The last day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

SIMPLY AMERICANA

This is a little place that I have passed, oh maybe a dozen times, and thought nothing about it.  Yesterday, while researching and photographing a series of landmarks in a little spot called Olympia Mill Village,  somewhere deep in the heart of Columbia,SC.,  I was introduced to the "Spit and Argue"

Can you not just picture twenty or so people, just standing around, tossing beers, and arguing about whatever there is to argue about on any given day.  And because it is outdoors you can scratch and spit without the ladies thinking about how gross you are. 

Does it get any better than that?

It's right accross the street from that place where the "Gamecocks" play football and also the SC fairgrounds.  It is actually an outside portion of Jaco's bar and grill,  the inside part.  Yesterday, two of the owners, the bartender, and three paying guests comprised the attendance list.  Two pool tables, a small bar and a lot of friendship.  Really brought back the days of my college youth.  Back when they were passing the wheel around and discussing it's future merits.

You all did good yesterday.  We had a big jump in the attendance here at the blog.  However, we need to continue to tell our friends and enemies to visit.  Look at it this way, it may be a way to get even with someone to send them here and my other websites.  It is fun for me to see the numbers roll in when I do some crass advertising here on the profit center.

  Thank you and keep up the good job.

Still haven't found the spell check button!

The 30th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

SELF PORTRAIT

A great number of you my highly intelligent and descerning readers have asked me to post a meaningful self portrait.  Afterall I am a photographer and how tough can that be? 

My answer to that is......the only photograph of me is in the post office.  You know those "Wanted" adds.  Do they even have them anymore?

I have been immersed in getting the web business going and feel a little like the snowy egret at the beginning of this article.  He's a little crazy.  I'm a lot crazy at this point.   He's in mating plummage and ready for sex.  I on the other hand have lost most of my mating plummage.

I NEED YOUR HELP!

And this is the way it works. Please check out my links to the right and below for the GrapeWorm (great name) store and the Etsy store.  I have no idea where they come up with these names.  The links are on the right side along with my website as well.  Once you do please, and this is the important part, email those links to all your friends (I have already done so with my two), and a kind word (it wouldn't hurt) about these great photographs for sale at highly exhorbitant prices.

http://apps.facebook.com/grapeworm/seller-store.php?sellerid=10148&_fb_q=1

http://www.etsy.com/shop/skipw

http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=view_product

http://www.snapixel.com/people/Skipw
And I also have a presence on eBay.  See why I am so crazy?

See, what I am trying to do is have you email three to three hundred friends, and have them email five hundred friends, and them 2,000 and so on and so forth. 

I want to go Viral!

I am already certifiable!

No, that's not a desease.  It's just a term the techies use.  So why not, I can pretend techy!

Look at it this way!  In this economy it is hard to come up with the scratch to make dollar donations to worthy causes-------------so this way you can help a fellow out.  And I am a worthy cause.  And I will return the favor if it doesn't cost me anything.  This costs nothing.  And maybe God forbid somebody should buy something.  

I just want (All) your friends to know about these links. Please tell them to pass it on. 

It's a Ponsi scheme. So don't break the chain. 

If you break the chain, the great blue bird in the sky is liable to drop something nasty on your head.  If you don't; he'll probably do the same thing.  But there's a chance he might not.  It's worth a shot!

I want traffic folks.

And

I can measure it. I have Google Analytics! Just like the goverment, I know where you live!

(Hope you all can recognize "Tongue in Cheek")

I just noticed that the new format for doing this does not include a spell check.  Now you will all know I spell how it sounds and not how Mr. Webster meant it to be.  Jeeeeeeeeez, can it get any worse.  Chow!

The 28th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

Isectacio Salmo Salar Sabago

The real adventure began after we were all out of college and working at our chosen professions. The period between High School and the first salmon trip to New Hampshire was a busy time. College was begun and finished, marriages happened, careers were launched, children were born, and new groups of friends established. Fishing more than an hour away from home was moved down the list of important things to do It took eleven years, but that itch to roam is sort of like a bad rash the keeps coming and going. It’s always there, just takes a trigger to get it going.

It was somewhere around late April 1969 when Abe, Abe’s father, and I went to the lake to fish for salmon for the first time.

That is Isectacio Salmo Salar Sabago, or in search of landlocked salmon. Prior to this we had only heard heard about salmon in the big lake.

