You know how they say, when you’re dying, your life passes before your eyes. I believe this is true, but it doesn’t happen at that moment. It happens for years as your end of life approaches and your mind has time to recall those moments that were somehow milestones in your life. But what I have discovered is it’s not the most outstanding milestones that come back to you. The birth of a child, the birthdays or weddings. It’s those private moments, those times when your soul was most open to living, that come back to you.
For example, I was sitting in my living room a couple of nights ago. I opened the sliding door to the balcony to let in some fresh air. As I was sitting in my chair, I could hear the traffic noise from the street and a cool breeze blew in through the doorway. And between the sounds of the street and the feeling of the breeze, I was immediately transported to a night in the late 60’s when I was visiting my best friend from high school, Jim Leonard. Jim was living in a small basement apartment in downtown Atlanta. It was underneath a commercial building and was entered from the parking area behind the building. I had brought with me a reel-to-reel tape deck that I had purchased through Columbia Record Club. We were sitting outside smoking cigarettes and listening to the music with the apartment door open. The air was cool and breezy. At some point we noticed the music was no longer playing and went back inside. The tape deck was smoking, the air smelling of burnt electronics, and the tape was spilling onto the floor. I can’t remember the last time I had recalled that night, but I could see it in my mind as if it was yesterday. It’s amazing to me how a breeze and the sound of street traffic could bring it back so vividly.
A few weeks earlier I happened to take notice of an illustration of a dragon done in a Chinese style as is seen in many works of art from China. And a memory came to me of a tiny vase with a dragon raised on the surface that I purchased in China Town in New York City. I was in 7th grade and on a trip with the school safety patrol that was an annual school sponsored trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City. We traveled from Atlanta by train. The memory formed in my mind in an instant, triggered by the image of the dragon. And I could see clearly the small gray vase with the tiny colorful dragon raised on the surface. I have no idea what happened to that souvenir, but I have not thought of it since those early years.
It takes only the smell of burning leaves by the side of the road in the south to transport me back to my childhood, sitting at the edge of our dirt street while the oak leaves raked from our front yard smoldered at the road’s edge. That childhood feeling of transition from summer to fall. Going back to school after months off. That feeling of quiet anticipation. That smell of the changing seasons wrapped in the smokey air as I sat in the grass by the road.
Picking up a paper bag of groceries takes me back to helping my stepfather load and unload the groceries for our family from the trunk of his car.
A smell, a sound, a song can trigger those moments in our mind without warning. They are usually moments that touched something inside, something unknowable, something vital in our sense of self, sense of happiness, sense of life. Little moments that meant something even if we didn’t know it at the time. There’s a verse in a song from Jeffrey Foucault that says,
It’s just flashes that we own
Little snapshots
Made of breath and of bone
And out on the darkling plain alone
They light up the sky
Perhaps as we grow older, we simply have more space to allow these memories to surface by turning off the everyday noise, the daily business of living, and to rest and to give room for the dusty files to reopen. I like to think so.
After my last divorce, I began to consider moving from upstate New York to the Southwest where I had thought for many years that I would spend my retirement. The Southwest had always attracted me since I was very young. My neighbor gave me back issues of Arizona Highways and I began collecting rocks and minerals thinking I would become a geologist.
About five years after separating, I finally decided to start a five-year plan to prepare as an artist and finally move to New Mexico. I picked New Mexico because it is less populated, not as much of a high-end market, except for Santa Fe area, and is more compatible politically. The art market would certainly be better than Ithaca, NY, and it’s not as hot as Arizona. I made several trips out looking at possible places to settle. My dream was to find a place and spend my time traveling around the state taking photos and selling my artwork.
What I didn’t realize is, I’m getting older every day. After five years of planning and waiting and finally moving, which nearly killed me this time, I realize that I should have moved as soon as the divorce was final. Or even sooner. Once out here I realize I am vulnerable and less capable than I was ten years ago. My arthritis in my hips, after many years of working on my feet and carrying heavy camera gear, tells me all too quickly that hiking in three miles and then three miles back is not a good idea anymore. I waited too long to make my dream happen.
I usually talk every week with my best friend who lives in Florida. He’s been slowly working his way toward retirement and cutting back little by little. We talk about his retirement a lot. I know he’s anxious for it. He and I have both lost many family members in the last several years. I have lost most of mine, so I depend on him and his wife for a great deal of support and friendship. Especially since moving. Some weeks back my best friend started getting ill and it seemed like it was getting gradually worse every time we spoke. Doctors weren’t being very helpful in diagnosing whatever was causing his illness. Finally, after many weeks and multiple ER visits, someone paid attention. They discovered that he had an infection in his blood. It had damaged his aortic valve in his heart and caused a tear. So, he was feverish from the infection, weak and low blood pressure because of the heart issue, his lungs were filling with fluid while his body was not eliminating it. And his oxygen levels were sinking. Today they did surgery to repair his heart and now he’s lying in ICU on a ventilator until he can breathe normally again. This is a guy who I always felt was far healthier than I. And for a while today, his heart was stopped on the operating table.
