Posts
I bought my first camera, a 35 mm Yashica rangefinder during the summer of 1968. I ached for that camera for weeks before purchasing it from one of the many electronics stores that line both sides of Canal Street in New Orleans.
The Yashica was great and let you do the focusing, set the f-stop and the shutter speed. Of course if the printed picture was over or under exposed, or out of focus you had no one to blame but yourself.
The sturdy Yashica took awesome photos but I soon decided that I couldn’t live another day without a single lens reflex. Since I couldn’t afford a more expensive brand with interchangeable lenses, I settled for a fixed-lens, Kowa SLR. It wasn’t as sturdy as the Yashica nor did it take pictures even half as good, but I kept it until it finally locked up on me.
Gail and I had little money for cameras after we married but I did manage to purchase a Minolta SRT-101 while passing through Japan on the way back to Vietnam from R & R. The Minolta was another awesome camera that finally, like all SLRs, finally broke because of all its moving parts. Since the Minolta, I’ve owned many more cameras. My latest purchase arrived this very day, an old Pentax K1000 with a 50 mm lens.
No one buys 35 mm SLRs anymore. Well, except me. A few years ago, on a surfing trip through eBay, I purchased ten or so SLRs of various makes and models. I have so many cameras and lenses that I can never use them all, and, well, I’ve now discovered digital photography.
I have a tiny little Nikon S210 that takes wonderful pictures and movies if I feel like it. I can download them instantly to my computer and crop, touch-up and doctor any photo to my heart’s content, or delete it completely if I don’t like it.
Unlike my old Yashica, the Nikon performs all the tasks for me. I barely have to think about it. I love it, but sometimes, usually late at night and after quaffing a few strong brews I regret the loss of choice and decision I had back in 1968, but not enough to give up my little Nikon.
Eric'sWeb
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Bullfrogs and Rubber Snakes
Vivian is a small town in northwest Louisiana surrounded by pine forests, rolling hills and swampy bayous. I didn’t visit many museums or art galleries growing up, but I spent hours enjoying the outdoors that dominated my childhood.
My brother Jack and I were Boy Scouts, although neither of us advanced beyond the rank of First Class Scout. It didn’t matter because we did lots of camping and hiking. The parents of Murray, one of our fellow scouts, had a fishing camp on Black Bayou. The place was rustic, the accommodations meager. The weekend our scout troop spent there remains as one of the most frightening events of my life.
Black Bayou is a shallow expanse of dark, almost opaque water, and thus the name. It is the home of snakes, alligators, aquatic birds and every manner of fish. Murray’s little camp was an unpainted, one room structure situated on the bank of Black Bayou, sheltered by pines and cypress trees with bloated trunks that grew out into the water. A wooden dock, several rowboats moored to it, jutted out into the sleepy bayou.
So close to Vivian was the camp that we had no adult supervision that weekend. Joe, the head scout, was in charge but we had no specific agenda except to have fun. The first evening, Joe suggested we go gigging for frogs.
“We paddle out into the bayou until we hear the bullfrogs croaking. When they do, we turn on the flashlight and shine it in their eyes. The light will stun them until we have a chance to gig em.”
There were four of us in the paddleboat, Jack, Joe, Murray and me. Joe was in the back of the boat with our only flashlight and an eight-foot long, three-tined gig. A few stars were out but not much of a moon. An occasional shooting star brightened the sky a bit, but mostly we were just paddling around in the darkness.
“Watch out for the cypress trees. Water moccasins perch on the branches and if they drop into the boat with us, we’ll pretty much be goners.”
Joe’s words gave us little comfort as we soon passed beneath the low-lying branches of a cypress tree, Spanish moss draping almost into the water. Dry cypress needles dropped down the back of my shirt and a spider web wrapped around my face and neck. As I was trying to untangle the mess from my glasses, Joe began yelling and something dropped into my lap that felt suspiciously like a snake.
“Snakes in the boat,” he yelled.
