Chapter 62 - Same Ol', Same Ol'

I've come to the realization that these blogs are repeats. A life in a rut? Not really but one that tends to be narrowly constructed.

In other words, there ain't that much different in this small town on the Oregon Coast from week to week. Which, you know, is OK. It's what is.

As Michael explained to Stanley in The Deer Hunter when he told him, "Stanley, See this!?! This is this!! This ain't something else!! This is this!!"

Well, Jackie, Look around, "This is this!!"

Right!?!

And that means you're on your own. You're accountable. You can't keep expecting others to provide for you.

Right!?!

Hahaha, I came across this quote and it works...

Being an adult isn't a matter of age.
It's a matter of responsibility.

Johnathan H. Howard

Let's move on, shall we?

And I have; the Mallards are back again. They've been with me, off and on, for about a week now. I'm hoping they spend, as they did last year, about a month or so with me.

I even bought a can of Medley Vegetables for them. When I see them I'm gonna open the can and go out and pour about half a can for them to enjoy.

Mmmmmmm, peas, carrots and corn! Oh my!!

The Mister...

...and the Missus

I think I've mentioned that this past month or so I decided to let myself go regards flowers. I have been a bit chary about taking flower pictures. I felt I was in a rut, not growing, not exploring. 

I mean, really, I just found a flower, pointed the camera at it and pushed the button. I felt like I was always taking the easy way out. And, yeah, I think I was. I got some nice pictures with a minimum, and I'm speaking the barest of minimums, of effort.

Then I missed it and thought, "What the Hell!?! I'm shooting for me so what do I care if others are tired of my pictures. Everyone pretty much just skims past them anyway!!" And, POW!! I was liberated.

So I'm back to flowers. Have been for a while now. And enjoying it. I'm looking for them.

And I'm having fun!!

But this Spring there hasn't been a lot of opportunities. Ahhh, these winters. 

At the Connie Hansen Gardens they've been ripping out beds and doing a lot of new landscaping and so the flowering plants have been few and very, very far in between.

And so, while I'm ready to shoot, the opportunities are scarce...for now.

Uh, WOW!!

Seriously, this thing could be hidden by a dime. I've walked by it so often. What a work of art and it's growing wild, untended, just popping up alongside the road.

Some say Spring arrives with the first Robin. Hahaha, not true. I've been seeing Robins all over and still the weather sucks.

But they're photogenic little buggers and, obviously, capable of striking heroic poses. Plus, they're here now even though they didn't bring Spring with them.

Adore me.

And, I'm still playing with B&W. Still trying. I took this in color and then, with iPhoto, rendered it in B&W. It's a wash, really. The matter is adequate but the blacks and whites are flat, dull.

Ah, I can't seem to find the deep blacks and pure whites that are key to a brilliant B&W.

And the beat goes on.

You'd think I'd gotten down to the ground for this shot, wouldn't you. Hah!! I don't think I've bent my knee more than 10 degrees for a picture in years.

The nearest I get is holding the camera down around my waist. My commitment to my photography isn't quite as deep or ardent as I might with it to be.

And still, and this was the rub that made me swear off flower pictures last year, the picture is semi-nice. Without much effort at all, I came up with a semi-decent picture...with good detail.

Why? Luck? I'm beginning to think so.

This is an interesting house. At one time I'm sure whoever lived there made good use of this greenhouse but now it's extra storage space with some pots and plants strewn about.

But it's B&W. Again with the flat tones. Ansel Adams had a tone gradation guide with the deepest black rated at a 10 and the whitest white a 1. All the other tones fell in between somewhere.

He was able to control the f-stop and shutter speed to reach 1 and 10. Or damn close to it and then use his expertise to snap it up in the dark room.

My deepest black is around a 7.5 or an 8. I can't figure out how to saturate the shadows or purify the whites.

Dull. Not even considering the subject, it's just a dull picture.

Thank heavens for clear weather and long walks. It's a welcome respite from sitting in the shack. 

And I deliberately pass by the house with the unique outdoor garden. They also decorate their driveway, too. Just nice colors and a gentle arrangement. A fun way to display their flowers.

El Cerdo Amarillo.

This Ol' Boy has been in the garden for a while now. The neat thing is the people who live there will rearrange the flowers and decorations around El Credo Amarillo.

Interesting.

Just a fun place to stop by and see what new decorations they have placed out there.

Nothing fancy but pleasing nonetheless. Little nothings that, alone, have no value. However, together with the other parts of the garden they're kinda interesting.

Oh, crap. I am sooooooo, tired of winter. Of cool, cold, damp, wet weather. It's beginning to change but much too slowly.

