Why I Take Photos (Part I)

You spend too much time with your nose pressed up against a camera, your eye squinting through a viewfinder, watching life pass you by. You’re an observer, an escapist, not a participant. You miss so much. As a photographer, while you are arresting movement and reducing what’s happening from three dimensions into two you’re just seeing or experiencing a shortcut, an abridged version, the Cliff Notes of life.

I’ve heard it all. How can I explain? I feel incomplete without a camera, an emperor with no clothes. I can still see images in my mind’s eye that demanded to be photographed and weren’t, images on a crashed hard drive that weren’t backed up that now exist only in my mind or some netherworld perhaps where missing photos await a resurrection. It would be harder for me to figure out how not to take a photograph than to consider the merits of whether it should be taken at all. How do I decide what I need to record? I don’t. Things demand to be photographed. It’s a subpoena, and I am required to respond. I’m not choosing to do any of this. I have to do it because, well, because I have to.

The Photographer as Thief

My father, an Episcopal minister, was quick to look at technology and reject it if it “didn’t bring people together.” The camera, then, is the tool that separates the shooter from the shootee. It doesn’t bring the two together at all. It creates a distinction, a difference. Indians have believed that the camera takes away your soul. Moroccans do, too. They’re quick to turn their heads when a camera is pointed in their direction. Taking someone’s photograph is an invasion of space, an aggressive gesture, one that provides the shooter with something taken illicitly, and whether it’s a soul or spirit or in plain terms just an image, he often takes it surreptitiously and sometimes with an ulterior unspoken motive. And even when permission is granted, the reward exists primarily for the photographer. The shootee gives something (himself) to the shooter. The shooter is part thief.

But there are exceptions to the exchange. In smiling, in asking for permission to photograph someone, a connection is being made, an exchange that otherwise wouldn’t have taken place now does. I asked two women in a restaurant in NYC who had unique hairstyles if I could take their photograph because, as I said, “You two have the most fabulous hair.” So yes, I “stole” the photo, but I couldn’t have done it without their kind and generous cooperation. And there wouldn’t have been a connection at all if I hadn’t asked.

Here’s why I do what I do. The reasons are countless, but the first one that comes to mind is just to tell the truth, to show something about the subject that only a photograph can reveal.

There’s no shortage of cat descriptions, about their independence, their indifference, but this image reveals it without words. It tells the truth. It’s not set up or staged. This is what cats do. When you see this you see a truth of cats.

Here is a photograph of a father and his daughter. Doesn’t this say more than could be expressed in text? Does the look of contentment on the little girl’s face need to be interpreted? And in the half-hidden father’s face, eyes narrowed, cheeks filled, how can we mistake the love and affection he feels for his daughter? It’s truth and it speaks for the love between all fathers and their daughters or sons.

The little girl below is curious about what the boy is doing.She doesn’t know him. She’s never seen him before. The unwritten rules of “personal space” don’t appear in her playbook. The fear of rejection, the reluctance to invade his space, neither of these is something she understands. It’s a delightful innocence and naivete that is part of early childhood that is being revealed here. So telling and revealing truths are part of the same equation.

And next is a double revelation.

Comfort and Tears.

The girl on her back was just defeated in a judo match. Whether she was hurt or just disappointed is unknown, but that she’s experiencing grief is clear. The girl who beat her is expressing comfort in a physical gesture that recognizes, sympathizes, and cares for the girl she’s just beaten.

Love and Death

Countless images show the love between couples. This lady (and her six month old daughter) are watching her husband play rugby. What we’re willing to do to show our love for someone can be revealed in new and different ways, and sitting on a plastic tarp under a pounding rain just to watch someone you care about play rugby is one such thing, more revealing and truthful than a box of chocolates or a dozen roses.

I love to take photographs that reflect the gamut of human experience, but until Patrick O’Day was killed in the Gulf War I had never pointed my camera at a person who has just lost someone, or whose sense of grief is so intense. It’s times like that that I put the camera down and change hats, except this one occasion, when Patrick O’ Day was honored and his widow presented with his flag. And the family hired me to record the event.

The other side of that coin. Jennifer and Andrew knew that giving birth in Nepal was an unnecessary risk, so Jennifer flew back to California while Andrew, sitting on a sofa in Kathmandu, watched it all on Skype. Weeks later he was able to fly to SF and meet his son for the first time. Jennifer is handing Andrew his first born child while Jadyne is totally caught up in the moment.

SFO

And the third side of that coin is humor. In a now defunct parade called “How Berkeley Can You Be?” a tree marched up the street to chat with two tie-dyed ladies. This makes me smile, too.

Since everything in the world has been photographed innumerable times by skilled and competent artists why bother? To make a photograph the artist/ photographer needs to see and record everyday things in ways that aren’t everyday, that shed a new truth, a new light when the viewer sees it. And maybe finds a way to do it that has never been done before. We’ve all seen dogwood trees. But lying on the ground beneath the tree and photographing a part of the tree under a foggy sky possibly reveals something new about dogwood.

Seeing as Art

What’s also revealed here in this still life in the translucence of the leaves is the essence of what leaves are all about.

Or looking at it with close-up equipment which reveals textures, lines and forms.

More of the same. In a photograph we are drawn to an interpretation of what is. In this case, the patterns of the fronds, the peculiar curving end to the major frond, the staggered growth of the offshoots on the main frond reveal a truth in nature,

Sometimes conditions give photographers opportunities to see in ways that are closed off to others. Riding in the bow of a tugboat and shooting with a fisheye lens allowed me to see and photograph a container ship my own way.

Asphalt Autumn. We’ve all seen, admired, and photographed the colors of autumn, but the photographer looks elsewhere, tries to interpret the beauty of nature in a whole new way, like on a wet road having been crushed by passing cars.

So far it’s truth, revelation, fresh or new interpretation, and I’m now adding preservation. Photographers take thousands of images of their wives, husbands, parents, and children. And embedded in those photographs are truths of who these people were at one specific time, where they lived, experiences they’ve shared.

Recording for Posterity

My forty-five year old son at age three months.

My sister-in-law Teeny, killed in an avalanche almost thirty-two years ago., preserved both in our memories and in photographs.

6210 Ridge Avenue, the house I lived in until I was seventeen. Now torn down and replaced with an apartment building, my childhood home exists as far as I know in this one 35mm transparency.

The Natural World and Photography.

Some psychologists believe that people bring plants and animals inside their homes to reconnect with the world they (their ancestors) once lived in. Perhaps that explains the fascination photographers have with nature, with landscapes, flowers, sunrises and sunsets. We’re all going home. But once again we have to make our image unique, better or different from the many that have preceded it and the many that will follow. But how do we do that? For Ansel Adams the clarity of his 8 x 10 view camera, his patience, his understanding of all the processes that make up film photography, his understanding and search for perfect light, made him one of the best landscape photographers.

It’s not my strength. I have favorites, but they pale. I walked to the beach as Hurricane Iwa came ashore in Oahu in 1982.

I remember the power of the wind, the darkening skies.

Annapurna, along the Jamsom Trek in the Himalayas in Nepal. (Path in the lower right) A grab shot. We were in the Himalayas when I turned, saw Annapurna, and was struck by all the elements that make this a photograph.

Closer to home. I live about five minutes from a vacant lot that overlooks the San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and points beyond. On a late February day in 2016 I watched as a thunderstorm just south of San Francisco was illuminated by the colors of a dramatic winter sunset.

I’m more at home with the smallness of nature—a backlit spider on a rainy day, the colors of strawberry leaves, a passion flower in full bloom., and a hummingbird feeding.

At the end of Part I. Why do I take photos? I look for the truth in all things and I enjoy watching life revealing itself through images. I’m a collector of photos. In preserving the images that make up my collection I am preserving not only what I’m photographing but also pieces of myself. And last, I am grateful for the incredible beauty of nature as it’s revealed to me in shapes, colors, and life, and I photograph such things to make them a part of my collection and to be a part of theirs. That’s not exactly right. I photograph them because they demand to be photographed. I have no choice.

The Trailer for Part II. Sometimes the photographer uses what he photographs to create something altogether different. Softness and blur are in my toolkit. There are infinite possibilities, only a few of which have I explored.

