My apartment is on a East to West axis. Late afternoon sun back lights clouds on an azure sky. I never planned to make a photograph of cirrus clouds like I see today, but I did. On a country road in Belleau, France. For “Teufel Hunden”.
4,000 miles east of this beach is Normandy, France. 82 years ago, it bled.
This Memorial Day weekend, through no plan at all, I read “D-Day” by Stephen Ambrose and “The Longest Day” by Cornelius Ryan. Without distraction, but for food and sleep. And thought about, memorials, I’ve visited. And my luck.
WWI: Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, France
WWII: USS Yorktown CV-10, Charleston, South Carolina
(Renamed before launch to replace USS Yorktown CV-5 sunk at Midway)
WWII: Detail of WWII Memorial, Washington, D.C.
Vietnam War: “Three Soldiers” Washington, D.C.
Reading this today, I was surprised that young men could be so stupid. Ok, not really surprised, I’m an old man: Women Home Buyers & Men Dating.
Long ago, a 21 year marriage blew up and I lucked out, finding a woman who’d made a similar poor decision. We shared her apartment until we decided we could afford a house. I presented a stack of cancelled checks, my half of rent & utilities, written to my late Sweetheart, to the Mortgage Loan Officer handling our application, as proof of her income. I was “Miscellaneous Income, Other”. It made the numbers work for the bank and we became homeowners – unmarried and living in Sin. We did Marry and I bought the next house with a VA Loan Guarantee and my first pay stub from my new job at the IBM PC Company. The proceeds from selling our first house together improved the lives of a combined five children plus some grand kids.
Marché Bastille, Paris
She was way better with budget than me. I was good for fixing stuff, gutting & renovating kitchens and lifting heavy stuff. The Italian Julia Child , spoiled me rotten. And we both thrived in Paris. Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. It’s okay to have a Boss Lady. Tarzan knew!
Photographed at weekend event at Ashworth Village in Cary, long ago. I was making photographs for Cary Citizen. And discovered that the lack of guile in children is, vitamins for the adult spirit.
Nearing 76 turns about the Sun, I get spiritual renewal watching kids invent play with shopping carts at the grocery. My late Sweetheart & Boss Lady thought I was embarrassing, riding our grocery cart, downhill to the car. Tried it the other day – I weigh too much, cart tilted backwards. Or maybe, it was empty and light, shopping for one. And 16 years later, I remember the unvarnished honesty of this child.
Safe at home on a damned near perfect afternoon, with Beer and Bourbon. Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Shooting Straight In The Dark”, playing on my bookshelf stereo. And reading a gift, from my young dog rescuing neighbor, a wonderful book, “Dog Songs” by Mary Oliver. And taking a license with a title, “Ropes”. Like the dog in the story, been chewing through ropes, as long as I can remember. Like a lot of us, looking to be free to discover. Free now.
I never planned to rip & replace kitchens in two houses – but I did. We sold the first to downsize in 2013. Wasn’t long before the next renovation began. The image below is what we started with.
2013 MLS Photo
Found a local cabinet maker who made to order. He and my Boss Lady designed it – I was just cheap labor. I did take longer than the first one – budget and trips to Paris were priorities. The image below was “Work In Progress”, 2018.
This was the end product – except for some minor trim. I did finish that bit before selling, a promise kept. She selected the large photograph I made of the “Chihuly Exhibit” at Biltmore House.
Mostly recovered from a nasty head cold, spent Saturday on the couch doing something I rarely do any more – watch TV. Saw an old favorite “This Old House”. My sweetheart made this photograph in 2007 (2.3 MP Sony P&S) when I finished gutting the kitchen of our home for renovation. The 8 ft bed of my pickup was full and ready for the Wake County Convenience Center Construction Debris Dumpster. Twice!
The image below is how it looked when we sold in 2013 – except for the appliances being replaced for newer Black ones and obvious water damage to the oak floor I laid from a leaking dishwasher. Image is from it’s recent listing and sale – more than 3x what I paid in 1998! I’d need to be back at IBM as a Band 9 to buy it today. Wait, I was a Band 9 – never mind.