This again brings home to me how important it is not to wait. Because thinking you will be capable of doing all those things you dream of when you finally stop punching the clock is just another dream unless you are lucky. The reality is you age every day. And as hard as you try to stay healthy and plan and prepare yourself, your body or circumstances or accidents can stop your plans in their tracks.
I worked with a young model in the last several years who was a lab researcher in Entomology. There was a traumatic event in her life. And she decided to quit her job and travel and climb rocks, which was her passion. She has traveled with friends and family and climbed and hiked all over taking simple jobs when necessary and living a simple satisfying existence and experiencing wonders I can only guess. And to her I say, bravo for your passion and courage. You didn’t wait.
Life is so unpredictable. And we take a risk every day. Don’t wait too long. Don’t put off your dream, because it may pass right by you on the highway and it’s too late to catch up. Do it now. Find a way. Don’t wait!
At the end of April, I finally left on a short trip I had been planning for weeks. It involved a stop to see my friends, Paul and Shino who have a ranch about 30 miles south of Gallup, NM. I met Paul at a class and we connected. His ranch is his paradise. They have 5 dogs, 5 mustang horses, and wonderful plans to create a small community.
I struck out early at about 6:30 and only got about 35 miles out of Albuquerque when I began to see numerous trucks parked alongside the highway and at exits. Then within a couple more miles I hit a dead stop wall of trucks, both lanes, as far as I could see. I got on my phone and tried to research what the traffic jam was, finding it stemmed from a train derailment outside Gallup with a large fire and possible additional tanks of fuel that could explode, so I-40 going west was closed for almost a hundred miles. I drove across the median and headed back home to Albuquerque, totally disappointed. Once home I called Paul and said, I don’t think I’m going to make it today. He responded with “rest a minute then why not come by the southern route?” This would mean adding about another 80-100 miles to the trip, but I decided that I had planned this trip for so long, perhaps I should just go. And I did. Maybe I should have paid attention to the omen.
I finally arrived at the ranch after a back and forth on the highway trying to locate their road, marked with a very small, weathered sign and some advising from Paul over the phone. We visited for a few hours. I met all the critters and road with Paul around the property in the 4-wheeler to get the overview.
My intention was to get to Gallup with some time to look around the town and maybe get some pictures, but with the additional delays over getting there, I simply chose to get a room and get some dinner. The first place I visited was full unless I wanted the King Suite at $265 a night. Seems all the EPA guys in town for the derailed train were camped there. I went next door and got a room. Pizza at Pizza Hut and called it an evening.
I rose early the next morning and hit the road to Ship Rock up near the Four Corners area. A gorgeous ancient volcanic formation that the Navajos consider a sacred place. I wanted to be there for the morning light.
After Ship Rock, my plan was to travel to Aztec, NM and visit the Aztec Ruins there. Again had a bit of trouble finding the entrance to the park, but eventually made it there. The ruins there are not as massive and sprawling as some others, but are quite beautiful in their setting and a large kiva has been rebuilt to look as it must have looked when originally built between 830 and 1120. One could feel the spirituality of the space.
From Aztec I drove south to Angel Peak Overlook. This park with its incredible expansive views, has a few campsites and picnic areas. My intention was to stay here for the night, and the following day drive to Chaco Canyon about 50 miles further south.
However, I arrived fairly early in the day and at the location of the campsite there was already one other camper there parked next to the restrooms in an older Ford Econoline camper van. I parked and walked to the edge of the fencing, looking at the view. Unfortunately, the serenity of the place was interrupted by the generator the other camper was running to provide him with electricity. Not wishing to spend the afternoon and evening listening to the incessant rattling of a generator in this remote setting, I decided to press on and get the afternoon light at Chaco Canyon and get back a day early.
I found the entrance on Highway 550 with a large sign.
The first mile or so was paved, then became a gravel road, but was fairly well maintained. This, however lasted only another couple of miles. Then the road became angry. The rest of the way into the park, about 20+ miles of it, was some of the worst dirt road I have ever traveled, rutted from tracks when the roads were wet and soft, now dry and hard, and washboard surfaces that jar your teeth loose. The whole way in I kept patting the dashboard and saying “you’re doing great baby.”
The place is beautiful, remote, and somewhat overwhelming. A beautiful park with a paved 9 mile loop through several sites of ancient ruins.
Then came the trip home. I didn’t realize when I exited the paved road of the park, that I was actually leaving by the alternate route into the park. And here, as if the road could not have gotten any worse, it did instantly. I drove about three miles out, feeling very apprehensive over the abuse my poor little van was taking. Then I heard a horrifying pop-hiss and immediately the dashboard signaled “low tire pressure”. Oh crap!. Left Front!
Now let me step back in time a bit.