Landlocks are the same fish as the Atlantic salmon; however they live in a closed environments like a lake. They also do not run to the sea and then return to the rivers of their birth to spawn as do their Atlantic brethren. As a consequence most all of the fish in Lake Winnipesauke are annually stocked by the state. The mature fish are netted in the fall, the normal breeding time for these critters. They are stripped of their eggs and milt which are then taken to hatcheries to grow and thrive in order to provide for future generations.

The first salmon taken at the Bell Camp was not by one of our merry band of expert anglers, but the wife of our perennial host. Both Abe and I married girls named Sue. And it was always told to me that his wife, Sue, caught the first salmon at the camp in bright sunshine off the dock on a spoon called a “Daredevil”. However, the log for that day, also reports Abe as having caught a Salmon off the summer house that day as well. The summer house is actually a gazebo perched on the rocky shore line on a small point of land about 40 feet from the main house. The dock is directly behind and to the right of the summer house as we look from the water. When we fish, the boats all leave the dock and we race to see who can get a line in the water first. Many is the trip that the first fish caught was only fifty yards away from the dock.

This is the spot at which he caught his first fish. For years neighborly fisherman say that they would laugh at us as we leave the dock on our daily forays. Many would wait until we have left and then fish just about where this photo was taken. It is a favored spot amongst the local anglers who know the water. However, I contend that after forty years there is know one who knows these immediate waters better than we “The Expert Anglers”.

More pages from the log will show up here as I progress, but this is the one for June 21 and 22 of 1964. The fishing logs are incomplete, and our neglect at keeping an accurate record has plagued us over the years. I will endeavor to reconstruct as best as aging memory can serve.

The best time for fly fishermen, in our opinion, is immediately after the winter ice has finally melted for the season. This usually happens in late April or early May, but can be as early as March such as this year of 2010. The theory, and we have proven this to be an angler’s fact, is that the salmon (preferring mid fifty degrees) and lake trout (preferring fifty degrees) stay within the layer of water that offers the most optimum temperature for their species. It is sort of like we old folks moving to Florida when our blood circulation gets so bad that we need warm weather all year round.

The fish follow the temperature of the water up and down depending upon the season, sunlight, ambient temperature, and general weather conditions. Believe me; we have argued these factors like old dogs chewing on a bone that no longer gives sustenance or taste. At any rate when the water warms up in the late spring and summer, the fish will go deeper seeking that temperature they prefer. There is a brief time in the fall and early winter when the water temperature at the surface cools sufficiently. Then they will feed on the surface again, but generally only in the early mornings or late afternoons. Once the water freezes the upper layers of course cool, and the fish will sink again following the preferred levels. Finally, in the spring lake ice begins to melt and form a honey comb. Those small open areas within the honey comb fill with water, thus making it heavier than the supporting water and it sinks. All at once. The sinking ice forces the warmer waters at lower levels to rise and the fish follow to the surface once again. That is the time we want to be on the lake, early spring right after ice out. Dragging (called trolling by we experts) long fly lines with long leaders of wispy monofilament, and flies designed to represent the smaller forage fish.

Therefore, the time they caught these fish and reported to the log is all wrong. It was June (too late according to we experts), the wrong time of day (you play cards and nap in the middle of the day), and a bright sunny day to boot. We want overcast, fog, rain, freezing rain, or snow to complete the ideal situation. And maybe a slight breeze so that the fish don’t clearly see that which is just below the surface. Furthermore, the lure was made of metal and not feathers and shinny beads and therefore did not count in the daily pool.

But these were the seeds of a forty plus year odyssey.

The 27th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

BLACK CAP CHICADEE

Another back yard buddy

The 25th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

Only in America!

This is a slice of Americana in spring.

A country setting as American as you can get.

The irony of it is that I found this site tucked in between an Indian run Seven Eleven and a

Bodega!

Along a four lane highway during rush hour, just to get the light right.

Finished the shoot with my "Big Gulp" and Taco. No wonder I got stomach ulcers.

Back on twigs and bark tomorrow.

The 24th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

THE OUTFITTERS

My introduction to what is called, by natives of New Hampshire, as the “Big Lake” began with a requisite stop in Wolfeboro, NH. There were any number of reasons to stop in this beautiful lakeside town. The first and foremost was to find out if the fish were biting. The rest of the reasons then developed from there. We had to obtain fishing licenses and buy bait. All of these “Reasons” were fulfilled at a place along the side of the lake called the “Lake Regions Sports Shop”. A stop there was not necessary, it was mandatory! As the years moved on this sporting good store was the place where one bought a license to fish, flies to tie on the long leaders purchased, sinking or lead core lines, and any type of fascinating flies that the owner himself tied. Other reasons developed over the years as the necessity of purchasing food and adult beverages became important.

