The Budget and Meals on Wheels

Our first stop Thursday around 11:15 is at Victoria's apartment.  We pick up the paper in the driveway, climb the steps, ring the bell and hand her both a hot lunch and a cold bag.  In the cold bag is a milk, a piece of fruit, and something sweet.  Victoria always has the TV on, but she hears the doorbell.  She always thanks us.  Victoria has Stage IV cancer.

Our second stop is a few blocks away.  Moffet also lives in a second floor apartment.  She answers the door promptly and thanks us, too.  She's always in her bathrobe.

Heading north to Mr. Mui's house.  We're hopeful that the Albany Senior Citizens van has brought him back from shopping or a doctor's visit before we arrive with his lunch.  If not, he'll have to go to the Albany Senior Center to pick it up.  Mr.  Mui is Chinese.  He bows, makes a prayerful gesture with his hands and says, "Doh Jeh."

Down the street a couple of blocks is Vera.  Vera takes about an entire season to get from her chair, vertical, into her walker, then make it to the door.  But she does.  "Is this today's meal?" she asks, (which, of course, it is, in that it's today, and we're handing her food).  But we say, "Yes, Vera, this is today's meal."  

The last two stops are on the same street a few blocks away.  The first gentleman is Rico, who no longer answers the door.  His daughter does that for him now.  We used to bring meals for his wife, too, but she died a year ago.  I haven't met the couple who live a few doors down.  They're new to the program.

We drive back to the Albany Senior Center, as we've done every Thursday for the past fifteen years and drop off our "hot bags", then head home.  Often, Jadyne and I finish up by going out to lunch ourselves, usually Thai, Vietnamese, or Mexican.  That's our Thursday.

And that's the program that Mr. Trump wants to cut.  The White House Says Cutting Meals on Wheels is “Compassionate.”  “I think it’s probably one of the most compassionate things we can do,” Mulvaney said, of slashing funding for food assistance for the elderly.” No, Mulvaney says, the "compassionate" thing to do is for tax payers, to "go to them and say, look, we're not going to ask you for your hard-earned money anymore. Single mom of two in Detroit, give us your money. We're not going to do that anymore unless they can guarantee that money will be used in a proper function." That, he says, "is about as compassionate as you can get."

Mr. Mulvaney, let's remember that the "single mom in Detroit" is also paying for Mr. Trump's weekends in Florida, and each weekend costs the same as the entire national program of Meals on Wheels.  

The Other Side

I watched a Facebook discussion take place yesterday between one of my high school friends, a bright and funny man who weighs carefully what he wants to say, and one of his "friends", a mom who believes that #45 is our salvation.  I've copied a number of her comments, as much to try to understand what is largely inexplicable to me as well as to recognize that if we are indeed going to make America Great again, it won't be because the two sides have found that elusive common center.  For the life of me I don't think it's there.

From her:  

"He's already worked harder than our previous one. And he's working harder for the people. Thankful we have a president who is for the people. Thankful we have a president who is a Christian. If we are talking traveling. Obama traveled all the time. Trump went directing to work the day he took office. There is proof in Gods Word that Obama went against. Trump is a Christian. We know a Christian by their fruits! It's ok you don't care for our currency President. Now you know how some of us felt for 8 years. Trump will make America. Great again.

My friend expressed his distrust of Mr. Trump because of his lewd comments and behavior and added, "I say that because of his past behavior, and his own statements, politics aside. I have heard things out of his own mouth, and watched while the whole Marla Maples thing unfolded, that would completely disqualify him from having anything to do with any daughter or granddaughter of mine. Same with the boys, for that matter. They might not be the same kind of victim, but I would not want them in Donald Trumps "locker room."

She replied, "We have to remember that all people have made mistakes. He is a human being. He had given his life to God. And he is doing a great job in office so far. He is what this country needs at this time. If you don't agree he best thing to do is pray for him. His latest speech was fantastic. I don't remember a better speech from any former president."  To which, my friend replied, "I was pretty put-off by the shooting of an elephant and brandishing his severed tail in a photograph."

And last, she concluded, "I was put off by the previous one going against the Word of God. Going against Israel for one. God put Trump in office. I'm thankful america has spoken. He is proving to America that he is for America. And he will turn this country back to God. God says in His Word to never go agaiNst Israel. It is Gods promised land. Obama was no friend to Israel. I will agree to disagree with you on this. God knows what He is doing

"God put Trump in office?" Oh my.

From William Butler Yeats,"The Second Coming," 

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

China Twenty-Five Years Ago

In 1992 my American born Chinese wife visited her ancestral home for the first time.  Stepping off the plane, she was greeted by an official who noted that her family had come from Guangzhou, or what we used to call "Canton."  Surprised, Jadyne realized for the first time how the facial features of the Chinese reflected that part of the homeland where they had been born.  

A couple of weeks later we were privileged to meet up with "her family", relatives she'd never met, people whose home showed photographs of her, Teeny, and Greg, but people whose existence was a shadow in her youth.  Jadyne's grandmother, Rose, had married Harry Lee later in life, and Harry had always wanted to go back to China to visit his family, his relatives, his sister, but because his birth certificate was "out of order" he was denied travel.  We were able to make contact with his relatives, though, and we spent one day with them in Guangzhou.

We had hoped to meet them at home, but Harry's sister was in the hospital, having been struck by a bicycle.  Nevertheless, we were able to visit.

The photo doesn't show it, but the floor of the "hospital" room was a filthy linoleum.  There were several beds in the room and no privacy.  Harry's sister is reading a letter that Jadyne brought from her grandfather.

We had been invited to visit Jadyne's cousins, again, people she'd never met.  I don't know their Chinese names, but we met them at Guangzhou's White Swan Hotel, then drove to their apartment, several blocks away.  Both University Professors, he taught architecture, she taught Math.