About a year and a half before I moved, my lease ran out on my mini-van and it was the worst time in the world to lease or buy anything. I settled on purchasing a Ram Promaster City Wagon (Used). Funky little vehicle that gives me hauling capability and can also seat 4. My desire was for a vehicle I could sleep in while riding the backroads of the southwest. It didn’t come with the owner’s manual, so I simply found it online and used that when I had questions. It had new tires and was very clean. Never thought much about a flat tire since I had AAA and when I moved to New Mexico, knowing the distances between services, I got AAA+ that gives me 100 miles towing coverage. I had also recently purchased an auto air pump for those times when the temperature changes and you get those low tire pressure warnings. I hate using those pay-for pumps at the gas station, such a pain. The car has a spare tire under the back like many SUVs that cranks down should you need it. The problem now is, besides the owner’s manual, I didn’t receive the original package of tools for a tire change, which on this vehicle includes a jack, a lug wrench, and a handle for cranking down the spare tire.
I check my phone, no service. I am, after all, in a wilderness canyon a long way from anything. Fortunately, I have water and some food. I have my sleeping gear if I end up stuck here overnight. There were many people at the park, so I feel sure I will see some traffic eventually. The road where I was stopped was leading up a hill. I walked up to the top to see if I could get any cell service, but still nothing.
After about an hour, when one car had already passed without even looking over, a large pick up truck approached and I flagged him down to see if he, perhaps, had a jack and lug wrench. I explained my plight and Roland, a large Hispanic Park Service employee, climbed out to assist. This kind man worked for over an hour trying to help me find a way to get the spare tire out from under the car. But without the correct tools, there was simply no way. Finally we agreed that a tow was the only way out. His phone was able to get service at the top of the hill and he knew who to call. He told me even if I had been able to call AAA, they probably wouldn’t come that far out to my location. I gave Roland the $60 cash I had for all his hard work and he left.
I waited another two hours or so seeing no one and finally a car pulled up alongside and the driver asked, “are you waiting for a tow truck?” I said yes and he said’ “he’s right behind us”. So relief. But it took about another twenty minutes for him to arrive since he had to drive so slowly on the rough roads. Jim was a champ. His truck was a big flat bed and he drove the van onto the platform and secured it.
We then drove ever so slowly the 20+ miles of horrible road back out to the highway and down to the city of Grants, where he was able to drop my van at a tire shop which was walking distance to an old Rte. 66 motel. It was already about 9:30. I spent the night with no dinner and was at the tire shop when they opened at 7. A new tire. A 78 mile tow bill (which hopefully AAA will reimburse). And back home.
First order of business once I returned was finding a set of tools with a jack for my van.
I am so grateful to Roland and Jim. They were my saviors. You’re never as prepared as you think you are. Life’s an adventure.
I moved to New Mexico in late May of 2023. I just renewed my lease here at the complex where I settled in Albuquerque. To say it was a smooth transition would be putting lipstick on a pig. I’ve moved numerous times in my life and it’s never easy. The best part is, I survived it with some bit of sanity left. Some parts were hard. Finding a new doctor, finding a decent barber, adapting to a smaller space and a much tighter budget. The most frustrating has been trying to move my LLC photography business from New York to New Mexico. The application has been repeatedly rejected for filling out the wrong line, checking the wrong box, expired document, or just plain meanness. As soon as this one document from New York arrives again (for the fifth time) that is only valid for 30 days, it will be submitted once again with the multi-corrected application to sit on someone’s desk for five weeks before it’s even looked at. Not to mention, the New York State Tax department decided to audit my return from three years ago and wanted some more of my information. So I answered their questionnaire and sent them the receipts they wanted to see. They then said, pay us $2100. So I contacted H&R Block in Jacksonville, NY and reported to them that I needed their help with an audit, and I had purchased their “Peace of Mind” insurance where supposedly “they had my back” and would handle everything directly. I provided the agent with a POA. Told New York that I disputed their request and gave them H&R’s number. And they took over. About a month in I asked for an update but was told, we haven’t heard anything yet. Then a week later I get another bill from New York. I contacted the H&R agent twice with no response. Finally on April 14th I wrote apologizing for the message at her busiest time, but I need to know my next step regarding the Peace of Mind coverage of this tax bill (supposedly covered up to $6000). She wrote back to say she could no longer help me. That because I had actually responded to New York the first time and did not immediately give the issue to them within 60 days of the receipt of the first letter. They consider that to be “attempting to solve the issue on my own”, so they were no longer bound by Peace of Mind. Of course, no one had ever explained this technicality to me, it was not documented in any of the documents supplied when I received that tax return from H&R. So unless I was clairvoyant or knew to go online and search through pages of FAQs to find the terms and read them before answering NY State, how the hell am I to know that by complying I was screwing myself. If you use H&R, beware of this deceitful practice.
On the other hand, as my friend Mark says, I’m “livin’ the dream”.
New Mexico is huge. Albuquerque is sprawling, but manageable. Traffic here moves along, really along sometimes. But I drive far less than I ever have. Most necessities are not far away. I walk my neighborhood for exercise and there are great hiking trails at the foot of the Sandia Mountains on the east end of my street. Biggest drawback is the traffic noise. But that’s living in the city.
The clouds and skies can be amazing. The roads are long with services few and distant, so you watch your gas gauge and carry water if you’re going a long way. The landscape is so varied and changes in an instant. It’s a land of canyons and mesas and uplifts and lava beds, desert plains and forested mountains. And it’s all BIG.