A morning a week ago. A little hail to break up the monotony of the rain.

How nice.

Ka-Zammmm!!

And with that little piece of griping, we'll just insert a lightening quick segue into a semi-decent day and a short drive down the coast.

First stop, Depoe Bay, the Whale-Watching Capital of the World.

And the boats were headed out, their sonar pinging, heading towards the Behemoths of the Ocean.

Carol and I have found one solitary single bench set on a cliff at the south end of the bay that allows a sweeping view of the bay from the north to beyond us down to the south.

It's a great place and seldom visited so that makes it even better. While we've been there we saw whales surface 30-40 feet from the shoreline. It was great.

But today all we saw, way across the bay to the far north end were these people. 

Out on the rocks to get a better view.

Because in the small city it was getting crowded this first day of Spring Break and the official start of the Summer Season. 

Let's face it, Depoe Bay isn't that big but it is always that busy. The 101 is a zoo during the summer. But on our bench, it was just us.

We took the lower road leading to Cape Foulweather and as we were motoring along Carol spotted a Peregrine Falcon sitting up at the top of a tree.

Just to give you an idea of how difficult that was, here's the tree. I took this after I'd stopped and backed up and parked.

There's the hawk, at the top to the left. See him?




This will help.




He might be from the nesting pair down at Yaquina Head or he might be part of another set of mating falcons.

Here you can see how much my camera zooms. Go back up two pictures and then back to this one. A freakin' powerful zoom.

What? You want to get a little closer? OK.

You begin to lose some of the resolution, the sharpness the farther you reach out with your zoom lens. But this is still a pretty semi-decent shot considering how far away he was.

I've named him Perry, the Peregrine Falcon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just the way I roll.

We said adios to Ol' Perry and headed on down to Cape Foulweather. Here's the view looking south down the Oregon Coast. There's Yaquina Head Lighthouse where the nesting falcons are waaaaay down there. 

Carol was scanning for whales.

Me? I was trying for a Artsy-Fartsy picture. Framing the coast with the boughs of the trees. 

Hey, I'm thinking and that's a plus.

There's the gift shop and whale-watching station. It was built in the 30s as a restaurant. In the 40s it became a Coast Guard Station. They kept watch for Jap subs off the coast. Now it's part of the Park Services.

Can you imagine being stationed here during WWII while Hell raged throughout the Pacific and in Europe!?! And you're here, in Oregon.

While we were there the Coasties made the return trip. They float up the coast every day and then zoom on back. Looking for knuckleheads and feather merchants in distress. 

They weren't that far from where I was and now I was on the same level as they. Normally I don't get this good a shot of the copter.

Inside the gift shot they have volunteers who 'speak whale'. They're there to answer questions and point out whale activity.

Looking north up the beautiful and rugged Oregon Coast. Now I'm going to show you why the Coasties do that patrol thingie up and down the coast.

Can you see the Knotheads on the rocks below? Look real close now.

No? Can't see them? 

OK, I'll move in a bit more. Does this help?




Look at them!! Kinda precarious perch, eh!?! They must have a good reason for being out there like that.

Let's go a bit closer, shall we?




Yeah, a bunch of rockheaded teenage boys...fishing.

Now you know why the Coasties keep that helicopter humming all the time. Peabrain's like this will generally end up needing help.

From the gift shop, looking south. My gosh, what a view. And no Jap Subs, either.

And when you're done you can get yourself a nifty refridgerator magnet.

Last Saturday the Kiwanis Club hosted a collection station for the Solve Beach Clean-up at Taft.

It was, naturally, a cool, damp, cold, wet morning. Carol stayed in by the fire and I went out on the beach. I got maybe a fifth of a bag of trash during the hour I spent on the beach.

There's no rhyme nor reason in this Chapter. I've lost any thread I might have had in telling a story. Hahahaha, it's a collection of anecdotes and observations now.

Any who, I caught this Stellar's Blue Jay. It was another drab and colorless Oregon day. Very contrasty and so I wiped out any pretense of color from it by rendering it in B&W.

I even tried film noir to get the deepest black I could. I like the idea of silhouettes but this one misses the mark. Maybe I should have cropped it so it was a vertical picture rather than a horizontal one. Move the two sides in and just frame the Jay on that one part of the tree.

Hmmmmmmmmmm...excuse me.

Well, it does change the feeling of the picture. What do you think? Of the two, and neither are very good, I think I'd choose the vertical one.

What about you?

On a walk I got these shots. I stand about 8-10 feet away and zoom in on them. Proof that spring is actually here even if the weather still hasn't gotten the word.