We had afternoon tea together, and with the help of a translator (talking), were able to share family stories and history.  Recognizing that they were both college educated professionals, I wanted to ask them how they had managed to endure the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  They politely indicated that neither one of them "wanted to talk about it."  They had survived, when so many had not.  

Relics from Mao's Great Leap Forward, from the Red Guard, from the violent Cultural Revolution, still remain in souvenir shops.  Here's one of them, a windup alarm clock: 

Mao's face is flanked by three guided missiles between the 10 and 11.  The second hand is a jet plane trailing a silver jet stream.  To the left of the jet is a disembodied arm from one of the Red Guards.  He's waving one of Mao's Little Red Books, a bible for behavior.  Between the hour and minute hands two Red Guards, each with a red armband, shout revolutionary slogans to the masses.

The Kitchen and bathroom

Yes, this was twenty-five years ago, and times do change.  The modest apartment that Jadyne's cousins lived in, has no doubt been updated.  The professors have retired.  We have lost touch.  China 2017 is no longer China 1992.  There was no free press during the Cultural Revolution, none in 1992.  The press was the enemy, and those who criticized the government did not live to tell about it.  I haven't asked my friend Haoyun about China today, how free he would feel to criticize or point out faults.  We need to tend our own garden.

How This Whole Thing Started

In looking at old photographs I've thought about posting some of them on my blog, adding to them stories, or what effect the photos might have had on my career. This is the first. There are several benches in front of San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square. In the summer lots of people hang out there to enjoy the sunshine, watch the swimmers in the Bay, take in the view of the bridge. In 1969, fresh out of UC, I discovered this colorful character sitting on one of the benches. I sat next to him and fiddled with the manual adjustments on my camera, guessing the light exposure, the shutter speed, and how close he was to me, knowing that I wouldn't have time to focus, or make any other adjustments.  I turned to look at him at the same time that he looked at me. After taking the photo he unleashed a string of profanities. Chastened, I stood up and left. When the slide came back from the lab I looked at it with a critical eye and thought to myself, "I can do this. I really can do this." it was the first inclination I'd ever had that made me think that at some point in my life, I could become a real photographer.

In the summer of 1972 Jadyne and I bought a Eurailpass, flew first to England, then left for Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Rome, and Greece before returning to the US.  (I can still remember flying a 747 from Rome to SF for the unheard of price of $99).  Shooting slides along the way I took three that still stand the test of time for me, one in Venice, one in San Sebastian, Spain, and the last, in Paris.  Visiting all the churches and towers we could find, Jadyne and I needed to climb to the top of every dome, every steeple.  At Notre Dame I spied an open window along the stairway with a view that overlooked the rooftops of Paris.  Using my 135mm lens I took this image. I submitted it to only the second photography contest I ever entered.  I won Best in Show and a $50 gift that Jadyne and I splurged on at the Maisonette, a Michelin starred restaurant in Cincinnati.  I was pursuing a Master's Degree that would lead me to a career in teaching in 1972, but I carried my camera with me everywhere I went, and I was always looking.  Some things never change.

When we returned to Paris I wanted to retake the image, but discovered that bars and a screen had been placed across the window.

Ten years later I entered my third and last photography contest.  Once again,  Best in Show.  And with this one came a free trip to Hawaii.  The story gets better, though.  I was now working as a photographer, and in 1982, thirty-five years ago, I photographed the students at Los Ayres, a San Leandro school for budding ballerinas.  In exchange for doing countless photos of little girls under the lights, Miss Judy and I took the most promising dancers to outside locations.  I chose places that were counter to the "prettiness" of ballet—a Western village, a blacksmith shop, and in this case, the nineteenth century Fort Point, which is under the Golden Gate Bridge.  When Miss Judy saw this image, she dismissed it immediately.  "Why?" I asked, as I believed that it was a great shot.  "She's not on point," she said, spoken as a true ballerina.  As a photographer, though, I knew better.

But here's where the story gets better.  Bay Views magazine folded with this issue.  We delayed our gift trip until November and arrived in Honolulu the day before Hurricane Iwa, so the trip was a disaster, too, as we were unable to travel to Kuaui or Maui.  We stayed with Jadyne's mother on Oahu, but we had no power and there was little we could do.  Some gift horses are better looked at in the mouth.

Quiet Desperation

We park one of cars in front of our house, straddling the curb, two wheels on the extension of the sidewalk, the other two in the street.  The other day I found a green 70 Sheets College Ruled 10 1/2 x 8in. 1 Subject Notebook on the windshield.  Puzzled, I left it and went out for a walk.  I returned a couple of hours later.  The notebook was still there.  I opened it up and looked for a name.  Nothing.  Turning the pages, I saw a handwritten script covering the next three pages, the only writing in the notebook.  I began reading...

"Lee and I are unsuited to each other.  We are totally incompatible.  We are just making each other miserable.  We will never be able to be content together.

My life will be so much smaller and more circumscribed because of being married to someone with whom I do not share a spiritual orientation, values, and family.  We will not travel together.

We will be two cranky old lonely people together.

He wants to push me out of my own house and my own bed. There’s no place that is mine anymore.

I made a huge mistake in marrying him.

I will never find a job that pays me enough money and is sustainable for my health and energy.

I missed the boat—I should have gone to grad school 30 years ago and had children then, too. I should never have put him on the deed to my house. 

I will be a 55-year-old divorcee with 2 divorces and no steady job.  No one will want me. 

The only jobs I can get now are low status low paying jobs.  I have wasted my intelligence."