The sun is so warm and incredibly bright. I am at about a mile high in elevation here and the air is thinner, drier, windier than New York was. I came here from the land where clouds go to die. Ithaca is such a gray place for so much of the year. I’ve been watching the weather and it seems that since I left, there has been a continuous string of snow and rain week after week. I don’t miss cleaning that slop of my car all winter long. Though a good downpour of rain is always welcome here in New Mexico.
Though sales have not blossomed yet, doors are opening in the Santa Fe art market. I just hope I have what this market wants. Friends are coming slowly, but as more social events take place, familiar faces are emerging. I am thankful for meeting Daniel Boardman, owner of Triana restaurant in Albuquerque. A wonderfully welcoming man with great taste, humor, and personality. Triana is a Spanish Tapas restaurant (Daniel is a Tango dancer) with a great chef, great menu, great wine, great atmosphere, …oh hell, it’s GREAT, so go there if you’re ever in town. And my friend, Paul DeSouza, a ranch owner near Gallup. I met Paul at a gun safety class, getting our CCW training. He lives out in the wild west and protection takes a long time to arrive when you call 911 out there. Paul is from India and his wife from Japan. Now he’s tending a few wild horses in his “paradise”.
So my lease renewal deadline is here. I ran my ad for a few months looking for the ideal casita with attached studio that is pictured in the painting “George finds his Paradise”. Had a few nibbles, but no jackpot. So bit the bullet, even with a $100 a month rent increase. But there’s light. There’s cracks in the wall. The barriers come down slowly, sometimes painfully so. But in a desert landscape worn by millions of years of erosion and eruption, we are reminded of patient chipping away at barriers. They all eventually wash away with the rain.
I also want to take this time to mention my daughter, who is graduating with honors with a PhD in Anthropology from Ohio State. She set out years ago to build a sanctuary for primates. And she has done it through shear determination and dedication to her goal. Doctor, you are truly awesome!
I have kept procrastinating about writing this blog. Every time I think I have the subject, another takes precedence. Since moving to New Mexico, I have been struck over and again by how ineffective our systems are that we count on daily. Let me elaborate.
I began back in July the process of moving my LLC (my art business) from New York to New Mexico. This requires a filing of papers with NM Secretary of State which must include a document called a Certificate of Status (COS) from New York saying this company is in good standing essentially. This document, once issued is good for only 30 days from date of issue. It takes a $25 fee and about three to four weeks to get this. So I waited patiently and when the COS arrived, sent it with my $100 and the additional paperwork, to NM.
I waited about 6 weeks for some reply and finally contacted the Secretary of State’s office to inquire about the status of my application. Their reply was, “Oh, we sent you a rejection notice weeks ago.” My reply was, “No you didn’t.” Then the next day, I get the rejection notice. Seems I put something in box B instead of box A. Of course, by this time, my COS from New York has expired, so to refile, I need another COS. So, send another $25 and request to New York and wait another 4 weeks.
I have informed delivery from the post office so they send me a photo by email of mail that I should expect to see in my mailbox. So, after waiting the weeks for the new COS I finally see a message from USPS that it is to be delivered. But three days later still no mail. I go to the local post office. They say we’ll look for it but otherwise, duh! It never shows up. It takes me a week to find out that for some unknown reason, USPS has sent several pieces of my mail, including the COS and two bank statements, back to the sender. WHAT?
Another $25 to try and get COS number 3. Wait another 4 weeks and what shows up but the COS that was returned (now expired) and a day later, the new COS. Finally, I am able to send in the corrected paperwork and the replacement COS to New Mexico. Wait another 4 weeks and get another rejection notice, still something filled out incorrectly. Again, they could not possibly notify me until after the new COS was past 30 days in age. I have requested COS #4, another $25, another 4 week wait. Ready to tear my hair out, what’s left of it. Still am not registered in New Mexico over 7 months later.
To add insult to injury, I get a notice from NY State, my 2021 business return is being audited. So, I sent in over 150 pages of documents and receipts for all my claimed deductions. A few weeks later NY State replies, “You owe us $2700.” I contact my tax preparer and enlist their help. But I must let NY know that I am disputing their claim. In order to let them know, they say the best way is to do so online through your tax account. I open my tax account with NY, and it shows nothing about the audit. I click on the link they sent me, and it takes me to a page that says “log in”. I’m already logged in. But once on this page, evidently not. So I log in again, go back to the same page. And again it says “log in”.
As I investigate the page they have sent me to, designed to allow you to respond to numerous types of letters from the tax department, I see it has two buttons on the page. One says “respond to form #642-E” or something to that effect. The other button says, “respond to another letter”. I click on that button. My form that I received is a form 650-E. I scroll down the list to the reference my number and it says for “unemployment benefits”. Wait! I don’t understand!