Murray didn’t need another warning, tumbling headfirst into the shallow water. Jack and I were right behind him, swimming away from the boat as fast as our arms and legs could flail. The sound of laughter soon stopped us in our tracks.
“There ain’t no snakes,” Joe said. “Cept rubber ones. I got you guys good.”
Joe had spirited a handful of rubber snakes in his shirt, throwing them on us when we passed beneath the cypress tree. He rolled with laughter, right up to the moment that Jack, Murray and I pulled him into the water with us.
No frogs were gigged that night, just a few gullible Boy Scouts. Still, I’ll never forget the rubber snake that tumbled into my lap, giving me the fright of my life.
Eric'sWeb
My brother Jack and I were Boy Scouts, although neither of us advanced beyond the rank of First Class Scout. It didn’t matter because we did lots of camping and hiking. The parents of Murray, one of our fellow scouts, had a fishing camp on Black Bayou. The place was rustic, the accommodations meager. The weekend our scout troop spent there remains as one of the most frightening events of my life.
Black Bayou is a shallow expanse of dark, almost opaque water, and thus the name. It is the home of snakes, alligators, aquatic birds and every manner of fish. Murray’s little camp was an unpainted, one room structure situated on the bank of Black Bayou, sheltered by pines and cypress trees with bloated trunks that grew out into the water. A wooden dock, several rowboats moored to it, jutted out into the sleepy bayou.
So close to Vivian was the camp that we had no adult supervision that weekend. Joe, the head scout, was in charge but we had no specific agenda except to have fun. The first evening, Joe suggested we go gigging for frogs.
“We paddle out into the bayou until we hear the bullfrogs croaking. When they do, we turn on the flashlight and shine it in their eyes. The light will stun them until we have a chance to gig em.”
There were four of us in the paddleboat, Jack, Joe, Murray and me. Joe was in the back of the boat with our only flashlight and an eight-foot long, three-tined gig. A few stars were out but not much of a moon. An occasional shooting star brightened the sky a bit, but mostly we were just paddling around in the darkness.
“Watch out for the cypress trees. Water moccasins perch on the branches and if they drop into the boat with us, we’ll pretty much be goners.”
Joe’s words gave us little comfort as we soon passed beneath the low-lying branches of a cypress tree, Spanish moss draping almost into the water. Dry cypress needles dropped down the back of my shirt and a spider web wrapped around my face and neck. As I was trying to untangle the mess from my glasses, Joe began yelling and something dropped into my lap that felt suspiciously like a snake.
“Snakes in the boat,” he yelled.
Murray didn’t need another warning, tumbling headfirst into the shallow water. Jack and I were right behind him, swimming away from the boat as fast as our arms and legs could flail. The sound of laughter soon stopped us in our tracks.
“There ain’t no snakes,” Joe said. “Cept rubber ones. I got you guys good.”
Joe had spirited a handful of rubber snakes in his shirt, throwing them on us when we passed beneath the cypress tree. He rolled with laughter, right up to the moment that Jack, Murray and I pulled him into the water with us.
No frogs were gigged that night, just a few gullible Boy Scouts. Still, I’ll never forget the rubber snake that tumbled into my lap, giving me the fright of my life.
Eric'sWeb
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A Breath of Evil
Ed is a well site geologist that offices with me. We were discussing ghosts and he conveyed this ghost story to me. It happened in southwest Kansas.
There aren’t many cities in southwest Kansas and most of the towns small. Drilling wells are often located miles from the nearest town. The primary roads are blacktopped, but narrow. The side roads are often impassible when the weather turns bad.
Ed was sitting a well miles from the nearest town. Early winter snow had melted, leaving dirt roads that were all but impassible. After driving fifty miles for dinner, Ed and the tool pusher were returning to the rig, finding the road into the location too muddy to traverse in their truck. Parking on the blacktop, they began the quarter-mile hike to the location.
Ed and the tool pusher had a lone flashlight that cut a narrow swath of dim light through the misty darkness. About halfway to the rig, they both smelled something that Ed described as putrid and ugly. The temperature dropped, perhaps twenty degrees.
“Did you just feel something?” Ed asked.