The Maryland Steps

Jadyne and I walk a lot.  Frequently our walks from Berkeley, or Albany, all points lower than our Kensington home, finish on a stairway between Boynton and Vermont Avenues.  We've taken these stairs hundreds of times, often more than once a day.  From the top it's a hop, step, and a little jump to our home on Rugby Avenue.  Jadyne reminded me the other day, "There are seventy steps, here, David, one for each year you've been alive."  I'd never thought of them that way, and now I can't walk up them without thinking of them, that each step represents a year of my life.  Here they are:

At the end of a long uphill walk I don't look forward to these.

Step 16.  I got my driver's license, and my parents, in an incomprehensible decision, allowed me to take Chip Meyers to Coney Island the same day in my Dad's 1961 VW bug.  We eventually sold it to Harry Morrison who didn't realize that it had a fourth gear, so he blew it up on 101 in 3rd gear at 75 mph.

Step 23.  Jadyne and I were married in 1970, when I was twenty-three years old.  She was one step behind me.  The step, like the marriage, is still in pretty good shape.

September 26th, 1974.  Jason is born.  We're now a real family.

I'm thirty in 1976.  I left a To Do list on the refrigerator for Jadyne. I had written.  "Go to hospital.  Have a baby girl."  She did.  In 1976 the technology didn't exist that would determine sex beforehand.  We use up the second naming "J" for Jennifer.  It was a second choice behind "Sarah", but we intended to give her a middle name of "Lee" after Jadyne's grandparents, and we thought that "Sarah Lee" wouldn't have been a fun name to live with.

1979.  Thirty-third step.  John is born.  Coincidentally, I get a vasectomy.  I thought that I would go on a road trip the next day to Sequoia National Park, but instead spent that day, legs akimbo, reading "The World According to Garp."  

Been there.  Done that.

Here's the top, the seventieth step.  The path simply leads to two additional steps, which then take you to Vermont Avenue.  It may be trite, but when I climb to the top of these steps I'm relieved to have made it.  I feel as if I've accomplished something.  Even though there are no more concrete steps I'm hopeful that metaphorical ones remain, and that they remain in as good a shape as the ones in this photograph.

Spectra

I don't want a horse and buggy, and I'm not planning on returning to cameras that shoot film.  But dang, how I loved my Polaroid Spectra, perhaps the last and best iteration of the venerable Polaroid line.  Alas, the Spectra disappeared during a high school party at our house, also the same night that I discovered a half-eaten hot dog in a drawer in our bathroom cabinet and my Minolta IV light meter covered with beer.  Still, if the camera hasn't survived, the images that came from it have, many of which are nearing 40 years old.  Here's one of my favorites, a family photo.

John, the youngest, said, "Typically, I'm most left out."

Jadyne and Jason, flanking my ninety-plus year old mother, whose powerful frame is covered by her Cal Berkeley rugby shirt, before launching into a scrum on Witter field.

And Aspen, our beloved golden retriever, after we brought her home for the first time.

I took the Spectra to New Orleans in 1988 when we photographed Kevin Renfree's wedding.  This night we found ourselves in Houma, Louisiana, listening to a cajun band.

And I have no idea who these two people are, why the guy eating the Vanilla ice cream cone is smiling at me, and whether the person in the salmon colors is a female or a female impersonator, and why they're together.  I just like the photo.

And a "selfie", perhaps one of the first.  I just don't look like this anymore, and that's okay.  

Passion Redux

Marta Becket died Monday.  A ballerina who drew audiences from around the world to an abandoned Mojave Desert stage she adopted after being stranded in the area by a flat tire in 1967, Marta purchased the Amargosa Opera House, began dancing in 1968 and continued every Monday, Friday, and Saturday, whether the house was full or empty—as if thousands were watching.  In 1968 her only patrons were the three Mormon families who lived in the isolated town of Death Valley Junction, twenty-three miles from the nearest town; yet as time went by the 114 seats were filled, and on special occasions extra chairs were brought in.

Ms. Becket wrote songs and dialogue, sewed costumes and painted sets.  She spent six years drawing and painting imaginary fans on the walls, painted the ceiling with a blue sky, dancing cherubs, clouds and doves."It's mystifying," she said, "I feel as if this is what I was intended to do."

She continued flitting across the stage in her iconic performances well into her 80s although health problems slowed her in later years.  In 2012 she turned the theater over to a nonprofit group.

The coroner said Wednesday that the cause of Ms. Becket's death at 92 had not been determined.  She died at home in Death Valley Junction. (Source:  The San Francisco Chronicle)

There is so much to learn by watching others and the way they live their lives.

Manzanar

Why does the Muslim ban so offend me?  Here’s why:

Some years ago Jadyne and I drove down #395, the two-lane road on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, stopping at Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp, where thousands of Japanese were incarcerated during WW II.  Inside the visitor center was a locked cabinet with memorabilia about those who were interned there.  Jadyne exclaimed, “David, here’s one of your photographs!”  Inside was a prom photograph of a young Japanese male, his date, attached to a letter.   It read,

“Grandpa,

Although we never met, never talked, never saw each other, it is you that I have to thank for the life I have now.  My happiness, through life, and every morning I hold dear, would not have happened had it not been for you.  It is here in Manzanar that I realize how different your life is from mine, and how truly blessed I am.  Thank you for your sacrifices and for giving me the fine life I now appreciate so much more.  May heaven hold as much good for you as it has already given me.

Evan”

Looking west from the border of the "camp" known as Manzanar

A cabinet full of memorabilia

Filling the Void

Roger Angell, the noted New Yorker writer and baseball lover, called the time between the last pitch of the World Series and the first pitch of the spring as "The Void."  To those of us who love baseball, this is an apt expression, and we try to sublimate our love of the game by reading about trades, changes in the rules, up and coming rookies, and whatever news we can find.

