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27 March Road TripOn Saturday we traveled to Cuba...
No, we didn't see Fidel Castro and I didn't buy a box of Havana cigars. The Cuba we went to is a small town in the heart of the Jemez Pueblo reservation right here in New Mexico. It is located about 65 miles West of Rio Rancho on Highway 550. We went there just for the drive and were rewarded by the sight of many unusual rock formations created by wind and time. I have put 22 pictures of them on the latest photo album. Bear in mind that they were taken from the window of our car on a cloudy day because it is not safe to stop on a 70 MPH highway. Still, they should give some idea of what you see traveling in New Mexico. Sometimes it is like being on another planet.
The dark bushes are Juniper bushes and can be seen anywhere in the desert. They stay green all year so the predominant colors of the landscape are brown and green with some reds thrown in. The white stuff on the ground in the next to last picture is salt residue from dried water. 21 March All That's LeftIt turns out that the rest of the picture box contained mostly family photos and duplicates. However, I did find a few more that might be of interest. Eight of them were taken by Dad and two were taken by someone else of him. One shows him holding his camera with the Speed Graphic logo clearly visible and the other shows him operating a wirephoto machine when he came home on leave from the Navy.
Wirephoto was the method that was used to send pictures from the wire services in those days. It was very slow and the machine put out a high pitched sound that was really annoying. It was the forerunner of fax machines which themselves are rapidly becoming obsolete.
News stories were sent from the wire services via teletype on those big black machines that you see in old war movies. I became very familiar with them when I joined the Air Force as I was a teletype operator in military communications. 20 March Tricky DadLooking through the box of Dad's photos, I discovered the original of the State Street picture. It seems that Dad sepia toned it and added the snow flakes. I put them both in the photo album for comparison.
And he did all this long before Photoshop! 17 March Dad's PicturesBy popular demand, I went into a box that was in the garage that I thought contained my father's photos. I discovered that there were a huge amount. The pictures that I put on represent only a small amount. There will be more later.
They are from different time periods. Some were taken when he was in the Navy. I particularly like the one of State Street in the snow storm. Notice that there were trolley cars back then. Local politicans were paid by Firestone and General Motors to get rid of them and pave over the tracks, otherwise we would have them running now as other countries do. 15 March The PaperMy Father was a photographer for a large upstate New York Newspaper. It wasn't a career that he chose. As a young man in the late 20's he went to work as an apprentice draftsman for the D&H railroad. When the depression hit he, like so many others, lost his job. Fortunately, he was given the oportunity to learn photography by working for the newspaper. He kept that job until the early 70's, a span broken only by several years in the Navy during WWII.
For a great deal of that time he took pictures with a Speed Graphic camera, the kind you see in the old movies. The film was housed in plates that slid into the back of the camera. The pockets of Dad's sport coats were always stretched out from carrying extra plates. All of his gear was kept in a large leather bag that he carried on assignments.
I remember visiting the old newspaper building shorty after my Father came back from the Navy. It was housed in the grimmest part of town, known commonly as The Gut. They were mean streets and the building was little better than a tenement. You had to go up several flights of wooden stairs to reach the city room, darkroom and other offices with the presses being on the first floor. The windows were coated with grime from many years. Despite the huge amounts of cigarettes and cigars smoked there the predominant smell was that of Hypo, a chemical used to process photographs. In the late 70's, when I walked into the building that houses the Omaha World-Herald, the old familiar aroma greeted me at the front door.
A visit to the old place was always fascinating for a young boy. The linotype operators typed on a huge machine working from copy that had been pounded out on a manual typewriter. Metal "slugs" were created that were used to print the paper. They would always make a slug for me that had my name on it.
We would go down into the area where the presses ran and the pressmen would make a little hat for me out of newsprint like they wore to keep the ink out of their hair. The presses were massive and made a lot of noise but I don't ever remember being afraid of them.