“Yes, did you?”
“I think we just passed through something evil.”
“Amen to that,” the tool pusher said.
The experience unnerved both men. When Ed returned to his truck the next day, he felt the same sense of dread as he passed the spot where he and the tool pusher first sensed the presence of evil.
“It was so far from town, I couldn’t imagine what was haunting the hollow we crossed on the way to the rig. Maybe it was an Indian spirit. I don’t know. It was evil, whatever it was. That I know.”
Eric'sWeb
There aren’t many cities in southwest Kansas and most of the towns small. Drilling wells are often located miles from the nearest town. The primary roads are blacktopped, but narrow. The side roads are often impassible when the weather turns bad.
Ed was sitting a well miles from the nearest town. Early winter snow had melted, leaving dirt roads that were all but impassible. After driving fifty miles for dinner, Ed and the tool pusher were returning to the rig, finding the road into the location too muddy to traverse in their truck. Parking on the blacktop, they began the quarter-mile hike to the location.
Ed and the tool pusher had a lone flashlight that cut a narrow swath of dim light through the misty darkness. About halfway to the rig, they both smelled something that Ed described as putrid and ugly. The temperature dropped, perhaps twenty degrees.
“Did you just feel something?” Ed asked.
“Yes, did you?”
“I think we just passed through something evil.”
“Amen to that,” the tool pusher said.
The experience unnerved both men. When Ed returned to his truck the next day, he felt the same sense of dread as he passed the spot where he and the tool pusher first sensed the presence of evil.
“It was so far from town, I couldn’t imagine what was haunting the hollow we crossed on the way to the rig. Maybe it was an Indian spirit. I don’t know. It was evil, whatever it was. That I know.”
Eric'sWeb
Monday, November 16, 2009
Conscripted Soldiers
During my stay at Fort Polk, I became close friends with a fellow draftee named Tommy Picou. We went through Basic Training, Leadership Preparation and Advanced Infantry Training together. There were only four draftees in my AIT; all the rest were in the National Guard. Because of this, the four of us performed every KP and sh-t duty that came along.
During the summer of 1970 at Fort Polk, draftees were the lowest of the low, at least in the minds of our superiors – literally everyone, even the cooks. Picou and I became best friends because we had many things in common. We were both recently married and both from Louisiana, although I was from north Louisiana and he from south Louisiana.
Picou was of French-Acadian descent and spoke fluent Coon-ass French, a language we both assumed identical to the Mother tongue. A series of events that happened during AIT proved us both wrong.
We were at a rifle range, eating lunch when the MP’s brought a new addition to our training company. The young man, like all of us, was dressed in fatigues. None of us was very happy but this fellow seemed particularly indignant. When we tried to talk to him, he replied only in French.
”What’s he saying?” I asked Picou.
Picou shook his head. “Beat the hell outa me.”
“I thought you speak French.”
Picou grinned. “He damn sure don’t speak the same French I do.”
“Try saying something to him,” I suggested.
Picou rattled off a few questions for which he received only a quizzical look from the Frenchman, a universally understood open palm gesture and a shake of his head covered with thick dark hair.
He seemed to understand when I said, “Want something to eat?”
We got the young man a hot plate of chow and sat with him beneath the trees as he ate. When he finished, he said, in passable English, “My name is Charles and I’m from France.”
Charles just shook his head and grinned when I said, “Tommy’s French. Didn’t you comprehend what he was asking you?”
“Not a word,” he said.
Charles proceeded to tell us how he was a flight attendant for a French airline. On a layover in New York, the U.S. Army conscripted him.
“They have no right to do that,” I said.
“Apparently they do,” he said. “But I won’t stay here for long.”
“What’ll you do?” Picou asked.
“Escape as soon as I can.”
“Then what? They’ll hunt you down.”
“Make it to an airport where my airline flies and catch a flight back to France.”
“But they’ll just come after you,” I said.
“I’m a French citizen. They can’t touch me in France and I don’t intend to serve in your war.”
“We’re not too happy about it either,” Picou said.