Yesterday Susan Hines Siemer, in going through a drawer full of miscellaneous memorabilia, discovered this 116 year old gem:

I have one of my own, not nearly as old as Susan's. Nevertheless, I wonder if Cooperstown would be interested.

After visiting family in Cincinnati, my brother and I went to Crosley Field and watched Jim Maloney lose a ten inning no-hitter when in the 11th inning, Johnny Lewis of the Mets hit a home run, the lone score in this late afternoon contest.  The next day I climbed on a plane for San Francisco.  In 1965 baseball teams flew around the country in commercial airlines, booking dozens of coach seats for players, managers, and other personnel, mingling with the paying passengers. The cabin was full of men, laughing, talking, many with cocktails and beers in hands.  Puzzled, I remembered the game the night before, turned to my seatmate and asked, "Pardon me, aren't you Warren Spahn?"  "Yes, I am," he answered.  "OMG!" I thought to myself. "I'm sitting next to the greatest left-handed pitcher in the history of the game, a man whose ticket to the Hall of Fame had been punched much earlier in his incredible career."  My first reaction?  I've got to get his autograph.  I looked around for a piece of paper, failed to find one, then settled on the only paper in the cabin, nestled in the pocket of the seat in front of me.

I remembered that the manager of the Mets in 1965 was Casey Stengel, perhaps the most colorful character in the game.  I turned to Warren Spahn, "Is Casey on this flight?"  Spahn answered, "He's in first class."  Undaunted, I excused myself, climbed over the hurler, parted the curtain, knowing that I had only a few seconds to find Mr. Stengel before the flight attendants would be escorting me back to coach.  Turning the bag over, I asked Casey, "Would you please sign this for me?"  

I'm picturing this in a revolving glass container in Cooperstown, testifying to the lengths that baseball fans will go to fill the Void.

The Masses Send a Message January 21st, 2017

Yesterday, Jadyne and I joined Jennifer and two of her friends, climbed on BART at El Cerrito Norte, and headed south to Lake Merritt for the start of the Women's March, a movement echoed in more than six hundred cities around the world.  With crowds numbering from 750,000 (LA) to a half million (Washington DC), marchers in Fairbanks, where the ambient temperature was -16, united in one common purpose—to show the new president and the rest of the world that love does indeed trump hate, that this hateful narcissist's policies, personality, and programs are objectionable and dangerous to all living things.

No one—not Trump, not the organizers, not the police assigned to the marches, not BART—could have ever anticipated the huge numbers of people who showed up to show unity, love, and solidarity.  Our train was filled at the first stop.

From the mouths of babes...

The face on the poster isn't the little girl holding it, but is, in fact, the face of my granddaughter's best friend, Maia.

The crowd was huge, happy, and well-behaved.  Here we are along Lake Merritt.

This photo could have been taken in every city around the world.

And in yet another extraordinary post-script to these hundreds of marches, Trump's press secretary, in speaking to the press, chastised them for misrepresenting the tiny crowds that attended the inauguration and refused to take questions about the huge crowds that attended the women's march.  Trump and his cronies simply are what they've always been—liars, narcissists, thoroughly evil pond scum, (although that characterization tends to demean pond scum).

Mr Trump, don't trifle with women, especially those with a tattoo of a coat hanger on her chest.

Speaking of Birds...and Passion

From my neighbor George...

"Yesterday Cindy pointed out to me that the second accepted California record of the gull that all North American birders hope to see one day - the Ross's Gull - had occurred and abundantly photographed on a parking lot adjacent to Princeton Harbor, which is close by Half Moon Bay, not many miles down the S.F. Peninsula from S.F. proper. Ross's is a gull of the Russian Arctic, which has been recorded breeding in northern Manitoba, and is a rare visitor to Alaska and the Bering Sea, believed to winter on the ocean. I think there are some rare records from New England or thereabouts. This is the second confirmed record for California, the previous one having been seen at the Salton Sea for three days in 2006. I initially thought, "Oh to have driving privileges," but then looked at Peninsula bus schedules, and figured out how I could get there by late morning. After a lot of rain and gray, today was predicted to be sunny.

So I packed my scope & camera into a duffel bag and my binoculars and some warm clothes into a day pack, and headed out at 7:45 to catch the bus to BART. At about 10:45, I was dropped off at the bus stop by the harbor, which is also exactly where the bird had again been reported early this morning - I could see a small crowd near the water. The 1st person I spoke to told me that the bird had taken off and flown northwards at 9 a.m., and no one had re-found it. People had taken off in various directions, and I encountered other birders continually as I walked around the harbor edge and onto a couple of the docks. I drifted around for a couple of hours, seeing a few people I knew but continuing on my own. It occurred to me that I was not in a great situation, in that, if the gull were re-found a mile or two off, I wouldn't have transportation, and I accordingly looked for anyone I could cling to.

I hadn't made any progress when, at about 12:50 p.m., I refreshed the bird-sighting web page I was monitoring on my phone and saw that the bird had been re-found at the Half Moon Bay Airport, which I knew was north of (the tiny) town, though I couldn't say how far. I saw people hustling to their cars and heading out, and I started walking up the drive from the harbor-side towards Highway 1. At a stop sign short of the road, a young woman rolled down her window, I think to alert me to the news, and I asked was she pray tell heading that way, and she let me jump in. Turned out her husband was the one who had just re-found the gull, and she took me to the spot, which turned out to be less than a mile up the highway. 

