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I made this photo five years ago. At that time I had no heart problems that I knew of, at least. Come forward five years, I have five cardiologist; had a triple bypass eighteen months ago and two stents twelve months ago. Yet the problem keep on keeping on.

Ever since my bypass surgery, I have been plagued with severe (is there any other kind) angina. The stents were to stop that, they didn’t. In the past year I have had four heart caths searching for the problem. Until the one this last Thursday, they all showed nothing that the eyes looking could see. This last set of eyes were keener and looked in the right spot and found an 100% occlusion in a small branch off the RCA (Right Coronary Artery).

The only problem was that the hospital in which we were at did not have the correct tools to allow him access blockage. He was as frustrated as me and Susan.

So now we wait over the three day weekend to hear from another cardio surgeon and to get scheduled at the right hospital to have my pump a pumping correctly. In the meantime I rest close to my nitro and watch the clock tick…. Peace out…jw

“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” 
– Marc Riboud

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“When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to flicker in the sky
Through the mist of a memory you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh

In the still of the night once again I hold you tight
Though you’re gone, your love lives on when moonlight beams
And as long as my heart will beat, lover we’ll always meet
Here in my deep purple dreams
Here in my deep purple dreams”

  • The song was written by the composer and radio performer Peter De Rose in the early 1930s, and it became a standard when the lyricist Mitchell Parish added words to it in 1938. Parish was known for sweeping, romantic lyrics – some of his other compositions include “Stardust” and “Sophisticated Lady” – and he turned the song into a touching ballad. The song was recorded by a number of orchestras, including those led by Artie Shaw, Paul Whiteman, Guy Lombardo and Larry Clinton. In 1939, it was a #1 hit for Larry McClinton and His orchestra.

    Many popular vocalists also recorded it, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sammy Davis Jr. In the Rock Era, the song charted first when Billy Ward & His Dominoes took it to #20 US in 1957 (their last crossover Top 40 hit). Tempo and Stevens had by far the biggest hit with the song, but Donny & Marie Osmond returned it to the charts in 1976 when their version hit #14 in the US.

  • Nino was supposed to sing the second chorus by himself, but he “blanked out,” so April fed it to him line by line as the tape was rolling. A friend listening to the recording thought that April’s “narration” would make “Deep Purple” a #1 record… but not Nino, initially – April took two months to convince him that the narration was OK. Ertegun didn’t like “Deep Purple,” either – he mothballed it and released “Paradise” instead. “Paradise” sank without a trace.

    Nino demanded that Ertegun release “Deep Purple” as a single or release them from their contract from Atlantic Records. Ertegun agreed to the single release, stating that if “Deep Purple” didn’t become a hit, his and April’s contract would be terminated.

  • When this song was released as a single, Ahmet Ertegun had so little faith in it that he thought the B-side, “I’ve Been Carrying a Torch for You so Long That I Burned a Great Big Hole in My Heart,” had a better chance of becoming a hit.
  • Won the Grammy for Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1963.

 

I ask for prayers for myself (and my wife) tomorrow morning. I go in for another heart cath in hopes of finding the cause for my lingering angina (18 months post triple bypass). Been a rough road to recovery and am confident I have the right cardiologist for the job.

PEACE OUT ††† jw

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange

 

 

I had always converted this image to a black and white. It just seemed to lend itself to that. It just invoked a sad look which is how this old tree made me feel.

An acquaintance of mine stopped me and told of how she always liked this image, it made her happy. I had to inquire as to how she felt happiness looking at an image of a dead tree. She told me that she had grown up in the town (Coyonosa TX) near the tree. There once was an old store next to the then living green leafed tree, offering perhaps the best nearby shade. Her and friends would buy their iced down Nehi’s and a box of Sugar Baby’s. Rest in the life that simply could not be any better!

Drink ’em if you got ’em, in the shade if you can.

 

“Photographs open doors to the past but they also allow a look into the future”                                                                                                                                  Sally Mann

Ah the fun that an old man can have with the simplicity of a small piece of an already beautiful thing. How light reflects, creates shadows, small valleys and rises. The color, already vibrant, can be made to seem to make a solid into transparency. All with the simplicity of a bloom and a small maglite. Add the fact that in can all be done within the comfort of eighty degrees when it’s 101 outside.

It somehow seems a bit of cheating the mindful practice, using artificial means to achieve what used to take hours of waiting until the natural light became what you needed or wanted. I long to be of the nature like Ansel Adams. I had read of the lengths that Mr Adams would go (or wait) for the images to form to his liking. But then I read his description of the making of his haunting image: Moonrise over Espanola.

                                                                                               ©Ansel Adams

From Ansel Adams, in Examples:

“We were sailing southward along the highway not far from Espanola(NM) when I glanced to the left and saw an extraordinary situation—an inevitable photograph! I almost ditched the car and rushed to set up my 8×10 camera. I was yelling to my companions to bring me things from the car as I struggled to change components on my Cooke Triple-Convertible lens. I had a clear visualization of the image I wanted, but when the Wratten No. 15 (G) filter and the film holder were in place, I could not find my Weston exposure meter! The situation was desperate: the low sun was trailing the edge of the clouds in the west, and shadow would soon dim the white crosses.