Motorcyclist, Glenwood Springs, Colorado

eBay

A few weeks ago I put up my Panisonic Lumix LX 100 II for sale on eBay. Instead of filling the twelve photo spaces with pictures of the camera I chose images that I had taken with the camera just to show prospective buyers what it could do.

I wrote this to Derek:

“Hi Derek, thank you for your purchase of my Panasonic camera. I will send it out today and will update you with the tracking number. I'm also using this space to give you a little hint about using the camera. As a professional photographer I loved the dial on top of the camera that allowed me to override auto settings when unusual lighting situations required a different setting than the camera indicated. Just be apprised that it's something to check before you do a quick grab shot. I would have preferred a little locking button so the dial couldn't change exposure without me performing a two-step operation. It's not a problem, just something that on occasion requires your attention. I have left you positive feedback and would welcome the same upon receipt and your satisfaction. Thank you, David”

Yesterday I received this note from him:

merriyou70:

I just let you know, the camera you sold to me, has bugs, it does not work well.

I sent him the following and enclosed the December 12th sales invoice from B & H cameras in New York, showing that the camera is still under warranty:

“Derek, I used the camera up until the day you purchased it. It worked fine, and all the photos on the listing were taken with that camera. I'm attaching a sales order from B & H for the camera which was purchased on the 12th of December, 2018. It should still be under factory warranty. If you can tell the nearest service center what the "bugs" are they should be able to take care of them for you.”

And here was his reply:

David, thank you for quick responses, unfortunately it is too late for me to do anything, I'm at stage 4 Cancer, I was going to photograph my last experiences of Cancer. I think time ran out, I'm not not going to ask you do anything about the camera. I'm just going left along. Only thing I asked you is that just do details of product next time. I'm asking this person who love photography. Two photos I added took with my old Lumix, I had good experience with it. The camera you sold, the menu button are very jumpy, and camera is behaving punky, not sure if it is firmware problem or what. But I can't take pictures with it. It is my mistake, I should just bought the brand new camera. Anyway good luck and thank you.
God bless,
Derek

David

The Solano Stroll

On a sunny September Sunday the city of Berkeley closes Solano Avenue, a one mile stretch between the Alameda (on top) and San Pablo Avenue (down below) so that thousands of people can march up and down the street sampling slices of pizza from Zachary’s, sandwiches and fries from food trucks, and quench their thirst with lemonade from the many food and beverage stands that punctuate the road between the two arteries. Every year we go. Every year we say “we’ll never go again”, as it’s always the same.

Weaving in and among the strollers and skateboarders turns the stroll into a slither.

And of course, the opening act is a parade. Hundreds of booths featuring camera clubs, churches, hang-gliding classes, Kung Fu exhibitions, Scottish folk dancing, high school jazz bands, political candidates, and this year, two opposing Jewish groups, one supporting Palestinians’ rights, the other, opposed.

And amid the booths, the food, always the food.

For me the fun is the people. Here’s a kid on a pogo stick.

And a Taiko drummer

It’s Berkeley, remember?

It’s an All-American stroll with All-American dogs…

…and family portraits of two happy sons

Music is the order of business, whether Scottish Folk,

Big Band,

or Mexican, with real Dancing in the Street

Or Rock n’ Roll, and anyone can join in.

Ye Olde School Trail

We chose to move to Kensington because we found a house that had lovely grounds, redwood trees, a place for a vegetable garden, and neighbors whose homes were hidden by large trees, giving us the sense of privacy that we had enjoyed in Santa Rosa. Tilden Park, with its many forested trails, views of the city and even the mountains, was an unknown. We discovered that we were only fifteen minutes away from Tilden’s Selby Trail, one of our favorites. And Selby wasn’t alone. Another hidden gem was the Olde School Trail which begins where Lake Street ends, runs along the ridge that separates Kensington from Tilden, and ends at the playground behind Hilltop School.

The Beginning

Every Wednesday morning I include the trail as part of my mostly urban stroll. The trail takes about twenty minutes to navigate.  The residents have been stockpiling mulch and wheelbarrows so that those who frequent the trail can take a wheelbarrow and dump the mulch in the spots where the winter rains might otherwise make the path muddy and treacherous. 

An open invitation for hikers to help the neighbors whose properties back up to the trail maintain it..

Naked ladies alongside Olde School Trail. The hills of Tilden are off to the right.

I was up early yesterday before the fog had a chance to clear, and except for a couple of dogwalkers, I had the trail to myself.

Even with the wood chips and mulch, the Olde School Trail was no match for last year’s soggy winter. Rivulets during the first heavy rains carved a path through the mulch.

Later in the winter…after the rains have fallen. This gentleman walks the trail with his son, taking him to Hilltop School, while pushing his twin daughters and carrying his dog at a time when the trail isn’t as pleasant a walk as it is the rest of the year.

Not all hikers on Ye Olde School Trail are human

On a prettier day

The Paradise fire preceded the rains by a couple of months. We couldn’t see San Francisco for a week. Everyone wore masks. For several days the air quality was deemed the worst in the world, even worse than Beijing and Delhi. I still walked on Wednesday, mask over my face, camera in hand. Three sunrise images during the fires.

Looking north through Tilden.

The Naked Ladies aren’t the only floral companions on the Olde School Trail.

And since the Olde School Trail has uninterrupted views to the east it was a perfect spot to set up a tripod and await the arrival of one of last year’s two “supermoons.”

Little Hollywood

Because our Grand Canyon accommodations were damaged in the recent harsh winter Jadyne and I were forced to find refuge in tiny, remote Kanab, Utah, (population 4700) ninety minutes away. What a treasure! In the fifties Kanab became known as “Little Hollywood” because of the number of movies that were filmed in this quintessentially Western community.

“Credit for interest in Southern Utah as a Hollywood back lot goes to the Parry Brothers who leveraged their guiding business at Zion National Park into a virtual Hollywood production machine by luring influential filmmakers to the area.”

The Parry Lodge.

“Kanab made its screen debut in 1924 when Tom Mix filmed "Deadwood Coach" along with his co-star, Tony The Wonder Horse. Since then over a hundred Hollywood productions have taken advantage of the diverse and spectacular landscapes that make Southern Utah one of the most stunning places on Earth.”

Movies and TV shows that were filmed in and around Kanab include, Have Gun, Will Travel, The Lone Ranger, Planet of the Apes, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Stagecoach, and Gunsmoke. Virtually all the stars stayed at the Parry Lodge, and the rooms are named for those temporary residents. The lobby is filled with autographed photographs. Here are four:

Roy Rogers, Clayton Moore, Frank Sinatra, Alan Ladd (My favorite was Jay Silverheels, known as “Tonto.”

Located in Paiute Indian country, Kanab’s locals found work as extras. In one western three hundred Indians were hired to charge the soldiers.on horseback. Thirty were selected to fall off their horses and were paid an additional $10. When the favored Indians shared their good fortune with the other 270 they, too, fell off their horses, not at all what the director wanted.

The Parry Lodge provided food and lodging. posting its prices in this document from 1966, which included horses, wagons, teams, extras, (both walking and riding) water trucks, buses, station wagons, and of course, Indians, who were paid $12.50 a day.

Kanab’s streets are lined with photographs and stories about the stars.

Many of the sets, including barns and homes, remain and are in use today. Some are stored in a free museum.

The landscape around Kanab changes from one mile to the next, but is mostly unspoiled by telephone lines, roads, and other signs of twentieth century civilization. Below is a moonset over one of Kanab’s mesas and the dunes of nearby Coral Dunes State Park.

For those who haven’t seen Southern Utah here are two images that reflect the majesty of the countryside, taken through the windshield of our car.

And if that isn’t enough, Zion and Bryce are literally just next door. We missed Zion this time but stopped midday to see Bryce.

Plus Ca Change

Perhaps one of the more revealing emails that I have received over the past few years included this image of a man and a little girl.

I met Gail Anderson fifty-one years ago. She sent me this email recently, saying that for her it represented a relationship that we had in 1968. She was eight; I was twenty-one..

Many years ago Jadyne and I took our kids to Hawaii.  We were sitting around a hotel open-air fireplace one cool evening when we overhead a conversation between a father and his daughter.  They had been snorkeling when he lost sight of her.  “Dad,” she said, “You needn’t worry about me.  I was fine, I’m thirty-five!”  He replied, “You don’t understand.  I’m your father!”  Some things simply don’t change.