We piled out and joined the crowd of 25-30 people ranged along the highway and running back and forth across the road, causing some traffic issues. The little gull was hanging around a water puddle at the edge of a runway or road about 100 yards inside the airport, easily identifiable by telescope though too far for good pictures for my sort. Soon people discovered that they could drive into an airport parking lot that was closer, and most everybody drove off, and I walked the couple of hundred yards. Ross's is generally considered one of the most beautiful gulls (yeah, I know - gulls!) - small and delicate, with a roseate blush on the breast."

(George had some medical issues that prevents him from driving.  He has an appointment with the DMV on the 21st, hoping to be reinstated.  Knowing that, this last post should make sense.)

"Also on this Friday the 13th, the Common Pochard was seen again up in Humboldt County - 10 days to go."  

1. From sdakota.com..."The Common Pochard is a common diving duck of Eurasia.  They are only extremely rare vagrants in North America, with most sightings happening in the Aleutians or western Alaska, but sightings have also occurred in California and Saskatchewan. They are ecological counterparts, and very similar to, the Redhead duck that is found in North America."

Sunday footnote.  After flying 9,000 miles from the Arctic Circle two peregrine falcons, fierce predators, attacked and killed the gull.

I didn't just post this story to take the covers off birding, but to reveal what it means to be passionate...about anything.  Here's what Steve Tobak had to say...

What It Means to Be Passionate About Something

• Humbling yourself and sustaining rejection when you've already paid your dues and there's no earthly reason why you should suffer such humiliation.
• Becoming a sponge - even a student again - when you've already had a career, achieved great things, and the thought of sitting passively and learning or being tested makes you nauseous.
• The thrill of discovery makes you feel like a kid again, even though you're 40 or 50. You revel in having no answers, only questions. FYI, that's what makes Apple products so innovative - they start by asking themselves what people want to do that they can't, what drives them nuts. Without that, there would be no iPod, iPhone, or iPad.
• Then, once you have the answers, you start the whole question-answer loop all over again to raise the bar. Love may mean never having to say you're sorry. But passion means never having all the answers. Besides, if you knew the answers, where's the thrill in that?
• Being labeled a fanatic, a control freak, a perfectionist - and not in a good way - for wanting to learn every aspect and get every detail right. An obvious reference to Steve Jobs, among others.
• Sacrificing and waiting long years for the opportunity, then sticking with it until you achieve your vision, come hell or high water.
• Working at it nonstop, until all hours of the night, seven days a week, for months and months, just to get all that pent-up passion out of your system so you can relax and think clearly and rationally again. Yup, I did exactly that seven years ago - and that book will never ever see the light of day.
• Having so much respect for your passion that you're willing to admit that you don't know squat, even though you've observed from a distance your entire life.

I am seventy, retired, but I still feel passionate about my photography.  My wife said, half-critically, "You can't go anywhere without looking."  No, Jadyne, I can't.  And if such a time comes that I'm indifferent to those activities, those people, those efforts that provide me with such rewards, even if I'm still breathing, I will no longer be living. 

Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge

 In January 1937, the federal government purchased 10,775-acre Spalding Ranch and christened it the Sacramento Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. From 1937-1942 the Civilian Conservation Corp's (CCC) "Camp Sacramento" housed up to 200 men at the current headquarters area. The men constructed levees, water control structures, and delivery ditches to create and sustain wetlands across the majority of the refuge. Mosquito bitten, sunburned, dust-choked men worked non-stop even on 100-degree days to create the refuge.

Today, the refuge is known as the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and it functions as the headquarters for the entire Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuge supports over 250 species of birds. Most notable are the huge wintering concentrations (November - January) of 500,000 to 750,000 ducks and 200,000 geese. Raptor numbers swell as the waterfowl numbers increase, including bald eagles and peregrine falcons. 

Less than a two hour drive from San Francisco, Jadyne and I headed there yesterday, not really knowing what to expect.

The egret alone was worth the price of admission.  After a two mile walk past wetlands we came across this lone bird.

We started on a six mile auto tour.  To prevent frightening the birds, we were warned to keep quiet and stay in our cars.  We did.

The first flock we found were a combination of snow geese and Ross geese.  We watched them quietly for a few minutes...and then

...Someone gave the signal, and the sky was filled with fluttering wings.

We'd been told that other birds were present, and that someone had seen a bald eagle.  

...such as this one

As we finished our six mile drive, we were once again astounded by what my birder friend George calls, a "geese fly-out."

A small part of the sky.

I guess you had to be there...

Birds are art...

A $6 entrance fee and the nuisance of having to wash the car (when thousands of geese fly over your car you know that washing it afterwards is a given) was a small price to pay.

Twenty-nine years

Twenty-nine years ago Sunday my sister-in-law, Teeny Jeung, was swept down a snowy mountain outside of Aspen.  About twelve experienced cross-country skiers were descending Pearl Pass (12,705') in the Colorado Rockies when the three expert leaders—Teeny, Roy, and John, were caught in a moving wall of snow.  Teeny had given her avalanche finder alarm to her boyfriend, Roy, whose body was found within hours.  John was found shortly afterwards, too. They all died on January 10th, but even after returning to the site week after week through the winter and spring, the Aspen rescue team, all friends of Teeny's, were unable to find her body until Labor Day, months later.

Pearl Pass

Our family of five took a four-wheel drive over the fourth of July to Pearl Pass and picnicked in the snow.  Left were the poles that Aspen rescue used to poke through the enormous drifts remaining from winter.  We all tried, poking through the snow in several places, knowing that at any time the poles might strike something solid.  No luck.

She was a remarkable, selfless human adventurer who loved others unconditionally. As an ER nurse she had seen her share of human tragedy, and it was fitting that Valley View Hospital named the ER after her.  We learned much from the way she lived her thirty-eight years, trying to incorporate her unconditional love with her fearless sense of adventure, remembering her frequently voiced admonition to "not burn daylight."  We still miss her dearly, and when January 10th rolls around, we send each other texts or emails, "How're you doing?"  Jadyne ignores it, preferring to remember Teeny's October birthday, a day of celebration, not sorrow.

