She Kept A Parrot
Random thoughts, ideas, photographs, etc.
Cactus Flower
This cactus is blooming beside the drive-thru menu outside the barbecue restaurant where I order my sandwiches about once a week. The plants have been there as long as I can remember, and the restaurant is very old. The blossoms are lovely in the late spring. I always enjoy looking at them. The prickly pear cactus is native to Texas. I am certain that the American Indians must have named their loveliest daughters “Cactus Flower”.
Prickly Pear Cactus: The prickly pear cactus was designated the official plant symbol of Texas in 1995. Found in the deserts of the American southwest, the fruits of most prickly pear cacti are edible and have been a source of food to native Americans for thousands of years. Cacti in general, and the fruits in particular, are still staple foods for some residents of Mexico and Latin America, and the prickly pear cactus is raised commercially. The fruit is sold under the name “Tuna”; the branches or pads are eaten as a vegetable called “nopalito” or “nopales”.
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First Compact Camera
I bought my very first compact camera, and I am test driving it. It is so tiny. I can hardly hold it. I am accustomed to my Nikon D-300 with its heavy Nikkor 18-200mm walk-around lens. I couldn’t believe this little thing could produce a reasonable photograph particularly since I have a familial tremor in both hands. Here is one of my photos from today. It is a leaf on a sword plant. I think it stuck itself.
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A Family Concrete Business ~ Part I
I have been toying with the idea of showing you our concrete manufacturing plant. The problem is where to start. Do I tell you the story of how it came to be? Do I tell you what it is now? How to do it? I will just start somewhere and ramble on as a thought about it pops into my head. I spent the better part of my life in this business. We started the business in 1979. I was a social worker and my husband worked for a plastic drain tile company developing the southern half of the US. We invested our retirement/savings money and never looked back. We leased a bare concrete slab at the local airport. That was our start-up location. The slab was all that remained of a barracks. The airport used to be an Air Force base. We bought a portable office building and built a storage building on the concrete slab, and we were in the concrete manufacturing business. We operated with old F-600 trucks equipped with rails and a wench. The out riggers were manual. We used readymix cement to pour the tanks in steel forms. We stripped the tanks from the forms with the same trucks that we used for delivery. This was manufacturing the hard way, folks. Many people still do it that way today.
When I drive into the business today, I see high chain-link fences with barbed wire tops. Two huge Rotweiller dogs guarding. Gates with locks. A private entrance with an electronic gate that requires me to push the right button on my remote to drive inside. We didn’t have fences when we started this business. Now, it’s impossible to avoid locks and fences and dogs. That’s a sad fact of life. Times change.
My office key still works, but I have to remember the passcode for the burglar alarm unless I want to deal with the sheriff. Survellience cameras watch me. Do I look like a burglar? I think I remember the password in case I accidentally set off the alarm. I no longer keep an office there. The old lawyer’s desk that I bought from an estate sale years ago still sits in one end of the big office where my daughter now occupies her dad’s chair. I laughed when I saw that somebody had swiped my ergonomic keyboard. I laughed until I realized I was the culprit! My faithful old Buddha is still sitting there smiling. I have to remember to bring him home the next time I go out there.
The offices are filled with paintings and etchings and antiques that I collected over many years. I like that. It feels like home. After all, they spend most of their lives there. The office manager used to cook wonderful lunches in the kitchen. Boy and his nanny spent a year or two there so that he could be with all of us when he was little. The office manager taught him to crawl by crawling beside him on the floor. He had his own nursery which evolved into a play room as he grew older. He still has his own “office”. Boy met lots of people. The guys who work there were good to him too. We took our dogs to work with us. They still take their dog with them every day.
When I arrived at the business with my camera, the only person in the plant was this guy talking on his phone. It was lunch time and everybody had gone to lunch . They all leave together sometimes. I don’t know why this guy was not with them. I didn’t recognize him, and he didn’t recognize me. I asked if he worked there. He said he did. I knew he hadn’t been there long since he wasn’t wearing a golf shirt with VPP embroidered on the front. He said he had been there for a week. He apologized for being dirty. He is learning how to do his job without getting the job all over him. I knew that too. I didn’t tell him that I used to do his job without getting a tenth as dirty. He wouldn’t have believed me. He is fifty-two. He came from Wisconsin to live with his son in a little town up the highway. He used to live in Texas. He went to the University of Texas. I stopped paying attention. If he is still there when I go back, I will make a note of his name. He seemed to be smart and interested in his work. He kept telling me that we had an amazing operation. I hope he thinks so after another week. I think he’s over qualified for the job. I liked him.
Directly behind the fellow on the forklift is the side of the break room adjacent to a welding shop. We built the break room building years ago while we were still housed in a cedar building no bigger than this one. We had a choice. We could build a break room for the guys or a new office for us. The choice was easy. A break room it would be. The guys had no clean place to wash up or to eat lunch in a comfortable, air conditioned building. They all helped to build it, and it still serves them well. I used to eat there with them …swiping homemade tortillas off their plates and snooping into their lunch bags to see what they were eating that I wanted to share. We laughed and joked and ate and had fun there.
