Category: The Daily Post

a glimpse of life…passing by (Daily Post Entry: Blur)

Challenges, Daily Post, Mexico, Nature, Photographs, photography, The Daily Post, This and That, travel

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/out-of-focus/”>Focus</a&gt;

village blur a glimpse of life.JPG

above is a shot taken years ago, in early 1980s, through the window of a van traveling at high speed along a rural road in Yucatan, near the archeological site of Chichén Itza, Mexico.     At first glance it is just a ruined photo, which is often what an amateur photographer gets when shooting on-the-fly from a grimy vehicle window, speeding down a road.    However, on close inspection, the camera apparently focused automatically on the village scene in a clearing beyond the surrounding jungle and captured this candid scene.   (Cropped close-up image below.)   Image by Robert Dreger, ©Sometimes 2017.

village-blur-a-glimpse-of-life-e1497725886780 CROP

 

 

Recollections of childhood (Daily Post)

Blogging University, Daily Post, Sometimes, The Daily Post, This and That, Writing and Blogging

Childhood Revisited

The earliest memories that I recall are when I was about five years old. I don’t know if that is early, late, or average for “first” memories, but when searching back that’s as far as my memory seems to go. Sometimes what we think of as memories are actually recollections from hearing about photographs in detail. We hear who is in the picture, what they are saying and doing sometimes…our reaction: did we laugh? cry? make an adorable face? What about the little bonnet…who sewed that? was it the person in the photo? All of these details may connect themselves to a picture in an album, recounted countless times within our hearing.

Remember the photo of Dad sitting on that ubiquitous pony, wearing baby knickers and a natty cap, holding a flag or whirly-gig in his little hand? I’ll bet each of us can fill in details…was he thrilled/apprehensive/frightened at the whole photographic event? Grandma, or someone else (maybe Dad himself) recalls each historic detail in rote fashion, having learned the story ages previously.

There’s a photo of Me in a small pool. I am not happy…in fact the little girl Me was screaming. Scared? Cold? Temper? Did the other little kid in the picture smack Me with that little pail he is holding?

I especially like the one of Me dressed like a private eye, leaning on a tree chatting on a little telephone.

OK, that’s enough of that!

In view of the fact that the Little Me is a baby,two or three…maybe four…in those pictures, obviously none of these are actual memories. They are based on information gleaned from someone else’s memory…recollections of tales of impressions of memories–that have evolved into compilations of perceptions of…sometimes numerous…people.

As for actual memories of very early age, I have managed to think up a handful of ideas that may or may not be memories.

One that I think is genuine is a circumstance that I have written about previously in this blog. I was barely five years old, and my Dad and I were enroute to California on a train. It was probably 1939. My mother and little brother were already in California.

The train stopped in the middle of the Arizona desert for some reason, and my Dad and other men on the train got off to have a smoke. Some ladies on the train looked after Little Me. I was terrified that the train would leave Dad in the desert. To this day I can summon the memory of the fear and terror of Little Me, and visions of the desert and mountainous terrain, and sand…cactus…more sand… still come unbidden when I think about my Dad, trains, California, or the Desert.

That is a memory…at least I’m 99% sure of it, because there is no other source of recollection for me. I was on the train, alone for all intents and purposes (the ladies not withstanding) and I’m sure my Dad did not worry about the situation since he had not abandoned me, and knew I was perfectly safe.

Another memory is of that same period, 1939, arriving at my grandparents’ home in Long Beach. I remember the small house with screened porch, and circular driveway lined with orange trees–with oranges. The reason I think that is a real memory is because it was an impression that I had that no one else apparently shared…at least they never mentioned it. Occasionally an image pops into my head.

Escaping the Computer

The Daily Post, This and That, Writing and Blogging

[The Daily Post.  Theme: Bloggers, Unplugged]

 

The sticking, tearing sound is ME, being ripped away from my computer.   Theoretically I sit here, in my chair at my keyboard, from the time I get up in the morning — having first started the coffee, fed the cats, and grabbed something for breakfast — for two hours.

In theory.  Actually sometimes I am compelled to sit here until noon…even beyond if there is a lot of feedback traffic on my blog.    My routine is that I check my email, handle any book orders, check several blogs, reply to messages, then write a new blog post.

I know this sounds compulsive and/or obsessive, but hey…I can feel the heads nodding and the clicks of the keyboards out there…I’m preaching to the choir here!

Sometimes I am not literally writing, but working on photos, trying to get my printer to cooperate, or reading other blogs.  I do a LOT of that.   I have about 350 followers and I follow as many blogs as well.   That means that if I am following — I have explored the blog to some practical extent.  I have some at-least-fuzzy recognition of it when I see the blogger’s handle or title of their blog.

I almost without exception comment on the site, even if I get into it and look around and find that I have no relationship with the content.  Once in a great while there is something that I don’t like.   In these cases I do not follow these blogs in the first place.

