Brothers
Man by the flag of the USA
Officers in Uniform
Photos by Dave Dreimiller, Hiram, Ohio
Community Portraits
Category: Photography
You do not ask…
Why do I not question,
Why do I love you?
Because you do not ask the wind, why it blows
Or the sun, why it rises and sets.
Or, why the dog barks, in the middle of the night.
Why do you laugh
As I wonder, or consider that
You may, or may not even hear me?
With Love, Lizzie
As the train sped away to Minnesota,
Her message was loud and clear:‘Crete,
I left, too sick to say goodbye.
With Love,
Lizzie’
The 20th day of July,
in 1870 she died,
at 37 years.Lost letters, and diaries, her story they tell,
They say, ‘Lizzie’s body, lies here’.
By TiffanyCreek
Photo by Dave Dreimiller
Lizzie Atwood was best friends with Lucretia Rudolph Garfield. (“Her worries, Crete took away, Lizzie loved her, until she died”). Lizzie married Arthur Pratt, and had two daughters named Mabel and Cornelia. Her mother and father were Elizabeth Yeatman Garrett, and Edwin Atwood, of Garrettsville, Ohio.
St. Paul’s Cathedral, or a Wizard’s Palace?
The Dome
The Holy Spirit
Altar Detail
Rosette
Altar
St. John the Baptist
Approach
St. Paul’s Cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota, sits high on a hill, and looms over the city landscape. In the distance, one can see the the State Capital, which is made of a more luminescent white stone.
The Cathedral is on Summit Avenue, the elegant street of St. Paul, where F. Scott Fitzgerald frequented many a home for social occasions. At one address, he apparently wrote his first novel, “This Side of Paradise”. Summit is lined with an array of architectural dreams come true for the wealthy, who moved to St. Paul in the 19th century. Some homes are more elegant in their beauty, than others. Adjacent to the Cathedral is the Mansion of James J. Hill, one of the most powerful men in the country, whose wealth was acquired through the railroad business. He and J.P. Morgan created an empire, and subjugated the worker to such meager wages, that Teddy Roosevelt took the matter into his hands, and shut them down, or so the story goes. Photographs of the Hill Mansion will follow.
Let it be said, however, that Mrs. Hill, an industrious, highly organized housewife, and fervent Catholic, felt right at home with the Cathedral in plain view, sitting outside her front door. True to the Catholic tradition, she and James grew a large family, of ten children, and today, there are still many heirs to the family wealth.
On a personal note, this is the first time I stepped foot into the Cathedral, although, as a child, I remember marveling at it’s grandeur every time our family went into the Twin Cities, to visit Uncle Johnny and Aunt Betty. Until now, it was always a fantasy vision, which took me to fictional places in my mind. It reminded me of a palace, where a wizard would live, and if you ever got the chance to visit, he would give you anything you wanted, and make your dreams come true.
Carpe Diem & the Lion
When there’s nothing else to talk about, there’s always the weather. Weather is the essence of nature, and a metaphor for human behavior, not to mention how much it can influence our mood and outlook. Today is no exception. The morning was beautiful, as I drove to work. There was a light fog, the sun, at its normal place in the horizon for this time of day, was shining through the forest, making the dew drops hanging on the trees, glisten like crystal. What else could I ask for, except for my camera, which I decided to leave at home. So, I went to my pockets to find my iPhone, and stopped myself to say, “just enjoy it!” It’s the best advice I’ve given myself all day. If I had taken pictures of it, I probably wouldn’t be writing this down. Besides, I would have been late to work.
So back to the weather. We get fed up with winter, and the snow, but really, the temperatures are relatively more civilized now, than they were 2 years ago, when we were in the midst of a nor’easter. It was the month of March, coming in like a lion. This photograph, which I found archived and unpublished, is a testimony to that storm. Despite the teasing of more sunshine and nice temps, we are not out of the woods yet, though it seems we are turning an optimistic corner towards spring. I am looking forward to blossoms, and the fresh smell in the air. It will come! Today it’s over 50 degrees, so that’s a start. In future days, I will hopefully be out early enough to find more beautiful mornings, like I did today. Mornings of fog, mist, dew and hazy sunshine, and who knows, what else. It was Carpe Diem, at its best!
Superstitions
A while back I read an interesting article about superstitions. If I recall, it was from the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post. Anyway, the ideas have come back to me. The article, defined superstitions as associations made with habits, or the acquisition of objects, for a desired outcome, or to prevent an undesirable outcome. When we hear of a habit, that could bring good luck, we might say, “Oh, I think I’ll start doing that.”
Why do people develop these habits and superstitions? Well, the article suggests that these ideas give us the illusion of having control over a situation, or give us meaning, and psychological comfort. Sometimes they can even boost our performance. The discussion eluded to the negative aspect of having superstitions, and that is, that people who acquire them, are perfectionists, have a sense of helplessness, and a high need to feel in control. For example, many of us have good luck charms, and are not willing to part with them, for fear we have bad luck. The article also suggested that emotionally secure people tend not to have superstitious beliefs, and are able to cope without creating a system of habits, that run contrary to reasonable thinking.
Now, I will be the first to admit, that I do have habits, things I do, the way I think, and even a few good luck charms, which I want to keep around. On the other hand, it would be liberating to shed these things from my life, to adapt a more carefree and secure sense of being. Becoming a minimalist seems like one way to approach this way of being. Another is to begin to look at good personal characteristics within myself, to lean on, instead of these mental crutches, whether it be a thought pattern, or an object to have in my possession.
But really, do we want to throw the rabbit foot out into the garbage, or take away the upside down horseshoe over the doorway? All these symbols of good luck are like religious icons donning the churches. Which brings us to another topic of ways we think to cope. Well, maybe we want to keep the horseshoe up there to rust away, but trimming down anything that gets into the way of sound thinking and stability in life, sounds like a good idea to me. “I think I’ll start doing that.”
Lightness of Being ~ Ser liviano
Happy birthday, dad!
I keep putting this up and putting it down. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s denial. It’s hard to believe he would be 100 years old, and that I am still alive to be able to know this fact.
This is my dad’s way of thinking, per my brother. In a nutshell, my dad wrote to him after a huge fight, that lasted a whole day; “We all have our ups and downs, differences of opinion and happy times. In those bad times, when we know that the issue is not as important as the relationship, we should forget the differences and move on. He said that he can accomplish that by writing down his feelings or opinion and delivering that in the form of the written word. It is less passionate, is likely to be less vehement and with much more consideration of the other person.”
My Grandmother’s Love Letters by Hart Crane
- Photo TiffanyCreek
There are no stars tonight
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.
There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother’s mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.
Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.
And I ask myself:
“Are your fingers long enough to play
Old keys that are but echoes:
Is the silence strong enough
To carry back the music to its source
and back to you again
As though to her?”
Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand:
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.
One Human Tear
Photo courtesy Dave Dreimiller
Oh, if there is one human tear
By mortal man in sorrow shed,
As pure and as Angel’s dear,
Tis that which falls for kindred dead.
O.S
G. Ville Jan.y 20th 1833
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Tiffany Creek 