When Jennifer was 21 she went to Bangkok and traveled around Asia for about fifteen months, living in virtually every country for a month or so.  We were worried about her so Jadyne and I, after realizing that she wouldn’t be home by Christmas, wanted to confirm for ourselves that she was okay, so we agreed to meet her in April in Hanoi.  When I saw how comfortable she was in dealing with the Vietnamese in the markets and hotels our respective roles reversed.  She was now in charge, as she knew more about bargaining, traveling, and simply getting along in Asia than I did.  I realized subconsciously that this signified not only a growth in her but also a real change in our relationship, and that I could put away my worries and fears about her being able to manage in these circumstances. I could rely on her experience to provide advice.  But, as I began to recognize that she had grown into a capable and independent young woman, and second, that in Vietnam our roles had switched, I was (and am), still her father. C’est la meme chose.

My relationship with my two brothers—Jack in Cincinnati and Bill, who lives just five minutes away, has changed over the years.  I was the youngest of three, and even though Bill was a stepbrother, the age difference when we were growing up was the biggest factor in our relationship. That was especially true with Jack, my “real” brother.  Now that we are all grown up the age difference is irrelevant, and what has determined or affected how we relate to each other has more to do with our understandings of who we are today. And by “who we are” I’m referring to our interests..  I have become closer to my stepbrother while maintaining a closeness with my “real” brother.

Jadyne spent two days with her high school friends in Sonoma, which she does once or twice a year.  These are girls (women) who were close in high school. They still enjoy each other’s company for a night once a year or so.  They can talk, but they have less in common today than when they were little Catholic schoolgirls with common interests and experiences. Relationships are living things, susceptible to change in so many ways, especially when people see each other frequently.

Marriages break up.  The couple has grown (or not), and in either case the relationship changes.  Some remain in those relationships “for the kids” even when the love is gone and the relationship has stagnated or failed to meet the changing needs of one or the other. In more successful marriages the couple embraces, accepts, or adjusts to the inevitable changes, and the changes enhance the relationship.

And that brings me back to the photo. Eight year old Gail will be sixty this year. Twenty-one year old David will be seventy-three. Because we haven’t seen each other for almost a quarter of a century our relationship hasn’t evolved the way others might.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Fifty years ago she needed someone like me.  And fifty years ago I needed someone like her.  I was the youngest of three brothers.  I never had a sister.  She was that little sister.  We still write to each other occasionally, mostly about our kids, our grandchildren, and the everyday comings and goings in our lives. We’re friends, maintaining a friendship and relationship that began fifty-one years ago, and even though we’re both grandparents, the foundation of our relationship is still frozen in the image of the little girl holding onto her doll and the man who soothes and comforts her.

Plus Ca Change Plus La Meme Chose

The Loneliest Road in America

I have driven Hwy 50 several times, passing through Ely, Austin, Eureka, and finally Fallon, Nevada. Recently National Geographic published a photo essay on the route, dubbed in 1986 by Life Magazine as the “Loneliest Road in America.” I’m crediting National Geographic for the following text. The rest of the images are mine.

“Where the state of Nevada folds in half—from the elbow on its western arm at Lake Tahoe across to its Utah border—you’ll find the most direct route across the state. It crosses several communities, a handful of mountain ranges, a national park, and one reservoir, where bobcats, foxes, and wild horses roam free. There’s life, yes, but not a familiar way of life for many. It’s a place where the lines between John Wayne Westerns and everyday life blur, where ghost towns bleed into living ones. This is Route 50, the Loneliest Road in America.”

Ely, (pronounced “Eelee” with the accent on the first syllable) Nevada, the beginning (or the end), depending on which way you’re driving. We’re heading west, so Ely is the beginning.

Ely’s Hotel Nevada, the tallest building along the route. Margaritas are $.99., rooms $35. We stayed there one night. Even though we were on the top floor the noise was deafening.

Across the street from the Hotel Nevada. Our room also included a free drink at the bar across #50.

Ely

Gwen and her husband own a ranch an hour away from Eureka. She brings her kids to town for school before going to work as a court reporter in Eureka, Nevada. Most of the buildings in tiny Eureka were built between 1861 and 1874, including this courtroom which contains the original pot-bellied stove used to heat the room. Cases today mostly center around water rights. The last homicide case was twenty years ago.

The two images on the left are from Ely. The flag is photographed through a window in the courthouse in Eureka.

Continuing National Geographic’s story…”Or so says Life magazine. In July 1986, the publication honored the Statue of Liberty’s 100th birthday and highlighted American superlatives: On one page, the “Cutest” (a toddler actor) appears alongside the “Loneliest Road” below a photo of a seemingly endless highway that reaches across the desert toward the mountains, a lone cowboy on horseback crossing from one side of nothingness to the other. An anonymous AAA counselor is quoted in the article: “We warn all motorists not to drive there, unless they're confident of their survival skills.”

Survival Skills? How do you get by an earthmover that takes up the entire road?

We were fortunate to have found a shoulder wide enough to pull off the road. Hard to imagine meeting this in a canyon when you’re in your RV.

“Rather than keep motorists away, however, the moniker piqued curiosity—thanks in part to the Nevada Commission on Tourism. The public relations director at the time saw an opportunity in the article and released a Highway 50 survival guide the same month the Life article came out, rewarding visitors to the area with a certificate of survival signed by the governor. Highway signs touting the qualifier went up along the route at the same time, and it graduated from opinion to slogan.

 That sort of isolation follows Route 50 for almost the entirety of its 400 miles across Nevada, but it’s particularly pronounced along this stretch, the 287 miles between Ely and Fernley designated by Life as the Loneliest Road. Here, you can’t count on cell service or gas stations, on places to eat or even people to wave at as you pass—anything to replace the eeriness of the hungry red desert around you. Even its small towns seemingly materialize and then fade into the distance like a mirage.”

One of those small towns is Austin.

I saw this before the election, thinking it would be down before we passed through again. It wasn’t. After our last trip, July 2019, the signs were gone. Did the owner die? Become disenchanted? Sell the place?

The General Store in Austin. It was closed. I don’t know if it ever opens. A McCain/Palin sticker in the front window, predating the “Make America Great” signs across the street.

“There's just a mystique about Nevada,” says Helming. She moved to Austin, one of the few towns along the highway, in 1981 and today owns a laundromat, a bed and breakfast, and a cafe with her husband, Kip.

“For us, it’s that freedom of living old school, I guess. It’s a whole different way of life. Your community is more dependent on each other. You have to understand, you’re 112 miles from the nearest Walmart; you're 110 miles from the nearest stoplight. You learn a lot of independence.”

 “Anybody can go there and look around and say, ‘Wow, this is lonely,’ and then leave and go back to where they came from,” says Svold. “But people who live there, it’s a permanent mindset. The difference is in having the solitude inside you, instead of it being a temporary feeling.”

This is where National Geographic leaves off and I come in. I love the highway, the desert, the skies, the solitude, the long vistas and the empty roads. It all feels good to me.

A trailer, station wagon, and 100 miles in between this resident and his “next door neighbor,”

Jadyne was sleeping beside me as I came across this scene. I was afraid that stopping to take this image would wake her up. I stopped. It did.

It isn’t just the skies that make #50 so wonderful. It’s the unexpected.

Just outside of Ely.

But it’s the landscape itself that is the star of the show. Thunderstorms in the distance.

Sadly missing from Route 50 now near Fallon, Nevada, the western outpost of civilization along the highway, is this tree, one of the few between Ely and Fallon. Its branches were shoes, not leaves. Sadly vandals cut it down. For the shoes? Air Jordans?

Totally Useless Photo Information

Unlike most amateur cameras, professional cameras have the ability to shoot photos as jpegs (useful for the internet, Facebook, etc.) or RAW (images that contain all the information that the sensor in the camera can pick up).  RAW images make the best enlargements, although they take up so much space on a card in the camera or on a desktop that they can be unwieldy.

I always shoot RAW just in case I’m fortunate enough to capture an image that is so good that I would either want to sell it, print it, or, simply make it look as good as I can make it.

All images can be adjusted by software, but in the case of RAW images, the photographer’s ability to make the most out of an image is only limited by the software.  As improvements take place in software, RAW images that were processed by inferior or older software enjoy a second life.