I call the help number at the tax department. Of course, it has an automated system saying, “if you are calling about X, press one.” And so on for about eight or nine departments. You must listen to at least six or seven of these before you can determine, oh, I should have chosen number two! Number two, of course, takes me to someone who says, “This is not the department that can help you, I will transfer you to someone who can.” She then transfers me to a woman who, when I explain that I am confused because the website says responding to a form 960-E is about unemployment benefits, but my form 960-E is about business income tax, she says, “well, I think you should respond to it anyway even though it says ‘unemployment benefits’.” I tell her I am worried that if I do so, that it will end up unrecorded in the correct place and I will end up with greater penalties and interest. She says, she doesn’t know and I should do as she is telling me. So, I mailed in my response by certified mail, return receipt, and gave up on the online system, where it should be the easiest path. NOT!
This is what we face every day. People in help positions that do not know the answers, online pages that should be there to help you, but instead only confuse. Your call is transferred, you wait on hold for 15 minutes, then you get disconnected. You call back and have to go through eight levels before you get to a real person again, and they don’t have the answers. Or, you’re talking to a service in Mumbai and cannot even understand your fast talking agent. Customer service rarely exists anywhere anymore. The customer has been abandoned for the sake of profits or reduced budget. And anyone who thinks government or business support websites are “convenient” lives in a wonderland. We all know better.
On another note, as long as I am pointing out my disillusion with humanity, I have noticed on my Facebook Page, in some of these stupid Instagram and Tick Tok videos that I get hooked into watching (they are addictive and highly ridiculous in many cases) that people are on the streets of America asking the simplest questions of young Americans, and they can’t answer stuff they should have learned in elementary school. How did these people even get out of school in the first place? Our education system is in deep trouble. Kids today have their faces too glued to their phone and live in a world of electronic ignorance. They can’t even name the countries that border our country, or the capital of the USA. They can’t do basic math. When asked, “if you were born 10 years ago, how old would you be today?” They stutter and stammer and say, well, I’m 22, so I guess I’d be 12. When asked, what state is Utah in, they don’t even realize it’s a trick question. It makes me very worried about what is coming for our country when people are so incredibly ignorant, can’t add and subtract, don’t know basic geography or history. With Ai taking the place of logical human thought and experience, and the overwhelming dependence on social media and algorithms that shape our lives, where will the new generations take this world, or will tech run rampant and eliminate logical thought all together. It is no surprise that our country’s political system is in chaos, and technology, social media, and unchecked misinformation are to blame for becoming the educator of the ignorant. What have we done to ourselves?
Put down your phone. Turn off the TV. Read a book. Study nature. Talk to people and teach them. Please!
As I watch the news daily and see the wars and constant coverage the resulting whiplash effect across the world, I am somewhat amazed at the reactions. We have all been aware of the plight of the Palestinian people for years. They have battled with Israel for decades. And there were times of peaceful negotiations that benefited the people and looked like a way out. But outside forces bent on Israel’s destruction find the Palestinians as easy targets for proxies in their war. No one wants this kind of war. War is brutal and cruel and benefits only the powerful and the weapons industry. People who have little are those hurt most, because they are forgotten not only by the world in general, but by their own governing party. Hamas knew full well what their brutality would be met with. I don’t believe anyone thought that an attack so horrific would not be met with brute force at an exponential level. We are shocked by what we see. But the same has been going on for many months in Ukraine, and the same and worse is happening all over the globe. But we ignore it until it is shoved in our faces. And with the immediacy of news coverage, cell phones, on the spot pictures of the actual brutality that war is, we scream STOP! But we are all such hypocrites. We vote for huge military budgets, we fuel the weapons industry, we elect hawks as leaders, people who have much to gain from war, and then ignore the brutality and inhumanity that occurs daily in remote unreported wars. How do we even look in the mirror. We are all to blame. This is what war looks like. Think about your part.
Peace is only possible when we teach our children not to hate.
Today was Saturday at the Indian Market in Santa Fe. This is an annual event that brings in hundreds of Native Artists to display and sell their incredible art. The entire plaza downtown as well as streets extending off the plaza for blocks were lined with tents and booths filled with jewelry and silver and turquoise, paintings and prints, clothing, weaving, photography, pottery, sculpture, and on and on.
I left early to get there in time to find parking that wasn’t a mile away. I settled for a quarter mile. People were streaming in from all directions on foot. At nine o’clock the place was already swarming with people. It was so amazing to be in a crowd this large with thousands of people passing in random streams and groups, people stopping and chatting, that no one seemed angry, fearful, rude. The news every day and the social media is filled with so much hate and discord, and angry rhetoric. Videos of robbery and fighting and shootings. People being assaulted on the subway. And here were thousands of people passing and talking and chatting in very tight places sometimes, and people were courteous, and friendly, and laughing. So much of what America is in most cases, and yet we are shown such a different picture in what we see in the media. I walked for two hours, saw about half, then my hips started saying, remember the walk back.
The kids here are already back in school. Here’s a sign of my age. We got three months off. When I was a kid, we usually got out around June 2nd or 3rd. And you didn’t go back until after Labor Day. I would think the teachers appreciated that as much as we did. It was a time when kids with means went off to camp. Those whose parents worked two or three jobs usually got sent to Chattanooga to spend a week here and a week there with relatives. The Boys to the Great Aunt and Uncle and the Girls off to Granny and Grandaddy. Then trade at the end of the week. I always hated that drive to Chattanooga. It was a lot of two-lane highway then and my mother was high anxiety. She was usually a nervous wreck by the time we arrived.