“My brother was a soldier in Vietnam. He died at Diem Bien Phu,” Charles said. “My family has already lost too much to that damned country. I swear they won’t kill me too.”
True to his word, Charles was gone the next day. Picou and I both ended up in Vietnam, me in the First Cavalry and he in the 101st Airborne. We both made it home safely and kept in touch for several years.
I don’t know if Charles got back to France or spent years in an Army prison, but I know one thing for a fact – he was a man of resolve and had no intention of ever going to Vietnam and fighting another country’s war. I can’t say as I blame him.
Eric'sWeb
During the summer of 1970 at Fort Polk, draftees were the lowest of the low, at least in the minds of our superiors – literally everyone, even the cooks. Picou and I became best friends because we had many things in common. We were both recently married and both from Louisiana, although I was from north Louisiana and he from south Louisiana.
Picou was of French-Acadian descent and spoke fluent Coon-ass French, a language we both assumed identical to the Mother tongue. A series of events that happened during AIT proved us both wrong.
We were at a rifle range, eating lunch when the MP’s brought a new addition to our training company. The young man, like all of us, was dressed in fatigues. None of us was very happy but this fellow seemed particularly indignant. When we tried to talk to him, he replied only in French.
”What’s he saying?” I asked Picou.
Picou shook his head. “Beat the hell outa me.”
“I thought you speak French.”
Picou grinned. “He damn sure don’t speak the same French I do.”
“Try saying something to him,” I suggested.
Picou rattled off a few questions for which he received only a quizzical look from the Frenchman, a universally understood open palm gesture and a shake of his head covered with thick dark hair.
He seemed to understand when I said, “Want something to eat?”
We got the young man a hot plate of chow and sat with him beneath the trees as he ate. When he finished, he said, in passable English, “My name is Charles and I’m from France.”
Charles just shook his head and grinned when I said, “Tommy’s French. Didn’t you comprehend what he was asking you?”
“Not a word,” he said.
Charles proceeded to tell us how he was a flight attendant for a French airline. On a layover in New York, the U.S. Army conscripted him.
“They have no right to do that,” I said.
“Apparently they do,” he said. “But I won’t stay here for long.”
“What’ll you do?” Picou asked.
“Escape as soon as I can.”
“Then what? They’ll hunt you down.”
“Make it to an airport where my airline flies and catch a flight back to France.”
“But they’ll just come after you,” I said.
“I’m a French citizen. They can’t touch me in France and I don’t intend to serve in your war.”
“We’re not too happy about it either,” Picou said.
“My brother was a soldier in Vietnam. He died at Diem Bien Phu,” Charles said. “My family has already lost too much to that damned country. I swear they won’t kill me too.”
True to his word, Charles was gone the next day. Picou and I both ended up in Vietnam, me in the First Cavalry and he in the 101st Airborne. We both made it home safely and kept in touch for several years.
I don’t know if Charles got back to France or spent years in an Army prison, but I know one thing for a fact – he was a man of resolve and had no intention of ever going to Vietnam and fighting another country’s war. I can’t say as I blame him.
Eric'sWeb
Sunday, November 15, 2009
A Cold Misty Rain
Misty rain fell as I walked through the neighborhood tonight. It reminded me of a similar rainy night that I spent during basic training at Fort Polk in Louisiana.
I spent years trying to forget my tour of duty in the Army. Now that I’m older, I sometimes have trouble remembering exact details of things that happened in the past. No problem! I’m a fiction writer. If I can’t remember the exact details of an event - Well, you get the picture.
This event took place during the last week of basic training. Despite an aging brain and attempts to forget this period of my life, it remains branded in my memory with blazing detail. There were four of us, Tommy, Robert, Bob and me.
We spent the last week of basic training camping out and undergoing exercises designed to test our resolve. The four of us were a team in a game called “elude and evade,” or at least something to that effect. A truck dropped the four of us off on a Louisiana road deep in the forest.
We had no light, food, water, or compass. Our mission was to make it back to the base camp, a mile or two away, without capture. If the enemy captured us, they would torture and abuse us, the drill sergeants told us. It was raining, a mild drizzle, but still wet.
