Snow Day in the Darkroom

Let’s get this out in the open. I did not run today. And it wasn’t because of the snow. I didn’t run indoors or outdoors. Frankly my knee needs a break. I’ve iced it after my last two runs and I iced it last night even though I didn’t run yesterday. I’ll ice it again tonight for good measure. No doubt I’ll keep icing it for a while; it does feel somewhat better. I need it to be good, though, if I am to conquer the races I have coming up in the next few months.

Some of the snapshots are pretty artistic.

So I spent a portion of my day off sorting some more of those mystery vacation slides. I perused about a third of the collection and scanned 49 I found interesting for whatever reason. That brings me to 55 scans. OK, first, the perusing is laborious. It’s a strain hunching over a four-foot light table in the back of the old darkroom at The Register-Mail. Arranging rows of slides on the table and bending close with a magnifying loupe to details and sharpness to determine if a particular slide is worthy. Not that I’m some magazine photo editor, scrutinizing fine art for the best of the best for publication. I’m just looking for pictures that tell a little bit of a story, show a piece of everyday life during somebody’s vacations.

I learned a few things today. The slides span at least a dozen years. I’ve found dates from 1958 to 1970. Many are not dated and that’s disappointing. Those that bear a date show the month and year. Now, those of you familiar with slide processing will know that the imprint of the date is when the film was processed, so Oct 63 doesn’t necessarily mean the photos were made in October. They could be from months before, depending on how prompt this family was in having their vacation photos processed. But it gives us an idea.

Pinnacle Peak Patio in Scottsdale, Arizona. Famous for its cowboy steaks
and ranch chili. Today it's also a microbrewery. Very cool.

Second, I discovered that while many of the slides are from days spent at various resort cabins in Minnesota, the family also headed to the Southwest. My brief research (I know, I avowed this would not be a research project) leads me to surmise they were in the vicinity of Scottsdale, Arizona. That’s the home of the Pinnacle PeakPatio. Seams the steakhouse and microbrewery has been around in some form since 1957. Google Images Search helped me figure out one photo was of the big sundial in Carefree, Arizona. How cool is that?

Finally, let me say it is amazing how you can blend old school and new technology. I sorted slides on a light table, just like we used to do when selecting images from negatives. At first we made prints. Then, as we transitioned into electronic publishing, we scanned those negatives to save the images digitally and import them into Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign pages. Today I was scanning 50-year-old slides and saving digital files to upload for my blog. Yeah, nothing new. Been doing it for a while. But spending two hours of my afternoon on a snowy, sloppy day, sorting, scanning, recording what information was available and even cleaning up a few of the speckled images was an experience. You should try it sometime.

Carefree, Arizona, sundial. Thank you, Google.

Today's Stats

Temp: 30s degrees F

Distance: 0 miles

Weekly Total: 0 miles

Treasure: Nada.

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

A Little Bit More – Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

Comfortable – John Mayer

Tryin’ To Get TheFeeling Again – Barry Manilow

Axel F – Harold Faltermeyer

Dear Prudence – The Beatles

Hide In Your Shell - Supertramp

Gold – John Stewart

Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones

Do What You Do – Jermaine Jackson

Hard Habit to Break - Chicago

Devil Woman – Cliff Richard

What Am I DoingHangin’ Round? – The Monkees

American Pie – Don McLean

Raising the Cross – John Debney (The Passion of the Christ soundtrack)

Hit Somebody (HockeySong) – Warren Zevon (Funny note: Paul Shaffer shouts the "hit somebody" tagline in this "Letterman" show clip; Letterman himself, a friend of Zevon's, shouts the line for the official recording.)

On the Dark Side – John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band

Must be a bizarre ghost image - otherwise that fellow's britches are ablaze!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." –Gene Fowler, American journalist, author and dramatist, 1890-1960

Wonderful summers at Toad Lake in the 1950s.
From left: Maude, Helen, Veronica and Verne.

Yeah, that about sums it up. Actually, writing is easy. Open your mind and let it dump. Story creation is the hard part. You know, where you’re given an idea, a germ, and told, make something of this. That’s a hell of an exercise. I’ve fallen into that little trap by accident or fate. I’ve lamented my inability to conjure storyline on my own, so my dad has shared his ideas. He’s particularly fond of British mysteries (thank you, BBC) so he once suggested I task a Boy Scout troop on an outdoor adventure with solving the mysterious death of their scoutmaster. Maybe I’ll tackle that one someday.

