Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshed up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres – perfectly still – just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. ~ Huck Finn describes life on the river
Huck Finn and his companion, the escaped slave Jim, are runaways. Hiding by day and gliding along the Mississippi by night. Even while on the lam, Huck finds solace in the peaceful flow of the river.
This week Amy challenges us to share our images of rivers. In her post Amy uses Norman Maclean’s semi-autobiographical novel as the backdrop for her images. Good choice. The book is magical and the movie is a superb adaptation. When I was younger and contemplating retirement I dreamt of settling in a cabin near the Blackfoot River from McClean’s story. Seems like a good place to be now.
Follow the link to Amy’s The World is a Book to see her images of Banff, Colorado the Nile and even a statue in Rome.
My river story takes place in Oregon on the Klamath and the Umpqua and on California’s Stanislaus River.
Klamath River
Dawn or dusk, a riverbank is a place of sublime tranquility.
Dawn on a bend in the Klamath
Morning fog on a Klamath dawn
In the calm slow stretches the river serenades with a peaceful, trickling murmur.
I think there’s some value in putting down our own stories of this unprecedented moment in history, be they narratives, works of fiction, poetry, art, songs or any other record of the experience of 2020. Years from now, decades from now, historians and students will look for stories, particularly first person, of this singular event. If we do nothing else, let this be the lesson.
Current events, specifically those surrounding the giant virus in the room, are harder to keep up with than a poltergeist. Surrounding; probably not the appropriate term – not here, not America. “Surround” assumes we’re getting our arms around it and right now our arms aren’t yet long enough. Change is moment by moment; the numbers, the news good and bad, the progress and the setbacks. The good news is that China’s arms finally grew long enough. As of this morning it is reporting no new local infections.
On the home front. Looking for things to pass the time since the gym and swinging by The City are off the approved list of activities. You can only sit in front of a crossword for so long. I find out that there’s free college out there – free bleeping college. Yesterday afternoon browsing the free online course offerings from the Ivy League Universities. Like the kid in the candy store. Like ME in the candy store, in the licorice section, you know that black candy that nobody but me and a few select others relish. Old people candy is how a friend once termed it.
Better late than never we’re finally answering the bell. Gee, wasn’t it a little more than two short weeks ago that the President of the United States called it the Democrats “new hoax,” and Limbaugh bloviated something about the “common cold?” Better late than never is about the best I can credit Trump with even if he’s still not completely getting it. That he’s finally decided to take it seriously is something of a plus even if he bestows his lackluster, canard filled response with a score of 10 and refuses to take any responsibility (where are Lincoln, FDR and JFK when you need them). Screw it, there is no time for this; for hashing out that part of the mess now. For now it’s just spilt milk under the bridge. Let history settle it – and it will settle it, oh yes it will. We have more pressing matters right now..
I start a wishlist of classes to take. Introduction to Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases University of Pennsylvania Moral Foundation of Politics Yale University. Morality and politics – hmmm – must be just a one hour lecture broken up with a 45 minute break. America’s Written Constitution Yale University. The Civil War and Reconstruction. Columbia University They might not look interesting to you but to paraphrase; one man’s history class is another man’s chem class.
It isn’t the end of days but, as the bard Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan) wrote, The Times They Are a-Changin. I’ve published one piece about the coronavirus and have begun another but I can’t seem to keep up with the a-changin’ times. What was relevant two weeks ago is ancient history. Hell what was up to date an hour ago is just dust.
I’m taking a break from the family jigsaw puzzle and I’m not down to counting sheets of toilet paper – not yet anyway. I’ve stepped away from watching my retirement money take “the highway to hell” as the bards Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott wrote (Do AC-DC count as bards?). The song promises that satan will be “payin my dues” but I’m not counting on old Beelzebub to carry my freight. I hear tell that he’s something of a loan shark; charges steep interest rates but all of that smacks of religion and I’ve no truck with such legends.
It’s going to be a while I think before any of us can take a trip to San Francisco so instead of binge watching every single season of Friends let’s take a random tour of The City through images both previously published and new. Let’s start with my absolute favorite San Francisco district – North Beach.
North Beach is San Francisco’s Little Italy and, being of Italian descent, it’s only natural that this little enclave is a favorite. It’s where I go when I want an Italian food fix; good pecorino, creamy mozzarella (not those rubber supermarket balls), authentic sausage and salami, a cappuccino and cannoli, or a Peroni beer at a sidewalk table. But dearest to my heart its a place where I can mingle with the old Italian guys, watch them gesture and listen to them speak the native tongue.