Across the driveway and beyond the parking area, the old concrete septic tank lids that we inherited when we bought out an old cement business’s equipment and inventory many years ago are still there. We laid them in gravel to make a “paved” area in front of the cedar office. It was muddy when it rained on the dirt and gravel of the plant yard. They were old when we laid them, and they’re older still by many years now. Weeds have grown up between the pads since the old office was abandoned to storage when we built the new one. I smile when I remember how delighted I was when the boys laid them out so cleverly and attractively for me. I could get out of the car without stepping in mud that squished over my shoes. Life was good. I had spent the previous winter parking outside the gate and riding to the office porch in the bucket of a backhoe. An insurance auditor had to take the same ride when he came to audit that spring. He didn’t write us up for a violation of safety regulations although we didn’t provide a hardhat for the ride.
No, the porch roof is not falling down. It’s the camera angle. The old building was built by a contractor friend for me to use at the old airport slab location where we started the business in 1979. It replaced a small, portable office building that was very nice, actually. When we moved our business to the current location, we moved this building too. It was built on skids so that it could be moved easily. It has a bathroom, kitchen and very large office area that we converted into two offices. I prepared lunch in that small kitchen for years. I got really good at preparing food on a three-foot by two-foot counter space. You can see the very end of the concrete bench that Eulogio, the unquestioned head of production, made for me to sit on while I smoked on the porch. He was as good a friend as I ever had too. We often sat together drinking coffee and talking about the business or his grandchildren on that bench. He made a precast slab to cover the grave of the first of our dogs to be buried behind the office. I used to walk around to her grave and ask what in the world I was going to do with that new puppy who barked in the car and didn’t understand not to go onto the office porch. Eulogio died a good many years ago. I miss him still. He was old school. The boys in production said he thought he owned the equipment. I replied that he did.
This old building sits at the back of the property. Initially, it constituted the only storage we had for tools and supplies for the entire business. We moved it to this location along with the cedar office building. We stored chlorine in it because chlorine gas destroys metal. We sold a lot of chlorine in those days for our aerobic treatment units. I don’t think there is anything of use in it now. I don’t know why it hasn’t been demolished. Perhaps, nobody has thought about the old building since it sits almost hidden near a fence against which broken concrete tanks and scrap metal and wire are kept until they are hauled off to the scrap yard.
Some of the scrap materials from production are collected here in old steel precast forms and concrete tanks.
These old pieces of concrete are broken or unusable. They will be sold eventually for erosion control or for some other use.
Old conveyor belts from the cement mixer end up in this graveyard too when they break or wear out and have to be replaced. There are old concrete tanks stored around the plant that are not in regular inventory. There is nothing wrong with the tanks. They were probably built for some special application that never materialized or they are odd tanks that don’t fit any category for one reason or another.
Car parking blocks used to be made one at the time by shoveling cement into them. There were lots of them sitting on the slab where the guys walked around pouring cement into them. They were heavy to strip too since they had to be turned over by hand. It was dangerous work. Eventually, we bought what are called gang forms. That simply means that they are all hooked together and can be poured and stripped from the forms by equipment instead of by hand. Here is a leftover single form that is still lying on top of the parking block that was precast in it. I’d bet the parking block refused to come out of the form so the whole thing was dumped here. Eventually, the concrete block turned loose and separated from its steel form. They are still together.
In Part II, I will take up the production of concrete tanks and other concrete products. Now that I have shown you the old and discarded stuff. :-) Although it may seem so from these photographs, the plant really is not composed of rotting and abandoned buildings and equipment. It is not a storage place for the broken and the abandoned. It is very much a working concrete plant. Thank you for taking this part of the memory tour with me.
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Trumpets
Today is my seventieth birthday. Seventy is an unbelievable number of years. The number doesn’t compute in my head! So… today, I post whatever I like. I like my trumpet flower pictures. When I began this blog in January, the vine that covers the pergola was bare, gnarled and twisted bones. As it always does, it filled itself with lush green. Then, the trumpets started appearing everywhere along with the humming birds and the bees. Hundreds of bees. The vine is directly outside the screened porch where Rita and I spend a lot of time. The birds come too. Rita likes that although I don’t think she speaks their language … unless they understand, “Come here, Granny!”
I hope you like my interpretation of the wonderful Trumpet!
Nod to Shirley
I thought of you this morning, Shirley! The trumpets are for you. May your trumpeting call never be forgotten!
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Old Tex, The Roadside Vendor
I
On Friday, Boy and I stopped at a fruit stand to buy a watermelon. That’s where we met Old Tex. When I got out of the car with my camera, I motioned for him to stay where he was. He was sitting in a chair behind the fruit and vegetables. I told him we wanted a watermelon and I wanted to take his picture. Immediately, he found his groove. He picked up two cucumbers and began to smile and wave them around for the camera. I kept saying, “No, No, put the cucumbers in your lap”. He ignored me so I photographed the waving of the produce.