I was at a loss with the subject luminance values, and I confess I was thinking about bracketing several exposures, when I suddenly realized that I knew the luminance of the moon—250 c/ft2. Using the Exposure Formula, I placed this luminance on Zone VII; 60 c/ft2 therefore fell on Zone V, and the exposure with the filter factor o 3x was about 1 second at f/32 with ASA 64 film. I had no idea what the value of the foreground was, but I hoped it barely fell within the exposure scale. Not wanting to take chances, I indicated a water-bath development for the negative.”

Realizing as I released the shutter that I had an unusual photograph which deserved a duplicate negative, I swiftly reversed the film holder, but as I pulled the darkslide the sunlight passed from the white crosses; I was a few seconds too late!”

Please do not think that I am comparing myself to “Da Man”, other than we both use the same tool (of sorts), the likeness fades like an under-fixed print…..Peace Out †††

“WE BUILD TOO MANY BRIDGES AND NOT ENOUGH WALLS.”   Isaac Newton….. 

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Ah yes, two for the price of one. All for the sake of the sweet nectar of the Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) of Northeast Texas. We had a poor showing, or I didn’t happen to look in the right place, of the Red Clover this year. Could be that I was not out a lot.

Still battling heart issues from my open heart surgery, along with other “ticker” procedures, tests and ordeals. Youth is always wasted on the young and I was no exception. It just added insult to injury when the doc used those words that no young man of seventy wants to hear. First he called me “Mr. Work” and drove the nail in deeper by adding, “AT YOUR AGE, healing is just going to take a little longer.” I don’t believe he truly meant little as a short period of time. Little had to be converted to dog years.

“WE BUILD TOO MANY BRIDGES AND NOT ENOUGH WALLS.”   Isaac Newton

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Oh how we say time flies, but then there are those days that just seem to stay frozen in time. It was just about two years ago that I had to put my good friend down. I still feel a little lost without him. I miss his fierce protection of all under my roof. I miss his smell. Probably only true dog folks can follow that, but every dog I have owned had their own distinctive smell along with their own pedigree of personality:

Samantha (the sweetest), Pork Chop (the happiest), Midnight (a troubled black lab I could never quite follow), Clovis (the only dog we ever paid for, unconditionally the smartest and who was so tight with his pack) and then comes Grace (our blue-eyed deaf rescue found abandoned at a West Texas railroad station and who is now my only four-legged shadow).

I have loved each of them greatly and differently. Each one has brought me their lifetime of joy and buckets of tears upon leaving. Clovis was my poser dog. Whenever I got out my Nikon, he was quick to notice and quicker to upstage anyone and anything.

Since I lost Clovis, I have not, with any degree of seriousness, picked up a camera. He just took that out of me. I have tried to shoot at some images, but every time I pick up a camera I hear his tags a jingle, a bump on the leg wanting to know where he should pose. My heart goes adrift and the camera back in the backpack.

I am a sentimental old coot and damn but I miss them all and can pull up many a tearful memory. I have to ask, how can a dog steal my vision? Hey, if they can steal your heart, vision is pretty much a simple task.

Get busy living or get busy dying!…”Red”…aka S. King

Peace Out,   jasL

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Red Rover Red Rover, let Butterfly come over. Year, I know pretty cheesy. Everyone around here gets kind of excited over this red clover that blooms for a short two weeks or so. I got to admit, it is a pretty plant with a real draw to the flying insects.

Enjoy the eye feast…...RESIST HATE……en theos †††……..jasL

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Growing up in West Texas I would be more inclined to find a Horned Toad (“Horny Toad”) playing the part of a road pancake. The road killed Horny Toad would always pull at my heart. I don’t so much find that feeling with the amphibians here in Northeast TX. Perhaps it is my age or the sheer quantity of them that breeds my indifference. Whereas my dog Grace loves to find and nose around the toads that sit under our backyard lights. Grace will take the time to actually search them out. Where the horny toads were avoided by dogs, the horned toad was an unavoidable attraction for little boys.

I found this frog/toad shortly after a recent rain. After being flattened several times by passing autos, the sun then worked on drying him out and into his fossil appearing state.

Peace out….monos en theos ††† jasL

 

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It seems a bit of an oxymoron have to work so hard at taking it easy, but I am having to do just that. Trying to find those thermals to drift upon. That downhill part of the hike, but any hiker will tell you the downhill portions are the killers.

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” Marie Curie

Don’t get me started on the search for the gift, that can be a real uphill hike.

Peace out….monos en theos ††† jasL

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Following my recent panic attack, that was probably one of the worst I have ever had, I am working hard to get that peaceful easy feeling. To rest in the comfort of me.

I had someone email me a great story about panic attacks that gave me a chuckle so here is a share:

A man once had panic attacks, but eventually, with much struggle, stopped having them. Years later, he ended up in a hospital, pain in his chest, and his doctor comes in to explain that he had had a heart attack. The man says, “Thanks God! I thought the panic attacks had come back!”

You just gotta  find a way to find comfort in your discomfort!

monos en theos ††† jasL