Someone on Facebook recently posted the question, “what was your favorite thing about childhood?” I had to think hard. It was a long time ago. I eventually wrote, “The freedom of riding my bike”. And I realized that I don’t look back on my childhood as a very happy time in my life. I do remember receiving my bike. I was probably nine. Christmas. Big surprise and unexpected. It was a red and white Columbia with chrome fenders. No gears. Coaster brake. This was before 10-speeds. If you had an expensive bicycle it was likely a Raleigh (English with a 3-speed hub). I’m sure my Columbia was straight out of Sears. But it was freedom. It was the ability to be gone all weekend and cover a lot of ground around town. For years I had gone back and forth to downtown Decatur on foot. To friends houses on foot. Now I had wings. Sometimes we attached playing cards to the frame with clothes pins so the spokes would make a motor like sound. And my neighborhood was ideal for bike riding with little traffic and some good hills. I was mobile. I was free. I was ecstatic. That bike took me everywhere and was my lifeline. I also still have vivid memories of the first major crash as I sped around the curve on our dirt street. The pebble that caused the front wheel to go out from under me as I leaned into the curve peddling hard. The gravel and dirt that was embedded in my bloody palms and knee where I hit the hard dirt street. Lessons learned.
Kids today ride electric scooters and skate boards. My first skate board was a 2×4 piece of lumber with an old, disassembled roller skate nailed to the bottom. Metal wheels. Try ridding that one, kid! Ten year-olds today have $500 cell phones. I remember the thrill of my first transistor radio. It was AM only and I believe had all of 10 transistors. Prior to that I had a crystal radio. No battery required, single ear phone. You attached an alligator clip to a metal object to use as an antenna. I used my iron bunk bed at night. Then you twisted a small shaft up and down to tune it. Also AM signals, but they travel so far, particularly at night. From my bed in Georgia I could listen to WAPE in Jacksonville (the Big Ape) or stations in Chicago. Today kids can see their friends while they talk on the phone and listen to any piece of music ever recorded at the touch of an app. Wireless earbuds.
I grew up in the south. With segregation and fear of atomic war. Fallout shelters were the rage. It was a time of gas wars, when competing oil companies battled for your dollar. I remember gas at 25 cents a gallon. A carton of Winston cigarettes was $2.50. Hersey bars were 5 cents. My stepfather drank moonshine whiskey, clear alcohol in gallon Mason jars that he purchased from a chicken farmer in Stone Mountain, GA. We drove past the mountain in those days on a two lane road. There was no park, no lake and carillon and train ride, cable car. It was a big rock with an unfinished carving and a quarry in the back where convicts cut granite curb stones.
I grew up in the days of propeller driven passenger airplanes and two lane highways before the interstate system. My family spent a vacation camping on the road cut for the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smokey Mountains. The road wasn’t a road yet. Bulldozers were cutting it through the forest and my stepfather proceeded to drive this path into the woods until the car became stuck on a large boulder that got jammed under the rear-end of our car. It took my stepfather hours to dig that boulder out. My mother swore that a bear came into our camp while there and stole one of our blankets.
I spent much of my meager allowance as a child (which grew from 25¢ a week to $1.25, then I had to start earning my own money at around 9 or 10) at the Army Surplus Store. Cool bags and pouches, patches and insignias, and machetes and bayonets. Just what a young boy needs to play war in the woods. My friend, Scott and I used to play around an abandoned commercial greenhouse that had all the windows broken out. The heating plant used to be a coal fired boiler, but all that stood was the huge brick chimney. We used to climb inside that chimney. The floor of the green house was littered with broken glass and sharp coal cinders. And we used to swing over this on old flexible electrical conduit. It’s a wonder I am still alive.
As a photographer, I tend to be keenly aware of change. One week a tree is on the corner that you pass occasionally, then suddenly one day, it’s gone. And you don’t recognize right away but something feels wrong. Then your memory reminds you there was a tree there, and now it’s gone. You notice it because now the sun is in your eyes as you approach. You’ve lost your shade. I watched the places I have lived change. Sometimes pleasantly, and sometimes, sadly, in a way that feels like loss. Life is a circle of gains and losses. Hopefully maintaining some sort of balance, a fairness, a give and take. Joy and grief, ease and struggle, thrift and abundance. Hopefully some sort of balance.
Hind sight is 20/20, it just takes bifocals to see it. And a good flash light.
I set out five years ago to make a major change in my life. Saturn was coming around in my chart again so it’s time. Since I was twelve years old, living in Decatur, Georgia, working for Lilian Strufee who lived two houses down, I have wanted to live in the southwest. She used to give me her old issues of Arizona Highways magazine. I would look at those images of the cactus and red cliffs and huge blue sky and picture myself prospecting or riding horseback or sitting next to a campfire under the stars.
So I began planning to retire from my day job of 13 years, and finally pursue my art and play my guitars and take some time for me in the desert southwest. At 73, I think I’m due.