As we talked, he told me that he had been selling produce on the road for thirty years. He is eighty-three years old. Now, he lives “where the rich people live”. With a lot of gesturing and explaining, he made me understand that he lives in a rather affluent part of town where he has to keep his produce trailer in the garage. I agreed that proved the status of his residence. He is a funny old guy in that special way that all very old men are. They are my favorite people, and I am certain he knew it. He’s old but he isn’t slow.
Old Tex had lots of fruits and vegetables, but he didn’t try to sell them to me. He was more interested in talking to Boy and to me. He was having fun. It gets mighty boring just sitting on the roadside waiting for customers. I knew that. Soon, his friend with whom I assumed he lives, rode up on a motorcycle. He told me that Old Tex calls himself, “Old Texas”. He did not want to give the man’s name to me. Never mind. Old Tex would do.
I don’t know what it is about old men. They always make themselves in charge. Perhaps that’s how they got to be old. Tex was no different. He instructed me to wait up while he fetched his leather vest from his truck for THE picture. I waited as instructed. Many years ago, as a social worker, I learned not to argue with old men. If they cannot be persuaded, walk away. Come back another day. While I waited, Tex put on his vest, adjusted his felt hat at a rakish angle, and signaled that he was ready. He posed and posed. I snapped and snapped. And, I smiled and smiled. What a beautiful man. I have known many old men, but I have rarely known one who was as classically beautiful as Tex.
Tex kept picking up a jar of honey. I thought he was trying to sell it to me so I said I’d take the honey. His eyes squinted a little more and said he’d paid fourteen dollars for that jar of honey. I realized that he eats it himself since the jar wasn’t completely full and the label was a bit worn. It was then that I noticed how absolutely dirty his hands were. I almost asked how in the world he kept himself and his clothes, right down to his sparkling white socks, so very clean. Boy liked the old man, and he was totally impressed by his dirty hands. Later, I realized he’d worn dirty gloves that day. He wouldn’t sell me the honey either.
After a lot of chatting and laughing, we got around to negotiating the purchase of the watermelon. I told Boy to pick out a melon. Tex started shaking his head and muttered off to his produce trailer. His assistant laughed and said he was going to get a good one for us. Now, I understand how to get a melon from a fruit vendor’s private stock. Get out of the car with a camera and a big grin.
There were nice looking watermelons on display. However, Tex didn’t think they were nice enough for Boy and me. They all looked the same to me. I guess Tex knows something about watermelons that I don’t know. All old farmers and ranchers think they know a good watermelon when they see one. Some old guys thump them and some evaluate their readiness by looking at the stem end. I didn’t ask Tex how he evaluated his own watermelons. Soon enough, he reappeared with a melon in his arms and a big smile on is face that said Boy and I were special customers that day.
When Tex approached Boy with the melon, he put his arm around him an grinned for a final photograph. I obliged. Tex knew very well what I was doing, and he approved. I gave him the eight dollars for the special melon. I had nine dollars in my pocket so I handed him the extra dollar and told him that he might as well take that one too since I couldn’t buy anything with a dollar anyway. He chuckled and took the dollar.
When I looked at the photographs, I was disappointed. I forgot to change the ISO setting on my camera. The photographs of Boy and Old Tex were very grainy because they were standing in the sunlight. Oh, Well. I can still see the smiles and remember the old man who sold watermelons on the roadside. I’d bet good money that Boy will remember too.
When we got home, Boy and Irma (the housekeeper) sliced the melon in half. We all stood around with a shared knife cutting chunks out of the heart. We ate almost half while we stood over it eating. That’s the only way to eat watermelon. It was a good melon too.
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A Window
This garage was old when I moved to Victoria. It has not changed. It got a new skin somewhere along the way, but it kept its vintage windows. There is a long row of identical ones on the opposite side of the building. The windows are always open during business hours to provide ventilation. The original tin siding rusted and colored the windows long before it was replaced. The texture of the old glass pieces interested me, especially the one clean piece. Everything about the building, including the vehicles parked around it, is decrepit looking. Even the newer aluminum siding is so poorly installed that it looks shabby too. The cars inside being repaired are fairly recent models. There are many such buildings, interspersed among modern buildings, all along the main street through town. There are no zoning codes in the business areas of town allowing even abandoned buildings to stand along the route.
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UFO In The Garden
Okay, I figured out what is causing my slow Internet connection. It’s those sneaky Garden Gremlins and their UFO buddies! I’m onto ‘em now. I got the photographic evidence against ‘em. I’m gonna’ take Rich’s bat to their ship if they show up again. Or hang some of Joseph’s Eyeballs around the whole place. They hate eyeballs.
Actually, my infamous Guru logged in (Via LogMeIn) and fixed my connection. Here he is. His name is Ray Alstrom. He has been my loyal friend and instructor and fixer upper for nigh onto thirty years. He does what they call writing code and building network systems and design work and lots of other stuff that I don’t understand. Besides, he lights my special candle at St. Mary’s when trouble is brewing. He is a sweetheart genius.