And so it is with Adobe’s Lightroom, perhaps the most useful and comprehensive software editing program.  Recently, Adobe introduced a new tool called “enhancement” that can only be applied to RAW images taken with a few cameras, one of which is my Nikon D 850.  Here is an image processed in Lightroom. adding the enhancement feature, which Adobe claims improves the RAW image as much as 30%.

Of course, how good it looks also depends on your computer, phone, or iPad screen.  I currently have 69,173 images stored on my computer, all of which can be enhanced by Lightroom better than they could have been last year, the year before, or 2003 when I first bought a digital camera.

Some photographers pour over old images, knowing that they can be improved. I confess that I occasionally do that, too. But for me, I’m primarily interested in the next image. It’s the shooting itself, the hunting, what photographers call “captures” that I live for. I have a formatted card in my camera. I’m ready.

Antar

Yesterday it rained.  It was also the first of the month.  People have money and they don’t want to get wet, so it was predictably slow at the Berkeley Food Pantry where I’ve been volunteering for the past eight years, providing food once a month to those who are willing to wait an hour or so for some meat, dairy, a few cans of soup or peaches, fresh bread and produce..  We’re open between 2 and 4 MWF, and during one of the quieter moments close to 4:00 yesterday I sat outside where the clients wait for their name to be called.  On busy days it’s a real wait.  Yesterday, by 3:00 there was no one.  Or one.  Antar.  Antar had gotten his food and was chomping on a bagel when I began chatting with him.  We discovered that we had both attended Burlingame HS, although I was a senior when he was a freshman.  Somehow the conversation turned to the guitar, and we both expressed our love for playing. 

He said, “I have about 600 videos on YouTube”, and gave me his nom de guitar, “Antarblue.” I looked him up, and found this version of “Misty.” Rock, jazz, it’s all there. He’s good.

W know next to nothing about our clients. We check to make sure that they live in Berkeley or Albany, but there are no additional requirements. We don’t ask for proof of income (or lack thereof), marital status, or any personal information. We do make exceptions for the homeless. They get food, period.

Sarah Robinson records the clients’ names on a sign-in sheet. One day she wrote down, “Jeff Borowiak.” Here’s Jeff when he was a bit younger.

“Jeff Borowiak (born September 25, 1949) is a former professional tennis player from the United States, who won five singles and three doubles titles during his professional career, reaching a career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 20 in August 1977.” Wikipedia

Sarah asked, “What happened?” Jeff replied, ‘Sometimes things don’t always work out.” Jeff needed food.

Here’s Charlie Musselwhite, the Grammy-nominated blues harmonica player:

Charlie hasn’t been in, but his steel guitar player lives in Peoples Park in Berkeley, has played with dozens of famous musicians, and used to come in monthly for food for himself and for his friends.

You don’t have to be famous to get food, just hungry.

When a Boy Becomes a Man

This morning I updated my Tesla Model 3 with the software that crossed over my wifi system last night and found this, buried among a handful of bug fixes that make the ventilation system run more smoothly.

I tried it out today, running through the seven different fart sounds that the engineers at Tesla created, then shared with those of us who have plopped down the many thousands of dollars we plopped for the privilege of being green or being cool, or whatever motivated us to do what we do to own a Tesla.

I confess.  I can’t remember laughing out loud.  Ever.  I like to believe that I have a sense of humor, that I love the New Yorker’s cartoons and short articles called “Shouts and Murmurs”, that I find that irony often amuses me.  I laugh inside, but I just don’t guffaw, snort, or make noises.  I love to listen to music, too, but it doesn’t move me to dance.  Perhaps that’s because I’m a really shitty dancer, but I can be moved inwardly, I can dance without actually flailing my arms and legs.  I can still do the Twist and the Stroll

With the update, though, you see a cartoon whoopee cushion on the giant screen in the center of the dashboard, and because it’s a touch screen you can move the cushion to whichever seat in the car you choose.  Once placed you can choose from the seven different fart sounds:

• Not a Fart: A two-part toot.

  1. rts Ripper: As the name implies, an extremely short sound. Good for turn signals.

     • A slam on Tesla stock short sellers, who Musk regularly trolls.

  2. Falcon Heavy: Aptly named and powerful.

     • Named after the SpaceX rocket that launched Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into orbit.

  3. Ludicrous Fart: A long, victorious display of windy harmony.

     • Named after Tesla's high-performance acceleration setting, Ludicrous Mode.

  4. Neurastink: A generic fart sound effect.

     • One of the more indistinguishable companies that Musk fronts, NeuraLink .

  5. Boring: Rumbly.

     • Another play on The Boring Company .

  6. I'm so random: Literally picks one of the above fart sounds at random.

The sound is generated from speakers placed near the seat where the Whoopee cushion is placed on the screen and activated either by the turn signal or by a rotary knob on the steering wheel.  So, just as someone enters the car, the driver has the world at his fingers.

Confession. As I drove down I-80 to pick up the Christmas Honey-Baked Ham I hit the litle knurled knob on the steering wheel, with sound set to “I’m so random.” Over and over again. I disproved my theory. I can, absolutely can, laugh out loud.

In an hour I’m driving to two different elementary schools to pick up three of my grandchildren, ages 9, 8, and 6.  I wish I could record their faces when they sit down.

So, to answer my question, “When Does a Boy Become a Man?” In my case, never.

Happiness

After seeing this video I started to think about what happiness is to me.  I began by looking at what others had to say, and several comments and graphic designs with messages superimposed resonated.  The rodent in the video sought happiness through external means, none of which leads to real happiness.  The wages of sin, it is said, is death.  And so it is for the rodent in this video, falsely believing  that the pursuit of happiness comes from without.

Some of the screen shots that I found dealt with happiness in a different way, one isn’t as deep or so relevant .  “Happiness is having what you want and wanting what you have,” and a variation of that, “Happiness isn’t about getting what you want all the time; it’s about loving what you have and being grateful for it.”

The more spiritual nature of happiness has nothing to do with things. It is a choice that comes from within, that, as Buddha is reported to have said, “that it doesn’t depend on what you have or who you are, but what you think.”

Apart from what spiritual leaders think, I am happy when I’m doing something for someone. Whether it’s washing dishes in the men’s shelter on Center Street before breakfast or a comment from a friend thanking me for something. This happiness works both ways. Sometimes it’s something I’ve said or done; sometimes it’s what was said or done for me. It’s all one. I have friends whose presence in my life simply makes me happy.

Though happiness is a choice, a decision, the path to happiness means overcoming obstacles, some of which are insurmountable.  I spend part of three days dealing with the homeless.  It’s easy to choose happiness when you have a roof over your head, when you’re well fed, in good health, have companionship and love.  When your pillow is a rolled-up sweatshirt in a concrete doorway it’s a different story.  You don’t have the opportunity to make the choice to be happy because your growling stomach is loud. and your dirty threadbare jacket can’t keep out the cold.  For some happiness is as unlikely a prospect in their lives as a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. 

One of those avoidable obstacles is the smartphone. “Whether it’s someone you’ve never met or it’s friends and family, spending time with people face to face is linked with happiness.” Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology. Some estimates of smartphone use suggest that the average person touches his phone over two thousand times a day. That means that two thousand times a day he isn’t seeking social interaction, trying to understand other people and other perspectives.

Maybe the focus shouldn’t be on being happy, but on the acceptance that so much of what we feel, who we are, and what we do, are decisions that come from within.  In George Bush’s funeral his son said that, “hate corrupts the vessel that contains it.”  Perhaps choosing to love, to do good, to be useful to others, activities which enrich and strengthen that vessel, ultimately make it possible to overcome those obstacles, to achieve real happiness.

Christmas

As a boy Christmas was pure magic.  The official beginning of Christmas took place when we cut down the tree, plugged in the lights, (replacing the six or seven bulbs that gave up the ghost during the year), retrieved the boxes of ornaments, placing them in no prescribed order.  We still have a little round ornament onto which I glued sparkles with the name “David”, I think from as far back as Cub Scouts.  We have ornaments that Teeny made, that the kids created, that we’ve bought during our travels, funny ornaments that mean little (an alligator) or some that simply reflect who we are, such as a camera and a guitar for me.

