Hi Trudy,
Right you are about the comments making the shot - there was just no way to show with a photograph (at least not one single photo) what exactly was happening at this point in the show! I only took a few shots of this crowd - I kind of wish I'd have had the Nikon there so I could have gotten a series of four a second apart and then presented them in a row - he was quite the active fellow. That might have related it better, but I would still have had to write a note because I'm driven to tell a story about almost everything. It's the sailor in me that does that. When we were out to sea we had a lot of time to embellish upon trivial happenings, so a lot of stuff ended up being fairly elaborate stories, sea stories is what we called them. The guys that work for me always want me to go to lunch with them so I will entertain them with a sea story or two.
That said, and I cannot remember if I told you the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale before, but the fairy tale starts out "Once upon a time..." and the sea story begins "Now, this is no shit!"
Sorry for the salty language, but there's just no other way to explain it.
I just love to write - I always have. I wrote for the school paper in junior high, but got involved with the wrong crowd in high school and lost the zest for anything academic until I found my calling as a Data Systems Technician in the Navy. When they made me an instructor, I had the perfect audience - 32 people who liked to be told stories rather than learn. I figured out how to tell my stories and teach at the same time, though, so things worked out. I could even write my own lesson plan, which cracked up the senior instructor on a regular basis. I got away with murder!
When they sent me to the fleet, I wrote at least one letter a day. Some days I wrote several, but I always wrote one, even if I knew the mail wouldn't be going out for a week or two. It didn't matter if I had a hangover, was still drunk or perfectly sober, I wrote a letter to someone. My friends tell me that even though I was away for 20 years, they still felt like I never left when I got back.
I do write like I talk. I have a midwest accent, but if I'm drinking and talking a lot, people tell me I develop a little southern twang. Probably from living in Florida for 12 of those years I was gone. I used to also enclose photographs in those letters when I had them (sometimes I would send a whole photo album) and write about the pictures, so TE and TL are a natural for me.
I'm very glad you are part of my audience - it's nice when someone is actually entertained by my blathering - I would hate to be writing these things just for myself. Actually, my wife gets a big kick out of them, too. From 1993 to 1997 I wrote her every single day (she was my high school sweetheart, but my second wife), in long hand, on unlined fancy paper that I picked up in foreign ports. She complains that I don't write to her anymore sometimes, but heck, she's right here and I can tell her a new story every single day.
Wow, I'm glad there's no limit on these posts!
You have a great weekend your own self, Trudy - now get out there and take some great shots!
Reed |
United States
A K I M B O (4)
rlrad
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