The Lake Regions Sport Shop is no longer in Wolfeboro, having been push out by a growing wine sipping, arts, and crafts crowd that have made the rents impossible. But the place in it’s time was as classic as a Norman Rockwell cover . It was owned by one Jim Warner who kept up on what the fish were doing. He would tell us who was catching what on what, he ran the shop, tied the flies, and was an all around nice guy.

Jim created a great number of the flies still used today as the lure of choice for old Salmo Salar. He is credited with inventing more than one of the flies which are supposed to imitate the smelt. Smelts are the small bait fish in the lake which provide most of the forage for the larger finny predators such as the bass, lake trout, large perch, and land lock salmon. In fact, the famed fly “Winnepasaukee Smelt”, tied with tandem hooks is one of his inventions.

The latest part of April and first days of May are generally the time one wants to be on the lake to fish for salmon, and I think the arrival of the guys from New Jersey was always fun for Jim. At least when one asked for a license, he would say something like two of the other guys had already arrived.

This was a pop shop of “Mom and Pop” fame, and Jim ran it as though you were his long lost brother. If you had gained a few pounds since the previous year, he would always say…..”Been eating well I see.” He must have remembered every one of his customers and was loved by most of the serious sport fishermen in the region. The “Lakes Region” as the area is still known to this day. In April of 2002, Jim tied a memorial fly for his friend and fishing companion Vincent David Rodgers, Jr. This was the kind of guy he was, and so created the ”Ghost Smelt” in Rodgers’ honor.

Jim was probably the last of the proprietors at the shop who would give the straight story about the current fishing and the location of the most recent successes. When it was salmon time in the spring, Jim would be out on the lake before the shop opened trying his luck. He often could be found on spots considered a favorite by local fishing guide and friend Glenn Morrill, who he called the “Dean of Winnepasaukee”. They fished such spots as Moose and Ship Islands, Rattlesnake, and of course Wolfeboro Harbor where the store could be found.

Sadly in recent years the shop in Wolfeboro was sold, resold, and moved out of town. After Jim Warner retired, the old shop had just lost a lot of charm. Yes, the equipment, live smelt, night crawlers, and helgrimites could still be purchased. But it just was'nt the same. And the town was changing. Not the lazy old town of the lake front and the private school up the hill. But rather a tourist town which had been “Found”.

Jim still ties some flies to sell there and they are still as good as forty years ago, but you cannot find one with the old double trailer hooks that he tied.

However, I do in fact, still have a couple of those old “Red Grey Ghosts” I bought on the first trip in 1958, and they still work! They were intended to lure the small mouth bass out of the depths because on this trip north, salmon were not on our plate.

The 22nd day of the third month

BACK YARD BUDDY LOOKIN IN!

The 21st day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

PONY TRACKS

Who was it that once said....."You can never go back home"

Well, I didn't. But visited a spot this past weekend that will never be the same. Chincoteague and Assateague Islands in Virginia are about to explode with a tourist influx like they could have never imagined.

This is the downtown Chincoteague and it is a sleepy little Virginia coastal village. It explodes with the Pony Penning and the beach during the summer, but most of the year it is just that----Sleepy!

I had gone to Maryland to drop off some framed images at a gallery in Towson, and then on to stay at my son's home overnight on Friday. Saturday I went to my lighthouse (well not really) in North Wildwood NJ. I dropped off a framed piece with them for a drawing to raise money for the light. They invited me to two shows, one in July and one in Oct. So all my NJ buds, hope to see you then.

I took the ferry from Cape May to Lewis, De. Then down to Chincoteague and Assateague in Virginia. I'm dizzy just writing it. Then back to SC on Saturday.

Drove 1300+ miles, and the old green beast did just fine. That is my Ford Explorer (98) with over 303,000 miles. I think I am going to keep it till it becomes an antique. Let's see that would be 25 years if I am not mistaken. That would put us out to 2023----God I should live that long. To my friends in MD, sorry but just no time to stop off along the way. Next time.

They are building a new bridge across the sound (I guess they call it that). It looks just like they are have recreated the Bay Bridge complex without the tunnel! Huge! And it makes the whole area just terribly accessible. Afraid that here comes the wine sipping and croisant crunching crowd.

A great number of the shops and restaurants have not fared well with the winter on the one hand and the economy on the other. I guess the bridge will help their economy a whole bunch. A lot of boarded up places. Four of the usually better restaurants were still open but. "The Village" restaurant------------the best on the Island---------had only about 50% of a full house. Food is fantastic there.

