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August 24, 2013

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Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

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Excursion 8, Part 5 (Camp Perry)

In which our intrepid hero ventures onto a military base (more or less)…

I grew up in a military town (El Paso, with massive Fort Bliss, as well as the nearby White Sands Missile Range).  I went to college at another military town—San Antonio, Texas.  It wasn’t until I moved to Columbus, Ohio, with no military presence at all, that I realized how many differences there were.  I grew up with military jets and helicopters overhead so often that it was unremarkable.  Fort Bliss itself is so large that it materially affects the geography of the city, limiting its sprawl to certain directions.  Of course, soldiers were everywhere and, since El Paso is a major location for retired military personnel to settle, former soldiers were also everywhere.   But then Texas as a whole is much more of a military state than Ohio, which really only has one major military base in the whole state (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base).  Ohio’s “non-militariness” is actually exemplified in one of its “bases,” Camp Perry.

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August 4, 2013

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Excursion 8 (5/19/2013)

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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.

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July 21, 2013

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Excursion 7 (5/9/2013)

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Excursion 7, Part 4 (The Tin Trojans)

In which our intrepid hero encounters Trojan horses of a most unusual kind…

Let me declare flat out that unexpected pleasures are the best pleasures.  A gift is better if you don’t know what it is, better still if unanticipated.  Case in point:  twenty years ago, a local movie theater held a week-long series of Hong Kong films.  This was long before Americans knew who Jackie Chan was and Hong Kong cinema was known primarily to cinephiles.  I myself had never seen a Hong Kong film at that point, so I decided to go see one of the movies.  This was the 1993 film The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk.  I knew absolutely nothing about this film—and this was before the World Wide Web—so I found myself in a situation that I pretty much never am in, going to see a movie completely blind about it.  I didn’t know the cast, the plot, the concept, nothing.   To my delight and surprise, the movie, an action-comedy, turned out to be extremely entertaining.  Because I had no expectations for the film at all (I didn’t even know it would be a comedy), the fact that it turned out to be pretty decent made it even better, because it was so unexpected.  Even the smallest pleasures get magnified when they come unannounced.

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July 7, 2013

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Excursion 6 (5/4/2013)

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Excursion 6, Part 3 (Builders of Special Machinery)

In which our intrepid hero comes across a graveyard of industry…

It is my opinion that travel is infinitely better when you are in control of the travel.  I hate being a passenger, whether in a bus, tax, train or plane.  I don’t like not being able to make decisions, I don’t like not being able to choose my travel companions, I don’t like looking out the side of something, as opposed to looking out the front.  When I was a kid, I did not like long trips at all—and why should I have liked them, stuck in the back seat for hours.  But put me behind the wheel of a car and it is very different.  Then, even when I am still not the master of my fate it still seems as if I have a role to play.  Give me a traffic jam over a long runway wait any old day of the week.

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July 7, 2013

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Excursion 6 (5/4/2013)

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Excursion 6, Part 2 (The Deception of Distance)

In which our intrepid hero encounters dead trees, dead cars and dead buildings…

One of the most interesting things about taking back-country drives is that the scale of everything changes.  The distance scale, for example, grows enormously.  Ohio is a relatively small state, and I am centrally located within it, so theoretically I can reach even the most distant parts of the state in three and a half hours.  But that is making a bee-line on a highway.  Once you start driving on curvy, back-country roads, especially driving relatively slowly to spot potential subjects for photographs (and stopping on occasion to actually take them), 20 miles somehow becomes a great distant, not a short jaunt.  Sixty miles is a huge distance.  On the other hand, the time scale slows down.  Because you are in no particular hurry, and paying attention to your surroundings rather than the clock, time passes quickly for you.  The combination of these two means that you can spend many, many hours in a vehicle and discover that you have really never driven more than 60 miles away from your starting point (though your total mileage may be much greater).

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July 7, 2013

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Excursion 6 (5/4/2013)

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Excursion 6, Part 1 (Passing Through Linden)

In which our intrepid hero drives on Cleveland rather than to it…

My sixth excursion was a trip primarily in northeast central Ohio.  Rather than take the quick way out of town, I deliberately headed north out of Columbus on Cleveland Avenue, so that I could take some pictures of Linden on the way out.  Linden (a neighborhood in Columbus, divided into North Linden and South Linden) is considered one of the “worst” areas of Columbus (“the Bottoms” in Franklinton is right up there, too).  South Linden is considered worse.  Income levels are about half of the Columbus average and crime is higher, too.  Cleveland Avenue is the main “drag” that passes north through and bisects Linden.  One can readily see signs of blight driving up Cleveland Avenue.  There have been various attempts to reinvigorate Linden, especially South Linden, but they have had mixed success at best.  And yet, it is important to note that “blight” is relative.  Let me illustrate what I mean.

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June 19, 2013

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Excursion 5 (4/27/2013)

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Excursion 5, Part 3 (We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone)

In which our intrepid hero literally discovers the Theory of Everything…

One of the odd things about dilapidated or ruined buildings is how they juxtapose with the seasons.  If you look at a ruined building in the winter, the landscape surrounding it is as grey and colorless as the building itself; lifelessness upon lifelessness.  However, if you come across the same building in the summer (in Ohio), you will instead see a picture of contrasts:  a gray, lifeless shambles of a building surrounded by vibrant greenery.  Indeed, it may not even be surrounded but invaded by such greenery.  In this case, lifelessness confronts life itself.

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June 9, 2013

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Excursion 4 (4/20/2013)

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Excursion 4, Part 5 (Take Me to the River, Drop Me in the Water)

In which our intrepid hero continues his journey towards the mystical Ohio river…

I am no student of architecture but anybody who looks at enough buildings, or pictures of buildings, will eventually begin to pick up on certain architectural styles from certain eras.  That is certainly true for mundane residences and businesses.  Often you can look at a house and pretty much know when it was likely to have been built, just from its appearance.  Leaving aside signs of aging, buildings go through fads and trends just like anything else.  One such trend certainly appeared in the 19th century.  If one looks at early photographs of American towns and farmhouses, certain types of brick structures appear so often that they are often a signature—though it is true that in the 20th century some buildings were constructed in a “retro” fashion, inspired by or duplicating that earlier style.

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June 7, 2013

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Excursion 4 (4/20/2013)

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Excursion 4, Part 3 (Urnhenge)

In which our intrepid hero revisits Zanesville, glorious Zanesville…

Population is an odd thing.  In Ohio, the population has been stagnant for some time.  There is a small net outflow of population, just barely compensated for by births.  But within the state, population is far from stagnant.  There is an outflow of people, often quite large, from every one of Ohio’s major cities save one (Columbus).  There is also often an outflow from inner-ring suburbs.  Where are they going?  Basically to further suburbs.  Ohio’s small cities and large towns are experiencing equally bad declines, with some having lost half their populations since World War II.  Zanesville, Ohio, along U.S. 40/I-70 an hour east of Columbus, is one such town.  Where did all those people go?  I haven’t been able to find out.

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May 26, 2013

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Excursion 2 (4/6/2013)

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Excursion 2, Part 2 (“Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?”)

In which our intrepid hero visits a graveyard of an unusual sort…

One of the most interesting things about driving in a rural area is that many people treat their property—their land, their front yard, or even their porch—as their own personal junkyard.  Junked cars, old refrigerators, broken furniture—you name it, you can probably find it alongside the road somewhere.   Most of this junk is fairly predictable, but every now and then something will surprise you…

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