I snapped this photograph of him several years ago while he was at the old house working on one of my computers.
I’m back in business! Whoopeeeeee!
Bless you, Raymond! :-)
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HELP! Has Anybody Seen This Man?
Has Anybody Seen This Man?
I am desperately searching for one missing ISP repairman. He is wearing an orange and green reflective vest on which the words, Suddenlink Communications, are plainly visible. He is not particularly tolerant of old ladies and their cameras. I suspect he is attempting to avoid leaving photographic evidence of his crimes. You see, he turned off my alarm system. It no longer intends to call 911 if some deranged moron tries to sneak inside to strangle me in the night. Probably because I snapped a picture of him without permission. What he doesn’t know is that I never turn it on anyway. I have no idea why I pay to have it monitored. I could have swiped a neighbor’s warning sign instead of paying for my own.
Life changed after Repairman. Pages don’t load before the Cloud calls time out. I cannot visit you. I can barely load this page, but can stay on it once I get lucky and get here. For whatever that’s worth. This is a handicap that Repairman doesn’t care about. His telephone girl called this morning to tell me ONE MORE TIME that I need a new modem. She says Repairman doesn’t carry them in his truck. (The truth is that you have to go to the Suddenlink store and buy a new one … if you’re dumb enough to do it.) I do not require a new modem, but I didn’t bother to share that with her since she didn’t sound as if she could handle that complication. I have the latest one that the Repairman-Who-Didn’t-Repair brought to me free. He is coming back tomorrow. At least, he looks and sounds competent. Perhaps, tomorrow will be the magic day! :-)
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Sugah Mama
Boy’s Sugah Mama
I haven’t talked much about Boy’s mother. She is the best mother I ever knew. Maybe it’s because she’s a smart and funny and kind-to-the-bone woman. She wanted Boy badly. She was thirty-six years old when he was born. She spent the last two months before he was born lying on the sofa. It was a difficult time, but she was determined to have that Boy. It isn’t just that she loves him. She has a sixth sense about him that fascinates me. She knows him in a way that I don’t believe most mothers know their children.
If you ask Boy about his mother, he will tell you, with a certainty in his voice that is remarkable, “She takes care of me”. She knows how to do everything. She makes sure he has all of the right stuff that he needs. She knows what he likes and does fun things with him. She likes his friends and takes care of them too. Two of his friends are twin girls who live down the street. One of the girls is a tomboy who likes to play the games that Charlie plays. The other one is a girly girl. She cooks and shops and has fun with Boy’s mother. He says they like each other because they’re so much alike. He doesn’t mind that Mom hugs Cassidy too. He is loving and generous like his mom.
Boy’s mother doesn’t have lots of rules that could be written down. She requires Boy to be clean and neat and civilized. She does not tolerate lying. Boy found out the hard way. She always warns him when he does something unacceptable. The next time, he’s gonna’ get a “whack”. Well, poor Boy lied to her about something of no significance, but it was the principle of the thing. So, Mom decided to stop that practice … now. That’s how Mom handles things. Boy was in the bathroom getting dressed. He had his underwear on. Mom told him to “come here now!” Poor Boy had to walk the ten steps to her, turn around, and get the hardest whack of his life on his bare butt. Since that day, the benchmark for the worst punishment in the world is “Mom’s Whack”. Boy shakes his head and says, with considerable reverence, ”It’s gonna’ be WHACK”. Then he thinks better of whatever he was going to do. Boy’s mama doesn’t expect him to be the best at anything he does. She expects him to give life his best shot. She allows him to succeed and to fail. And, she hugs him either way.
Boy’s mom has been a lot of things. She learned to ride a horse and to take care of it by herself at twelve years old. When she was about sixteen, she rode that horse, Mabel, out of the flooded park where she was stabled. She swam her across a flooded stream and all the way across town to our house where she kept her in the back yard until the waters receded. We knew nothing about it. She is a powerful swimmer and she became a certified scuba diving instructor. She is fearless. On a lark, she took the plunge off the tower in San Antonio hooked to a bungee cord. She is a smart business woman and a BSN degreed surgical nurse. She is a Registered Sanitarian who is licensed to design on-site wastewater systems. She took care of her dad and she takes care of me. Boy’s mother has done many things well, but being Boy’s mother is her crowning achievement. She is simply the best mother I ever knew.
Happy Mother’s Day, Sugah Mama!
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Muffler Morgue
Muffler Morgue
This old muffler storage rack has been behind a muffler shop here since before I came to live in this town. I know the owner of the shop and his family. I saw their grandchildren grow up. If you ever had a busted muffler, it’s probably in this catacomb. That is, if you’ve lived here long enough to know where to get a muffler replaced. The owner and his family are fine folks and good friends. The shop was decrepit when they moved into it, no doubt, and it still is. The owner is a big bear of a man with the bluest eyes and the fullest beard you ever saw. He is cantankerous and keeps his own counsel. He is the man I would call if I needed to move a body. He made his fortune in this shop. He was the only friend that my husband rode around with during his terminal illness. He’s that kind of man. I am going to print an album of muffler photographs for this man as a token of my gratitude to him.