At first I thought these were the buds of a Dogwood or Cottonwood Tree. Then someone suggested they might be magnolias and, yeah, I checked on the 'Net and they're magnolias.

Standing back and zooming in really narrows the field of focus and that's why everything behind these two buds are a huge greenish blur.

Neat effect. Like I knew what I was doing. Well, in this case I sorta did. I do like the effect and try, when I can, to stand off and zoom in to isolate my subject.

And then I cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Isn't this nice? I mean, when the Tsunami comes I just have to make it maybe two feet beyond this line. Then I figure I'll stop, turn around and give the Tsunami the finger.

Hahaha, can't touch me!!

There are several feeders outside the lower entrance of the Dorchester House and they do get a good amount of traffic. I've tried positioning myself outside the door to get some shots.

And I got a few.

Then, when I've come back, I've been accosted twice by nosy residents. I wonder at their suspicion of a older man who is standing motionless with a camera in hand watching the side of the building. These occurred on two different days with two different men.

I guess I look disreputable.

I've really got to get out and walk. I am so woefully out of shape. Just a semi-brisk walk up the street a 100 yards leaves me slightly winded but, more to the point, my legs are noticeably tired. 

Fatigued, worn out, spent. I mean, I am pooped.

As the rains have relented I have taken the opportunity to get out and get about. And I've taken my camera along with me.

And the light has been favorable. I've walked by this wall decoration dozens of times but today, when I walked by, the light was such that this ugly iron monstrosity was actually interesting.

The light was such it caught my eye. I backed up and grabbed this shot.

And looking small saw some patterns in these plants. Patterns, repetitions, symmetry. These all appeal to me.

And I try to grab them.

As America crumbles to trash around me, I find myself more and more seeking out the small bits of beauty (Webster's  :  a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality.) in my immediate world. I don't know if I'm retreating or if I'm grabbing at straws as I'm sinking. I don't know. But I find myself looking for something and I'm not finding it in the people or in the idea of being an American.

I don't have too many places to walk to and this year I've needed a kind of a destination in order to get the motivation to go on walks. I used to just walk up the street and then back but that is so dull as to cause me physical discomfort.

It helps now to have some end in place to walk to. So, lately, I've chosen to walk to the Dorchester House (DH). Occasionally I'll go up and say hello to Carol, but more so lately I've just gotten to the House and then turned around and walked back.

I've accomplished something and the seems to be one of the motivators for me. One of the things that gives me a small bit of satisfaction. One of the things that help me to get out of the house.

On the walk to the DH, I walked up Port Ave. As I was trudging along this fellow sauntered across the street in front of me. Apparently unconcerned with my presence.

He did give me notice as I neared him even though I was on the other side of the street from him. Keeping me in his rear view mirror so to speak.

Then, as I resumed my walk I was stopped by the sight of this one, cautiously emerging from behind the hedge.

And then he moseyed along across the street to join his pal. Again, not too concerned with my intimidating presence.

Evidently, one of the neighbors puts out food scraps in the trough. I've walked this street before and have seen the trough but never thought it was being used. I thought it some discarded and forgotten piece of yard decoration.

I had moved again and, again, caught their limited attention. Not enough fear to cause them to move on. Just an old, fat man with a camera.

Move along, Tubby.

And together they roam through the neighborhood. At least he has a pal.

I thought this a fun piece of whimsy. I imagine the same person that put up the deer crossing signs is the one who puts the food in the feeder.

You can just make out the tail end of the deer still feeding at the trough.

More bird pictures at the DH. Here's where I was accosted by the nosy neighbors living there. I don't care that they are concerned with that strange fellow in the parking lot.

What offended me was their rude manner in approaching me. No "Hello; Excuse me; Pardon me"... Just "Do you live here!?!" and my favorite obvious question "Are you taking pictures?" (If I'd been quicker I would have come back with some witty retort for this obviously idiotic question. I wish I had but I'm not that quick.) 

I'd just like a small bit of curtesy. Something to ease the possible stickiness of the situation. But, no. Our decayed culture allows rudeness to act as the norm now. And I was unnecessarily abrupt and rude in return. And upset.

I'll have to work on my retorts. I'm so tired of dealing with rude, ignorant and stupid (Websters : having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense) people. The coarsening of America's culture continues unabated. I ofttimes fear for my Grandchildren's future.

But I did catch this Junko eating upside down and aah was amusing. Whatever it takes, Buddy, whatever it takes.