Just looking at this makes me glad I’m done with all that. Except for the “WKRP” t-shirt which is still in my closet. And I still have my “like new” 2005 Chevy W/T.
Like “Mac”, I find sleep and comfort irresistible. And good food . I made all of his. No convenient bagged junk. Real Chow: Half can of Salmon with a shot of Olive Oil in AM (and Cosamin DS for bad joints, same as I still take to not need knee surgery) split with our attitude Lab, “Rocky”. PM, Bone In Raw Chicken Wings. Later, as he and Rocky got older, ground up raw Chickens, cooked Rice, Collards and Sweet Taters.
Saturdays, a “Trotter” on the deck, from Nahunta Pork Center at the Raleigh Farmers Market – which got disappeared in 45 minutes! Never had to have their teeth cleaned.
Disclaimer: I once wrote to a young lady from a Navy Training School who later told me my letters were complex and hard to read – she was right).
We both aged to relish and enjoy quietude. This is almost, a self portrait. We both got grey muzzles. And shared a deep love of our missus, whose side he would not leave in her illness. As she would not leave his. The hard part of love is good bye. Eventually, account balance is zero, with no credit line. So it goes.
This was a favorite of my late Sweetheart -she insisted on the framed print above our fireplace, each Christmas. Later, I had the good fortune to gift it to Santa and Mrs Claus!
26 December 2010- The trains still run. Else, new names and owners.
A friend told me about this a few weeks ago at the Cary Photographic Artists Holiday Party. Found and purchased on Goodwillbooks. Merry Christmas to me! $8.58, delivered!
My bookshelf AM/FM Receiver/CD/USB Player has an audio out jack – key to my purchase decision. Headphones & extension cable facilitate couch lounging and blocks the howls and barks of the poor dog in the apartment behind me. Acoustic peace and great music! Add Lager & Bourbon – I’m good!
Last week, driving by the spectacular Town Hall and Academy Street Christmas displays, the child in me, marveled! The old man in me, finds peace and comfort in the simplicity and elegance of 15 years ago.
Ambassador Loop Lamp Post| Cary Town Hall Campus | 26 Dec 2010
Page-Walker Arts & History Center started life as a railroad hotel next to still used train tracks. So I occasionally had to pause teaching Thursday night Photography Classes on the second floor, while Trains rumbled by with their warning horns. Freight and Passenger!
Page-Walker Arts and History Center | Cary Town Hall Campus | 26 Dec 2010
I had Downtown Cary all to myself – except for this rowdy bunch!
“Join The Parade” by Jane A. Rankin | Cary Town Hall Campus | 26 Dec 2010
We are, I believe, tied to our upbringing. A 75 year old in a mirror, finds it, inescapable. Along with all the stuff NOBODY could make up. Like being six and parked on a sofa in pajamas with my younger brother as EMT’s took my father out the front door – I can still see the flashing red lights.
Didn’t know then about my Maternal Step Grandfather who:
1. A Widower and Hungarian Immigrant, married my Hungarian Immigrant Divorced Grandmother (Catholic Shame but the hubs left!). My Mom was 3.
2. Rolled a 30’s Dodge Touring car with a trunk full of Bootleg during Prohibition. Cost him a year in a Federal Pen
3. Ran Charlie’s Cafe at Woodhill & Buckeye in Cleveland through Prohibition. Defied Cleveland Police for increased bribes by replacing the “Water Heater” full of Bootleg with a real one, before the raid he knew would come .
4. Flew up from retirement in Florida after my Dad was hospitalized and next day, paid his Step Daughters Mortgage – my Brooklyn Bungalow & home.
5. And explains my Fathers relief when I walked in as an adult as he’d just hung up the phone (Long Distance) having sent Charlie the last mortgage repayment.
That post-WWII house was where my Dad kept a Blue Star in the window all nine years I was Navy. And where I never dared think about inviting my best friend in the Navy, who was Black, to visit. Later, I had to tell my Dad he would die soon (Lifetime Smoker) and that we would look after Mom. And later, I would lie to my Mom when it was no longer safe for her to be alone – tricked her to a safe place. And made sure she was safe and not alone when she died.