I spent an hour at this muffler morgue late one afternoon. I shot over a hundred frames full of mufflers. As I approached the back side where the oldest and most deteriorated ones rest, the light was gone. I will have to return to honor the original residents of this place. I attempted to dress these guys up a little so they would look their best for the viewing. May they rest in peace for they served us well.
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How I Misplaced An Artist
I am confused. I have lost an artist. I seem to have two R. Jarrells. I have the one whom I know definitively to be a printmaker of the first order. I bought three of his etchings in 1976. This Jarrell (Richard, he is) lives in Durham, North Carolina, USA. He is well-known now, but he was a young man (we used to call them starving artists) selling his watercolors and etchings at a mall in Greensboro, North Carolina, when I met him. I was struck by three large etchings of old men, but they were expensive for the time so I didn’t buy them. They stuck in my head. After we moved to Texas, I felt an urgency to have them. I was silly back then and knew nothing about buying art. I knew Richard didn’t want to ship off his prints without payment, and I was hesitant to send the money without the prints in my hand. But, I had to have my old men. We worked it out.
I have been angry with Richard Jarrell for at least ten years now. Since I saw a slick spread in Southern Living magazine on his current work at the time. I read the magazine in a doctor’s waiting room so I could not take it with me. I was so annoyed that I refused to buy my own copy. He had sold out. To the retail market, no less. The photographs were pictures of garish landscapes done in bold primary colors. Over-the-sofa paintings. I think they were acrylics. (I refused to credit him with a difficult medium like watercolor.) I am still annoyed.
There are three old men in this large etching. It is beautifully composed. This is not a fair reproduction of it, but it will have to do. Mr. Jarrell would not be pleased, but he isn’t here.
Detail of one of the three Old Men in the Etching
The next photograph is of a transparent watercolor. I bought it from another R. Jarrell in 1997 0r 1998. I know that because I recall having been surprised to have found it among his other watercolors which were mostly of wonderfully rendered chickens and old plows and farm scenes. He was good. I just never expected him to rise to brilliant. He did. Right in the middle of the chickens. I was astounded. He titled this piece, The Pensioner. I contacted him immediately and arranged to buy it. I can no longer find him online. I have no idea to where the information on this watercolor walked off. Or, to where R. Jarrell walked off either. Both disappeared while I was not paying attention. Artists should not do that. It is disconcerting to say the least. Perhaps he died. In that case, all is forgiven. I could do that myself. In spite of his misbehavior, I continue to have warm feelings for R. Jarrell because I always suspected that his Pensioner was a dear relative, perhaps his father. I imagined that he had fallen on hard times and was forced to sell it. Never mind that he’s probably obscenely wealthy and based his character on some eccentric old man from the coffee shop whom he hardly knew. I like my story better.
The Pensioner by R. Jarrell
Oh, and there is another artist who disappeared from me too. Joseph Wyatt. He painted one-hundred transparent watercolors based on a safari to Kenya. They were exhibited for sale for several years in an online gallery called Watercolor Safari~The Art of Joseph Wyatt. It was a beautiful website and the watercolors were superb. I bought several of them. My most treasured one is this one which he painted in 1989. If anybody knows what happened to Joseph, please let me know of it.
Somewhere in the depths of my storage closet in some old box, I am certain that all of my correspondences with these artists and other records of these pieces could be found. Perhaps, my family will trouble themselves to look one day. If not, that’s okay too. I have loved so many of the works that I have been honored to keep for many artists over the years. I used to change the etchings and paintings routinely so that I could look at different ones again with new eyes. Somebody, somewhere, will look again too … just the way I have for so many years. And, they will smile too. Just the way I did.
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Dancing Palm Fronds
I went out looking for light bubbles ON PURPOSE this afternoon. I knew precisely where to find them. They always dance in the palms when the setting sun plays with them late in the afternoon. If you listen carefully, you can hear them singing. I also found the large family of mosquitoes who live under the palms. UGH. These leaves were swaying gracefully in the breeze the way they always do. They look like long-legged dancers to me. I love palm trees. I am fascinated with everything about them. I grew up in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, USA, where there are no palms. I think that’s why they interest me now. I have a Queen Palm, Pygmy Date Palms and these Fan Palms. The background on my blog is a photograph of one of my Fan Palm leaves.
We wrap the Pygmy Date Palm trunks in Christmas lights, burlap and tarps. We double-bag the tops with nursery bags too. We have to do this in order to keep them warm when it freezes here. I had to replace the Pygmies one year. That is a big deal for Romero. I think the kids and I are the only people in our little neighborhood who keep palms. They are a lot of trouble in the winter. I have to worry about them.
No, the top photograph is not the bottom one with the legs cut off. 
