Happy Birthday, Aunt Janet!!

NEXT FRIDAY, July 29th, my Aunt Janet Fuger, now of Rochester Hills, Michigan, will turn 100 years old. This is one extraordinary lady, who has outlived her three brothers (including my father), by keeping herself active, interested and physically fit. In the above ancient photo, she's Janet North Page, the happy-looking little dark-haired girl who at the time was probably three or four years old. The young man with her is her older brother Joe. Here are a couple more scenes from the same album... These images were in a beat-up old family album that has spent most of its life stored away in musty attics and damp basements, and I find it amazing that the pictures survived as well as they have. I'm also very pleased that Aunt Janet's centenary celebration prompted me to resurrect these images and scan them for posterity.

Just for fun and comparison, here's how Aunt Janet looked (and behaved) in August 1982, during a family vacation/reunion in Pointe aux Barques, Huron County, Michigan... It's been at least ten years since I last saw my Aunt. I'm grateful to my Michigan cousins, who are hosting an impromptu family reunion, to be capped off with an ice-cream social to be held next Saturday afternoon in Rochester Hills. And here's a toast to all families everywhere, and the bonds, however sporadic and tenuous, that bind them together!

Rust Belt Abstracts

One sunny afternoon recently, my old wanderlust came over me, and I found myself trespassing on Norfolk Southern railroad property in Reading, PA. This is the site of the old Outer Station of the Reading Railroad, now nothing more than a memory and a property you can acquire while playing Monopoly. The omega-shaped horseshoe (or lyre) expansion loops in a long-dormant overhead steam transmission caught my eye, and I made a few images...

I'm no steam engineer, but my understanding is that these graceful loops are installed at intervals on a steam transmission line, to allow for metal expansion when steam is passing through. They also make an appealing abstract image -- to me, at least.

The folks in charge take a pretty dim view of civilians prowling around this place, because there's still a lot of heavy rolling stock moving around. While I was there, a freight train was being made up, as you see on the left above. The sounds of rail cars being coupled and uncoupled is a pretty impressive staccato drumroll. It's comforting to see that there's still some railroad activity around here. Maybe not what it was in the 1880s, but I'm not either.

Small-Town Still Life

Here's a little tableau that presented itself to my wandering eyes last weekend in Jim Thorpe, PA. Kind of a Travelocity ad for rednecks, I suppose.

Make New Friends But Keep the Old

My Faithful Friends, originally uploaded by Clempage.

Here's some of the photo equipment I've used since 1967, when I first started taking pictures with more or less serious intent. Two weeks ago, my lovely daughters dragged me kicking and screaming into the digital era by giving me a Canon EOS Rebel T1i Digital SLR. Having played around with this new toy for a while, I've given the Old Guard a dignified retirement. Like a military reserve unit, however, I'm keeping them in readiness for future operations.

A Day in Manayunk

A little sliver of the City of Philadelphia extends along the east shore of the Schuylkill. It's the site of the earliest transportation canal started in the United States. The name of the place is "Manayunk," from an American Indian word meaning "place to drink." Nowadays the drinking isn't from the river, but you can get a variety of drinks and interesting food items from the establishments that line Main Street.

On a recent Saturday, we visited the annual Manayunk Arts Festival, which for a weekend crams the community with visitors who, after they miraculously find a place to park, jam the main thoroughfare to see the work of hundreds of artists, artisans, craftspersons and other interesting characters displaying their work.

Among the more unexpected examples of craftsmanship were what some Chabaa Thai Restaurant chefs with surgical skills and time on their hands were doing with some...

... watermelons.

I'm sure Manayunk has reverted to its usual identity as a sleepy little riverside neighborhood, dozing away in the sunshine and the rain, dreaming of its past days as a center of transportation (canal and railroad) and industry. It's easy to miss as you drive along the Schuylkill Expressway just across the river.