“No one’s catching me,” Tommy said. “I been huntin’ since I was five and I can get around in the woods like a fox.”
Uh huh! It was dark within the hour, the four of us completely and totally lost, the trees so tall we couldn’t see the stars or the hazy moon. Since we had no watches, we didn’t know the time. We only knew how tired we were and how desperate we felt.
“Shit, my feet hurt!” Robert said. “Maybe we should just give up.”
Tommy shook his head. “You see or hear anyone out there? Who you gonna give up too?”
“Then what are we going to do?” Bob from Wisconsin asked.
“They are patrolling the dirt road. Let’s catch a few hours of sleep. When the sun comes up, we’ll go out to the road and follow it back to the base station. If we hear a truck, we’ll just hide in the trees until it passes.”
With no better plan, my three companions accepted my suggestion. The ground was hard but I was asleep soon after I closed my eyes. It was morning when I opened them again.
“Which way is the road?” Bob asked.
“That’s east because I can see the reflection of the sun,” Tommy said. “Follow me.”
We eventually came out on the dirt road, turned right and followe it. We soon heard an approaching truck and dived back into the forest. Once it passed, we got back on the road, walking for almost an hour until we reached the base camp. No one seemed to notice, or to care as we straggled into camp, going directly to the food line and not caring that a cold misty rain was falling on our aching backs.
No one ever told us, but we were the only team that made it back to base camp intact and not captured. I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, but I guess it’s just that when you have a problem that seems unsolvable, sometimes the best thing you can do is sleep on it.
Eric'sWeb
I spent years trying to forget my tour of duty in the Army. Now that I’m older, I sometimes have trouble remembering exact details of things that happened in the past. No problem! I’m a fiction writer. If I can’t remember the exact details of an event - Well, you get the picture.
This event took place during the last week of basic training. Despite an aging brain and attempts to forget this period of my life, it remains branded in my memory with blazing detail. There were four of us, Tommy, Robert, Bob and me.
We spent the last week of basic training camping out and undergoing exercises designed to test our resolve. The four of us were a team in a game called “elude and evade,” or at least something to that effect. A truck dropped the four of us off on a Louisiana road deep in the forest.
We had no light, food, water, or compass. Our mission was to make it back to the base camp, a mile or two away, without capture. If the enemy captured us, they would torture and abuse us, the drill sergeants told us. It was raining, a mild drizzle, but still wet.
“No one’s catching me,” Tommy said. “I been huntin’ since I was five and I can get around in the woods like a fox.”
Uh huh! It was dark within the hour, the four of us completely and totally lost, the trees so tall we couldn’t see the stars or the hazy moon. Since we had no watches, we didn’t know the time. We only knew how tired we were and how desperate we felt.
“Shit, my feet hurt!” Robert said. “Maybe we should just give up.”
Tommy shook his head. “You see or hear anyone out there? Who you gonna give up too?”
“Then what are we going to do?” Bob from Wisconsin asked.
“They are patrolling the dirt road. Let’s catch a few hours of sleep. When the sun comes up, we’ll go out to the road and follow it back to the base station. If we hear a truck, we’ll just hide in the trees until it passes.”
With no better plan, my three companions accepted my suggestion. The ground was hard but I was asleep soon after I closed my eyes. It was morning when I opened them again.
“Which way is the road?” Bob asked.
“That’s east because I can see the reflection of the sun,” Tommy said. “Follow me.”
We eventually came out on the dirt road, turned right and followe it. We soon heard an approaching truck and dived back into the forest. Once it passed, we got back on the road, walking for almost an hour until we reached the base camp. No one seemed to notice, or to care as we straggled into camp, going directly to the food line and not caring that a cold misty rain was falling on our aching backs.
No one ever told us, but we were the only team that made it back to base camp intact and not captured. I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, but I guess it’s just that when you have a problem that seems unsolvable, sometimes the best thing you can do is sleep on it.
Eric'sWeb
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)