods and cars starting their day.
But there are sounds here. Noise versus sounds; there’s a difference.
Down the bayside slope, unseen, the San Pablo Bay waters are riffling onshore. Somewhere, far out on the dark, placid bay a buoy is moaning. A sighing breeze ruffles the oaks, and morning birds are greeting their day. When it’s very still I can hear Lexi’s nose snuffling. On a moonless morning I can barely see her as she sweeps back and forth in front of me, nose almost scraping the ground, her olfactory radar excited, hard at work, enjoying nature’s special gift to dogs. Occasionally an animal scrunches, unseen, over the ground cover in the oak thicket and Lexi’s ears perk up.
I’ve been covering sections of the Bay Trail for countless years and with two different dogs. For most of those years it was a run. But at 71, and after two broken ankles, a broken metatarsal, chronic Achilles tendinitis, and 55 years of pounding the pavement, the runs have turned into brisk walks. Always thought that the end of the running trail would leave me heartsick but the only regret is that Lexi doesn’t get to stretch out her legs and run. Feel more sorry for her than I do for myself.
But even here, the MAGA scream intrudes. It’s the shrieking, slicing metallic brrrrr in a redwood grove. The roar of a speedboat on an otherwise placid lake. Old dr’unckle Bob, stewed to the gills at the family picnic. It’s trying not to think about Trump when someone says, “Hey, don’t think about Trump.”
I often recall a sign carried by a woman at a May Day protest in Martinez, California. The sign read, Trump has stolen all of the joy and safety of living in America. Fuckin-A right. For any American who is paying attention, any joyful glow gets veiled by the dark MAGA cloud.
It’s even impossible for those trying to live blissfully ignorant to remain blissfully ignorant; that’s called poetic justice.
At a certain point we all need to find a time and a place to recover our composure. It’s a difficult thing. The ataxia is relentless. It stalks you in the haven of your bedroom at night and even out here in the calm of an early morning thicket.
It’s everywhere – and it’s become routine. Let’s not kid ourselves, America is no longer on the road to the irrational. Hell, that threshold was crossed a long time ago. Some would have us believe that we passed through the doorway on the fifth day of last November 2024. Hardly. By that day the vestibule separating the commonness of reason from the normalcy of the aberrant was already far behind us. November 5, 2024, Election Day, was the day we heard the ominous click of the gate locking behind us.
The vulgar stain of the Trump regime has infiltrated the American fabric. It contaminates every waking hour and, stupid me, I’ve allowed it to infect the joys of my retired life – my grandson’s basketball, photography, and writing. I’ve become so wound up in protesting that I’ve stopped going to Jackson’s games on Saturdays. I haven’t taken a photo excursion, other than photographing protests, since sometime in late winter. And writing? Reading this answers that question neatly.
Woe is me? Let’s just say, pissed is me. I’m angry that a lying, uncouth ignorant fraud, and Stephen Miller, the ferret face Nazi, along with the rest of the regime have stolen life. But I’m not ignorant of the fact that, relatively speaking, and notwithstanding my criticism of the regime, I’m not on the MAGA radar. I’m a 71 years old, white guy, American born of American citizens. If I didn’t identify as a Social Democrat I’d be among the safest of the safe.
So why let it affect me?
It has little or nothing to do with democracy. As I’ve pointed out a number of times, on this site, American democracy is mostly a misconception and has been since, well, the founding. I’m touched by sadness when I see a young Hispanic woman selling trays of strawberries in a supermarket parking lot; the couple selling pupusas in a small office parking lot in Richmond; the stooped old Hispanic man selling helados from the ding-ding-a-linging cart on on the sidewalk in nearby Richmond. Every time they step out of their homes to make their small harmless pittance by selling fruit or ice cream they must wonder whether, come nightfall, they’ll be back home (and still not necessarily safe) or in a detention center (jail). How have we come to normalize a government policy that strikes fear into the lives of peaceful people?
What did that young woman selling strawberries or that old man pushing an ice cream cart, or the teens playing soccer on a rutted field in Richmond, or the Hmong woman at the Asian market in San Pablo ever do to that bitter old fuck on Facebook who wants to get rid of “those illegals.” Did he lose his job selling flats of strawberries in a Home Depot parking lot to some kid from Peru?
I would love to say that I’m completely done with writing about life in MAGAstan, but I’d be lying to myself in the process. If not for any other reason but maintaining my sanity and some smidgen of joy in my life I’m returning to photography, life stories and travel stories. Politics isn’t dead on this site but the regular 47 series is going on the back burner.
The Life in My Years 