Of course the wildlife sanctuary on Assateague is still there. Interestingly it is called the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island. It's got to be a goverment thing!The Lighthouse needs to be repainted. But the biggest surprise of all was the beach. Most of it has been trucked in. Northeasters and erosion has taken out roads, parking lots, buildings, showers, and bathrooms. All need to undergo reconstruction. Too bad, but nature can be brutal.




All in all just a little sad to see all that which has gone on and is gone. This is still one of the best places on the east coast to visit-----so go get, it before it really is gone.

Of course there were the usual suspects hanging out like this blue heron. Also a few black and shoverler ducks. But all and all the wildlife numbers were down---just the time of year I suspect.


Hardly saw any ponies, but did see lots of pony tracks on the roads in the sanctuary. I want you all to notice just how well behaved these ponies are. The park rangers designate just where the ponies can leave their tracks and its just amazing how they comply. It's all quite civilized out there.

The 17th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

Happy St. Pattys Day!

Looks like ice out on the big lake is imminent. If so, this is one of the earliest years in a long time.

The process is this.

The ice doesn't just melt and is gone....it's faster than that.

Warm weather will start to melt the ice from the top of course as the sun warms and the warmer than freezing water below does it's part.

The whole sheet of ice then becomes honey-combed with air pockets and when the time is right--

Those little holes fill up with water........................and,

The ice becomes heavier than water--------------and,

Sinks.

As I have said before, which my most intelligent readers will recognize, the people in the lakes region guess the ice out time. To the minute in some cases and not just the hour and day. Amazing! My guess is Friday or Saturday and that as close as I could get.

The above photo is not mine, but a clip from the web cam right now in Wolfeboro Harbor. Jim Warner's store was just to the right of where this image was made and you can see that almost a third of the harbor is ice free. Looking straight ahead, the first piece of land is "Rattlesnake Island". Named so because of it's shape and not the inhabitants. One of the best places on the lake to fish for landlocked salmon and lake trout.

More fiction and fact from Skip's almanac of garbage knowledge!

The 16th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

To my daughter who is way older than I want her to be!

"Nostalgia"

Funny how time gets you by the shorts without even noticing.

Not my daughter's birthday a but after second thought, maybe.

Just looking back at things that at the time, we take for granted. The image herein has nothing to do with family, but a lot to do with nostalgia. And that means family as well.

Defined by Webster as a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to, or of, some past period or irrecoverable condition.

This image was taken in Chestertown, MD. At the foot of High Street. Looking out at the Chester River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.

The nets are really a holding pen for the river creatures that the local watermen have caught and which are waiting for the buyer to come and take them to that great crab pot in the sky.

Commercial fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay are uniquely called "Watermen", because that's simple and is also where they choose to work.

This spot I have gazed upon hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Taken it for granted hundreds, if not thousands of time minus one. The minus one was this photograph made in an early morning fog with nary a ripple on the water.

I must admit that I did not think much about it at the time of "Click". But in retrospect it was a pretty meaningful sixtieth of a second moment in the course of mankind.

Happy Birthday, Heather!

The 15th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

More Reminiscence of an old fool!

"ROAD TRIP 1958"

INTO NEW HAMPSHIRE

After a high school graduation trip to Maryland, it only seemed appropriate that two apprentice fishermen, with a summer free before college, should take another “Road Trip.” This time we were on the loose without the pressures of a chaperon and with all the anticipation of the unknown.

My friend and high school chum, Frank “Abe” Bell, was so named because he was born on Lincoln’s birthday. At least that is as close as we can come to fathoming his parents reasoning for such a name. His grandmother had a place on Lake Winnipesauke in New Hampshire. I had a 1957 or 1956 Pontiac station wagon, in the background of this, my senior prom photograph.

That was enough!

The Road trip was on.

I don’t remember the dates but suffice to say sometime between high school graduation in June of 1958 and the September beginning of college at Colgate and Penn State. Abe would go on to become a dentist and I earned two degrees in eight years before becoming anything like a contributor to society.

We had the time to caddy for golfing members at Westfield’s Echo Lake Country Club to earn enough money for the trip. I think that we were paid something like $18 for each bag for 18 holes of golf. And if we were lucky, we could get two rounds a day. High cotton back then! Today I don’t think I could carry one bag for nine holes, which is probably why those guys hired us kids in the first place.

