Promenade

Coulon Park, Renton WA

Memorial Day 2015

Valentine

Happy St. Valentine's Day to all my faithful followers! Today's edition of Sepia Saturday concerns itself with this holiday, and so from my personal archives I dredge out these vintage cards which I have managed to hang onto for oh, over fifty years, knowing that someday I would find a use for them. Yes, these are actually leftovers from a batch I sent to my classmates around 1961, when I was in second grade, I think.

And here is the class itself! I suspect that this was one of my earliest attempts at photography, by my absence from the shot, and the tilt and altitude of the camera. I believe that the pensive girl at the center might be Wanda; at her feet is Lane, Preston (whose hair was always well Brilliantined) to his left in the stripes.

Here is another of my askew photos, of our beloved teacher, Mrs. Perry -- Gerry Perry -- Geraldine, that is. She taught me in third grade as well, before retiring. She was funny, kind, and occasionally fierce. I have never had a teacher I was more fond of.  And there is a self-portrait, myself drawing myself. Fidel Castro appears to be watching me, strangely. 

Anyway, on to the valentines... they came in a large booklet, and you carefully tore along the perforations... some, like this one, were their own envelopes.

This one is rather apt for me, isn't it?

Ooh, frilly underwear!

I love the combination of puns and stereotypes. Has anyone every really chewed on a piece of grass like that?

A bit stalker-ish...

I remember practicing telephone etiquette in class with one of these bulky things. We'd bought our house from a telephone company employee, who left Bell swag behind for my sister and me.

The "good old days" when no one worried about racism.

Or sexism.

When in doubt, go for a kitten!

Or a puppy!

Or...a pair of... sea lions. Whatever.

Xmas 1964

In honor of this week's Sepia Saturday, here's a quartet of snapshots from fifty years ago, Xmas 1964. Lyndon Johnson had just been elected president. I was 10 and in 4th grade. I had long moved out of my cowboy phase, through my spaceman and jungle explorer phases, and was just entering my spy phase.

Yours truly with new soprano recorder. Note my bespangled stocking and the note for Santa attached to a poker. Perennial moneyplant and a Native American basket on the mantel.

A frenzy of unwrapping. Looks like a board game (as well as new small table and chairs) for my sister. Note the awesome television. A portrait of Henry James sits atop the bookcase.

My sister and her new Raggedy Anne. Note the Morris Graves "blind gull" print and another gloomy art piece.

And off to church, in Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Holiday

The annual holiday lights at Bellevue Botanical Garden.

I have quite a complex mixture of feelings at this time of year. Being non-religious is no small part of that. Also, several members of our family have passed away at Christmas. This wistful song from the "Charlie Brown Christmas" exemplifies my mood.

Still, like a cat and a laser pen, I do love colored lights, especially when they're as unique as these.

November Walks

Ghost signage, Seattle viaduct

Shadows, Wayne Morse Park, Eugene OR

Ferry deck, Puget Sound

Coulon Park, Renton WA

Crows, Renton WA

Ghost of Christmas Past

Here's a little holiday post in light of (among other things) this week's Sepia Saturday theme.

Xmas tree lights and the baby grand

I (perhaps inappropriately) confessed to my local barista that holiday music, which they were playing (somewhat prematurely, I felt) at the coffee shop always made me rather sad.

Perhaps it's because I'm no longer a child. Or that my own are pretty much grown up. Or perhaps the following explains...

The time machine

The abstruse cloak of the Pacific
undulates, adroit ultramarine,
below a band of fermented light where sun
has not long been down. My window's
ajar; above the fire-noise of hiss
and kindling-crack is the rush of turning tide.
Earlier, a family and hell-for-leather
pooch strode Moolack Beach; I heard the flailing
dogtag's clink even here atop the bluff.
Their reflections ghostly underneath,
they crossed a wet place on the sand, patrolling
what seemed the world's nether edge, the sky
smoke-red as Wells' fraying end of history.

I've typed the hundred hieroglyphic pages
of my father's final reminiscent poem.
He recorded his closing life, his dogged faith,
up until he could write no more, until
he could live no more. In earnest, recurrent images
enduring from childhood, he detailed his world:
vacations here in Newport, the rosy sky,
the lamp-green sea. I imagine a few of his ashes
in this water, drifted down the coast
from where we scattered him among
red-green anemones and barnacles in the La Push surf.
One year less five days since his death.

The Beyond is out beyond the window screen.
As I write by burnlight, minding the fire
like a baby or like my father in his last,
obscure, helpless days, the flames are safe
behind their own screen. Sticks and sap explode,
though tinily as stars. Each log will crush
itself. Each rages faithfully, little ash.
I attend the blaze, keeping happy flames
as wood successfully works out its own demise
and its essence billows up the flue. Last year
there were no further logs we could put on
to restore his heat and light. He kept the embers,
growing paler as the year grew to a close,
lucid through one last Christmas Eve.

My dim reflection in the window is projected
on the breakers, off-black under clouds,
(my flesh flinches) that eye some varmint's, baffled
in fiery headlights. I know that shape is me,
despite its unclear resolution. In fact,
it's more familiar than my articulate image
in the mirror often is -- or the me gray-haired
in candid photos, startling distinguished fella.

I crack open the window, snout to the screen.
I smell outside: the shore with its dead things;
the clean sea air shouldering the smoke I've made.
Three stars are excellent in their places.
I know if clouds were gone the sky would be
rigged with a whole resonant tribe of light.
But now these few are staked out like those folks
on the beach this afternoon: sentinels
at the start of something nebulous and equivocal.
Stoking resolutely their own sufficient glows.

Newport, OR 1991

(This poem is from my 1996 collection Grace & Desolation, which miraculously is still available from the publisher or Amazon.com.)

'Tis the Off Season

A few shots from the periphery of this year's neighborhood holiday fair, held at the local swim and tennis club.

Kiddie pool

Banner

Court 1

Court 2

Concession

The season to be jolly

Independent Bikes

Another Fourth of July picnic in the Newport Hills neighborhood.

Barbie

Hats

Babies

Training wheels

Streamers

Trio

Pink

Bowtie

Out cold

Flags

Keeping it clean

Shade

Backstop