Tag Archives: people

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 4, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

Comments

1 Comment

Excursion 8, Part 3 (In the Shadow of the Gods Atomic)

In which our intrepid hero discovers the new adventures of Old Christine…

The photographs in this excursion are mostly sunny, which has certainly been an exception for me in 2013.  Writing this in early August, I can attest that the vast majority of weekends between April (when I started these excursions) and now have been overcast or rainy.  I lost a number of Saturdays simply because it was too rainy to bother going out.  This is in sharp contrast to recent years, in which rain has been rather sparse.  Good for farmers, bad for junior amateur shutterbugs like me.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 25, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

Comments

Leave a comment

Excursion 8, Part 2 (The Beach is Back)

In which our intrepid hero slakes his lake thirst…

When I was a kid, my dad had hunting friends who owned a gas station and convenience store (with a rare New Mexico liquor license) at Caballo Lake, a reservoir in southern New Mexico formed by damming the Rio Grande.  We would occasionally go up there (a two hour drive) and spend the day there.  However, the place was still a bit of a distance from the lake—too much for a kid—and so we didn’t really see the lake except as a distance.  I think I may have only been out on the lake itself once, on a small boat.  So I truly was “underexposed” to large bodies of water as a kid.  I remember when I was 17 or so and had to fly from El Paso to Pennsylvania.  The plane changed in Chicago and I was able to see Lake Michigan (from the air) for the first time.  It was remarkable—like an ocean to me (who had not yet seen one).

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

June 17, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 5 (4/27/2013)

Comments

1 Comment

Excursion 5, Part 2 (I Know I Had It Coming, I Know I Can’t Be Free)

In which our intrepid hero is abruptly reminded that not everybody can come and go as they please…

Ohio has over 50,000 inmates in its state prison system, close to its all-time high.  Ohio’s prison population is ranked 6th in the nation in size (Ohio is the 7th most populous state).   The prison population has grown by about 33% in the past 20 years, during a time when the population of the state itself has increased only slightly.  In this, Ohio is representative of a huge problem in the United States:  the high rate of incarceration (the highest in the entire world, which is a sad and remarkable fact).  It didn’t used to be like this; the incarceration rate was quite low through the history of the United States until the 1980s, when it began to precipitously rise.  Longer prison sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, a lack of rehabilitation programs, the heavy criminalization of crack cocaine, and other factors combined to create this serious problem—a problem most people don’t know or care about (if you are interested in prison issues, I strongly recommend subscribing to Prison Legal News).  I came across an example of Ohio’s high rate of incarceration myself on this excursion.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

May 25, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 2 (4/6/2013)

Comments

Leave a comment

Excursion 2, Part 1 (Spring Yet Unsprung)

In which our intrepid hero leaves the safe confines of his home and encounters an unexpected bit of Africa…

On my first excursion out of the city, on April 6, I decided to drive around southeast-central Ohio.  Although technically spring, it still seemed like winter.  The weather was brisk, the sky soon became somewhat overcast, and leaves were nowhere to be found.  Gray seemed to be the color of the day.

However, as I began to leave town driving east on East 5th Avenue, I soon encountered an unexpected splash of color.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

May 16, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 1 (4/1/2013)

Comments

1 Comment

Excursion 1, Part 2 (Ye Olde National Road)

In which our intrepid hero drives up and down two streets…

Although the original goal of my first excursion was to photograph the Silent Woman Bar, a goal that was thwarted, I knew there were other things I would want to photograph along the way.  The reason is that the bar had been located on East Main Street.  Another name for East Main Street is US 40.  US 40 becomes East Main Street as it approaches the Columbus area from the east.  Somewhere around downtown it shifts a bit and continues west on West Broad Street until it is out of the city.

US 40 is also known as the National Road and it is one of the most famous roads in the history of the United States.  It was the first road ever built by the federal government, starting in 1811, and linked the Eastern seaboard to the Midwest, almost to the Mississippi River.  However, for me, US 40 holds a particular fascination.

Continue reading →