But that is now.  We’re repeating today what we all did sixty years ago, although with our kids grown and gone, it’s really not the same.  Sixty years ago we went to All Saints Episcopal Church for the evening service on Christmas Eve.  Johnny Schmidt had already opened his presents, which I always thought was a terrible mistake.  What did he have to look forward to tomorrow?  My mother once said that the worst Christmas she ever had was the one where she opened a closet door and discovered all her gifts, leaving her nothing to look forward to Christmas morning.

I mostly remember singing the traditional carols on Christmas Eve, everyone joining in, standing next to my mother, who only sang on key about as often as a stopped clock tells the real time.   When the service ended we piled in the Gray Ghost, our 1953 Ford Sedan, headed home, and I climbed into bed, waiting for the arrival of Santa.  Of course we left a cookie or two on our fireplace mantle.  Its disappearance the next morning was the first sign that Santa had made it safely to 6210 Ridge Avenue.  Had he remembered to bring me my Mattel Burp Gun?  Did he bring enough roll caps so that I could shoot up the Post Office the next day?  Did I get the Stallion .45 caliber pistol with the interchangeable black and white handles?  Seeing the extraordinary array of wrapped presents below the tree gave no hint as to who got what or what was contained inside.  I knew what was in at least two presents.  I had bought $.99 45 rpm records for both my brothers, records that I wanted for myself, rationalizing that they might like them, too. 

Since we had all gone to church the night before we didn’t have to accompany Dad as he led the sparsely attended Christmas morning service, returning home to a late  brunch of eggs, bacon, toast, and of course my mother’s delicious sour cream coffee cake. I wolfed down breakfast, anxiously waiting for everyone else to finish, so we could attend the main event—the opening, appreciating, and lamenting the wrong toys, contained within the gaily wrapped packages.

In the evening we drove to my Aunt Helen’s house where all my mother’s family gathered, had dinner, then once again repeated the entire ceremonious unwrapping of gifts, oohing and aahing, insincerely thanking our aunts, uncles and cousins, listening while my Uncle Andrew told tasteless and cruel Polish jokes, which none of us understood anyhow.  And that was Christmas.  Then.

We always had a Christmas tree, usually purchased at a lot. We’ve saved ornaments, too, and they mean more each year. This is one I made with my name on it. I put glue on it, then sparkles to make the letters. It’s probably sixty-five years old.

David

Part II was a repeat of Part I, except we’ve never been churchgoers, so the carols were out.  (I miss that part).  The kids all went to bed early.  We left ketchup and oranges for Santa.  (I insisted that he loved ketchup).

We still had brunch, and Jadyne learned how to duplicate my mother’s sour cream coffee cake.  And we still had presents.  Here are two color slides taken on Christmas morning that echo in Jason the feelings that we all had (or have).  I’ve always meant to print these together and call them, “Different Presents.”

But Christmas for the five Buchholzes were not without other memories as well.

Teeny made this in 1985

So now, 2018, we don’t even celebrate Christmas on Christmas.  With families scattered from El Cerrito to Sacramento, we find a time where everyone can be together.  This year it’s December 22nd, and we’ll host six adults, six grandchildren, and all will be as it was when we were growing up and when our children were growing up.  For our adult children and their spouses, though, they will celebrate Christmas on Christmas, with their own families of four, in their own houses, at their own times, and in their own ways.

Jadyne and I will be at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, walking along the beach, or perhaps at Point Lobos, near Carmel, celebrating Christmas privately, giving thanks for the celebration three days earlier, for our families, our health, for the love we have for each other.  And we will remember, that although we don’t attend church or raise our voices to heaven, that the message that Jesus brought two thousand years earlier still resonates, and for that we will give thanks.

Zhongbing

Zhongbing. He’s at the Ancient Szechuan Restarant in El Cerrito with his wife and the female half of his twins.

YaZheng, Ziyan, and Zhongbing

Zhongbing is my current “CP” or Conversational Partner. A couple of years ago Jadyne saw on the Kensington kiosk a request for volunteers to pair up with graduate students from UC Berkeley who, being from foreign countries, wanted to improve their conversational English. If you think of the language in three parts—reading, writing, and speaking—many ESL learners can manage two of them. The third, speaking, is often taught by ESL teachers who don’t speak it well themselves. In China, that means that Chinese teachers, many of whom have poor conversational skills, are the ones guiding their students. Naturally, their focus is on reading and writing.

Zhonging can read and write reasonably well, but when it comes to speaking, oh me oh my. When we first met a year or so ago I couldn’t understand a word he said. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. The previous year my CP was Hao Yun, who was pursuing his second Ph.D. He already had one in Optical Engineering and felt that he needed one in Chemistry, too.

Both Hao Yun and Zhong are in their thirties, married and have children. Hao Yun spoke good English and our conversations centered on fairly sophisticated subjects—the relationship between the US and the two Koreas, elections in the US, social issues, such as abortion and homosexuality. We would walk around Berkeley looking at personalized license plates, many of which were puns, and he would try to figure them out. We might spend an hour in Andronico’s, looking at breakfast cereals and talking about what Americans eat.

Alas, Zhongbing is another story. When I first met him I couldn’t decipher a single sentence he spoke. We have English-Mandarin dictionaries on our phones, and we frequently summoned them to complete a thought. It wasn’t that Zhongbing didn’t know the word. He did. There are so many sounds in English that aren’t replicated in Mandarin, and Zhong would show me the word in the dictionary, a word we both knew, and then I would make him say it over and over again, trying to get the sound of the word right. The “V” sound in English comes out as a “W” when Zhongbing says it. When he says “very” I hear “weary.” After a year we’re making progress.

“Zhong”, I said this morning, “How many hours a week do you speak to someone else in English?” “None,” he answered. He studies, lives, and spends his time with Mandarin speakers. There are 168 hours in the week. I spend an hour with him. Not much, but it helps. He’s improved considerably in the last year.

YaZheng, however, came over for three weeks, her first visit to an English speaking country. She spoke exactly 0 words of English. And his daughter? Another story.

Here he is. Or here she is. When Jadyne first saw her she thought that she was a he.

You be the Judge.

Zhong wanted Jadyne and me to meet his family, so he hosted us all at the Ancient Szechuan Restaurant for a midday banquet highlighted by this incredible fish dish.

The tail emerges from a sea of peppers and vegetables in the front of the pan.

Jadyne has a conversational partner, too. Here we all are in front of the restaurant post-banquet.

Danesh, Celia, YaZheng Ziyan. Zhong, Jadyne, and me

Danesh loves to drive. He never drove in China and was scared to death to drive here. When he took his driving test he turned left into oncoming traffic at which point he was told to “Stop immediately and get out of the car.” A few weeks later he passed. Zhong, Danesh, and Celia all took their tests in Corte Madera, eschewing the El Cerrito DMV because word spread through “We Chat”, an Asian version of Facebook, that the test was easier in Corte Madera, despite the fact that it was several miles away, across a toll bridge. Danesh doesn’t speak English at all, but he loves to eat. Celia, however, lived in Australia for a year, and she’s almost fluent. She and Jadyne carry on conversations once a week for an hour, too.

Zhong and YaZheng met in college. He is a professor; she is a building designer. Zhong’s major is “Building, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning.” They study and design ventilation, heating, and climate controlled systems for high rises. Zhong writes papers on subjects so obscure that I have no way of knowing what he’s talking about. I can, however, match subject and verbs, help him with parallelism, and other English grammatical tricks.

Jadyne’s brother and sister-in-law are visiting from Colorado. We’re taking them to the Ancient Szechuan Restaurant in El Cerrito. Zhongbing tonight will be our honored guest.

Christ Church

November 19, 2018. Jadyne and I have been volunteering Tuesdays at Christ Church for three months now. Today I added my second day, Monday, to my time at the church, and because Joe Magruder has been the lone volunteer on Monday, I joined him at 6:15 at the kitchen of the men’s shelter at the Veterans Memorial Building at 1931 Center Street, adding to my serving duties preparing the food to be distributed and described below.

Cordon Bleu, Berkeley. That’s Joe on the left, and Sam (above) and Robert on the right. Sam and Joe are volunteers. Robert is paid. He arrives at 4 am every morning and prepares food for the forty-seven residents of the shelter, serving it buffet style through the window in front of them.