Here we are traipsing across the wildflowers on the 4th of July.

If you look closely, you can see the long poles that "rescuers" use to probe beneath the snow, hoping to find a body.  This is how we spent our Fourth of July.

This is how we remember her...

And this...

January 1, 1988..  "Bear", her beloved dog, was alongside her and died, too.

As we left Glenwood Springs January 1st, I asked the three Jeung kids to stand together. 

Greg came to Glenwood Springs to stay with Teeny.  He lives there now. He found his wonderful kind and loving wife (a woman who never knew Teeny but is her twin in many ways) in Glenwood Springs, meeting her through a letter she had left with the local paper, expressing the collective sorrow that the city felt when Teeny died.  

Almost thirty years later she is still remembered and loved in this small western Colorado town. A passenger on Amtrak almost had heart failure a couple of years ago when she saw Jadyne and noticing the family resemblance, thought that Teeny still lived.  She was right.  She does.

Obituaries

"George Fegan died last December.  From his obituary, “He made his pasta from scratch.  He gave Johnny Mathis his first gig.  His basketball nickname was the Butcher.  Or the Hammer—one of those.  He once relieved himself upstream of George H.W. Bush.  As an altar boy he nearly burned down the church; this was possibly an accident.  His mustache was better than yours.  He was the only white person to work at Henry’s Hunan Restaurant.  He was a terrible rabbit hunter.  He had gout, the disease of kings.  He was George Lucas’ favorite high school teacher.  He hated Reagan.  He had eight toes.  He once flew halfway around the world to show up on his future wife’s doorstep unannounced.  His family will miss his mushroom risotto and questionable sense of humor.  They will not miss his singing voice."

I never met George, but I wish I had.

In reading an obituary from one of my former teaching colleagues, a brilliant man of the cloth, writer, and pastor, I was led to believe that the entire world, including Somali pirates, are the worse off for his passing, and that Jesus himself had to vacate his preferred seat at God’s right hand to make room for this brilliant God-loving prelate.  Maybe George and the unnamed man of God wrote their own obituaries.  I don’t know.

What is an obituary, anyhow?  From Wikipedia, “An obituary (obit for short) is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral.”  Typically listing the birth and death dates, the names of the grieving survivors, an anecdote or two, the number of fraternal organizations that will mourn the deceased, the typical obituary fails to impart the complicated, unknowable, and contradictory parts of a life.

With that in mind, and fearing how others, none of whom, I suspect, will have lived my life might write about the one that I lived, I’m offering to write my own obituary. 

"David was brilliant.  He was an idiot.  He had a wonderful sense of humor and could make those around him laugh.  He didn’t find anything funny, and he made those who did miserable.  He loved everyone but couldn’t stand people.  His wife and family found him compassionate, disinterested, warm, selfish, optimistic, moody, affectionate, indifferent, loving and uncaring. David loved dogs and cats, but he hated animals.  He could be very patient but took healthy doses of Lisinopril to lower his blood pressure.  He was a great athlete except when he played sports. He was self-assured, lacking only confidence in himself. He was very simple in a complicated way.  He was surrounded by legions of friends none of whom cared that much for him.  He loved playing the guitar but wasn’t very good, really.  He loved being in nature, except the cold, damp, and muddy part.  He was a great listener but managed to avoid having to do that by talking all the time."

 It’s all true.

Per his request no services will be held except the one at the Thai Noodle Company on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, where #26, Duck Noodle Soup (with rice noodles), will be served.  Bring an appetite, $8.95 + tax and tip. Let the waitress know not to expect him any more.  He thanks you.

Stuff That's Growing in our House

It was a quiet cloudy New Year's Day.  I passed up the six zillion football games to play around with stuff we keep around the house to remind us of that extraordinary beauty that lies both within and without us.

...just as beautiful from the back

...or mostly out of focus

I love carnivorous plants.  This is a "Sundew" from the Drosera family.  They have sticky leaves that resemble tentacles.  They lure in prey by the drops resembling dew upon their leaves, which catch the sun and sparkle.  Once prey has landed on their leaves it will roll up and envelope the prey.  Feeding them ground meat or anything other than bugs could kill them.  They are very capable of catching their own dinner.  This one will have a gourmet evening.  I've named her "Betty."

The Addict

After posting almost 1800 photographs in the last year and a half, marking five thousand "likes" on others' Facebook pages, with the help of a critical but compassionate wife, I came to the conclusion in late November that I was/am a Facebook addict.  I vowed then that I would go a whole month without posting or commenting on Facebook entries, hoping that by being both absent from Facebook and more present I would restore a sense of balance and harmony to my life.  I did post two photographs in December.  One was a delightful family photograph taken on December 18th, with all three offspring, their spouses, and our five grandchildren.  A week later I was "tagged" to post a photograph showing my pride in being a father.  I complied with a favorite image from thirty-eight years ago.  Thirty-one days, two images, two posts.  

What did I miss about not going on Facebook?  I missed the almost daily connections I had made with both old and new friends.  I missed the dopamine-fueled highs that came when I posted something that others took to heart, whether it was a well-liked photograph or a hard earned life lesson.  I missed quotes from my Facebook friends that were truly inspiring.  One was my cover photo.  The accompanying text reads, "The secret to having it all is knowing you already do." Another.  "God or the universe or morality isn't interested in your achievements...just your heart. When you choose to act out of kindness, compassion, and love, you are already aligned with your true purpose."  "We are both a masterpiece and a work in progress." I have dozens of these.  