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Pouring Lights
Some more photographs that I was about to delete, but I had fun playing with them. I thought you might find them fun too. Real photographers know how to make lights. I made mine by happy accident. One Christmas, I tried to photograph Boy in front of the Christmas tree. When I saw the first one, I just kept snapping away. I had never seen bubbles of light in a photograph. I was delighted. I still am. Now I know how to make a nice Christmas card. Turn off the lights. Set the camera on auto. Snap away at the Christmas tree. Kids in front of the tree are optional. (If I didn’t already have one, I certainly wouldn’t go to the trouble of borrowing one from a neighbor.)
NOTE: See Kenneth Todd‘s blog for instructions on creating this effect on purpose! ;-)
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Sweet Dreams
I follow several photographers who participate in the 365 Day photo project. They post remarkable images. Sometimes, they post photographs that aren’t just technically great or clever or dramatic. These are the photographs that I remember. One man posted a photograph of his sleeping daughter. That touched me because he was secure enough to do it. He undoubtedly knew that nobody cares about photographs of our sleeping children. We adore them, but we know that everybody has his own adorable, sleeping child. So we resist the urge to share ours.
When I encounter one of these Sleeping Children, as I have come to call the photographs of them, I always smile. If there is a universal image that touches the heart of every living soul on this planet, it has to be the image of a sleeping child. Perhaps, that image represents the best of who we are as humans. It evokes a purity of emotion like no other.
Here’s to all of the Sleeping Children. The fate of humanity resides in their dreams.
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How I Bought Brown Teeth
My dentist was a nice man. He hummed country music songs while he worked. After he asked me the very first question, he didn’t ask me anything else ever. He forgot to take his hand out of my mouth. He didn’t hold it against me, though. We went through a lot together, Swinford and I. He had a son after I met him. He said he was too old, but his wife wasn’t. They didn’t plan on the son, I could tell. Looking back on it, I think I made him crown all of my back teeth so I could feel good about helping out with the son he was too old to have. I crowned too many. He built a new office and bought a house in country club. But, he was still a nice man. And a good dentist. I kept all of my teeth. And, they still work fine for eating and grinning too.
My Teeth (Whiter than they really are)
I come from a long line of Grinners. We grin all the time. That’s why I need teeth. The first thing you see when you look at me is the biggest smile full of teeth you ever saw.
My teeth are solid. I depend on them. I can eat dinner faster than it’s polite to eat. When I was a kid, I couldn’t pee my name in the dirt, but I could hang from a rope by my teeth. The boys knew in their hearts that mine was the better trick. Now that I am old, I have to smile whether I feel like it or not. If old people don’t smile, they look mad or worse, they look mean. I spent years reminding my mother to smile. Now, I remind myself. Never mind that I go around grinning like a monkey. People don’t seem to notice the resemblance. People like Grinners.
Selfie Grinner
Swinford had all of his teeth too, but they were brown horse teeth. He was a handsome, sweet man so I only noticed his teeth in passing. I wondered why a shoemaker would wear ugly, dirty shoes. It’s bad advertising. But, then, he thought teeth were for chewing. That’s what made his new teeth worse than a “shocker”, as they say. He didn’t send out an announcement or anything. Nothing. No warning about what I’d see. When I walked into his office, my reaction to the new grin was about like seeing an old friend who suddenly has no hair and doesn’t bother to mention it. You try not to look at it. The more you try not to look at it, the more you look at it. I was seized by an uncontrollable need to laugh. I mean double-over kind of laugh. The man had a set of the biggest, whitest teeth I ever saw in my life. The awful part is that we both knew he had these teeth that we were refusing to acknowledge. The elephant-in-the-room teeth. It was a miserable visit, but I made it out of there without belly laughing. By the next visit, he had toned the white down to a fairly normal shade of yellow-brown. Thank God. We didn’t mention the brown ones either.
In anticipation of his retirement, he invited his old clients for a farewell/intro-the-new-guy-meet-and-greet at his office. The new guy seemed very nice. His wife and little girl too. I paid no attention to him. I would miss my old friend. We went way back to my social worker days when he treated my clients just like everybody else and me like an old friend. I was very sad to see him go.
Chair With A View
At my next dental appointment, six months later, I met him. He took one look inside my cavernous mouth and rendered his verdict. I had to go to an oral surgeon who would slice off the gums that were hiding two of my back teeth on both sides. What? Six months earlier, I had fine teeth. I blurted out: ”I don’t think so!” He looked disgusted and told the hygienist to write a prescription for this vile-tasting, tooth-browning stuff I am supposed to swish in my mouth three times a day to protect my back two teeth that will undoubtedly fall right out if I don’t do it. I don’t do it. Swinford didn’t tell me to. Besides, my new dentist’s name is Dr. Doogie Sun of Sun Dental Care. He did go to Columbia University School of Dentistry. Still … would you swish Dr. Doogie’s Dope?
I hope my new dentist develops a sense of humor. With a name like his, he’s gonna’ need it. ;-) :-)
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What Color Is A Dead Chameleon?