Carol and I stopped by the Raines' to work on the Pack ByLaws. One of the parents, who has since quit the Pack, had complained, noted, pointed out that we did not have a set of ByLaws to operate by.

Regardless of the fact we'd been operating quite well for some time ow without any. No, now we needed them to mollify this family who seemed to be able to find fault and offense in nearly every situation. And then they quit. Gotta love'em.

After a while, I took a break and caught a couple pics with my omnipresent camera. Not a great picture but, Hey!! It's a picture of a Hummingbird at least. Hahahaha, I caught it however unartfully.

Didn't think to try it on 'Tv' and use a much higher shutter speed. I'm just not too bright. 

Well, I'm trying. 

Carol and I volunteered to help set up the festivities for the Kiwanis Easter Egg Hunt at Regatta Park. They've recently finished a major renovation at the Park. This playground is part of that renovation. That's Devils Lake in the distance.

There was, as expected, the usual confusion and disarray over what would go where and how it would be done. Seemed to me to be an easy exercise. 

Once I've done it I think I could easily do it again in a year from now. Honestly.

But we took our time to stand around and ask rhetorical questions and not listen to the answers.

And we do that well. Very, very well.

Photo by Pat Dunne

Ahhhh, the sings. "But wasn't there one for the 10-12 year old? I'm sure there was one last year. There doesn't seem to be one for that age group this year. I wonder where that sing is."

And the reply, "Oh, we're not doing that group. Just the ones we have the signs for."

Problem solved; crisis averted.

Him: Blah blah blah, blah blah. 

Her: Ahhh, blahblahblah, blah blah. Blah.

We arrived a bit before 10. Thank goodness. We wouldn't have been able to stand around for half an hour if we hadn't gotten there early.

Great fun was had by all.

"Yes, there ARE just four signs."

The Raines family arrived and Carol got to baby-sit the Baby, Bear. At least Bear was in his Class B uniform for selling Scout Candy.

But we finally figured it out, strung out the string. Put in the signs and then carefully hid the eggs and other treats.

You would not believe the time and blather it took to get this sign up.

I, for the most part, was able to keep my fat yap shut. I am the good soldier. Head down, ass up.

Honestly, it would have taken me 5-7 minutes instead of the 25-30 minutes it actually took to get this thing hung. And about 739 less words of wisdom.

Photo by Pat Dunne

But we did have it up. Yay!!




Back there, where the two people are in the grass, they're 'seeding' the area for the 0-2 age group.

The sign to the left is for the 3-4 year olds. The one to the right is for the 5-6 year olds.

The 7-9 year olds are on the grassy area to the far right across the street behind the RV.

So it took some stakes with string and four signs.

Once this was done they then spread out the plastic eggs and other treats they had for the kids.

I asked everyone to gather for a picture and then Jeremy, the editor for the News Guard, suggested I get in the picture and he'd take it with my camera. And I did.

Yay!! I'm in a picture. The fat guy on the left with the orange shirt and tan cap on.

I did not hang the left side of this banner. I did the right-hand side.

And the picture Pat took and published in the Club Newsletter.

Photo by Pat Dunne

OK, we were done and I was ready to go.

There were just a few more things to do and no one seemed to need my assistance.

So I got a couple pictures of the calm before the storm.

They put out a lot of stuff besides the eggs.

And it takes less than five minutes for the whole area to be stripped clean. Less than four, probably.

Eh!?! Wrong holiday, guys!!

All kinds of stuff. They stuffed the plastic eggs with pieces of chocolate.

I know the kids won't notice but, still, wrong holiday, guys!!

Never cared for lollipops.

And coloring books with bags of crayons scattered about, too.

Like the aftermath of a Million Whatever March.

Then Callie brought her baby. Bear seems unimpressed.

Oh, a baby.



The Raines Family, ready to sell some Scout candy, meat sticks and Camp Cards.

KA-ZINGGGG!!

(Another segue made interesting with serious bibble-babble!!)

They're back!!! So far we've seen three of the mating pairs return. The ones at the Grocery Outlet, this one at Kirtsis Park and the pair at the football field at Taft HS. The only one we haven't seen is the pair at the Mall. But we have a second-hand report that they, too, are back in town.

Welcome back.

Hahaha, and I thought the Shack I live in was crappy. It's a palace in comparison to this fellow's home.

Still, it's good they're back. Life goes on. There's hope for the future.

And that's it. The 'Same Ol', Same Ol''. 

Life continues and with it the usual trials, triumphs, failures and questions. I can see where some folks look forward to getting the final answers to their eternal questions.

Life is good. You just have to look for and, sometimes, work for the good parts.

Terry Mark