The Italian tri color is omnipresent. Above it waves under the gaze of Coit Tower
This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge posed to us by Ann-Christine is ironically appropriate for our current times. Presenting – CHAOS. To see Ann-Christine’s take, follow the link. chaos[ key-os ]
noun a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order. any confused, disorderly mass:
A walk-off is the chaotic moment in baseball when a baserunner scores after a batter hits the ball safely into play in the bottom of the ninth inning to drive in the winning run. After the batter who hit in the game-winning run has touched first base, they can simply just “walk-off” the field, since the team has now officially won the game.
But they never simply walk off the field. There has to be the last moments of chaotic joy.
panic pan-ik noun a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a group of persons or animals.
The daughter called while I was at the dog park. Lexi circling a big eucalyptus tree and barking at a squirrel chattering at her, rodent trash talk from 30 feet up. “I’m going to buy some toilet paper and sanitizer from Amazon.” “Why?” “Because people are hoarding them because of coronavirus. I was at Target the other day and the shelves were empty.” “A WALMART THIS WEEKEND WAS COMPLETELY SOLD OUT (of hand sanitizer). ONLY ON HIS THIRD TRY WAS KEN SMITH ABLE TO FIND THE CLEAR GEL — AT A WALGREENS, WHERE THREE BOTTLES OF PURELL WERE LEFT. HE BOUGHT TWO,” said the Associated Press.
“I knew about the hand sanitizer but not about the toilet paper. I’m at the dog park now”
Lexi’s hopping up and down scratching at the tree, pissed that a rodent would have the chutzpah to invade her dog park.
(Featured photo – Reflections in a puddle of rainwater.)
This week we have a guest host for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. Miriam’s site The Showers of Blessingschallenges us to offer some photographic reflections on reflections.
Grand Teton National Park draws photographers from around the world to photograph images of her majestic beauty.
One of the most famous is Oxbow Bend where Mount Moran gazes down on the Snake River, coiled in the foreground. Sunrise brings scores of photographers along the banks of the Snake. On this particular morning I got my wife out of a warm bed in 26 degree F weather to arrive at Oxbow Bend by sunrise.
Just before the sunrise, a blue sky, the clouds and trees reflect on the Snake. Near the opposite bank a finger of morning fog hovers over the river.
It’s been over a month now since that Sunday morning when the news broke that Kobe Bryant his daughter and seven others had perished in a helicopter crash. These things arrive like a sucker punch; the roundhouse that you never saw coming. You pick yourself up and wonder what the hell just happened. Regardless of how you feel about the man the news still leaves you breathless and exclaiming, “WHAT?”
Some were just settling down to Sunday breakfast. I was driving out to go for a run. I had sports talk on the radio and all the talk was about Bryant. No mention of a helicopter crash and so I thought it was all about Lebron James having passed Bryant on the all time scorers list in a game the night before. Talk had been that Bryant would be present at that game to honor James. It wasn’t until I was driving home after my run that I found out that all of the Bryant talk was about his death.
The internet tells us that 150,000 people die every day. Okay it is the internet and the internet is as often as not, a fraud. Suffice to say that a lot of people die every day. Death is often a close personal thing; family, friends, acquaintances. Death is often a sad, lonely thing; nobody to mark the passing but the undertaker and the grave digger. And then there are those times when death becomes a universal thing.
It’s over a month later and the tributes and the personal stories about Bryant continue and they will for some time to come. While the shock is mostly over, for some the dust will never settle. For some January 26, 2020 will be with them forever, a lifelong remembering of where they were when they heard the news. Most of us have similar days hidden away in our subconscious, just beneath the surface until a conversation, a story or an image brings back memories, sighs and the enduring why. Continue reading
This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge presented by Pattiis “Change your perspective,” in other words look at an image or shot from a different point of view. Take a break from the tried, true and sometimes trite perspective of straight on from your standing eye level.
“Look up and down and round about you.” ~ John Muir
“I just think that humans were created to look upward”~ Catherine Hicks
The obvious alternative is a glance straight up.
Look! Up in the sky it’s…well it’s not Superman. But it might be…MIRA
If you happen to be walking just south of Market Street in San Francisco’s downtown and you just happen to look up you’ll meet MIRA. MIRA is a tower that looks like a portent of the next big earthquake, or maybe just the work of an architect on an acid trip. Maybe it’s a little of both but the firm Studio Gang put this design together on purpose.
Looking up at MIRA. Note that straight line going up the center.
A look straight up through the camera lends a greater impression of looming.
The magnificent church Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal in Montreal looms as if from heaven itself.