Had we the time to earn more dollars, we would probably have ended up in northern Saskatchewan on this trip. Only because I like the word Saskatchewan and the way it rolls off the tongue. Sort of like an Elmer Fudd word, no not Fudd. Daffy Duck, that was it! Sufferin Suckatash type word.

As it was we made it to the upper reaches of Maine where we visited a high school chum whose parents ran a summer camp. But that is another story altogether.

Bear in mind this was the latter part of the summer of the mid 50”s. The major highway north to south was U.S. Route One, which was and still is a road meandering through most major east coast towns. Just about every red light invented by mankind can be found along this road. Today major interstates make the of 337 mile trip about six hours from central Jersey to central NH . We had no cares with regard to time…one drove and the other navigated. I think that gasoline was somewhere around thirty cents a gallon and we were flush with all those caddying dollars.

We both felt as though we were accomplished hunters and fishermen, having mastered the use of shotguns, bows and arrows, spinning rods and fly rods. We were the definition of the typical "Northwoodsman"! Neither had fallen any meaningful big game with bow or gun, other than a few errant squirrels and maybe a rabbit or two. Remember, we had to do our big game hunting in a major residential town, with the stress on residential. Today we would be arrested on the spot as armed and dangerous criminals and probably suspected terrorists wandering armed through our neighbors backyards. I recall there was a large raccoon, which probably counted as our group’s big game trophy. I think I was the one to climb twenty feet up the tree to shoot it, while the other five guys circled the base of the tree shouting encouragement or at best good natured derisive ragging. Baying like a pack of hounds.

Fishing on the other hand was second, just behind dating, in terms of our personal hierarchy of importance. We were good at dating and thought that we knew just about everything there was to know about fresh water fishing. I was an accomplished Chesapeake Bay salt water fisherman by then, but that really did not apply to this trip. We were headed to the land of big smallmouth bass, pickerel, and wild trout. Did I mention we were good at dating?

I think that we took more fishing equipment than clothes, but we were only seventeen years old and could easily live out of the back of a car. Both of us were budding fly fishermen and were severely hooked on that method of angling. We tied our own flies, read every “Outdoor Life”, “Field and Stream” and “Sports Afield” article ever written about fishing. We dreamed about the small native brook trout and huge brown trout of the northern wilderness, the famed cut throat of the west, and the sea run rainbow and brook trout of the Canadian provinces. I suppose about that time Bill Gates had not even been born, let alone dreamed of the computer programs that made him rich. All we knew was fishing and we were going to partake of some of the best in the country on this trip. In fact, the topic of girls never even came up. Much!

As I recall the actual driving was an adventure in its own right, again remembering that we were both young, maybe, adults of seventeen. The travel in New Jersey was mostly the Garden State Parkway north to the Tappen Zee bridge and across the Hudson River in New York. From there it was likely the Merritt Parkway, north through Connecticut, and probably State Rt. 66 before reaching the infamous Mass. Turnpike. I now can almost visualize every turn with my eyes closed after making that trip every year for over forty years. The roads have changed as have the route numbers, but from the Mass Pike one took U.S. Rt. 125 around Boston and then Rt. 3 north through Manchester and Concord, NH before turning northeast to Wolfeboro. When at Wolfeboro the camp was only a few miles, but this little town turned out to be the base of supplies and stories for years to come.

The 12th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

The tenth day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

THE LAUGHING PONY

There are still some wild ponies along the outer banks of Virginia, on Assateague Island, and on the northern end of the North Carolina's outer banks, north of Duck. The bulk of them are found in Virginia on the Chincoteague Island National Wildlife Refuge and to a lesser extent in Maryland's Assateague Island National Seashore.

The road from Chincoteague, VA is wall to wall motels, art and gift shops, and food emporiums. This road runs about three miles before entering the gates to the park at the NWR.

Three of us made this particular trip to photograph wildlife, comprising mostly of birds, egrets, ducks, and swans. The occasional pony would literally walk up to the car looking for handouts. And that can be a problem. I recall having my long lens on a bean bag on the window of the car when all of a sudden it is bumped almost out of my hands. And right there is a hungry pony nose followed by a pretty good set of teeth. Begging!

The road from the town of Chincoteague enters the park and forms a "T" at the beach. Each part of the top of the T goes north and south along the barrier island. For the most part the road along the beach is simply a huge parking lot. The road ends on the south side at the drive on section for the four-wheelers. The north end runs out into the dunes where no vehicles are permitted. The park itself consists of beach and wildlife habitat from the south end at the inlet near Wallops Island and north almost at Ocean City, Maryland. So there is a great deal of area for these ponies to wander. And wander they do! They can be seen most places almost at will.

