... back to blogging

During the past year, while my blog has sat inactive I have been finishing graduate school, trying to squeeze in some adventure and keeping up with my collecting of places, photographs, stories and dirt! As a result I have a stockpile of these that I am interested in investigating more in depth. With that in mind I am going to attempt to blog at least twice a month (ideally once a week). The hope being that this will keep me from watching more tv then my brain can handle AND read more… out of school I’m finding while there are tons of books I want to read and photographs I want to make, but I tend to just look at the pile of books on my coffee table and my cameras are beginning to gather dust. It’s time to brush of the dust and get things going again. 

 So here goes…

 In Memoriam of Lois the Oldsmobile

 The last six years have been filled with the sounds of my car tires on the pavement and Casey Kasem spilling out of the speakers as my eyes rapidly follow the passing landscape. The Oldsmobile 88LS was a gift from my Grandfather and dubbed Lois in the summer of 2004. To me Lois had a bit of a duel life the one in the summer with people piled in as we set off on weekend adventures away from camp, and they were always Grand Adventures. To beaches, parks, tattoo parlors, malls and movie theaters, dance music turned way up to sing along with. She once even journeyed out to Oklahoma and Kansas and back to visit dear friends.

 However during the fall, winter and spring she was quiet company all though my undergraduate years – a companion in hunting photographs. Comfortable and warm, filled with empty hot cocoa cups, sketchbooks with address jotted down and contact prints. Her back seat the perfect cradle for my 4 x 5 on the tri pod, her low to the road vantage point great for scanning out all the windows as I wobbled along back roads, often driving in circles until I found just the right spot. She made countless trips around Connecticut and had a long stay in Maine in the winter of 2004 visiting relatives, old family homes, lobsterman and frozen bays. 

 I knew her every sound, when there was this low sort of repetitive hum, I had to take my foot of the gas for second before putting it back on. When Cds started to skip, I had to take them out and find a way to cool them down (which was often holding them out the window). She had personality and character that only comes from knowing a car for a long time.

 Lois met her tragic demise a couple of months ago on a dark snowy road early in the morning, when she collided with a large deer. Her interior brought comfort on days that were long and joyless, and was a place of celebration on ones that worth the fuss. There will be more photographs, many more adventures, and eventually a new car, but no car could fill the void Lois has left on the back roads, and driveways of friends.