Many times I watched my father processing photos. He would place the plate in a photo enlarger that projected the negative picture onto photo sensitive paper. The paper was then put through a series of chemical baths. Finally, as if by magic, the picture would appear slowly on the paper. How the picture got from there onto the newspaper page, I do not know.
During his career, even before the internet, the newspapers started their downhill slide into mediocrity. A new publisher was sent in from corporation headquarters. What had always been called the Capitol District was now Capitoland. My Father hated that kind of cuteness.
It's all changed now. Photography advanced from Speed Graphic to 35mm film and then to the present use of digital cameras. Stories are typed on computers and can be uploaded from any location along with photographs by means of internet connections or wi-fi. Printing plates are etched from the computer files.
Most of the papers are owned by big media conglomerates. The old romance of the business is gone.
Somewhere there is an abandoned newspaper plant. It is located on a grimy street and weeds have overgrown the lot that it sits on. It's windows have all been broken out by vandals. The clacking of manual typewriters and the roar of the presses is no longer heard.
But the smell of Hypo still lingers in the air...
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12 March SNOW!!!I woke up this morning at 6:30. My wife was still sleeping so I didn't raise the blackout shades. I stumbled into my office and cranked up the computer, still with the shade in my office down. When my wife got up about a half hour later she said, "Gee, it looks like we are back in Iowa." I gave her a puzzled look and said, "Huh?" She replied, "There's snow outside!" I went to the nearest window and, sure enough there was 2 or 3 inches of new snow on the ground. We were both grinning and saying things like, "Snow! All right!" When I lived in Iowa the same occurrance would have been greeted with, "Oh God, snow again?"
A snowfall of 3 inches may not seem like much to those who get a lot more but, here in the high desert, it can be a big event. We have had less than usual precipitation this winter and, in addition to water worries, the dryness has already led to some really bad fires. Also, a good snow pack is necessary for Spring runoff to replenish the Rio Grande river.
So, these days, snowfall is really big news here. We will take any precipitation that comes our way but snow is best because, as the sun comes out, it melts slowly into the ground, watering our plants and moistening the very dry soil.
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3:32 PM
The sun is shining and the wind is blowing and just about all the snow has melted. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. 04 March SunsetMother Nature gave us another lovely light show this evening. Shortly before sunset the sky turned very dark but, unfortunately, we didn't get our much needed rain. As the wind chased the clouds Eastward toward the mountains, the setting sun in the West lit them up. The result were the gorgeous pictures that I took and that you will find in the photos above. 03 March Buffalo DanceLast week I was talking to my dental technician about the Indian Pueblo where she was born and spent the first 20 years of her life. She told me that they would be having the Buffalo Dance all day on Sunday so my wife and I decided to go there to see it.
The Cochiti Pueblo is one of the 19 Indian Pueblos that have been in this area for centuries, some of which actually traded with the Aztecs. Most of them are within driving distance from our city.
The Pueblo is located about 60 miles from here in a beautiful area with a lot of interesting sights including Bandalier National Monument where there are ruins of ancient dwellings and Lake Cochiti. It is an area that we intend to visit several times to see everything.
The Buffalo Dance is a fascinating ritual to see. As a rule, the Pueblos don't allow pictures to be taken so we have none to be posted here. The dancers do not wear costumes, they are ritual garments and are many colors. They wear the buffalo headress, some with antlers like elk. These are religious ceremonies and I do not know the signifigance of all of what went on. I do know that I got quite caught up in the dancing, along with the sound of the big drum and the singing. It is all very spiritual.
One thing that sticks in my mind was the sight of a toddler, about 16 months or so, all dressed in yellow with a headress with feathers. Of course he was too little to dance with the others but he stood off to the side, watching and shaking his rattle and slowly learning the traditions of his people.
There were very few pale people at this event as it wasn't widely publicized. I feel that it was an honor to have been told about it by my dental person.
In time, I intend to visit more of the Peublos to learn as much as I can about these people and their traditions. |
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