The Wandering "I"

I’m a bit behind with this one …  We had a perigee moon back on March 19th and Audrey and I decided to head up into the Watchung “Mountains” [what we from New England would normally call “hills”] to Washington’s Rock.  Yup, that Washington!  In case you didn’t know it, there’s an incredible amount of Revolutionary history all through Central New Jersey as George crisscrossed the state and finally wrote his “Farewell Address to the Army” letter at Rockingham in the village of Kingston, NJ where I had an office for many years.

So, Washington’s Rock was a location in the Watchung “Mountains” where Washington left troops who would be able to signal him any movements of the British troops pretty much anywhere east toward New Brunswick and Perth Amboy and north to New York.

Audrey and I figured it would be a pretty good place to see the moon coming up over the horizon.  Turns out there were a number of others who had the same idea and most of them brought their cell phones to photograph the moon or were there simply to watch it coming up.  Of course I had to bring along the big glass and the 400 pound tripod that never moves to get my own version of the moon coming up.

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Crosswalk on College Ave in New Brunswi

I was headed over to campus the other day to do some candid photography, probably around midday when the pedestrian traffic across College Avenue was especially chaotic [I used to think that Harry Chapin had been a student at Rutgers because he had written a song  “Old College Avenue”, then I realized that EVERY college has it’s College Avenue] .  I was just coming up to a crosswalk between a number of academic buildings and one of the busier campus bus stops and I saw the usual [for New Jersey] sign in the middle of the road telling drivers that the pedestrians have the right of way.  And all of a sudden I just did one of those head swivels you see in the cartoons … what the hell was that icon on the sign …  did I really see what I thought I saw?  Was it the same on both sides?  It looked as if it had been made that way, not drawn in by some college prankster …

I ended up doing the photography I needed to do and then drove back down to the other end of College Ave just to confirm whether or not I’d seen the sign correctly.  I did check the other signs in the other crosswalks I passed as I drove down the road.  They were all “normal” or they had the regular icon of a person crossing the street.  And, yup, it had the same thing on both sides and it WAS made that way.

So now I don’t know if the Rutgers Police Department thinks the students are angels or what …?!?!

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

Mom! Haven’t You already dumped on us enough this winter!!??  I just got the snow peas into the garden last weekend and You interpret that literally?!?  This poor little misplaced crocus was standing so proud and showy last week and now look at her?  We really have had enough of this, at least from all the people I talk to.

It’s my wife’s birthday today, so we went out to one of her favorite local restaurants for an early dinner [it was a Vietnamese restaurant, so I don’t think they refer to early dinners as “Blue Hair Specials” but I couldn’t get the phrase out of my head …] .  Very nice dinner but the drive home was just a little bit weird!  We came back on all the back roads that have no street lighting and sleet was coming down pretty heavily.  With just our headlights illuminating the little ice pellets, it looked just like the effect in StarTrek or one of the Star Wars movies where, just as they go to warp speed, all of the stars blur and turn into streaks.   At least I didn’t go into my Captain Kirk power trip.  [  … good thing too, I was driving … ]

From somewhere in rural New Jersey

I want more of these days!

as the Beatles said lo those many years ago.  What a GREAT day today, FINALLY!  Temperatures up into the forties with a bright sun for most of the day, just couldn’t help being a bit more chipper.  When I peeked out from under the covers this morning, it didn’t look like it was going to amount to very much.  I had heard that the temps were going to be much better than the deep freeze we’ve had [it seems as though it’s been in the deep freeze since last October, but I know that’s not REALLY the case!] for the last few weeks but I wasn’t expecting the sun and the blue sky we ended up with later in the day.  So now we probably only have about two inches of ice on parts of the driveway [I really hate having to do the Ice Walk every morning heading out to the office!!].

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It’s been one of those “great” weeks here in Jersey when the weather is really warm after a significant snow storm;  the rains come and turn everything into slush that’s too heavy to move more than a few inches; and then all the shit freezes in the driveway.  Our driveway is a little over 400 feet long and is gravel so when we have it plowed in the winter, they can never really drop the plow blade to clear the snow off, we’d have to spend a fortune to put gravel back on it every spring and for purely aesthetic reasons [well almost, I don’t think we could afford it either!], we don’t want to pave it.  So after the rains on Tuesday night we ended up with about 4 inches of slush.  I did drive up and down the driveway a bit to make some ruts in the slush because I knew it was going to freeze over.  So now the ruts are still about 4 inches deep and totally iced up.  It’s kinda like an amusement park ride getting up the the house;  there’s no way in hell you can control the direction of the car, you just have to get it into the ruts and then bounce along and see where they take you.

And to think, I used to enjoy winter …

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

We spent all of last week in Leeds, UK where our older daughter, Meredith, is now living.  It’s about three hours north of London and about 35 minutes [via public transport] west southwest of York.  Meredith has been there since she graduated from UDel way back in 2006 and decided that she wanted to go on and get a Masters in Event Management at Leeds Metropolitan University [“Leeds Met” to the locals].  I have been so very proud of her for making that decision and forging ahead on her own to establish a new life for herself with absolutely no support network!  She’s had to create it all for herself in the last five years!  That’s something I could never have done at her age or at any other point in my life!