My dad gave me another germ Monday night at dinner. No, not from his cough. He offered up a “find” of his own, proudly noting that he didn’t even have to run to stumble upon this little treasure trove. You see, Dad’s an old photography buff. He’s got loads of photos and slides stored in envelopes and boxes. And a couple years ago he was in need of another box for some slides. Well, with the transition to digital photography, such archaic equipment is hard to come by. So Dad asked a friend to be on the lookout for one in his frequent trips to area auctions.

Verne by the shore of Toad Lake.

Long story short, this acquaintance returned one day with said box. And it was full of slides from the previous owner’s summer vacations to one or more resorts in the vicinity of Toad Lake, Minnesota, in the late 1950s. (I chose that link for info about Toad Lake because it was from a site called ePodunk - hilarious.) Now, I think all Dad was looking for was a mention of this collection of vacation slides, which resembled those taken by his father, my granddad, on vacations during the same era: family among scenery, the cabins where they stayed, the dinner table, the women preparing dinner, etc.

Well, this could easily become a grand research project into the life of an unknown family. But honestly, fear of research is probably the single greatest reason I didn’t go on to graduate school. Grad school means research. No thanks. I appreciate research and its revelations. I wonder respectfully at the people who do it and I think they’re amazingly dedicated folks. But I hate to do it.

So now I have this expectation to live up to. Dad’s given me this idea and I’m sure he expects great things. Maybe that’s the son talking. Maybe our parents don’t always expect too much from us. We just think they expect more than they really do. They may hope for us and they may expect us to reach certain heights. But I think we set the bar ourselves, based on where we think they want it.

Betty, left, and Maude dish up dinner. Looks
like mashed potatoes and barbecue chicken.

Well, I’m throwing out the bar and just seeing what happens. I make no guarantees and have no idea what I’m gonna do with this. Dad already did some basic research based on names of resorts and places he saw on signs in some of the slides. We have:

* Tchibegumigo – House of the Dead (ref. Dead Lake Township)

* Sweet Tooth Bar

* Duggers Resort

* Rogers Resort

* Ostrem Resort

* BambiResort

* Toad Lake, Minnesota

Must be nice to be retired. Guess that’s when I’ll head back to grad school.

Today's Stats (Sunday, Feb. 24)

Temp: 37 degrees F

Distance: 5 miles

Weekly Total: 11.9 miles

Treasure: Nada

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Hear You Me – Jimmy Eat World

Never Surrender – Corey Hart

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) – John Parr

Sometimes a Fantasy – Billy Joel

Downbound Train – Bruce Springsteen

Every 1’s a Winner – Hot Chocolate

Sweet Love – Commodores

State of Shock – Jacksons (with Mick Jagger)

Mama Can’t Buy Me Love – Elton John

Disease – Matchbox Twenty

Burning Down the House – Talking Heads

Missing You – John Waite

New Way to Fly – Garth Brooks

I think that's Betty in a boat. Silly, you have to push off.

Today's Stats (Wednesday, Feb. 20)

Temp: 17 degrees F outside

Distance: 3.5 miles

Weekly Total: 6.9 miles

Treasure: Nada

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Looking For The Next Best Thing – Warren Zevon

An Innocent Man – Billy Joel

Broken (New Version) - Lifehouse

Never Gonna Give YouUp – Rick Astley (Linked because everybody loves this one!)

Ya Ya – Lee Dorsey

Be Still - Storyside: B

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Anthology 3) – The Beatles

Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) – Quindon Tarver

More Than This – Roxy Music

Post VD Epiphany

That’s VD as in Valentine’s Day. Yeah, this has been percolating for some time. Just like love, eh? Actually I’ve got not much else in my head. Not that it’s full of love – I’ve unofficially given up on that pursuit for a while. But I don’t have another topic besides the plastic table number I found today, and that won’t take long to address; I’ll leave that to the addendum. Er, post script. Whatever.

Brittany Murphy in "Love and Other Disasters"

I was, however, struck with a follow-up to last week’s day-before-Valentine’s Day blog. I suck at debate. I can’t stand to lose – a game, an argument, anything – but a movie (another rom-com, go figure) and a late-discovered “After Hours” feature from Cracked.com entitled “Why Romantic Comedies Are Secretly Bad for You”  had me reconsidering my philosophy.

To preface by means of backtracking, I admit again my susceptibility to romantic comedy story lines. Maybe what I really need is time travel. Just let me skip ahead to the happy ending (of the movie; which really is the happy beginning of a new life, right?).

So, my epiphany, if it was that, came during a good portion of “Love and Other Disasters,” a 2006 film set in London. You can look up the plot and cast and all that on IMDB. Let me jump to the point. It’s contained in this exchange that essentially contradicts my personal theory and conventional wisdom.