On this trip we were in two vehicles for some reason. In the first car were Heather, an accomplished photo journalist, and Blanche who was our "National" sales person for our lighthouse poster line. I followed behind in my own vehicle. We were in the parking lot along the beach when they stopped to talk to this pony. I thought a waste of time, but got my camera out to provide witness to whatever happened.

It is illegal, probably a federal rap, to feed the wildlife on the island. More than likely a capital crime to feed the ponies, but people always do. This is bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is losing ones fingers while being bitten. And of course the animals begin to get dependent upon people for their sustenance and don't feed on their natural sources.

Blanche had just finished feeding this critter half of the sandwich she brought along for lunch. Ham and cheese if I recall properly. Obviously, the pony love it!

I got the proof of her breaking the law. In addition to all that, she had just pulled her own hand back into the car when a park ranger came down the road. She got away with it with only seconds to spare.

The ninth day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

KEY BRIDGE

This is the Francis Scott Key Bridge, over the Patapso River, just outside of Baltimore's inner harbor. Know locally as the "Key Bridge".

I made this image when only a starting photographer a hundred years ago. Back then I was fooling around with filters. That was, remember, when we still shot with film. And filters fit on the end of the lens to enhance, distort, or change the color of the image. I bought em all and used about three.

For those who don't know film. That was the way we recorded photographs with something called a camera and lens..........not a midget computer.

I was also trying to uses filters to simulate a sunset/sunrise and this is one of only two photographs in which (a) it worked and (2) it sold. The other being the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which has been shown here before. As I recall, there was an orange, tobacco, and maybe grey filter on a lens which fit something called an SLR. Not an SUV, but SLR. That is "Single lens reflect" camera, in which we used film and interchangeable lenses.

You had to know something about aperture and shutter speed (the two ends of the teeter tot). They were balanced upon a fulcrum called film speed. Ahhhh the good old days, or they don't make em like they used to, or why is everything so expensive, or what the hell is government doing anyway, or any of a dozen things that we old codgers say. I'm glad I am expected to act that way.....I earned it!

Today, its Pixels and Photoshop!

The 8th day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

Sometimes you get more than you bargain for.

Call it fate.

Maybe luck.

Or perhaps I just don't see what I should be seeing in the first place.

In the case of my photography, I tend to be so wrapped up in making the image that I often really don't notice what's going on.

Let me shoot five frames per second just to make sure I have it.

And then I will adjust knowing that I have the insurance shots.

That's seeing Macro and missing Micro. I think we all do it. On vacation that shot of the Grand Canyon is great, but when we get home we notice the guy with the sombrero on the donkey coming up the trail.

He makes the shot! He makes it stand out from the other thousand clicks from that same spot that same day.

Ya had to be there.

But would it not be nice to be aware of the guy on the donkey before hand.........or the Camellia pollen on the Chickadee's face.

Did you see it when you first looked at the photo.

I did, but I had'nt when I pulled the trigger.

Life's to short, I have to work on slowing down and smelling the pollen along the way.

The fifth day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

ANOTHER BACK YARD BUDDY

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

When I first saw one of these guys, I thought it was some unique find until I checked the bird books. A pretty common individual in southern part of the country and along the coast up as far as Virginia. This is a small bird about the size of a canary and most of the time is rather drab. That is until he gets excited. Then the crown comes up.

I have been trying to find one close enough to photograph with the crown and yesterday I got him. No doubt about it. Bait them and they will come.

The fourth day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

"A NEW AMERICAN GOTHIC"

THE SECOND CHAPTER

In Search of Salmo Salar Sebago


It was “All in the game” and we were ready to “Catch a falling star” in the spring of ’58. Songs of the year on billboard, school was over, loves loved, and new ones anticipated. Graduation from Westfield Senior High School in New Jersey an era ended.

Elvis was inducted into the Army. Gigi, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Defiant Ones were hot movies of the year. Khrushchev became the premier of the Soviet Union and De Gaulle the Premier in France. But who knew. Laurie London told us we “Had the Whole World in our Hands” and the Everly Brothers said “All we had to do was Dream”.

To write about ones high school class is a chore not taken lightly and one repeated over the years by many authors with varying degrees of success. This however, is not a story about a high school senior class. This is about two high school seniors embarking upon a life long adventure neither expected, but by which both have been amazed. Let it be said that I was and am not an “A” student as the song goes, nor a student of the English language. But I was a kid who was capable of transcending the cliques within the student body with a reasonable degree of aplomb.

