Shadow within the Shadows

Sometimes you grow to love the shadow that follows

Donna Lynn Hope

The Real Missed Opportunities

Everybody wants to save the earth ; but no one wants to help mom do the dishes.

P.J. O'Rourke

In the summer of 67 the parents of the neighborhood community took a large group of the children to Expo 67 , the World’s Fair. Looking back on it now I remember very little of this trip or even who the other kids were that I ran around the fair with.

There is one thing that stands out from this trip that I will never forget. It wasn’t much before this trip that I started smoking, it’s just what the kids did in the neighborhood back then and anyone, including children could walk into any store and buy cigarettes. I remember in grade school the corner stores by school would break opens packs of cigarettes and sell those 2 for a nickel to the kids walking back and forth from school.  With a pack of smokes costing about 23 cents one can see these stores made a very nice profit from the smoking habit of children.  

Anyways , expo 67 was on a few islands and bouncing from one to the other with my friends I remember running into my mom and she caught me smoking. What are the odds?  She was upset and told me I’d be walking around with her the rest of the day. I was miserable , just hated it. After a few hours she told me to go back to my friends and not to smoke anymore ,probably had enough of me for one day. The feeling of relief at that moment is the last thing I actually remember from the whole trip.

My mom was a homebody and while she had friends she always stayed close and her life was the family unit, everything else took a back seat. So it never occurred to me , until now , that when my mom caught me she was walking around the fair by herself, even with the large group of people that traveled there together. What I figured was punishment may very well have been my mom just being lonely and wanted someone to be with.

Me, being the rotten inconsiderate selfish prick that I was at that age just didn’t see it. These are the real missed opportunities, the ones that should last a lifetime.

Happy Birthday Mom. Miss and love you.  

From a Distance

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.

Bruce Feirstein


There is this farm next to a friend's house that is just beautiful . It used to be used for horses but today sits idle. I took a country walk over to their home and knocked hoping to get permission to walk around and photograph. No one answered and was told later that no one lives there anymore.

I know plenty of people that have no problem trespassing to get a photo but that just isn't me. I wouldn't want people walking on my property and wouldn't hesitate to let them know if I seen them.

So from a distance I took this photo hoping some day I'll get a chance to really explore.