Sidetracked Charley

I have been very good about avoiding my high school and college reunions up to now. It has been largely easy as for most of them I lived outside the state and nobody after the 10th high school one was able to locate me. And I graduated out of my class in college as I had quit for a year or so to get more money to attend. Then graduated out of summer school. Nine months later I could have taken a trip back from the east coast to New Mexico to go through the ceremony but I was into fighting for an end to the war in Viet Nam. That I am going to my high school class reunion this year I blame on Facebook. Took everyone a while but I was found out mostly by the ladies of Mu Heta Sigma (the misspelling of Eta is so it is MHS as in Manzano High School). We were a service organization and a few of them decided to throw together a '62, '63 and '64 joint reunion. Me in third row and Leslie in front Leslie McHugh set up a FaceBook group for the reunion and asked me to join...

It has been an interesting week. My friend, Terry, has been visiting from Washington, DC. We have managed to carve out a couple days of photography while she has been here. The first day was to Cimarron, visiting mutual friends, Sherry and Steve, and then on to the Dawson Cemetery where I had never been. Dawson Dead by J. Binford-Bell There is no greater gift to a photographer (other than an unlimited gift certificate at B&H Photo) than another photographer to explore with. The average tourist or traveler or even those with smart phones does not understand those of us with DSLR's and a spiritual imperative to record what we see. And it is really great if we can carry on conversations and tell inside jokes. My sister and I share that. And so do Terry and I. But only one or two other friends. So while not taking pictures we talked - windshield time as Jessica and I call it. Patchwork in Ocate Tony's of Ocate by J. Binford-Bell One good exhibition seem...

Smoke from Arizona Fires Last Monday, as my frequent readers know, it was on the eighth day or more of damp and sometimes rainy weather with heavy clouds. Here in the mountain southwest we all go a bit crazy if we don't see the sun every day. However, the rainy weather did a lot to give us a burst of green this week. Spring greens The air was so clear and so fresh it almost sparkled. And the Aspens did their best to add that wonderful spring green as they leafed out overnight it seemed. Eclipse behind clouds Clouds partly obscured the eclipse last night but the sky was so blue. Then this morning the air smelled like smoke. And what I thought might at first be fog did not clear when the sun came up. Smokey Mountains I have the New Mexico Wildfires site book marked on my browser so when the haze did not go away I looked at the fires currently burning in New Mexico. None were up wind from us. But the three in Arizona are. If you have been close to the fro...

Midsommer Murders family I read an article about viewers so identifying with the characters in television series that when the season or the series ends they get depressed. I at first blamed this on the "cliff hanger" season closers that often have me in tears. Alright, I cry easily. But it got me thinking of the shows and their characters I identify with the most. And they are more and more English or Australian mysteries and dramas. The actors they employ as leading characters have character: warts and all. And they clearly are not sewn into their costumes. There frankly was not a single character on Desperate Housewives, which just ended its long run, that I could identify with on any level. And I tried to get involved with Revenge but it has been decades since I was in the age group of any of the leading roles. The American TV series I do watch seem to have at least one or more main characters that are middle aged or over: NCIS (which is obviously killing off its o...

And the sun shone weakly by J. Binford-Bell It seems to have rained for a lot of days - or threatened to rain for a lot of days. Here in New Mexico we are not used to a lot of consecutive days without the sun shining. And if you are counting it did manage to peak through from time to time. Rather half-hearted to my way of thinking. I want to get back to the studio but its windows do not radiate light and warmth. The dogs seem mostly in hiding because of the rumble of thunder from time to time. From yesterday afternoon to now we have gotten a half inch of rain, but rainfall before has been a bit minimal. A couple showers yielding a scant 1/4 inch. But mainly it has been what I would call California winter days. I spent a couple months one winter in Laguna Beach. Never actually rained but it was forecast as a possibility daily. The fog would roll in (not sure it ever really rolled out) and such dense and wet fog you could not see the beach. The fog seemed to muffle the soun...

Spring Rain by J. Binford-Bell Raining.Not snowing. But a gentle rain that reminds me more of California in the winter than New Mexico in the spring, expect it comes and goes indicating some cloud movement over the mountain. Thermal lift of the air up the sides of the slopes breaks up solid clouds and also takes the moisture streaming in from the south and builds thunderheads to entertain us. The weather station at the Albuquerque Airport used to keep track of the days the sun had shown. Definitely the vast majority of the 365. Even if that shaft of sunlight was fleeting and in the distance. Light by J. Binford-Bell Rain in the east is an entirely different animal. I got so depressed in Washington, DC one fall because the sun did not ever seem to break through. I even started putting hash marks on the bathroom mirror with an eyebrow pencil for each continual day of rain. I felt so much like a prisoner. But rain in New Mexico is a rare thing and a fleeting thing so oft...