Our class, not unlike most, was defined by the “Jocks” and what we now call the “Geeks”. The “In Crowd” and the “Out Crowd” were other significant descriptions. It is truly amazing to find these designations were virtually gone as early as the thirtieth year reunion. I guess because I played varsity baseball that I was in the “Jock Crowd”, but also a bit of the “In Crowd” because I dressed preppy cool. I think that I was also a member of the “Out crowd” too because I did'nt drink, never went all the way, or owned a motorcycle. I did own a ’51 Ford coupe, metallic green, and that “In crowd”.

The car was customized as was the style of the time and I can remember trying to put after burners on the twin exhausts with the help of my friend Abe. He held the spark plugs to the exhaust pipes and I thought he said to go ahead and try it by turning on the ignition. The resulting shock caused him to jerk his head up in a crashing collision with the bumper. He was under the vehicle at the time. Abe still remembers that for some strange reason.

Even though the graduating class was large, there were smaller cliques as defined by a number of different things. In my case our group was defined by the neighborhood in which we lived. Whychwood was a small area of Westfield, NJ which was a bedroom community serving the New York City market. Our fathers commuted to the City every day, mothers kept the home, and we went to school. We walked to high school until one of us was old enough to drive, seventeen at the time. It would have been so un-cool to ride our bikes.

We played sports after school or worked at part time jobs or both. In my case I worked part time in a sporting goods store, The Sport Center, all four years of high school. I worked three to six every day and nine till six on Saturdays. During the Christmas holidays we were open each night of the week until nine o’clock. When I worked until 9:00 PM, I ate dinner across the street at Jarvis’s drug store which also had a pretty good restaurant. School was over at 2:30 in the afternoon each day, so there was not a lot of free time for things like studying, dating, hunting, fishing, and baseball. But we all seemed to get it done including the requisite hanging out with friends at places in town like “Shades”, a soda fountain type place.

Innocence was never lost back then but high school hopes were always high. If a girl were to get pregnant, a real scandal would result and one out of 250 or so was a rarity. Graduates were headed for new lives, but most were destined to drift apart from their buddies after graduation.

A summer of final togetherness was necessary before the ritual of college began. In other instances, jobs began and the reality of life was an earlier intrusion.

The nucleus of my crowd included the likes of Tom, Rick, Kenny or “Worm”, Bob or “Bobby”, Jim, Frank or “Abe” and me “Skip”. Normally, after graduation a week at the Jersey shore was the norm. Seaside Heights, NJ was the spot. This trip was really like what the college crowd today calls Spring Break. It was a right of passage for most of our colleagues. However, the parents of my immediate friends were much more visionary than us. We were restricted to home base and not allowed to play with the rest of our class. No drinking and womanizing for us. This really confirmed our “Out crowd” status much to our parents delight and our disgust.

I had introduced my friends to bow hunting and fishing in school so a replacement trip to my parents place on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay seemed in order. Fewer girls, and no drinking, with my mother as a chaperon. This fit the other parent’s idea of a week’s after graduation celibate celebration. We had a good time fishing, crabbing, water skiing, and chasing girls in places called Rock Hall and Piney Neck. We caught more fish than girls thankfully, so it was still a time of innocence.

The Maryland trip was the seed for a lifelong experience. An experience which would establish the precedent for two of the graduates carrying them forward to a forty plus year tradition. A tradition not duplicated by many people within a lifetime of experiences.

THE THIRD DAY OF THE THIRD MONTH

CAPE MAY MOONRISE

Whilst preparing some images for my online store at Etsy, and yes you can simply click on it on the right, I ran across this image of Cape May Lighthouse. I think that it is unique in that the moon is rising and the light in the tower is on, sorta counter balanced bright spots.

While not one of my favorite lights, this one has a great deal of history and romance about it. It is said that many an invitation to marriage (proposals I guess) have been made atop this tower.

Rumor has it that the tower has a certain positive effect on young lovers willing to make the climb up the 199 steps. It seems that this is an excellent location for the staging of marriage. And, numerous engagements have been entered into atop this sentinel.

Well, it is supposed to warn of stormy waters. I mean that is the lighthouse's job!

It's not terribly hard to find. Just take the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey and go south. Pretty soon you run out of land and that's about where it is. There is a huge tax payer parking lot next to it and the beach is of course handy. There also used to be a bird sanctuary of sorts there and in the fall the place is overrun with Monarch butterflies waiting for a north east wind to take them across the Delaware Bay. People go there just to see that part of the migration.