Joe is stirring the “Nine Grains” cereal in a pot on the stove. To his left is a much larger pot of boiling water and oatmeal into which whatever oatmeal remains from the shelter breakfast will be added. Not pictured are eight and a half dozen eggs in another pot of boiling water. Prior to this Joe and I slathered margarine onto four or five loaves of bread and stuck them into the oven to be heated and softened. Behind me on the floor are two containers of coffee, several dozen day old doughnuts from Happy Doughnuts on Gilman, and a handful of bagels, English muffins, and assorted un-margarined pieces of bread.

Robert is removing the bread from the oven. Behind him on the steps are the coffee and doughnuts. In the front is a bowl of cut-up fruit, which will disappear immediately after we arrive at the church. Several cartons of low-fat milk will be carried to the church kitchen, which the homeless add to coffee and cereal.

Here we are at the end of this morning’s shift:

The oatmeal, Nine grains, and grits are gone. So are the eggs. A few slices of un-margarined bread remain, as does the third tray of doughnuts.

August 21, 2018. 6:08 am.  After checking Google maps this morning Jadyne and I figured that by leaving now we’d arrive at Christ Church on Cedar Street in Berkeley at the appointed hour of 6:50, about ten minutes before the Dorothy Day van arrives.  Google took us an unaccustomed way, down Santa Barbara until it meets Spruce, then down Spruce to Cedar, right on Cedar for two blocks.  At 6:50 we climbed the steps into the dining room and sat by David, the director of the Dorothy Day program that provides breakfast six days a week, Monday through Saturday, for anyone who shows up between the hours of 7:00 and 7:50 when a final call is issued.  By 8:00 the room is emptied, the diners return to the streets, and whatever food remains is packed back up into the Dorothy Day van, which then takes it to the Veterans’ Building, where it is distributed.  Nothing is wasted.

At 7:00 the van pulls up, and the volunteers open the folding panels that cover the trays of buttered and unbuttered bread, bagels, doughnuts, the hard-boiled eggs, hot coffee, and the three heated pots of oatmeal, grits, and nine grains, the hot cereal that moments later Jadyne will be scooping into the Styrofoam bowls that forty homeless men (and an occasional woman or two) will be carrying.  Last week someone had donated a box of bananas; today there was no fruit. 

I stood next to Ron, a volunteer who has been working with this program for twelve years.  He had hard-boiled about eight dozen cartons of eggs that morning, and as the diners passed by he placed them two at a time on the trays.  “Buttered or unbuttered?” I asked as the diners surveyed the three trays of bread on the table, two buttered and one unbuttered.  “Do you mean ‘unmargarined’? one of them asked.  “I guess it’s unabunchofstuff” I replied.  Olive bread, white, wheat, bagels, English muffins, all lay before them for the choosing.  Wearing gloves and carrying tongs, I picked up two, three, or however many pieces of bread they requested, placing them on paper napkins on the trays. “Do you have peanut butter?” asked one.  “On the table over there,” Ron responded, and the diner chose four unbuttered pieces of white bread, intending to carry a peanut butter sandwich with him, his lunch.  Armin was last.  The doughnut lady volunteer had three trays of leftover doughnuts from “Happy Donuts”, a Gilman Avenue staple.  Cake, chocolate, glazed, sprinkles covering white and chocolate icing, a potpourri of possibilities. 

This is breakfast for five of the six days .  On Saturday the kitchen in the church prepares a more sumptuous meal.  We’ve only heard it described.

This morning one diner carried in cut flowers.  I don’t know where he found the little white vase into which he neatly arranged the flowers before choosing his tray.

“Last call.  Five minutes!”  Two security employees, thirty-something black men, looked around the room and encouraged latecomers to grab a tray.  Dave had pointed to one of them earlier.  “He was stabbed three times in the face a few months ago,” he said.  “He’s homeless, too.”  With only five minutes, some took the Styrofoam bowls with them, piling an empty bowl over a full one, hoping to keep the oatmeal, now thick and hard to scoop, as warm as possible.  The flower man removed his cut flowers from the vase, carried them under his shoulder, and was gone.  Jadyne and I carried the now empty trays back into the van, and Ron, the driver, slipped into gear and left. 

We are all one…

Many of our clients can carry everything they own in eight or nine bags and take them to their homes…

ZZZzzz

"Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul." 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Sonoma County Fair

If you're as fortunate as Jadyne you fall asleep within five or ten minutes after you turn out the light.  We could be in mid-conversation.  I ask her a question.  "Did you hear me?"  I ask.  She responds, "ZZZZZ"

I'm not nearly as lucky.  I'm currently in a period in my life at 72 when I actually can sleep.  Not enough, but I can sleep.  By 8:00 pm I'm flat on my back with a book or my iPad in my hands; by 8:30 I make one last visit to the bathroom.  By 9:00 it's dark and so am I.  "Do you really go to bed that early?" my friends ask, incredulously.  "Yes, I do," I respond, annoyed.  "I often wake up between 3 and 4," I say, "and by 4 I'm heating hot water to warm my cup, then grinding the beans for the six cups of Peets Major Dickason blend that greet us in the morning." The SF Chronicle arrives at 4, and more than once I've heard the thud of the paper on the driveway as I stumble up the flagstone to retrieve the collection of yesterday's bad news that accompanies my first cup of morning joe.  This morning I went face-to-face with a neighborhood skunk who was emerging from the Patton's driveway.  We stared at each other, not making a move, before he slunk into the gutter that runs down the north side of Rugby Avenue.  A couple of weeks ago Jadyne was sprayed as she went to get the paper.  Several days before the smell dissipated.

But not all has gone well.  I've had periods when I've slept less than five or six hours, fatigue be damned.  I lie awake for hours, my eyes closed, the room dark and quiet, the only sound the occasional train in the distance, "It's like a crypt!" exclaimed one of our friends who spent her first night here.  No disturbances, that is none from outside.  But here am I on the inside.

He's counting sheep.  That doesn't work.  Nor does counting anything.  Or playing a song in my mind on the guitar.  Or, when I used to play golf, replaying a round, shot by shot.

What does?  Well, Ambien does.  Now that the patent on the original drug has run out there's a generic equivalent called "Zolpidem."  When I was an Ambien devoteé my doctor would prescribe thirty pills at a time in 10 mg sizes.  Here's the deal with Ambien.  After two or three nights taking Ambien you think you've reset your sleep clock, paid your debt to the sleep bank.  You're rested and refreshed.  The fourth night you don't fall asleep nearly as fast.  You tell yourself, "If I had taken an Ambien I would be asleep by now."  You lie awake for another thirty minutes or so, then take another Ambien.  Presto.  You come back to bed and fall asleep.  But now you know that unless you take an Ambien, you will never get to sleep.  That's not true, of course, but you've bought into that thinking.  Now what do you do?

Dr. Dean Edell, a now retired doctor with a radio show, tells the story of a night he spent camping with his wife.  Unable to seep, Dr. Dean took an Ambien and immediately dropped off.  In the morning his wife asked, "Where's my thyroid pill?"  Never overestimate the power of placebos.  I cut a 5 mg Ambien into quarters, effectively turning them into placebos, and off I go.

Some people can sleep anywhere.

San Francisco

Great Barrier Reef, Australia 2003

Lake Tahoe

San Francisco's BART trains are the only bed for many.

We get it where we can.  People ride BART from one end of the line to the other and back again.  It's warm.  No one bothers you.

I'm reading "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker who makes a persuasive case for eight hours of sleep every night.  He describes an incredibly powerful drug that's in front of each and every one of us.

                                                AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH

"Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer.  It enhances your memory and makes you more creative.  It makes you look more attractive.  It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings.  It protects you from cancer and dementia.  It wards off colds and the flu.  It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes.  You'll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious.  Are you interested?"  Yes, please hand it over.  I'll pay anything.  Is it legal?

It is a myth that we need less sleep as we age.  Eight to nine hours for every adult, every night.  I've been in bed for eight hours straight (not counting tugs of the bladder), but asleep?  Nein.  This is a wonderful new project for me.  Sleep.  Eight hours.  Who knew?

Millions of adults have sleep issues, the most common of which is insomnia.  There is no shortage of information available on insomnia, sleep apnea, and the myriad of other issues that beset those of us who have trouble sleeping. 

To overcome my tinnitus I was introduced to "cognitive behavioral therapy", a collection of mental and psychological exercises that are designed to help the patient deal with and overcome the triggers that made coping difficult.  I haven't enrolled in any classes that deal with insomnia, but the most promising and long-lasting treatment is, you guessed it, "cognitive behavioral therapy," mental processes that help us overcome the stressors and other issues that have led us down the path of unwanted awakeness.  