This week Tina’s Lens-Artists Challenge is Treasure Hunt. The mission should we choose to accept it (Yes that’s a nod to Mission Impossible) is to search for specific items from the list below and present our images of those items. Extra credit items are a bit more challenging.
Challenge Items: Sunrise and/or sunset, Something cold and/or hot, a bird, a dog, a funny sign, a bicycle, a seascape and/or mountain landscape, a rainbow, a church, a musical instrument, a boat, a plane, a waterfall
Extra Credit Items: An expressive portrait of one or more people, a very unusual place, knitting or sewing, a fish, an animal you don’t normally see, a bucket, a hammer, a street performer, a double rainbow, multiple challenge items in a single image.
Grand Teton National Park provides a mountain scape, a sunrise and a sunset.
“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over.” ~ John Muir
Sunrise lights up the Moulton Barn and the Grand Tetons
My San Francisco is a series of posts that describes my own personal relationship with The City. My San Francisco pieces might be photo essays; they might be life stories or they could be commentaries. They might be a combination of some or all three. My impressions aren’t always paeans to San Francisco; it’s a beautiful city but like any beautiful city it has it’s dark side and its ugly stories. These pieces will always have one common theme; they are my expressions of my personal San Francisco experience.
My parents moved us to the suburban hills above San Mateo, California in the late 1950’s. 1958 if my memory serves me but as the years advance the memory’s service can be a bit lackluster and indifferent.
Our move was prompted largely by mom’s car accident. We’d been living on the east side of the bay in Hayward and both mom and dad were commuting across the San Mateo Bridge to work. In those days the bridge was a hazardous, narrow two lane affair and accidents weren’t uncommon.
And so as fate and a few too many drinks by another driver would have it, mom’s car got hit head on. I still have photos of her car. It was during the pre-seatbelt days and that she survived was miraculous. Looking at the photos I can’t even imagine how they got her out of the lump of steel that had once been a car. The aftermath of the accident, discomfort, a permanent limp and emotional complications remained with her until she passed in 1985. At the time though, the first order of business was to get a home on the same side of the bay as work.
Parrott Drive begins near downtown San Mateo, rolls west through and up the hills above the city and then swings south taking you into unincorporated San Mateo. My parents bought a three bedroom ranch style house on a sizable lot for 16 thousand dollars (worth 1.9 million today) on Parrott Drive across the street from what would in a few years become the College of San Mateo. When we moved in it was open space, oak trees on rolling hillocks that were green in winter and spring, turning brown in summer; brown, dry and drab with an annual summer brush fire or two until the winter rains returned to shower the land back to green. It was prime land for the cattle that grazed there and for my friends and I to play army when we dallied on the walk home from school.
Early 1960’s San Mateo, 20 miles south of San Francisco, was typical suburban America; a movie theater on the main street that screened a cartoon and a newsreel before showing two feature films; an ice cream parlor; a family owned toy store and a Chinese restaurant that served Americanized Chinese food.
El Camino Real was the main drag where teens cruised behind whatever wheel they could get behind; a VW Bug, the family station wagon or for those few lucky ones a bright, chrome laden muscle car; they cruised the 30 miles or so from South San Francisco all the way to Santa Clara if they chose and once I got a car, a Chevy Nova, I joined the show. And why not when gas sat at around $0.35 per gallon.
At the north end near South City you could get a burrito at The Jumping Bean and in San Mateo it was the A&W where carhops served Coney Dogs and root beer floats on trays that hung neatly on car windows; all to the Friday night sounds of V8’s revving, horns honking and 8 track players blaring rock music. I still have an A&W mug courtesy of a carhop named Dusty, who, after some flirting and some brazen begging on my part reached into the car and dropped a brand new mug into my lap.
The neighborhood where we lived could have been taken straight out of a Leave it to Beaver TV script. We walked the mile to school past ranch style homes with green, groomed lawns and basketball hoops mounted above garage doors. On Saturdays we rode our bikes to the strip mall to buy candy at the pharmacy. We caught frogs in a nearby creek and poison oak on the creek bank and trick or treated without parental escort every Halloween.
In the evenings we played wiffle ball on the front lawn, basketball in the driveway or romped around the fields while the parents sipped their pre-dinner martinis. As the sun dipped behind the hills to the west, the parents would emerge on front porches to call out for their kids. One of the parents had a shrill whistle while Mrs. Davis on the opposite corner would howl, “BAWWWW-BEEEE!”
“Hey Bobby, your mom’s calling,” we would snicker. Continue reading
The Life in My Years 