For the last two and a half years she’s been dating a young fellow a year her senior who is now not only an MD but also a “certified” psychiatrist working on his “post-doc” in the field of forensic psychiatry [at least at this point].  Well, this past Saturday was their wedding day and we’ve just gotten back from that wonderful time and that beautiful event!

We flew a close friend of mine over to shoot the wedding, Matt Rainey, [he was also shooting the last Flashes of Hope session that I wrote about before flying over to the UK] and he’s shared afew of the photos with us at this early date.  I just wanted to pass some of them along to the six of you who are not family who may be reading this blog …

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We had another shoot for Flashes of Hope yesterday over at Saint Peters University Hospital in New Brunswick.  One of my former students from many years ago and a good friend did the shooting, Matt Rainey.  He’s been in the newspaper business for over 20 years and just left it this past fall.  He’s an excellent shooter and wonderful with people so I knew that he was a natural for this stuff.  We had a rather full day of shooting, nine or ten kids with their siblings and parents.  Doesn’t matter what my mood is, being around these kids puts some real perspective on life!

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I was out late in the afternoon last Tuesday  just looking for some interesting imagery with the light snow falling at dusk.  Had to go to the Post Office over in the old Camp Kilmer so I decided to drive around the Livingston College Campus at Rutgers to see if anything caught my eye. Right beside Tillet Hall there was a straight sidewalk with these lighting fixtures running the length of the building and I thought they made a nice graphic receding into the background plus the light from the fixtures would help to illuminate the tiny snowflakes as they swirled around.  Not great art by any stretch of the imagination but something of interest and when I’m just roaming around looking for “stuff” I tend to take lots of images and then sort things out back in the “darkroom” [actually the computer room nowadays]. 

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So, those of you who know me, know that I spend a bit of time at Starbucks and that there’s a cadre of “mature” men, mostly self-employed, or retired whom I call my “Buckie Buddies”.  Well, last weekend the family went up to Portland Maine to attend the wonderful wedding of my niece-in-law and on Sunday after all the festivities of the wedding the day before we went over to my sister-in-laws house for a low key brunch.  We went over a bit early so that we could help with the set up and begin some of the cooking that was going to need to be done.  My part [of course] was to take my niece and nephew to the local Starbucks for my morning injection and to spend a bit of time with them on their own.  James got a chocolate milk with a mini donut and Caitlin got an organic apple juice with a mini donut [I wanted to fill them up on some of the REALLY sugary bakery products they have there but their parents nixed that idea unless I did the sugar high intervention afterward].

Well, these kids were great!  We had a really good time and shared some interesting stories and then I asked them if they could keep a secret;  if I took their photos, would they let me surprise their parents by not saying anything to them about the photos until I put them up here.  They were so cute!  And we had such a good time.  Thank god we didn’t get into talking politics as sometimes happens with my more mature Buckie Buddies!

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

© 2010 Nat Clymer

I believe that those of you who are closer [geographically!] already know that I decided, in my infinite wisdom, two weeks before we had a big engagement/meet the fiance party for Meredith & Jonny, to double the size of our patio.  Talk about less than intelligent time management …

So without the help of these trusted friends, there’s no way I would have come close to completing the project!  Left to right it’s Bob Heil, my extraordinary photo assistant of the last fifteen years, Loren Fisher, a close photographer friend who is now the Managing Editor at the local suburban Gannet paper, Joe Earle who is a newer friend who has his own jewelry business with his wife [who designed Meredith and Jonny’s rings], and most importantly, the guy who REALLY saved my bacon, Andy Merlo who owns a local landscaping business, Picture Perfect Landscaping.  If any of you readers live in Somerset or Middlesex County here in New Jersey, I can’t recommend Andy enough!

Bob and Joe each helped me on Friday & Saturday of Labor Day weekend as I was trying to figure out how I was actually going to frame the new patio, the stairs and pathway leading up to it;  cutting the 6×6 lumber with a chainsaw, then drilling and nailing them together.  After Joe left on Saturday, a  local rental center brought over the Mustang [a bit bigger than a Bobcat] that I used to dig out the patio area and bring the quarry dust and patio stone closer to the work site.  Loren was over on Labor Day and helped me spread the dust, trying to level it and then we worked on laying the stone.  We ended up getting maybe a quarter of the stone laid.

I discovered rather quickly, that I don’t want to be a mason when I go up!!  [my chiropractor has been reinforcing that idea everyday since when I’ve gone in to see him].  Then Andy came on the scene with several of his men who really knew how to lay the stone and they did all the rest of the work in two days [with a day to spare before the party!]  They did such a great job!  The major problem I had was that all the stones were different thicknesses so the dust had to be raised or lowered for each stone and those suckers are heavy!  Plus his guys were so nice!

I could not have even gotten close to completing this project without the help and support of these guys and I am so thankful to have each of them in my life!  They are all a part of why I have such grace in my life!

Now all I have to do is the planting, and put in the low voltage lighting, spread the grass seed, sweep in more dust,  ….

Somewhere in rural New Jersey