Saturday reflections

Something a little different -- sunglasses for sale at the flea market.

Lonesome star shine on the big country

Two more shots from Highway 199.

I had wanted to put the Roxy Music song Prairie Rose into one of the Texas posts, but unfortunately every version of the song on YouTube uses the extremely not-safe-for-work album cover art, so the quote from the lyrics above is all you're getting.

(If you never owned the album and don't know what I'm talking about, Google "roxy music country life.")

Can you hear me now?

All these pictures of overhead lines reminded me of this wonderful photo in the Atlantic's World War I series: a German officer proudly demonstrating his mobile telephone.

I would have guessed that field telephones were a much later invention. Of course, the fact that it apparently required a minimum of four men trailing behind you laying out the cable (and presumably winding it all up again later) made it a little impractical for widespread use.

Urban poetry

Not so urban a sight anymore, perhaps -- big cities have mostly buried all the lines underground -- but I like how the crisscross of these wires in Graham are almost abstract against that gloomy sky.

I did finally get the missing duffel bag, by the way.

Texas

Back in New York.

I didn't get home until 1 am; my luggage has yet to arrive. There was just too much to do. After the funeral Saturday afternoon, there was paperwork at the funeral home and dinner with Judy's friends. Yesterday morning my cousin Jay and his wife Janie and I spent a few hours at the house looking for her military discharge papers and sorting out the mail so the unpaid bills could be sent to the lawyer.

It was chaotic -- generations of family have lived in that house, and the knickknacks and papers and photos had settled in layers no archaeologist could unravel. There were letters my father wrote home to my grandmother from boot camp, pictures of me as a baby I'd never seen, thousands of old pictures of grandparents and aunts and uncles, mostly unidentified. There was no time to sort through it. I had to leave for the airport, so I grabbed pictures of Judy as a child I thought her friends would like to have, the bills, and some old letters and photos, and I stopped at the Walmart and bought a duffel bag to put them in, along with the folded flag from the funeral.

I left Graham an hour later than planned so I drove as fast as the speed limit allowed, only pulling over to the shoulder a couple of times so I could eat some sliced turkey I'd grabbed at the Walmart and drink some water. (That's when I took these pictures.)

There was a brief unplanned detour in downtown Fort Worth, but otherwise I made good time. I had just reached the point of starting to feel nervous that I'd missed the exit to head north to the airport, when I noticed a few raindrops on the windshield. I had exactly enough time to say, "Drat!" (or words to that effect) before I saw the exit and at the same instant the heavens opened. I could not see a thing. I could not find the windshield wipers. And I was merging into traffic with crazy Texas drivers, who weren't going to let a little thing like a monsoon keep them from exercising their God-given right to drive 90 miles an hour. Oh, I forgot to mention the hailstones.

After twenty or so minutes of seeing just how white my knuckles could get, I turned in the rental car, and after that it seemed that nothing could faze me. My flight cancelled? Sure. Rebooked on another flight leaving twenty minutes later from a different terminal? No problem. A seatmate with the delusion that each of the five vodka and tonics he consumed increased his charm quotient? Whatever. The precious duffel bag missing? They'll find it.

Sunday bird blogging

Surprisingly, there will be bird blogging.

I had some time to kill yesterday morning. I had to pick up photos at Walmart at 11, and I couldn't stand sitting around the bland Best Western hotel room any more, so I went out for a cup of coffee, and drank it sitting on a park bench. The air was thick and damp, with low gray clouds threatening rain or worse, but I stayed until swarms of black ants converged on my feet and started crawling over my shoes.

A few blocks from the park, I saw a store called the Cherry Street Antique Barn, and I stopped. There wasn't much that interested me -- some nice pieces of furniture, walls of cowboy boots, Texas curios, and a lot of junk. I asked about old pictures and the owner only had one -- she said people come in and buy them by the boxes (undoubtedly so they can be sold for exorbitant prices at flea markets in the Northeast.)

But Susan, the owner, also had this bird, a juvenile mockingbird almost ready for release. She does a lot of bird rehab, and she told me stories about trying to care for injured buzzards and I told her about the Wild Bird Fund and birding in Central Park. Of course she knew about Judy -- everyone in a small town like Graham knows about everyone else -- but mostly we talked about birds and cowboy boots and the morning that had seemed to stretch out almost to infinity earlier was over before I knew it and it was time to go to Walmart.

Graham

The gazebo in the Graham town square.

I'm back in Texas for the funeral, so there will be limited blogging this weekend. I took this picture last month; it's gray and drizzly in Texas today, and my long drive from DFW took place under black clouds and white skies, like a photographic negative of what a sky should be.

Judy

My cousin Judy Rehders standing on the bank of the Brazos last month.

Judy died on Sunday. She had pancreatic cancer, and though we had hoped that she'd have more time, and talked of a trip to New York that we knew would probably never happen, it was possible to hope until almost the very end. Then she slipped away.

When I was about four years old, she snuck me out of our apartment after dinner and took me to the big playground in Golden Gate Park. We had the slides and swings and sandbox to ourselves, and got to stay out until almost dark. I've never forgotten it. Obviously, she was just the coolest big cousin anywhere.

Sunday bird blogging

A house wren.

Wrens are common, but they like underbrush, so I rarely get a clear shot of one. That cocked tail is just so charming.

Saturday reflections

Commuter buses at rush hour, reflected in a revolving door.

One of these things is not like the others

National Geographic Traveler is now accepting entries in their annual photo contest. I've thought about entering before, but the sort of things I take pictures of aren't the kind of BIG! IMPORTANT! subjects that scream National Geographic! Plus, I always forget there's a contest until after the deadline has passed.

But I'm going to submit a few photos this year, so I read the rules. This cracked me up:

CONTEST IS VOID IN CUBA, IRAN, NEW JERSEY, NORTH KOREA, SUDAN, SYRIA AND WHERE PROHIBITED.

I always suspected New Jersey was a rogue state; now I know for sure.

Urban poetry

Layers of paint on an old wall.

It looks like a child's drawing of a map, yellow continents and crayon-blue seas. Europe maybe, or perhaps it's one of those fantasy lands so carefully mapped out in the endpapers of paperback novels.