Mr. C
I snapped Mr. C one night when it was so dark that I had to guess where he was. He’d been sitting in precisely the same place without moving for two days. I assumed he was dead. I forgot about the photo. Today, when I was clearing out some old photos, I found him and lightened the photo out of curiosity. That’s when I discovered his open eye. I began to wonder. He had disappeared after two days, after all. Wouldn’t he have been brown if he were dead? I tried to delete him. This is silly, I told myself. Who cares? I couldn’t hit delete. I was becoming increasing annoyed. I went on to some nice palm tree photographs.
Finally, since I couldn’t shake him out of my head, I went back to him. I told him that he was a bad photograph and had to go. It is not personal, I said. I mean no disrespect for the ugly dead. I swear I heard him say, Yeah? Well, I’m the only Chameleon you’ll ever persuade to be still enough to photograph! Jerk! I said.
In a desperate effort to put the question to rest, I Googled What color is a dead chameleon? Would you believe the Naked Scientist scribbled in that precisely-worded question last Christmas? I couldn’t believe it either. I tried to ignore the fact that this whole thing was getting a bit creepy. Mr. C just sat there looking at me through that slit of an eye, grinning his antediluvian grin.
Such are the preoccupations of old women who don’t have to be anywhere.
NOTE: Steve over at Portraits of Wildflowers was kind enough to debunk my whole story! This little guy is an green anole lizard. Check out anoles here. And Chameleons here. Thank you for the links, Steve. (He’s still my little Chameleon!)
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A Life Is In The Details
Memories are composed of small details. I understood that after Pops died. As I looked through photographs that I had carelessly snapped of his feet or hands or shoes, I realized that those kinds of details are the ones that make a person unique. Portraits are nice, but what we really remember about a person is the way he holds his hands or wears his boots even after they are worn out. How he sits. How he squints. Every wrinkle in his face is familiar to us. Our snapshots have preserved them for us. Photograph the details. Those photographs will become your best memory of the person who was here once.
Pops always sat with his forefinger on his forehead. Always when he was thinking about something. Otherwise, he sat with both hands on his knees. He wore the knees out on his jeans long before the jeans wore out. The knees were always lighter than the rest of the jeans. His father had the same habit.
Pops loved the dogs. He sat with, napped on the sofa with, and generally always had one hand on a dog. We had a cat whose name was Dumpy once. He slept under Pop’s beard when he was a tiny kitten. When he grew up, he napped behind Pop’s head or curled up under his arm. Pops was a sofa dweller. The animals loved him. They could always find him there when he was at home. Even the parrot ventured down to the sofa to peck his arm occasionally or to beg for a snack. Pops was a snacker too.
Details allow us to remember how a person played too. This photograph doesn’t mean anything to a person who didn’t know Pops or what he was always doing to play with his grandson. I remember. Boy will remember too.
I suspect that most grandfathers put their hands on the grandbaby’s head. Pops did. To this day, Boy tells me to “follow the head” when he wants me to hold onto his head so that I will follow him wherever it is that he wants me to go … immediately, of course. It’s a joke now, but he loved the game when he was little.
Pops had a characteristic stance. Here, Boy is trying to duplicate it. Apparently, Boy can’t get his little fat legs to bend correctly, but he’s doing a remarkable job of following Pop’s directions. I don’t know that I would have remembered how Pops always stood if I had not snapped this photograph. The image certainly wouldn’t have been as clear.
This photograph is classic Pops. The dog is about to get too big for that roost, but she’s giving it a heck of a try still. Pops watched all kinds of automobile racing all the time. The dogs watched too.
The zipper was long gone from this boot, but Pops didn’t care. The dog ate it. She ate the tops too, but not too badly. He could wear the boots. He bought new pairs of shoes of the same kind for when the old ones wore out. Then, something would always come along to convince him to wear a new pair. Once he took the new pair out of the box, he got confused and started wearing both pairs. It was not unusual for him to have two or three pairs of identical shoes in his closet in various stages of wear. I always wondered how he knew which shoe went with which. He probably simply put one shoe on each foot and forgot about it. Pops wouldn’t have concerned himself with such frivolous details.
Boy often sat so close to Pops that he could rest his foot on Pop’s shoe when they were sitting on the bench outside.
Everybody has a dream. Pops dreamed of having his own airplane. He never learned to fly and never bought the airplane. I really don’t know why he never did. Anyway, for one of his last birthdays I gave him ah hour’s flight in an airplane. He sat in the front cockpit and the pilot sat in the back. He got to handle the controls for a long time. The pilot was a young woman so I am sure he charmed her right into it. He loved it. In the photograph, another pilot is giving him instructions.
This is Rita. She is an Amazon parrot. The angle is not flattering to her. Her head is not bigger than her body in real life. She was visiting outside one day when she flew down to the ground, walked over to Pops, and climbed onto his shoe for safety. She sat there for a very long time. Pops never held her, but he shared snacks with her and helped her to get back up on her perch when some loud noise scared her off.
Typical position for Pops to find himself in. This cat lived next door with our daughter, but he came over sometimes. Pops liked him and always sat and petted him and discussed world affairs with him, I suppose. I don’t pet cats much. I never saw anybody except Pops put his arm around a cat. He would sit there with his hand on the cat talking away with the most serious expression on his face. Apparently, the cat enjoyed the conversation.