Emily 'Jacks' Jackson: So stop living your life like you're in some kind of a movie. Peter Simon: Excuse me? Emily 'Jacks' Jackson: Stop trying to cast your true love instead of just meeting him. Peter Simon: When I meet him, I'll know. Emily 'Jacks' Jackson: I'm not so sure. Love isn't always a lightning bolt, you know? Maybe sometimes it's just a choice. Peter Simon: Well, that's easy for you to say! You're flying to Argentina to meet the love of your life! Emily 'Jacks' Jackson: That's just it. I don't know that Paolo's the love of my life, but I've decided to give him the chance to be. Maybe true love is a decision. You know, a decision to take a chance with somebody, to give to somebody without worrying whether they'll give anything back, or if they're gonna hurt you, or if they really are the one. Maybe love isn't something that happens to you. Maybe it's something you have to choose. Peter Simon: So what do I do? Emily 'Jacks' Jackson: Well, you could start by putting all of those fantasies of true love where they belong, into your work of fiction.

Emily, of course, is the one with the wisdom here. Always the woman, right?

A Match date once told me romantic feelings are just that. Feelings just happen and you can’t force ’em. If it were a choice to be romantically inclined, well… As it is, we’ve become really good friends. And while she’s shared a lot of wisdom with me and put me in my place a few times when I’ve been an idiot, and I mostly agree with her assessment of romance, I find a certain rationale in Emily’s words.

I mean, obviously there has to be an attraction and desire for the possibility of a relationship with person X. But there is some choice involved. The choice comes in willingness to take risks. For me the risk has always been in just asking a girl out or expressing my feelings to her. Dad always used to say, “The worst she can do is say no.”

Duh. Hello, Dad? That’s a pretty crappy outcome in my book. I remember calling a girl on the phone in about eighth grade and asking her out. She said no. I was crushed. I didn’t even get a lame excuse – “I have to wash my hair” – just a flat no. Yeah, that was rough. I know, I’m not special that way. It’s happened to everyone at some point, I expect.

Anyway, I’ve taken that risk more in the nearly two years since my separation and eventual divorce a year ago than I did in my pre-marriage days. The emotional attraction that occurred in some of those instances was not choice. But taking the risk of asking to begin with, that’s choice.  

That’s enough about choice and chance. There’s also this bit of brilliance from “Love and Other Disasters,” which, when you get past the hilarity, is really spot on.

Therapist: Relationships are best measured by farting. Peter Simon: Excuse me? Therapist: The stages of a relationship can be defined by farting. Stage one is the conspiracy of silence. This is a fantasy period where both parties pretend that they have no bodily waste. This illusion is very quickly shattered by that first shy, "Ooh, did you fart," followed by the sheepish admission of truth. This heralds a period of deeper intimacy. A period I like to call the "Fart Honeymoon", where both parties find each other's gas just the cutest thing in the world. But, of course, no honeymoon can last forever. And so we reach the critical fork in the fart. Either the fart loses its power to amuse and embarrass thereby signifying true love, or else it begins to annoy and disgust, thereby symbolizing all that is blocked and rancid in the formerly beloved. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Ah, true love: that point in a relationship when bodily functions don’t really faze you or your mate.

p.s. I promised something on No. 56. I’ve no idea how a table number from Hardee’s ended up in the gutter on Ferris Street near Cherry Street. Who walks out of the restaurant with that? Why? I’m tempted to keep it, just because it’s odd. But I think I’ll return it. Maybe they’ll give me a free burger. (Which of course will require a good, long run.)

Today's Stats

Temp: 46 degrees F

Distance: 3.4 miles

Weekly Total: 3.4 miles

Treasure: 21 cans; table number from Hardee’s (56)

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Lead Me Into theNight – The Cardigans

Burning Down the House – Talking Heads

D.W. Washburn – The Monkees

A Rush of Blood tothe Head - Coldplay

Someday – Rob Thomas

If You Could Read My Mind – Gordon Lightfoot

Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles

Could I Be You – Matchbox Twenty

On the Dark Side – John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You – The Monkees

Saturday's Stats (Feb. 16)

Temp: 20 degrees F

Distance: 3.38 miles

Weekly Total: 11.76 miles

Treasure: 12 cans; passed up two knit gloves

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Ordinary World – Duran Duran

It Could Have Been Me – The Call

Sister Golden Hair - America

Tell Her About It – Billy Joel

New Moon On Monday – Duran Duran

Dancing Shoes – Nigel Olsson

Heaven Must BeMissing An Angel - Tavares

Tremble For My Beloved – Collective Soul

Disco Duck – Rick Dees

Children’s Crusade - Sting