At the moment I'm doing well.  No heavy dinners, a cool bedroom, darkness, no iPad in bed, no late night cocktails, and a consistent routine, unusual as it may seem to others, that begins to shut my body down after sixteen hours and wakes it up, early though it may be, eight hours later.  Hello, 4 am, skunks, the morning Chronicle, and three cups of Peets.

The Visit

I never knew Carl Linford Kennedy.  I was born in July 1946, and he died of pneumonia a couple of months later.  At least that's what I think.  I'm not even sure if I spelled (or know) his middle name, or whether or not he actually died of pneumonia.  My mother remarried when I was about six or seven, and as a consideration to my stepfather, she had my name changed from "David William Kennedy" to "David William Kennedy Buchholz."  My mother wanted my brother and me to consider that our stepfather, her second husband, was our "real" father, so our names were changed to his, and he officially adopted us.  Though she meant well, it was a mistake.  Not wanting to offend my stepfather I made no effort to expunge the last name "Buchholz" and return to "Kennedy" while he was living, and by the time he passed twenty years ago the family name "Buchholz" has carried on to children and grandchildren.  As for me I have dropped the "William" and call myself "David Kennedy Buchholz."

Here is a drawing of my father as a little boy in 1926 made by his older brother, my Uncle Bill.

It's been a long strange journey straddling both the Kennedy and Buchholz families, but I am much closer to my Kennedy relatives and only know one of the Buchholzes.  Part of that, I suppose, was due to the fact that my stepfather, Gustavus William Buchholz (GWB), wasn't close to his own family when I was growing up.  A one-time visit to Southern Pines, NC, a trip to Washington DC to visit the FBI headquarters where GWB's brother worked as an FBI agent, a visit by some to Pickerel Lake during one summer.  No phone calls, no letters, no visits, really no contact.

Between 1946 and 1953 when my mother remarried I lived at my paternal grandparents' house in Pleasant Ridge.  This visit included a stop at their graves, too, right alongside their son's, my father's.

John Vincent Kennedy and Elsie Oberhelman Kennedy today

I imagine that my grandmother was devastated when my mother had Jack's and my names changed. Our names are part of our identity, and changing our names to Buchholz represented a Kennedy cleansing.  Jack was named "John" after his paternal grandfather. a name that has been passed from many generations  and continues through my son John.

The Kennedys.  I am sitting to the right next to my mother.  Elsie and John are in the center.  Their remaining children and spouses have all passed; the cousins survive.  From left to right—Beth, Margie, Dick, Bob, Donald, Jack, and David.  Dick and Bob are closing in on 80.  Margie, the youngest, is a year younger than I am.  No such photo exists of the Buchholzes, as there were no family gatherings and no photographs.

Spring Grove Cemetery, with its many lakes and monuments, is an extraordinarily beautiful place to spend eternity.  Unfortunately, the residents are unable to appreciate it, but for those who visit. it is comforting and peaceful.  By a remarkable coincidence, members of my mother's family, the Hopples, are buried within ten or fifteen feet of my father's.  Here's Rowland, my mother's younger brother.  "Rowland" was one of my mother's two middle names.  My youngest is John Rowland Buchholz.  (His younger child, one of my grandchildren, is named Kennedy).

My uncle Rowland died eighteen years ago.  He never married and there are those who believe that he was gay.  The sixties in Cincinnati wouldn't have been a welcome time to come out of the closet.  I lived with him near the University of Cincinnati for the three years that I attended school there.  He was a strong influence in my life, beginning when I was born, as he assumed the role of a father to both me and my brother, taking us to Coney Island, Graeter's for ice cream, and spending holidays and some weekends with us.  Here he is at my wedding.

June 13, 1970

Memorial Day, 2000.  In a strange footnote, after not having spoken with him for several weeks one Sunday night I said to Jadyne, "I have to call Rowland".  We talked for a half hour or so, and I felt very good having reconnected with him after too long a time.  He was discovered dead of a heart attack the next morning.  I must have been the last person to talk to him.

My mother's mother (both named Dorothy), and my maternal grandfather, Howard, who died thirteen years before I was born.  (Howard is Jack's middle name).  My mother was cremated and her ashes placed in a garden at All Saints Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, where my stepfather was pastor for seventeen years.

As a child I always thought of both of my grandmothers as ancient relics, older than dirt, having attained more years than I could ever imagine.  I have no images of Howard, but in going through color slides that my father had taken I came across the only image I have of Grandmother Hopple.

Dorothy Winkler Hopple at Pickerel Lake, Michigan

Born 1889, Died 1961.  Grandmother Hopple, my mother's mother, was 72 years old when she died. This photograph was taken many years earlier.  She was 72 when she died.  Seventy-two.  On Monday, July 9th, four days hence, I will be 72.  She was 72 when she died. 

Angels in America

Three hours and forty minutes after the lights went dim at Berkeley Rep, Jadyne and I stood to applaud the actors who had just mesmerized us with just the first half of a two part play written by Tony Kushner in the early eighties and revived and brought back to stage by Tony Taccone.

For those of that certain age who remember the AIDS epidemic, the mysterious fatal disease that was responsible for the deaths of over 7,000 people in 1985 alone, Angels in America is a somber reminder of the hopeless situation that thousands of gay Americans as well as hospitalized patients who received tainted blood transfusions faced as their friends and lovers died slow and agonizing deaths from a disease that the medical community had never seen and had no idea how to treat.  Tony Kushner, the 36 year old playwright, spent time in the mid-eighties along Sonoma County's Russian River, creating this "gay fantasia", which features gay men struck by AIDS, a heterosexual man who discovers his inner gayness, and such diverse and unexpected players as attorney Roy Cohn (who died of AIDS), and Ethel Rosenberg.  Three hours and forty minutes later, we were ready for Part II.

By June of 1987 AIDS activists began the NAMES project, a quilt to remember the names of the many thousands who died of AIDS.  To date more than 48,000 panels commemorating the many lives lost to AIDS have been created.  Two panels were on display in the lobby of the Berkeley Rep theater.

Although AIDS hasn't disappeared from the American medical landscape drugs have been discovered to prevent the spread of HIV and to prolong the lives of those who have been infected with AIDS.  Berkeley Rep brought the play back to the stage because  the political climate that was uninterested in helping those in need (think Reagan), is so similar to the political climate that we're facing today.

Footnote.  When our son John was about ten years old he became ill, and as concerned parents we took him to the hospital.  The doctor who examined him was puzzled and called in another doctor.  The two doctors poured over John's test results.  John was there watching.  At first clearly flummoxed, the doctors conferred and came up with this conclusion:  John had been vaccinated against the Mumps, but somehow had contracted it.  Meanwhile John broke into tears.  Before the results were in I asked him, "Why are you crying?"  John's reply:  "I thought I had AIDS."

Fred Furth R.I.P. (My $2500 bottle of wine)

According to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat..."Fred Furth, the brash and grand, cigar-puffing, high-flying attorney, vintner and philanthropist who made an international destination of Chalk Hill Winery near Windsor, died Saturday, one week after he struck his head in a fall at his home in Florida."

Quentin Kopp, former San Francisco supervisor had this to say about Fred, "He was incisive.  he was generous.  And he was a person of many dimensions."

Perhaps, but these descriptions of Fred aren't part of my vocabulary.  Some years ago Fred invited, paid for, and flew his relatives to the Chalk Hill Winery he founded and called "Furtheim."  He wanted portraits of each of the families.  I was hired.  I drove to the winery, met with his wife-de-jour Peggy and scouted locations.  On the day of the shoot I drove to Chalk Hill and photographed each of the families, perhaps a dozen or so.  We worked with our color lab in San Francisco to create hand-printed 8x10 images of each family and placed them in a leather album, expecting that he would keep it as a memory of the weekend.  After the shoot we were gifted with a bottle of Chardonnay.  We  offered to sell reprints of the families, recouping our expenses for the proof book.  The bill was about $2500 of which close to $1500 was out of my pocket.  (I think we offered to sell 8x10s for about $25.)