The current light is 157.5 feet tall and built on a low point of land at the entrance to the Delaware Bay. Sporting a 600,000-candle power white flashing light, this lighthouse is open to the public and is managed by the Mid-Atlantic Center of the arts. The first order lens produces a torch that can be seen 19 miles at sea. The original lighthouse at this location was built in 1823, rebuilt again in 1847, and finally again in 1859.

The second day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

Normally I don't do requests!

But--------------

To illustrate my point about "You gotta be there"!

One of my best and most intelligent readers (actually you all are) has asked for this image.............
Why?

All together now-----------

"SHE WAS THERE!"

Seriously, this image is called the morning after and not because of what you think. We had a group of friends staying at one of the multi person, multi million, multi insurance policy homes built on the beach of the outer banks in North Carolina. We were there for a week, about 18 of us or so and having a great time.

You know that the vacation begins when you let the air out of the tires on the truck, suv, or jeep. It is so sad when you have to pump them up again because that means your about to leave. Those that know, know what I mean and those that don't,...........You gotta go there and "Be there". The outer banks are just such an experience.

Oooops, I digressed again.

At any rate we were driving on and off the beaches at will and testing every one's four wheel drives. The point of the elbow of the outer banks here is called "Cape Point" at Buxton and is where the Hatteras lighthouse lives. It is also one of the finest surf fishing places in the country, right up there with Montauk Point in New York's Long Island.

Along mid week a front started to move in and required us to turn on the telly. Something which was frowned upon at normal times, but when a storm's a brewing on the banks better to be safe than sorry. And in fact a hurricane was coming our way. We waited all night for an evacuation order, which in fact never came because the thing was downgraded to a tropical storm.

And hit it did, with winds up to fifty or sixty mph and pelting rain on the horizontal.

Eighteen people cooped up all day long in a beach house playing majong (?) or whatever was not my cup of tea. So off to the point to see what the ocean was doing. Normally, under calm conditions the waves at that location crash on an ever shifting beach and sand bars running offshore for about eight miles. This is the exact spot where the northern currents meet the Gulf Stream and the waves do a triangular peak thing. I cannot begin to describe the extent of the wave action that is "Diamond Shoals", nor can I photograph it from shore sufficiently to impress upon you the enormity of that particular piece of ocean. It is simply one of those locations that you look upon with mouth agape as your mind tries to wrap around the natural display before you.

That day, on a beach that normally looks like a Walmart parking lot, there were only two idiots to be found.

The fisherman and I.

Only one of us caught anything.

I got the photo!

The first day of the third month of the year of the Camellia

March normally comes in like a lion, or so it is said. Today, here, will be sunny and fifty five....but rain and perhaps snow coming in tonight. Probably so because after all it is March first.

When my grand kids are around we generally end up going over to the Riverbanks Zoo. It gives them something new to see and gets us out of the house where two kids, two dogs, and a bird can drive normal people directly up the wall in a brief period of time.

I always say that's why God made sure kids, my kids age, had kids. And not kids my age. My patience is just not what it used to be and well -----I've earned that. Lack of patience that is. I have reached the age where people simply say, "Well of course he acts that way...look at how old he is" I treasure Seniors day at the super market...........Hell I earned it! And discounts on movie tickets. I even got a "Lifetime" hunting and fishing license in South Carolina just by becoming a certain age. I mean, can it get any better than that? There goes that old fool again. I love it! But I digress.

On this trip to the zoo, the lady lion------not a female athlete at Penn State-------took exception to my photographing her. Look at the intent stare, the crouched position, and with about a dozen people next to me watching. It was I, she was looking at. And I think she thought I was lunch! I mean the whole center of her universe was directed towards me at that moment and no one else. It was kinda unsettling and gave me the feeling that I truly was disturbing her.

Normally when you go to the zoo the animals seem bored. The Brown bear is laying on his back doing nothing but exposing himself. The tigers are being haughty and just lying there amongst the bamboo. The baboons are busy picking bugs off of each other (and eating them), while other monkeys are screaming their lungs out at each other. The elephants are carrying a bunch of hay on their heads in case the feeders forget to do their job. And the Galapagos turtles are always trying to mate, I guess because that function seems to take about six months to complete, or so it seems. Hey--------------honey-----------------what's-----------------your---------sign?

But this lion!

I had the feeling that I really was in Africa and was bait!

Welcome March, now I gotta go out and find a lamb or a lamb chop!