It was refuge for a brother during a divorce. He took care of it, had the old foundation properly repaired. Which made it a reason for me and my Sweetheart to do the next generation Mom & Dad thing and helped her daughter buy it. That didn’t last, she chose as poorly as I did with my first marriage.
Strangers live there now (owned by an LLC so I suppose, a rental). Strangers live in the home I sold a year ago. And so it goes.
When I met my Sweetheart, I couldn’t even find the light. She was all I could think about. Still is, five years a widower. And we’d both do it again.
Now, a 75 year old Male Curmudgeon, I’m astonished hearing my 20 something Neighbor/Dog Rescuer/Teacher/Soprano/Fellow Chef and Fortuitous Confidant about modern relationships. Discovered there’s even a name for it: Hetero-fatalism! Maybe, a la William Shakespeare, it isn’t a really new idea.
Early last evening, I went to the Cary Photographic Artists Holiday Party at the Herb C Young Community Center in Cary.
Got waylaid by a bunch of Labrador Retrievers on the way in. Sent my heart into overload. Never did find out what the meetup was for but – oh my.
Christmas Day through the 26th of 2010, it snowed in Cary, North Carolina. Rare event. Beginning with my two Labs, I made photographs of our “White Christmas”. Spent the next day making photographs in Downtown Cary. Which looked a LOT different tonight, driving down Academy Street.
But this is really about two dogs whose ashes I’ve kept to go to sea with mine: Melanchete’s MacGyver AKC CGC & Melanchete’s Rocky AKC CGC.
WCPE Thursday Night Opera tonight is “The Tender Land” by Aaron Copland. Long after the nights I drove home from teaching Photography at Page Walker in Cary, listening to Operas I had no idea of the language -just went with the music. So, long time Copland fan: Appalachian Spring, Rodeo – yep.
There is, I believe, a communion of the human spirit in Art that some find in Religion. It may be the same. Pretty sure it is.
Yesterday, I went to the Early Voting Site at the Herb C Young Community Center in Cary, North Carolina. Same place that Cary Photographic Artists hold their monthly meetings. Thought, Wed., gray and wet, won’t be anyone there. Wrong! Forgot it was one of the Wake County Early Voting Sites!
My Ballot was slim, one Elective Choice for an “At Large Cary Council Member”. Still, it took an hour. Which was not a worry. My time is my time. Met and visited with some folks in line. Told some lame jokes. And Voted. With my Real Photo ID! Didn’t see ICE! I did park in the Garage, got 300 steps in each way plus down 60 and up 60 steps to the top deck.
Before Voting, I stopped at “Paris Baguette” for Croissants with Egg, Cheese and Bacon – Heavenly! But as I’ve learned the hard way, often sold out by 11 AM. Scored 2 of the last 3 – then Voted! Next, stop at Harris Teeter for Gouda Cracker Cuts and BOGO Ben & JERRY Pints!
I’ve no debt, a like new 2005 Chevy W/T needing nothing, good chunk of dough in the bank in CD & HYS ( sold house in 2024 for double paid in 2013), full frig and nothing but routine visits to Dentist & Doc I’ve seen since 1999. And Tax free income and household budget that leaves plenty of wiggle room each month. As Miss Piggy advised, the “Secret to managing money is managing to have enough!” And I do!
Good pile of “To Be Read” books, the luxury of time to plan and cook meals and no demands on my time. Time to dog sit and listen to “NightBird”.
All the Legal stuff is done. Following House Sale and as a Widower, made all new: Will, Power of Attorney and Durable Power of Health Care Attorney. Plus an Advanced Medical Directive for whenever one of my vital parts hits the expiration date. Had a frank and candid discussion with my PCP: palliative care only, no surgeries, chemo or radiation . Just a morphine drip (not keen on suffering) and lemme go.
Left to do and soon, is to prepay my Cremation and execute a Disposition of Remains – which means my ashes go 3+ miles off Hatteras (NC Law) with the ashes of two Labrador Retrievers. We all 3 liked the ocean.