Pops kept longhorn cattle. He started out with two bulls. One white one and one brown one. He named the brown one Tom and the white one Jerry. Tom is a baby in this photograph. Pops is telling him how big his horns will grow one day and how pretty he will be. The horns did grow to a huge set and Tom grew so huge and fat that the kids started calling him “Fat Butt” to distinguish him from the rest of the little herd. Jerry, the other longhorn bull, always came running up to Pops’ golf cart to drink from the iced tea cup that was always in the cup holder. He would have gotten into the cart too if he’d been smaller. The kids still keep the longhorns, and new babies are born each year. Some are spotted like the longhorns that you see in photographs from Texas.
Pops bought a pair of reading glasses once. They had bifocal lenses. When he tried to read, the page looked lopsided. The opthamologist told him to buy glasses at Walgreen’s Drug Store since he only required reading glasses. The problem was that all of the frames were too small for his head. Never mind. He simply bought the hinged kind so he could spread them wide enough to go onto his head. They looked ridiculous, but he didn’t seem to notice. He always had a pair pushed up on top of his head or pushed down on his nose. Sometimes, he even looked through the lenses.
Remember The Hands
Vague, softened and fleeting images of the people who are no longer with us are always in our heads. And, they are sweet, but it is ever so much sweeter to have recorded memories of the eccentric habits and characteristic details too. Those images are the ones that make us laugh. They are the ones that make us happiest in our remembrance of them. Snap often and well. You will be happy that you did.
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Houses
A colony was established by Martín De León in 1824, and was the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas. Victoria was the center of the colony, which was part of an effort by the Mexican government to settle Texas. Victoria is the town which I adopted as home in 1976. Obviously, it is an old town. Driving out from the center of town, there are old residential neighborhoods which are being settled by a new generation of young people. These neighborhoods are filled with houses that represent many types and periods of architecture. I recognize only some of the intriguing elements of design. Many of the old houses incorporate design elements from Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival periods.
One of Boy’s teachers lives in this lovely old house located near his Episcopal Church School. The Federal style pediments over the windows and the design elements of the gable interested me. It is a large two-story house with shake shingle siding. The original wooden siding appears to have been replaced by vinyl. The effect is the same, however. Many old houses in Victoria incorporate the lighter decorative pediments, moldings, trim and mullions of the Federal style into the standard symmetry of the Georgian house.
After I photographed this charming house, I was about to drive away when I saw the lady of the house walking from her car to the door. She was a pretty woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. I called out to tell her how wonderful I thought her house was. She smiled broadly and thanked me. She is representative of the young families who are buying these old houses, renovating them, and enjoying the benefits of living in an established part of town with huge oaks and quiet streets. Some of their children even ride their bicycles to school.
This old house has been renovated. It is located just off a major street which renders it less desirable, but still acceptable housing for young people. The Victorian shake gable is a common feature of old houses in my town. John Calvin Stevens designed many famous shake-siding houses before or around 1900. Apparently, the style was popular in Victoria too. Some of the shingles are rounded or shaped on the ends which has a lovely effect. These are simple, rectangular shakes. Originally, this house would have had a wood shake shingle roof too. Current fire codes prohibit wooden shingles today.
This house has been boarded-up for many years. Recently, renovation was started on it. There are four-by-four lengths of lumber temporarily holding up the roof. I expect to see columns replace these temporary supports soon. The gable on this house is barely visible in the photograph, but the shakes are of a more interesting and older shape than the shakes in the previous photograph. This house has both gabled roof sections as well as the odd mansard roof line whose window has nice pediment.
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Every Day Is Father’s Day
I can’t save money. I can’t even save half a slice of my favorite pie for the next day’s treat. I live in the moment, I think. I am self-indulgent and a real spendthrift. Be careful what you casually admire in my house. You’re likely to walk away with it regardless of whether you wanted it. Worse yet is the inability to purchase a present for Christmas (or for any other occasion) and keep it until the actual day arrives.
Boy tells me what he wants for Christmas or his birthday. I dutifully order whatever he puts in my shopping cart. The things start to arrive before Christmas. Boy lies in wait for them. Then it begins. I don’t know why I bother to argue with him about opening packages before Christmas. He asks every day whether a package came that day. He knows I won’t lie about it. In the end, by Christmas Day he’s already opened, and forgotten, most of the packages that arrived. One year, a few months after Christmas when he was trying to persuade me to buy something for him, he announced in his matter-of-fact way that I had not given him “anything for Christmas”. Never mind that I’d scraped together some fairly decent presents at the eleventh hour. So goes the life of a helpless Granny. What the heck? I might be dead by Father’s Day anyway.
Photographs I Couldn’t Save For Father’s Day
Unhappy three-Year-old Waiting for Dad.
II.
Dad's Home From Work!
III.
Dad Always Tells Me A Funny Story
IV.
Dad Understands I'm Only Three
V.
Ah, All Is Right With The World
Do You Remember Where You Were?
I
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