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Six Pix For The First Six Months Of The Year

Yeah, Another Blogger137 Comments

During the 1970s and 1980s I enjoyed walking around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I lived at the time, and around many other places, snapping photos with my Kodak Pocket Instamatic of whatever caught my eye. I took a lot of family photos too. I haven’t looked at most of those pictures in . . . forever. Save for a relative few, they reside, way too many unlabeled, inside a large box or two or three somewhere in my house. The attic, most likely. I’d do well to locate and gaze at the pix. Who knows what good memories they’d bring back? Yeah, one of these days I’m going to get off my lazy ass and do just that. One of these days.

Anyway, fast forward to the tail end of 2015, which is when I purchased my first smart phone. Man, after 25 or more years of not being involved with photography — my wife Sandy had assumed the photographic duties — I took to the phone’s camera like Donald Trump takes to undermining democracy. In no time I was having fun shooting digital pictures and marveling at how easy the camera was to use.

And I couldn’t have been happier that the phone dated each shot and listed information about where the picture was taken. Even better, the photographs had no desire to leave the confines of their cozy quarters within the phone. They wouldn’t even consider wandering off to the f*cking attic or anywhere else. I love them for that, because I drop by now and then to take a look.

Sculpture outside a Mexican restaurant. Hatboro, Pennsylvania. January 2023
Artwork at Philadelphia Flower Show. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. March 2023

Like many of us, I’ve shot a large number of digital photos. Documenting our lives on a semi-regular basis isn’t the worst idea in the world, right? A recent stroll through my iPhone’s photo library revealed that my button-pressing fingers were pretty busy during the first six months of 2023, for instance, as roughly 250 photographs from that period are stored there. Being in a jolly mood at the moment, I’ve decided to bestow immortality upon six of those pix that I especially like, one from each month (I did the same thing last year). They are included in this story, and haven’t appeared in Yeah, Another Blogger before. Scads of worthy photos are not pleased about being snubbed, however. I have this to say to them: “Tough shit! Nobody ever said that life is fair.”

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. April 2023
Keswick Theater. Glenside, Pennsylvania. June 2023

I didn’t venture very far from home during the months in question. The photos herein, therefore, are restricted to the Philadelphia suburbs, which has been my home base since 2005, and to Philadelphia itself. And now a few words about two of the pictures.

Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. February 2023

I’ve witnessed numerous sunsets in my time, most of them in areas blessed with natural beauty, such as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. My town doesn’t come close to matching that description. However, my hilly neighborhood is good for sunset-watching from certain high points, like the one that is half a block from my front door. The view of the sky is nicely open there, not obscured by many houses or trees. One early evening in February I ventured out, and 15 seconds later was admiring a sunset whose yellows, oranges, pinks and greys, all delicate as feathers, made my day. A beautiful sight it was.

Willow Grove Park Mall. Abington, Pennsylvania. May 2023

And on a May morning I headed to Willow Grove Park Mall, an enclosed space not much more than a hop, skip and jump from my abode. I occasionally go there to engage in a cardio workout, walking the mall’s avenues and byways at a good clip. Such was the reason for my visit that day.

Hoofing around the mall’s second level, I approached a GAP clothing store. The posters in its windows always have impressed me, touching as they do on the positive aspects of the human condition. During the May walk, one of the GAP posters brought me up short. After staring at it for a few seconds I whipped out my phone. There was no way I was not going to photograph the poster, because its depiction of parental love was more vivid and pure than any I’d ever seen. His arms wrapped around his baby, a young father could not be more certain of his role in life than he is at that moment. Love radiates from him in gentle waves. He’s the luckiest guy in the world. And he knows it.

My Mom (A Belated Mother’s Day Story)

Yeah, Another Blogger122 Comments
My mother and yours truly in the late 1940s

Not many days go by when I don’t think of my mother, Elaine Scheinin. This has been true since her passing in 1994. She lives on in my mind because she was an exceptionally fine person. Honest, warm and unpretentious. And blessed with an openness that few could resist. Pretty much everyone that knew her was crazy about her.

If I remember my output correctly, I’ve written about her only once before. That was in an article about the late, famed jazz pianist Thelonious Monk (click here if you’d like to read it). My mom, a jazz fan, became part of that article because she once spoke with Monk on the phone in 1976. Drawing up her courage, she took the initiative to obtain and dial his number (Monk, a Manhattanite, somewhat surprisingly did not have an unlisted phone number). She hoped to ask him if he knew that WKCR, a New York City radio station, was in the midst of airing a multi-day tribute to him and his music.

Monk answered the phone. Yes, he was very aware of the tribute. And he thanked my mother for calling him. I was sitting with her when she reached out to the great musician, and the incident left me awe-struck. Hers was a spontaneous and innocent act of good-heartedness and caring. She would have been disappointed if Monk somehow missed out on the love being shown to him on the radio.

Now, here’s the thing. I think of my mother often not only because of her enviable natural state of being, but also because of what happened to her in her middle age and how she responded to that tragedy. In 1969, when she was 49, her retinas hemorrhaged badly, a consequence of diabetes. She lost her sight, living the remaining 25 years of her life in total darkness. The pain I felt was intense. And it hasn’t lessened. Her blindness was, and in memory remains, heartbreaking to me.

For nearly all of those 25 years she didn’t complain, didn’t bemoan her fate. She suffered, but she almost always kept it to herself. At a party once, though, I overheard one of her sisters-in-law say this to her: “It’s a shame about your vision.” To which my mother responded, “You have no idea.” Those few words pretty much said it all.

Basically, my mom soldiered on, remaining the person she always had been, bright and optimistic, fully continuing her household work and community involvement. In the early 1990s, though, diabetes struck again, ravaging her body and ultimately her mind. “Why do bad things happen to good people?” has been asked by countless folks. The answer is that good people are not immune to the slings and arrows, and lightening bolts, of life. If only they were.

Ideally, I’d have liked to have published this remembrance on Mother’s Day. But I didn’t complete it in time. Better late than never, as the saying goes. Many of us are fortunate to have been raised by loving, good people. I surely was. My father was ace too. And so, I wish a Happy Mother’s Day, belatedly, to the fine ladies who give their heart and soul, selflessly, to their children. And I accompany that wish with a major tip of the hat.