I chose New Mexico as destination. Santa Fe was too expensive and very hard to find accommodations that suited my needs as an artist. So I settled in Albuquerque. Of all the states in the southwest, New Mexico is a state with a population of just over 2 million spread out over a lot of square miles. It’s a blue state surrounded by a lot of red. The people are incredibly friendly. The population heavily native and Hispanic. The elevation here helps to keep the temperatures pretty tolerable. The low humidity helps keep the heat from feeling too oppressive, but forces me to keep my guitars in their cases unfortunately. I noticed one day when looking at the weather forecast that the humidity that day was 5%. That’s dry!!
As I prepared to leave my job and say good-bye to my friends in New York, everyone kept asking if I had family in New Mexico, or if I knew people there. My response was always, no. I don’t know anyone and I have no family there. And they would usually say, “Wow, that’s brave of you.” I guess I never really thought too much about that since I have always felt better living alone. And I have always told my daughter, “life is an adventure, so make it a good one.” It does feel somewhat vulnerable not to have a back up system of some sort. But time will bring acquaintances and new friends and the back up system will develop. My family and best friends are spread all over anyway, so it doesn’t really seem so different in that respect.
The move was way more stressful and exhausting than I had ever anticipated. I packed all the boxes myself in advance. And there were a lot of boxes. I disposed of a lot of furniture and household items. Got a good sunburn at my moving sale. I used ABF Freight with their U-Pack system for the major move. They were great. But having to arrange for help with movers, people to do the actual heavy lifting and packing of the truck, was another story. Be wary of Craig’s List movers. They may say professional, but they are anything but. If I had not been directing these clowns on how to shift and carry and load some of the furniture, heaven only knows what the result may have been. They all arrived late, at both load and unload. Some things were damaged, some broken, but all in all, nothing irreplaceable lost. I had to split the delivery between an apartment and a storage facility as my place here would not accommodate all my artwork or studio gear. Hopefully this will change next year. I’m happy I got through it without a stroke.
A month into being a resident, I am still waiting on a key for my mailbox and the post office just doesn’t seem to know why it’s taking so long. I am having to pick up mail at the post office, which has also not gone well. I need documents from NY to move my LLC to New Mexico, and New York just can’t seem to respond. It took three trips to the DMV to obtain my license and plates. Bureaucracy is a bitch! These people talk fast, treat you like a three year-old, and don’t want to waste time listening to you.
But I am here, alive, settled in, have my books and artwork on the walls, and have staked out a shaded parking place in the complex parking lot. It is taking some adjusting getting used to the loss of privacy compared to my place in NY, and the city noise. But it soon becomes unnoticed background.
The biggest adjustment is actually retiring. It’s a bit hard to keep track of what day of the week it is. I find myself asking “what do we do today?” I have miraculously already landed a gig to place a selection of my artwork in a new restaurant here. A door opening to start building that network and make those friends for my support system. And I have mounted a map of the state on the wall where I am plotting out my travel plans and explorations. Nothing like new territory and unseen places to spark the creativity.
I am becoming a New Mexican. Eating green chili burgers and learning how to pronounce some new vocabulary. I am excited to watch the change of seasons, to find those favorite camping spots and vistas and overlooks. I am anxious to learn more of the history, culture, and flavor of this part of our country. It is new, and different, and beautiful in so many ways.
We are too often afraid of change, but you have to change to live.
I speak of the elder of my two sisters. Born in 1944 to Hazel and Winfred, she was premature and was placed in an incubator as was the practice. But, as a result of too much oxygen, she developed cerebral palsy and near total blindness. I was born five years later. Our father, knowing he was dying of lung cancer, committed suicide leaving my mother with four very young children. She eventually remarried.
My earliest memories of Gwyn were of her reading Braille pages with her fingers, her strange glasses with one very thick lens on one side and how she had to place her face close to the page to read a book. I remember her broken gait when she walked. I also remember her sitting on the floor with a cat in her lap. She loved to sit in the swing under the shade of the large privet hedge in the summer and read. She was a voracious reader despite her very limited sight.
My mother had three more children. I was the last. She was an unhappy, angry person, who treated her depression with alcohol and cigarettes and tried to hold it together. But Gwyn was often the target of her misery, simply because she could not get away from her when she was young. My mother’s abuse was simple meanness and humiliation, verbal and sometimes physical. I’ve seen my mother yank hard at Gwyn’s hair when combing it. Gwyn had thick wavy hair. And my mother was harsh with the comb. We other siblings had the mobility to escape to parts unknown.
Gwyn became a young woman of courage and faith. She joined the church and the choir. She loved to sing. She studied hard and went to public schools, staying at the top of her class. She learned to ride the bus and use a cane and find her own life and way. She received a four-year academic scholarship to Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, staying on the Dean’s List, graduating magna cum laude and receiving the Key Man Award (something like valedictorian) and the Oglethorpe Cup.