Gosh!  Every other word in this is I…. I did this, and I did that…what was that old rule that says not to use “I” except very sparingly?   You know, that’s the rule from long ago that was emblazoned on our brains when we were learning to write proper formal letters.    My typing finger DOES twitch when I use the first person, so at least there is some recognition of the rule.   But this particular piece I am writing here is based on the premise that since the topic and theme of the prompt is to chat about what WE personally think and do….well then, it’s OK.

So how do I ever get anything else done? Besides writing, that is?   Well, as I have said elsewhere Writing is now my TOP PRIORITY.   However, there are still “other things” that have to be done.   My son and I have an unwritten agreement about certain household chores…sometimes it is a sort of “stand off” situation where a specific task is not on the Job Description of either of us.

An example of things that I MUST DO…came up over the holiday.   My second daughter’s birthday is November 25, which is always either on or near Thanksgiving Day.      I wanted to make something special for her, so I forced myself to get off the computer chair and onto the “beading chair.”  I have millions of beads…glass, wooden, crystal, turquoise, stone…probably enough beads to reach from here to Chicago if laid end to end along the highway.     (I know, that’s ridiculous–but hey, please work with me here!)

Let’s cut to the chase.   I ran out of procrastinating-time, and dragged out my boxes of beads, selected some nice turquoise stones and black crystals, and created a nice necklace.   Then I helped my son make his sister a necklace himself, so that was a good use (I think) of the time spent watching CNN.

So that is how I take a break from the computer–kicking and screaming being dragged away by Priority Tasks.     There will be a lot of that this next month…another Birthday Daughter next week.   Then a bevy of granddaughters and their daughters who will get holiday gifts hand-crafted By Me.   And of course they all have husbands and sons, but that’s another issue entirely…

Everybody gets a crocheted scarf, too.  And a hat sometimes…although my hats always turn out weird and funky.

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/bloggers-unplugged/”>Bloggers, Unplugged</a>

A Gift for Baby

Poetry, The Daily Post, This and That, Writing101

 

               A GIFT FOR BABY

Hey little baby, what do you say?
I’ve brought you a gift for your birthday.
I think it will be your favorite gift,
I know you will savor it as long as you have it.

Among the bears and baby dolls,
Rattles and things of lullabies,
This gift is perfect for chewing
and feels good to the gums.

This Book is the best gift of all.
With word sounds as nice as they feel.
More precious than other gift buys
That are poorly regarded and soon discarded.

No hard decisions came to mind when
deciding what present to buy.
Price was no object yet the gift that I chose
is not pricey…but priceless.

Literacy the goal–many years hence–
tactile and visual treats for the senses.
All the prerequisites in content and theme
are tactful, thoughtful, and tasty.

©Sometimes2015

Literate for a Day

 

What My Future Holds, In Six Words

Sometimes, The Daily Post, This and That, Writing and Blogging

[Daily Post Prompt for today:    Write a six-word story about what you think the future holds for you, and then expand on it in a post.]

Writing at last, I’m happy now.

Expansion on the title story:  “WHAT MY FUTURE HOLDS”

That short story, consisting of SIX WORDS, is self-explanatory–even if it does sound a bit like an epiteth that might be chiseled into my tombstone, IF I intended to have one.    But this tiny story, consisting of just six words, a comma, and a period…is anything but maudlin, rather a declaration of a specific stage and purpose in life.

Writing has been to me like a figurative carrot-on-a-stick , promising an eventual reward for years-served.    Although I have been writing all of my life, sometimes even getting paid for it, and have used writing skills in one form or another throughout my years as a news reporter, student, instructor, secretary, clerk, and so on…I always had the feeling that I was just biding my time waiting for the time when I could just Write.

All that time writing for “practical” purposes, I had a feeling of guilt…pressure and obligation to various pursuits which did not include Writing as I longed to do.

This all sounds terribly self-serving and contrite, and I confess that I would never be writing this post for a more general audience.  The people that I am aiming at are other Writers.  These–You are all Writers, real writers that live and breathe writing, and long to spend the most of their time at their keyboard–or with a pencil and paper.   No eye-rolling here…I firmly believe I am among kindred souls.

So what my future holds is…I hope…Writing.   I recently discovered poetry (again) and am absolutely in love with it!  I know that when I publish a post or a photograph, there are readers out there.  I’m not so vain as to believe that anyone waits anxiously every morning to see if I have produced something spectacular overnight.  Hardly.

But the thing about blogging in and with a community of other bloggers, is that everyone is in the same boat.   We write, and we want others to read our writing–but hey, if they don’t–well, it is Out There and available for Readers.

Once we hit the PUBLISH button, it is in the universe of myriad writers, our work there with the greatest writers who ever lived.  WHO IS THAT?  you ask?  Well, that is subjective of course.   One person’s Shakespeare is another’s Stephen King, or Dr. Suess.   There is no judgemental clicking of tongues when a physicist likes to read Mickey Spillane, or when a historian (like me) really, really enjoys reading Philippa Gregory’s version of the adventures of the English royalty.

I still have a LOT to write about.   Never at a loss for words, more build up inside my brain faster than it is possible to squeeze them out onto the computer screen.   So my future holds more of the same, but with a concentration and preferential option for the craft of Writing.   Obviously there is no time frame, my future could include twenty more years–or not.

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