This is a simple series of photos that all include my dads Ford shortbed truck. When he passed away in 2024 the truck came to me, and I decided to snap some photos of it here and there with one of his cameras. This turned into a tribute of sorts to my dad, who loved photography and traveling, among many other things.
Last summer I bought a stack of old magazines at a local tag sale. I decided to scan the contents of whatever interested me and share. I will also include scans of some other stuff I have sitting around.
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
If I had a day that I could give you
I’d give to you a day just like today
If I had a song that I could sing for you
I’d sing a song to make you feel this way
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
If I had a tale that I could tell you
I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile
If I had a wish that I could wish for you
I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high
Sunshine almost always
Written by: John Denver, Mike Taylor, Dick Kniss
Album: Poems, Prayers and Promises
Released: 1971
Lyrics provided by Musixmatch
Once a month I highlight a piece of art I have created and posted on my Fine Art America site. This one is titled “Sad” from the Frottage Art Collection.
“Otto Umbehr began his studies at the Weimar Bauhaus in Johannes Itten’s preliminary course in 1921. Two years later he moved to Berlin, where he worked on Walter Ruttmann’s innovative film “Berlin, Symphony of a Great City” (1926). He began to experiment with photography, making expressionistic portraits of friends and eventually teaching at Itten’s private art school for two years. In addition, Umbo worked as a photojournalist for the Berlin picture agency DEPHOT from 1924 until its dissolution in 1933.
Umbo’s work has an uncanny, surreal edge that pushes it beyond simple documentation, less the result of experimental darkroom practices than of his exploration of the psychological parameters of photographic description. This photograph of Salzburg at night was taken with a long exposure from a high vantage point. The solid, volumetric mass of an apartment block is compressed into a flattened silhouette, while the path of a solitary car, delineated by the parallel tracings of its headlights, is etched into the street below. The mood is one of impenetrable darkness and impending doom, strongly expressionistic in its vertiginous projection of a nightmare.”
Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283293
“If you always do what you always did –
you’ll always get what you always got.”
Unknown
(This gem of advice could have come from any mother to her child who will not learn from past mistakes.)
The little book “Chicken Soup With Rice” By Maurice Sendak is one of a set of four books collectively titled “Nutshell Library” published in 1962. I am going to scan my copy, that I received as a child, and publish a page a month. Why? Because the world needs more Maurice Sendak…and chicken soup with rice.
Encounters: I had a conversation with a young lady about the recent Artemis 2 mission and the US space program. She was very interested, but thought we were sending people to the moon all the time, and wondered why this one was so special. I mentioned she was probably thinking of the space shuttle program. She is 25 years old.
Read: I am currently reading (and enjoying) “Traveling Music, The Soundtrack to My Life and Times By Neil Peart. The late Mr.Peart was also the (awesome) drummer and lyricist for the band Rush.
Observed: I was recently eating in a restaurant in a small Iowa town and at a nearby table were four older women enjoying the last of their lunch and having a good time visiting with each other. When they were preparing to pay the bill and leave the waitress asked, as many normally do, how their meals were. What followed was a barrage of complaints from the women about each of their meals. I couldn’t hear everything but it was not spoken with anger, but with smiles and suggestions on improvement. I was a little confused until I later learned from the waitress the restaurant was under new management and the ladies were locals.
Website: Homesteaders of America
Recipe: Kielbasa Skillet: This recipe was pieced together from several others found in various magazines. We have been making it for several years now and are still occasionally tweaking the ingredients.
The world, said Horace Walpole, is a tragedy to him who feels, and a comedy to him who thinks.
Last summer I bought a stack of old magazines from a local tag sale. I decided to scan the contents of whatever interested me and share. I will also include scans of some other stuff I have sitting around.
At the end of this little booklet about butterflies are instructions on how to mount them for display, which might not be all that much fun for the butterfly.
Off The Back Porch 