A common argument against using cell phones could be applied to Facebook.  "Cell phones bring you closer to the person far from you, but takes you away from the ones sitting next to you." Mindfulness teaches us to be present, to enjoy the here and now, exult in the pleasures we have by being where we are, who we are and who is there beside us.  Online communities can remove us from those experiences.

What didn't I miss?  I didn't miss pointless arguments about open carry, gun control, Trump, the second amendment, Hillary.  I didn't miss stupid thoughtless posts revealing ignorance, prejudice, and racism.  I didn't miss seeing what someone had for dinner last night, or photos of a mother and daughter shopping.  I didn't miss seeing people use the word "your" instead of "you're or "it's" instead of "its." I didn't miss the time I spent scrolling through my news feed instead of playing backgammon with Jadyne, spending a little more time with my grandchildren, playing my guitar, reading, editing photographs, or any of a number of more meaningful activities, many of which I've reclaimed in this month.

So what do I do in January?  2017?  Alcoholics can't ever take another drink, but I'm intending to jump back in...or perhaps, just get my toes wet.  Should I remove the app from my phone?  Stick to looking just once or twice a day?  Avoid meaningless discussions?  Only post family photos? My cat died, so that's out. I may post something tomorrow, January 1st.  Or not.  Stay tuned.  I may be the reason why God made rehab.

A Grate Responsibility

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission established an "Adopt-a-Drain" program "to prevent flooding in neighborhoods by having residents clear away debris that covers drains during storms."  The inspiration came from Boston, where an "Adopt-a-Hydrant" initiative gave volunteers the responsibility to shovel snow and ice off their neighborhood fire hydrants.  

In San Francisco 565 residents have adopted 934 of the city's 25,000 storm drains.  The residents are assigned drains and they get to name them.  The most popular name is "Dwayne." Other names include "No Drain, No Gain," and "The Great Leaf Catcher."

I have a drain across the street from my house.  In the fall leaves from the entire neighborhood fall into the gutter, pass through little tunnels under our neighbors' driveways and descend upon this one drain.  If the drain isn't cleared frequently, the water flows across the street, over the curb, past my cute little cairns and decomposed granite, through my fence and down my front yard, washing away mulch, geraniums, and dirt—that is, unless I clean the drain.  I do this regularly.  I just didn't know I could legally adopt a drain.  Should I include it in my will?

Adopting a drain is a microcosm of everything that we need to do to counteract the malaise following November's election.  Take responsibility.  Do something.  Quit complaining.  No, Facebook doesn't count.  You actually have to do something. Adopt a drain.  Count birds for the Audubon Society.  Pick up the styrofoam left on your neighbor's yard.  Walk slowly across the street by the old lady with the heavy grocery bag.  Better still, carry the damn bag.

Help me name this drain.

The problem is that the drain is at the bottom of two sloped gutters which run under Rugby Avenue's driveways.

Looking up Rugby Avenue to Yale

Leaves caught in the flow clog up the tunnels under the driveways.

And then at the corner of Rugby and Yale is a curve.  Yale runs uphill for another tenth of a mile, and all the water in the gutters on the east side of Yale Avenue takes a turn at Yale and Rugby that's banked like the NASCAR track at Daytona, and runs down to my drain.

Yale Avenue on the left.  Rugby on the right.

It's Christmas Eve.  I'm going out to clean the drain.  Will post an "after" photo to go with the "before."

There.  Bring on the storms.

Cameras I Have Loved...and Destroyed

We seniors have an annoying habit of trying to summarize our lives, to add everything up and see what, if anything,  it all comes to.  For me, well, I thought I'd start by remembering all the cameras I've destroyed in the past, oh, forty-five years or so.  One of the reasons to bring this up now is that I just destroyed one Tuesday, so it's kind of fresh in my mind.  Let's begin.  So many entries.

The workhorse Mamiya RB 67 was my studio camera.  On the day before my first senior high school appointments, I put the camera on my Cullman tripod.  Or thought I did.  As I was walking away the camera followed me.  Or at least it followed me for a couple of inches, at which point, really unsecured at all, it dropped to the floor and exploded.  I borrowed another one from Robert Pierce, then called Adorama Camera in NY and paid to have another one sent overnight to me. That was the first.

When I wasn't in the studio I was out shooting in different locations.  Many of these photographs, (landscapes, mostly), were images that I simply wanted for myself.  I had bought a wonderful Hasselblad 503C, the pinnacle of medium format cameras.   Lighter than the RB 67, the Hasselblad was my "wedding camera", although it was portable and light enough to carry in a backpack and go hiking.

The Hasselblad 503C is a very expensive medium format camera.  Without its lens, viewfinder, or film back, it's pretty boxy, too, but with rounded edges and corners.  It's not very heavy.  If you put one on an uneven rock at the top of a cliff at Tomales Point, it behaves kind of like a ball.  Like the rocks in Death Valley's Race Course, it appears to move by itself.  Sometimes it really does move by itself.  One of my Hasselblads did exactly that.  I quickly reached for it, but knowing that if I took a step closer I might join it in what looked like a 100' drop to the rocks below. Helpless, I watched it turn over and over about three times, then disappear.  Hasselblads are made really well.  Strong enough to go to the moon.  But not survive a 100' fall to rocks.

