FATHER'S DAY

My dad died a long time ago when I was away at college.

Ever since, Father’s Day hasn’t been one of the more outstanding celebratory days. It isn’t because I can’t remember a lot of positive things about my dad, it’s more about a hole that I can’t seem to measure and which never really fills up.

Cancer introduced itself to my dad back in the mid sixties and then proceeded to stalk him for almost two decades before cutting him down at the age of 48.

So anyway, being in a melancholy mood, I thought I’d take a stab at writing a piece that might fit into the inspirational genre.

Knuckle-prints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with Monkey-Cam. Many scenes from our hiking adventures flashed across my memory.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I really could have used a friend, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to Monkey-Cam,

“Monkey-Cam, you promised you’d always be my friend and that we’d be an inseparable team of narrative image photographers. But I have noticed that during our most challenging adventures there has only been one set of footprints. What’s up with that?”

Monkey-Cam replied in his inimitable pantomime gestural language, “Scott, those times when you only see one set of footprints, well, those are the times we rented a camel. Remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “I forgot.”

Oblivion

Gulf

Support

Approaching the river

Hidden moon

Crossing the river

Wonderful night for a moondance

Party balloon

SILVER FALLS STATE PARK – TRAIL of TEN FALLS

The trails that loop around and behind the Silver Falls State Park waterfalls are a kind of compromise between experiencing the beauty of the wilderness and going to something like a waterfall museum. It’s the difference between capturing a glimpse of a wild bear on a hike and studying it in a cage at a zoo.

Because there are so many people - so many feet impacting the soil - erosion can easily get out of hand if the masses wander too far from a carefully prescribed path. The solution to destructive environmental impact appears to be a generous contribution of railings and stonework that ultimately shape a kind of habitrail that allows selected viewing of natural spectacles but limits and controls any actual exposure to them.

In other words, we’ve long reached a point where we have to ration wilderness, at which point it doesn’t really seem to be wilderness any more.

The big “South Waterfall”

It’s still kind of pretty though.

Waterfall Pilgrimage

Obligatory plant close-up

Lower South Falls?

Honestly, I picked up a map at the pay station when I drove into the park, but the map only kind of shows the trails and it doesn’t have any waterfalls on it, so you have to rely on trail signs to identify the falls. Turns out I didn’t take any notes and I have a pretty crappy memory, so take my designations with a grain of salt.

Incidentally, it was about here that I started getting frustrated with being confined to the trail. I kept thinking that just about anyone with a camera can go on this trail and get the same shots from the same viewpoints (all other variables being equal). So how does one go about finding a creative, novel angle that isn’t already reproduced in a million photo albums without becoming something of a wilderness trespasser and environmental saboteur?

I don’t know that I came up with a very good answer, but I did start thinking about how I usually go to extremes to make it look like my nature photos don’t have people in them, and that got me thinking about how that’s really kind of un-natural. And then I got to thinking about how really, I was in a giant laboratory perfectly suited for studying how people react to scenic beauty.

If the previous picture was Lower South Falls, then this one’s behind Lower South Falls.

This one too, but from the other side…and not so much behind.

At Double Falls, I watched the falling water cast a spell on these youngsters.

Whatever the waterfall whispers, it must be subtle, because not everybody seems to hear it at first…

Middle North Falls

North Falls

Behind North Falls

OLD IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR FERTILIZER

The exuberance of spring

This explosion of life…

…made possible by a generous contribution from preceding generations

Subtle foreshadowing?

Northwest of Bybee Lake, developers rearrange the earth with bulldozers, filling swampland with high broad plateaus of barren dirt and sand, the future foundation for drab concrete warehouses or a boondoggle prison.

First, a green tinge reveals that grass is pioneering the new frontier.

Millions of little windbreaks comb the sky, capturing the cast offs from the year before.

Decomposition

A last resting place

A funeral pyre

An inheritance

The long process of forgetting

Meanwhile in a parallel universe, the preceding generation is first sequestered…

…then cast off

Haunted by the ghosts of lives we didn’t share…

…work we didn’t appreciate…

…and stories we don’t remember.