Estate is the stuff in my 1BR Apt that will get tossed into a “Habitat” donation or more likely, a” Junk Doctors” truck (last move cost me $500 to throw away the big stuff). Accounts in my Credit Union, already designated, no probate.
Yep, like the 1MC Announcement & Klaxon
“Now Dive, Dive “ Klaxon
To borrow a lyric from Laura Nyro:
Give me my freedom for as long as I be
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me
And all I ask of dying is to go naturally
Only want to go naturally
Early today was a trip to the Post Office for some family business, then a self promised visit to the Downtown Cary Farmers Market.
Downtown Cary Park is a wonderful place to visit and walk and get vitamins in your heart from seeing dogs and children and their attendant grown-ups, play. So I was smitten by a 2 or maybe three year old tow head, looking down in excitement by activity in the pond below a wonderful walking bridge.
Curious, I learned over the railing to see a pair of female Mallard ducks bobbing for food. Without thinking, I said aloud, mostly for the excited little boy “those are girl ducks”. His father, who looked like a prosperous and well groomed “30ish” said aloud “how do you know?”
Stunned, I said Mallard ducks are very common around here and the Males (Drakes) have dark blue green heads and neck rings. Silence.
So I looked at Mom and said “There are lots more at the boathouse at Bond Park, you’ll see what I mean”. And it was like I had revealed a “secret”.
And I wondered how far we have removed ourselves from our native environment while addicted to the nonsense of oxymoronically “SmartPhones”. Which sort of explains the one handed left turning young man driving a Honda while holding his phone in the other as I waited to cross Academy Street to the park.
We are, I think, as Neil Postman wrote “Amusing Ourselves To Death”.
Day after Christmas 2009, visiting wife’s family in my old home town. Needed air and sun. Found it by the mouth of the Cuyahoga River
My young neighbor & BFF confirmed the accuracy of an extraordinary article in the New York Times about modern courtship – okay “Dating” : The Trouble With Wanting Men: “Women are so fed up with dating men that the phenomenon even has a name: heterofatalism”
In about two weeks, I’ll finish my 75th turn around the Sun. And I had no idea. Had a well intended but doomed first marriage of 21 years. Me and my soulmate both got it right the second time. For nearly 30 years. Till death did part us.
But this – chronological men acting like boys – makes me embarrassed. Young men, I believe, need the focus and discipline of Recruit Training in Armed Services. Better, actual service. So the ladies don’t have to do two jobs – their day job for a paycheck and the second job, caring for a man-child.
Roughly 3 years ago. Still the same. The Mole-Richardson Tungsten Fresnel lights are long gone. Same as my Studio Space deal.
Today, shared untold Submariner stories with my young neighbor. Young lady personifies the best of us. And so it goes.
My Weapons Officer aboard USS Andrew Jackson was far and away, the best Officer I ever served. Lt. Roger Kline jumped into an open Missile Hatch while we were loading Birds in Rota as I was exercising my right to bitch about – everything. Spread eagled in an open Missile Hatch, he looked at me and said “Meyer, I’m not fucking this horse, I’m just holding it for a friend”. Later, I learned he was CO of an SSN in ComSubPac. And an NJROTC Instructor in South Carolina. We made “Sand Women”on the beach in St Croix after a 79+ day Patrol, including a high speed transit from the Med. We were all, drunk. And handling Line 1 on departure, I saw him grinning atop the sail as he had the conn – shit faced and still more competent that the rest of the Ward Room.
USS Andrew Jackson SSB(N) 619 – U.S. Navy Photo
Heard my upstairs neighbor empathically say, through blessedly open screens to fresh air after a rain cooled off the unrelenting heat of the week! She is rightfully resentful of Rabbits munching her plantings. They are gastronomically cheeky, as a lady a few apartments down, feeds them.
And having been self embarrassed at previously missing a photo opportunity by having to dive into my camera bag to find a lens, mount it and check the battery and memory card, I’ve left a ready camera near my door. Disclaimer: I tossed a piece of celery leaf from my dinner outside. It was left, ignored – I was had! And the missing piece of ear -not easy being a Rabbit! Still, we both agree on Billy Holiday.
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