In the following years she would obtain a PhD, marry, and raise two children. She would work as a Home Teacher for the Blind in Atlanta. She told me stories of working in the worst neighborhoods, helping blind individuals, living on assistance, to learn how to take care of themselves. How to cook meals, buy groceries, do everyday tasks without sight. She told me of bus drivers warning her not to walk in the neighborhoods where her clients lived. She mentioned hearing guns shots before. She told me of going to a blind woman’s home and finding her locked out sitting on her porch in tears. My sister calmed the woman, determined that there was an opportune window on the side of the house, and the two of them working together boosted my sister up and through the window where she managed to find her way to the front door and open it. I can only imagine the number of lives she changed while caring for those who needed her knowledge and kindness.
As many families do, we scattered to distant locations. Me to New England, our brother to Florida, then North Carolina. My other sister to Texas. Gwyn went on to work for the CDC in Washington, D.C., then back to Georgia.
I believe what kept Gwyn going, achieving, moving forward, always doing her best though those years, was her faith and her stubbornness. She was a beautiful soul with a body that fought her all her life, yet she lived her life as though anything could be overcome. She clung hard to her faith. And gave constantly of her time to others. She had severe arthritis and osteoporosis as she got older. She had hips and shoulders replaced. Even when she was unable to walk, she still sat and crocheted Afghans and blankets for children in the hospital so they would have something of their own to hold close. She made hundreds.
When I mentioned her stubbornness, I mean to say that she was determined. You didn’t tell Gwyn she couldn’t do that. She would most certainly prove you wrong. She had a childhood she had to escape out of necessity and turned it into a life as full and accomplished as any.
But her faith was what gave her the courage. I believe it is her faith that protected her as she walked the streets of Atlanta. It was her faith that guided her and gave her a pathway out of her darkness. It was her faith that brought her back from the edge of death on numerous occasions in the past several years.
Gwyn passed away on March 19th. It would have been our brother’s birthday, but he passed a few years ago.
She was special. She was a treasure. She was an amazing woman.
Bill passed away this week. It wasn’t Covid. It was his time. But it was far more than that. It was sorrowful to lose Bill. But it was a relief as well.
Bill was the father of my closest friend. He was 95. I have known Bill as long as I have known his son, since 1978. Bill welcomed me and treated me as extended family at many a holiday function.
He was a kind man but a reserved man. A man of strong beliefs. A man of discipline, and routine, and expectations. He was a former Merchant Marine and proud of his service. Like many men of his age and background, he had a strong work ethic. He was proud of his family. He lived the life expected of a man who grew up though the war years and the cold war and all the stereotypes of a typical American family in New England. He was frugal, reserved, not extravagant. His yard was neat and his driveway was swept. He saved his money. They were comfortable, he and his wife.
Then his wife began to decline, dementia. Requiring assisted living. And as might be expected, Bill’s aging body became frail and he followed his wife into a facility. Before this was necessary, they had to sell their home and most of the contents. Things that they had lived their lives with for years, sold for pennies. Bill was meticulous about his tools and proud of his knowledge of repairs to most anything, a man who loved his mechanics, and his tools were high quality, and organized with precision. I know how men value their tools. Many that I have, I have had since the 60s. He told me, when I visited as they prepared for the sale, “if there is anything here that you want, just take it.” As I looked at this beautiful collection of tools of all sorts, I picked up a red case containing a Starrett caliper set. This is a fine machinist’s measuring tool. I turned to Bill and said, “I would love to have this.” And he said, “it’s yours.” Bill will forever be attached to that tool when I reach for it. When I saw him last, it was the last Christmas that his wife was alive. He gave me a shiny silver dollar.
The reason I write this is because Bill died after such a long suffering, that robbed him of his savings, his dignity, his happiness, his last years of life. The cost of assisted living is enough to bankrupt most elderly people. Having lost his home, his wife, his mobility, he was naturally an unhappy man. Watching his savings disappear at the rate of thousands of dollars a week. In pain, needing assistance to perform simple tasks like using the bathroom. He became a typical, I expect, complaining patient who soon became the man who cried wolf. He would ring for assistance with a slow or even no response. When they wouldn’t respond, his rings would become more frequent and eventually someone would respond. But he became the “annoying old guy in 5B”. It breaks my heart to think how a man who is so miserable, in pain, both physically and emotionally, has no prospect of anything getting better, is responded to by people who do not recognize his pain. Only that he is ringing again.
Bill eventually fell for the third time while trying to get himself to the bathroom, splitting his head on the edge of the sink the first time, and breaking both his shoulder and his hip the third time. Bill was finally allowed by the medical establishment to pass away as he had requested of his son weeks before and find an end to his suffering.
Medical care in America has become a mine field of decision making based on monetary concerns, legal threats, insurance hounds, liability, and stockholders. Too many decisions involve unnecessary tests to keep billables up, drugs prescribed without need, poorly trained or overworked professionals who battle not only the illnesses but the politics.
There was no need for Bill to suffer the way he did his last years. Bill could have received more compassionate care. There was no need for Bill to lose so much of what he worked for and saved all his life. The cost of health care is out of control. There was no need for Bill to spend days in pain while hospital liability was weighed more heavily than a man’s suffering and his own desires to simply let him die.
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