Last year at this time I had a Nikon D 800 camera.  (I still have it).  For a while, though, I didn't have it.  On Christmas Day I was at Point Lobos, taking photographs of the waves crashing onto the shore.  Suddenly I realized that a really big wave had my name on it, and I found myself standing on a rock, unable to escape what I prayed might just be a little shower.  The split second before my "shower", I took this image:

Jadyne was watching from the shore.  She saw me disappear completely about 1/10th of a second later.  I was drenched.  My D 800 recorded this shot and no other.  I was still standing, but reluctantly gave up the idea of more hiking.  Having been slammed by a Pacific Ocean wave in air temperature just above freezing wasn't the kind of thing that made me say, "No problem; I'm just soaked.  I've destroyed two cameras simultaneously, and I'm freezing.  Let's keep going!"  In my pocket was my Sony RX 100 IV, a wonderful little point and shoot camera that records RAW images with remarkable clarity.  Here it is:

Isn't it cute?

It was about a week old.  It was in my fleece pocket when the wave struck, and even after wringing out the fleece I recognized that it would never work again.  I returned it to Best Buy the following week.  "I just bought this camera, and it doesn't work," I complained.  They tried to turn it on.  No luck.  "I think it sustained some water damage," I added, as they examined it more thoroughly, realizing that like the parrot in Monty Python, it wasn't about to do much of anything. "This camera is no more!  He has ceased to be! E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! E's a stiff!  Bereft of life, E rests in peace!"  The wonderful people at Best Buy agreed that although I had never purchased an insurance policy they would give me another camera, provided that I buy the $99 insurance policy for at least a year.  I did.

And so all was well...until the next month.

Okay, now we're in India.  I've bought a replacement camera for the D 800, a slightly improved version called the D 810. (No need to show the photo; it looks a lot like the D 800). I loved this camera.  We're in Cochin, southern India, choosing to dine at a wonderful rooftop restaurant right above the ferry terminal.  While waiting for our dinners, I placed the D 810 and a 24-70 zoom lens on a little tabletop tripod to do time exposures of the cars driving up and down the street, blurry photographs of the passengers disembarking from the ferry.  It's a beautiful night, and we're enjoying ourselves immensely.  Here's one of those photographs.  No, here's the last photograph that camera and lens ever took.

From the ledge of the rooftop restaurant in Cochin

After taking this image I reached for my camera and lens.  Jadyne heard the noise.  I said nothing. Neither one of us had ever heard the sound a camera makes when it falls two stories to a concrete driveway, but when you hear that sound you don't need much imagination.

Our fish in a basket hadn't arrived.  I sat back down at the table, closed my eyes and was completely silent. I've taken classes in mindfulness.  It was necessary right then to bring up the highlights of all twelve classes and apply them as best I could.  A waiter went down to the driveway and retrieved what was left of my camera and lens.  

Earlier that day I had torn a rather large hole in a pair of pants I brought on the trip.  When we left Cochin I wrapped the camera and the lens in the pants and left all three in the wastebasket in our room.  

All was good for almost a full year!  On Tuesday, however, Jadyne and I and our friend Gail Stern hiked the Tennessee Valley trail, turning at the water's edge to scamper along the bottom of the cliffs, where the water meets the rock.  Sensing that the tide was coming in, we turned to go back.  Here are Jadyne and Gail, sensing that they might get nailed.  "David!" Gail yelled.  "I need your help to get around the slippery rock!"  So, safe to say, this is the last photograph I took with my replacement Sony RX 100 IV camera.  

Yesterday I bought a Sony RX 100 V camera from Best Buy.  Tomorrow I will send off my wave destroyed Sony RX 100 IV to their repair services.  Doubtless, they will dub it destroyed, and because I purchased insurance last January, I will get a refund.  Or so I should say, "I expect to get a refund."  If I were the manager of a Best Buy I wouldn't sell a camera to me.

We're leaving once again in three days for Monterey, Pacific Grove, and Point Lobos.  No doubt I will have both cameras and insurance in hand.  Fortunately, too, I know how to edit and add to my blog.  Stay tuned.

January 1, 2017.  Sometimes good things happen to bad people.  In short, Best Buy not only authorized my camera for replacement, but when I brought it in they gave me their current discounted price, and because it was now an open box camera (opened by me, or course), I received an additional discount.  The upshot?  I have the upgraded camera, a thee year insurance plan, a store credit of $129.  And me?  I'm still a bad person,

The Red State Tour

Yesterday Jadyne and I went to see the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus annual Christmas Show.  75 of the chorus's more than 275 members put on stirring, beautiful renditions of both traditional and non-traditional Christmas music, including a totally silent verse of "Silent Night", using only sign language.  Seeing them is now officially a tradition for us.

"This October, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus will head to many states throughout the Southern US to create awareness of local anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, partner with local non-profits and LGBTQ+ organizations to build infrastructure and raise money, and promote unity through mission-driven activism and song. 

The Chorus will visit North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama during the nine-day "Lavender Pen Tour.*"

Rather than be frustrated and feel disheartened by recent political turmoil, we are taking this opportunity to marshal our mosaic of powerful, positive voices to empower our fellow LGBTQ+ Americans, especially our LGBTQ+ youth. And equally in a hopeful attempt to offer an outstretched hand and have honest dialogue with fellow Americans." (Text from their web site)

*The murdered San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk handed mayor George Moscone a lavender pen to sign anti discrimination legislation.

Why am I writing this in my blog?  Jadyne and I had already proposed a "Red State Tour", intending to visit those same states to visit both civil war and civil rights sites—Vicksburg, Selma's Edmund Pettus bridge, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.  We discarded the whole idea after the election, thinking that we had so little in common with the political and social discourse in those states.  But after seeing that the Gay Men's Chorus, who are among the presumed targets of legislation in those states, wants to "offer an outstretched hand and have honest dialogue with fellow Americans," we were once again inspired.  We need to do the same.  

Whether they need a photographer or not, the thought of watching and photographing them perform in those states, especially in front of the state house in Mississippi, seems like the perfect retirement activity for yours truly.  Stay tuned.  I'm about to offer my services.