Insane Earthlings

As a photographer, Dad preferred to shoot using natural light. This required setting the aperture wide open, slowing the shutter speed way down, and keeping a steady hand. It’s kind of how he lived his life: Eyes wide open and observing. Taking it all in at a leisurely pace. Using natural light was not the easiest way to take a picture, but the result was always more beautiful, more real, more life-like than an image made using a flash.   Dad understood that his job was that of a craftsman. He instinctively knew that capturing moments of real lives was important, not because of any high-brow ideas about art, but because EACH -   MOMENT -of - our –LIVES- Matter. I can’t count the number of times that someone has told me that my father took the best picture that had ever been made of them. Some days, people would call our house just to tell Dad how much they enjoyed one of his photographs in the paper that day. Dad would downplay his talent. He...

It’s the 6 th day of March and I’m feeling as gray as the sky outside my window. I’m sitting in my office and it’s hard to keep pretending like this is any other day. Especially with the rain tapping on the glass pane. Tapping and tapping a refrain of dreariness that won’t let me forget that my mother died two years ago today. One year ago, I gathered with my family at the columbarium where my mother’s ashes are resting in a nook that has her name engraved on its covering. We took comfort in the company of each other on that day, acknowledging that this was not an ordinary day. Ashes to ashes is the cycle of this temporal existence. And so, as all things pass, so too must this day. This day will pass. This day will die and take its gloominess with it. I welcome the birth of tomorrow, because it will not be remarkable in any way. The sun may rise to more gray skies, but it will rise.   I will let myself mourn the loss of my mother today. But tomorrow I ...

I knew where Dad kept the pistol. I was seven years old. His old reporter’s desk in the basement had some secrets. You know those old desks where the typewriter was hidden upside-down under a flip-up top. Simply fold back the top and as it disappeared down the back of the desk, a typewriter emerged from the front. It was like magic. The desk also had a secret writing tablet made of sturdy wood that could be pulled out to have your notes ready to type up the latest news story. Dad used to pull out that tablet so I could sit on it and watch him type. The desk had another secret. If you pulled one of the drawers way out, there was a hidden compartment at the very back. I knew what was kept in that compartment. It was a Smith and Wesson .22 caliber pistol. A revolver. It wasn’t ever loaded that I know of, but I would often take my grade school friends down to the basement and show it to them. We were not gun people. My father never hunted or showed any interest in shootin...