Seeing red!

Not long after I lost my baby fat and my nickname I had another "experience". My sister. Need I say more? I love my sister very much, but she did seem to have an agenda. During my early years she did weigh in far too frequently in my "near death" experiences. Unfortunately this time was no different. We were playing with our stuffed animals one day. Not sure if this was before or after she had shaved all their hair off. Anyway, my mom was painting something with red paint when she was called away, I believe by the telephone. My sweet sister (BTW her name is Lois) decided to take the opportunity to paint my fingernails red like nail polish. And dye my hair red. And my hands and arms. I believe my mom used a whole can of turpentine or lacquer thinner, not sure which (though I doubt it really matters) to get the red paint off. I believe most of my hair fell out after that scrubbing!

The year of the tree....

Moving right along, about a year or two after the incident with the pills it was after Christmas and I was merrily playing with my toys beside our tree. Our row house was like most other houses at this time in that it had a hardwood floor. It was right around New Years and our tree was getting pretty dry. My sister who is a year older than me decided she wanted a candy cane and grabbed one from the tree. Turns out the candy cane was not easily forthcoming. In frustration my sister pulled harder resulting in the tree falling over on top of me. Back then the lights on the tree were what is referred to as "hot lights" meaning the bulbs were very hot to the touch. The lights were on at the time of the tree falling over onto the hardwood floor. If even one bulb had shattered on the floor, that tree would have been immediately engulfed in flames with me trapped under it! To this day I consider it a miracle that no bulbs broke when hitting that wood floor.

My father always wired the trees to the wall after that.

An account of my life?

I'll be reaching my 70th birthday at the end of this month and am toying with the idea of utilizing this space to reviewing the memories of my life thus far. I'm not really sure if this would be a great idea. I think it might help me to put things in perspective but not sure how it would appear in this venue. I certainly would not write to gain sympathy because I do not feel sympathy is warranted. I do believe I have experienced more adversity and "bad luck" than most, but the fact I am still here and basically a pretty happy guy suggests I have dealt with the experiences in a positive manner.

An example. When I was born my mother chose to put me on formula rather than nurse me. I don't know her reasoning and don't think it matters except that I was unable to digest cows milk. I quickly lost weight and was approaching a crisis point when my father insisted on taking me home. It was recommended by someone that I try goats milk. I thrived to the extent that my nickname was "Butterball"! Shortly thereafter I was playing in my playpen in the back yard of out row house in Baltimore when things took a turn for the worse. A drug store near our house had recently burned and the cleanup resulted in many pills being dumped in the dumpster. I'll never know what they were but assume they were probably vitamins. Whatever they were they were obviously pretty to look at! Some of the neighbor kids gathered a bunch up and decided it would be fun to toss them in my playpen like candies. Needless to say I gobbled them down as fast as they would toss them in. The result was I came close to dying. I survived, but lost all my lovely baby fat. No more "Butterball" for me!

Touching base

I haven't been on my blog for awhile now; lots happening in my life. Good stuff! Briefly, I have retired from the Federal Government after 28 years of service and have moved to Morriston, Florida.  I am finally getting back to my photography and will attempt to write less on my political and moral views and more on my art and life experiences. I expect my audience can get the gist of my opinions on most of these topics from my previous posts. No changes come to mind.
So, my future. I am fortunate to live in a place where such beauty surrounds me. I hope to take advantage of this by visiting scenic sites throughout Florida to photograph. In addition, I will for the first time have a dedicated studio for still life and portrait photography. I am in the process of building my darkroom, so posts of my work will be a while in coming; hopefully this autumn will see some results. I encourage comments!