Another try at using my DSC-F828. I also made the link picture file size smaller. Clicking on the photo will no longer send you into a long wait. The picture will still open an overlay and will not take you away from this blog.
I will be packing tommorrow and my flight leaves early – too early – Monday morning. Mississippi here we come.
When I purchased my townhouse in the very early 80,s the association property was bordered by a pig farm, some houses, and a small school stood across the street. Two large apartment complexes later we are now gated in. I say we are gated in because the fencing does not keep anyone out it just makes it harder to get out. Our neighboorhood has gone from a quite one of mixed ethnicity one to a sometimes violent one – with a lot of racial tension. We have been there and done that when talking about the bloods and the crips. We have seen a mother riddled with bullets laying in the main drive three doors down, numerous childern jumped into gangs, and the getto bird (helicopter) flying overhead everynight. We have answered our door to find a youngman pointing a gun at our faces.
Many of the long time neighboors moved, I believe they called it white flight. The unfortunate few who could not afford to leave and those of us who refused to leave remained. We organized neighboorhood watches, we fought back, we finally figured out that the police were no help. We formed calling list chains. We held programs on bicycle safety to get the young children and their parents out so we could meet them. We held neighboorhood barbeques with free food and music. Did any of it work? I hope so.
The gangs have moved south. Younger couples have begun purchasing homes in our neighboorhood again. Yards are well kept now and every once in awhile you see a family sitting out in their front yard enjoying a nice night. It is looking up. We only hear gunshots every once in awhile instead of everynight. It took over ten years to get to where we are now. A nice quite mixed neighboorhood.
There is a new crowd of young people entering their teenage years. They are starting to get noisy, not normal teenage noise but the loud cussing slang violent verbage type of loud. I hope that this is not turning back again into the hell we all experienced. I am too old to fight the good fight again. To tired of it all. If it goes where I think we are heading I too will probably rent my townhouse and move. That really sucks.
Saturday around ten after six in the evening a young man was shot at an intersection that I have to drive through a lot. The police think he was shot because of the color of his shirt. He is not involved in any gang activity, has a family, he just was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong color shirt on. Today I took the long way back from the veterinarian to avoid the intersection because there have been sirens and the ghetto bird in the area the last few nights.
And, so it begins. ..
I took this in the last fall season off historic Hwy70. It was one of my first attempts at trying to capture a scene taking into consideration the elements that composed it.
Four days to go! I will board my flight and head into the air ultimatly to end up landing in one piece at New Orleans. My friend will be there to pick us up and take us to their new home. I am so excited as I have not seen her or her husband in a very long time since they moved from California to Mississippi.
I do not do big commercial airplanes well. My brother flys small aircraft and I have a blast when he does stunts trying to scare his sister. I have no fear of jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on, it is a gas, pretending to be a bird, yeh! But, there is something about the giant cigars with wings stuck on them that bugs the heck out of me. Maybe it is being seated along with a hundred other plus souls in a tube piloted by strangers – umm no real logical explaination – I just hate it.
Last August we flew to Vermont. I spent most of the flight pretending I was somewhere else and when that did not work, I tried to take pictures out the tiny window and identify any land features I could make out through the clouds. It was annoying at our layover to not have a lighter or a book of matches. Even if I wanted to chance going outside for a quick smoke, I would be reduced to begging to perfect strangers for a light. One gal on our flight was detained because she had a lighter in her pocket. Scared the heck out of her, they pulled her out of line and off she went. She told me later she had forgotten it was there and the experience although the security personnel were pleasant, was in her words “freaky man, freaky”.
I somehow felt more secure when everybody had to wait in line to be scanned along with all his or her carry on luggage. I found it reassuring that my luggage had been gone through and checked. They even left a polite little memo advising me that it had been searched. It is not that I am afraid of dying if it is my time to go but I really do not want to go because some fanatical nut case decide that it was his or her turn to go while we are 35,000 thousand miles up in a metallic cylinder without a parachute
I guess there are some impositions on my time and privacy I am willing to submit to in order to gain a little sense of security.