Fred called.  "That's outrageous!" he screamed.  "I won't pay it.  Unless," he added, "you give me all the negatives".  I tried to reason with him.  "Fred, we don't sell the negatives.  Those are the property of the photographer.  I also need them when I make enlargements so that the lab can follow my directions."  Unconvinced, Fred added, "You're a fairly young man and new in business.  I have a lot of influence in this community."  Clearly Fred was threatening me.  I thought about taking him to Small Claims Court, but at that time we were in our "senior season", photographing the hundreds of high school senior portraits we did for twenty-six years while living in Santa Rosa.  I thought about it, but ultimately discarded the idea.

According to the PD, Fred said about himself, “I’m a modern-day, legal Robin Hood,” Furth told The Press Democrat in 1991. Another time he said, “I’ll pull for the little guy getting pushed around every time.”  Only, this time I was the little guy, and Fred was the one doing all the pushing.

I told Fred, "I won't give you the negatives,"  Fred replied, "I won't pay your bill.  I can make copies for myself from the photographs you took."

I kept the bottle of Chardonnay.  I intended to drink it the day Fred died, but when I mentioned my plan to one of my friends he responded, "What if the bottle goes bad?  Then Fred will have screwed you twice."  I retrieved the $2500 bottle of Chardonnay from my wine cellar and popped the cork.  It was wonderful.

Sedona/Antelope Canyon

May Day, 2018.  Jadyne and I climbed on one of Southwest Airlines' 737s for the ninety minute flight to Phoenix where we met friend Jerry Stack for brunch before heading out in our rented Buick Regal for the two hour drive to our Air B & B in Sedona.  One of our first stops was at Bell Rock, famous for its being the center of what was purported to be a "global shift", scheduled to take place on December 21, 2012.

Bell Rock, still intact (although it wasn't predicted to be).

From the Sedona Historical Society,  "While we don’t know what may or may not happen in the next few weeks, it is fun to take a look back 25 years to the Harmonic Convergence of 1987 (days of not so yore) to see what the hoopla was all about.  If you are not conversant with New Age/New Wave, it is the moment outlined in ancient Mayan calendars to note “the precise calibration points in a harmonic scale that marks the moment when the process of global civilization climaxes.”  For those of us old enough to remember the Fifth Dimension of the 1960s, it is the “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” Sedona is one of the 12 “power points” or sacred sites worldwide.  The other points were not too shabby: Stonehenge, Mt. Olympus, the Great Pyramid, Machu Picchu, and Mt. Fuji, plus a few others not quite so notable.  The Mayan calendar marked the date, and the planets cooperated by aligning, also known as a Grand Triune.  Local believers took the event very seriously. Organizers of the “world harmony days” anticipated thousands of celebrants to rejoice in the shift from separation and fear to unity and love. Celebrations were expected from international to local levels.  In Sedona, there were hot lines of information and free newsletters to keep everyone up to date. The ultimate ritual was 7 minutes of humming at noon Greenwich time (5 a.m. Sedona time) by those actively calling in the era of peace and harmony (not easy to do -- try humming for 7 minutes).  Obviously, rumors ran rampant. A space ship would be landing on Bell Rock…Bell Rock would crack in two and the space ship would fly from Inner Earth to Outer Space.  The morning humming was to levitate Bell Rock since Bell Rock was to be the spaceship.  Devotees were dancing naked around Bell Rock (a rumor only). There even would be a human sacrifice off Apache Leap (west of Bell Rock).  Traffic along Hwy. 179 was a nightmare. Remember this was before I79 was reconfigured. Cars were parked from the Circle K northward to the “roller coaster”— do you long timers remember the beloved roller coaster on 179?  Flashlights lit the north face of Bell Rock like giant fireflies. Lights from airplanes illuminated the sky over the big red butte. There were some suggestible Bible students who said they saw the stars turn green and a group of stars around the moon change into the shape of a cross -- a sign out of Revelation.  The Forest Service counted 1,800 folks on Bell Rock, and motels logged in over 4,000 reservations in town.  That would overwhelm the available rooms even today. Three Phoenix television stations were shooting the activity at Bell Rock.  The event was great for the local economy. Crystals were for sale on every street corner. Coffee Pot Restaurant (just about the only available eating place in town) was packed from before opening to after closing. What a time!A local pundit called it a “Moronic Convergence.” Alas, had he no romance in his soul!"

Bell Rock, minutes before two unsuspecting jacket-less hikers were pelted by hail.

We spent three days hiking in and around Sedona, attending the tacky souvenir shops and the art galleries, where a sculpted bear was priced at $500,000. 

From Sedona to Flagstaff, past miles and miles of barren land belonging to the Navajos.  Highway 17 was dotted with mean little houses adorned with pickup trucks and RVs.  Along the road in numerous tents and fallen down sheds Navajos were selling, well, I don't know what they were selling, as we didn't stop.

And then to Page, where we spent one night before our morning tour of Antelope Canyon, one of two reasons why people flock to Page, the other being its proximity to Lake Powell and its 186 miles of shoreline.

Lake Powell Marina

And then Upper Antelope Canyon, a heritage site on Navajo property.  To see Antelope Canyon one must register with one of five companies who lead people through the maze.  Called "Tse Bighanilini" or "the place where water runs through rocks", Antelope Canyon has seen over 100,000 visitors in the last month...and I think that they all visited there last Saturday.

"Antelope Canyon was formed by erosion of Navajo Sandstone, primarily due to flash flooding.  Rainwater, especially during monsoon season, runs into the extensive basin above the slot canyon sections, picking up speed and sand as it rushes into the narrow passageways.  Over time the passageways eroded away, making the corridors deeper and smoothing hard edges in such a way as to form characteristic "flowing" shapes in the rock.  Flooding still occurs.  A flood occurred on October 30, 2006 that lasted 36 hours, and caused the Tribal Park Authorities to close the Lower Antelope Canyon for five months."  Wikipedia

Here is one of the hundreds of images I was able to make amidst the crowds at Upper Antelope Canyon last Saturday.  The canyon and the experience were at odds with each other,  The former was a dream; the latter, a nightmare.  Besides the number of people flooding the canyon, there are additional photographic challenges that beset amateurs unaccustomed to atypical conditions, the most important of which is the wide exposure range, often 10 EV or more, that make it impossible to render any given image properly.  Only HDR images, taken by bracketing as many as three to five exposures, allow the photographer to sandwich images to capture the darkest darks and the lightest lights.  And doing this among the hundreds of sightseers tripping over the tripod legs, required a full plate of patience.

Check here if you're still reading this. If I were you, I wouldn't read any more.  Don't waste your time.  You have better things to do.

To further complicate matters I'm providing a link below to additional images that I've placed on my web site, including a dozen or so images from Upper Antelope Canyon.

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/sedonaantelope-canyon-2018/

Purple Panthers

Saturday, April 21st, at 10:00 am at Smythe Academy in Sacramento the Purple Panthers (pictured above) took on their mighty crosstown rivals, the Purple Dragons, (not pictured) in a three inning t-ball game.  Since both teams were attired pretty much the same it was hard to know who really was on first.  She was wearing purple.

Who's on First?

Here's an image from behind home plate.  Assistant coach Kim Buchholz, is aiding and assisting.  Obviously Ms. Fields, the batter, needs no assistance, as she rockets a line drive towards centerfield.

Lilly, after a pre-game warmup, confers with her cousin Isla, before her first at bat.

Lilly strides to the batters box, exuding confidence and exchanging some tough talk with the Dragons' catcher (not pictured.)

Lilly sends the first unpitch over the center field fence, clearing the bases.

After every batter hit and scored, the Panthers took the field.  Here's Lilly on the mound, knees bent, glove down, ready for the mighty Dragons hitters.

After the game ended, with runs not having been counted, with every player safe or out and having scored multiple runs, the teams line up, the Panthers behind second base and the Dragons behind home plate.  One at a time a player from each team circles the bases carrying a baseball that she gives to the next player in line, continuing until all six players have rounded the bases.  Inexplicably, one of the Dragons gave her ball to one of the Panthers, who with two balls in her hands suddenly became paralyzed.  After the relay both teams met and shook hands, as hard feelings and tough talk dissipated.

A secondary highlight for me was seeing Abigail's mother.  Abigail is one of the Panthers.

T-Ball in the US of A, a granddaughter, Sacramento in the spring, tacos following, moms.  Saturday in America.