DAVE WROTE:  Hi Jim, Here are some pictures for the blog. Well  we finally got some winter weather here in upstate NY. Snow and freezing rain. Everything is ice covered. My feeders are very active with the change in weather. Here are a few pictures.   Dave

02 25 2023 Dave Cesari

02 25 2023 Dave Cesari

02 25 2023 Dave Cesari

02 25 2023 Dave Cesari

02 25 2023 Dave Cesari

02 25 2023 Dave Cesari

 WHERE I CAME FROM THEY STILL KNOW MY NAME:

Street photography is like a game: it is fun, unpredictable, and challenging.

Street photography is, also, a like spice: it help us enjoy the flavor of life. 

In street photography, it is the quality of the story that is fun and spicy.  I apologize for the image quality.  It is difficult to get quality photos when shooting with a cell phone camera  through a tinted windshield traveling 50 MPH.

Last week I had to return to the place of my up-bringing to visit a family member.  While on that trip, I spent 24 hours, (pronounced 24 R’s) in the passenger seat of my son’s pick-up – traveling through the Pennsylvania Appalachian Mountains where the people I know have lived their whole life.

The spice of life I pondered as we traveled are things that have meaning to us.  What is a tasty spice to me is not that spicy to you or to Jim Jr.. 

Of course, all of that was an introduction for me to show you some street photographs I took during the 24 r’s I was riding with Jim Jr.  I was looking to record some of my history in photographs –  my own spice to add flavor to my memory of life:

That little stuffed horse on the dash added spice to the life of Jim and his wife Sue.  They have a name for the horse and Jim often referred to it by name. He mentioned how much it meant to he and his wife Sue.   I listened, but that stuffed animal really did not trigger real meaning in my soul.  The real story to me is the “Flat Top Ridge” the horse is looking at – but that mountain top meant nothing to Jim I know – He did not hike there, ski there, hunt deer or grouse there, ride bikes there, park there with a young lady after a Friday-night high school football game – none of that – but for me that ridge is where I come from – it is the people I know.    So, with Jim Jr doing the driving, I took more street photos of the place I come from – and, always included Jim and Sue’s stuffed horse in the foreground.

Just a mountain creek (pronounced crick) that the horse is looking at – but special to me – Around age 14, I was baptized in that crick – baptized into the “Shade Creek Congregation” of the Church of the Brethren.

An old abandoned steal mill that Jim Jr’s and Sue’s horse is looking at. To me it is special,   It is the first job, off of  the farm, I ever had.  I was twenty and I got a summer intern job at US Steel, Inc. in Johnstown,  Pennsylvania doing “time and motion study” to help US Steel negotiate wage-rates with the Union.  I learned things on that job I carried to all of my 50 year’s of jobs that followed.   I think that experience of negotiation techniques was a major help to me 30 years later, when I worked for IBM  in Europe, negotiating business commitments between corporate leaders in each country. That is why street photos of those old buildings have a unique spice to me.

How ’bout that old  house – it means a lot to me.   I was born in one of the second floor rooms – almost 87 years ago – I do not think it means any thing to the horse.  Jim Jr saw the house but it could not have the same emotional spice of life that  that I have when I look at that house and barn.

The horse, Jim Jr, and most folks in my TGO community have no experience with the coal mining towns built in the early 1900’s. Each coal mining town had a Company stores, Company houses, script, miner’s caps with carbide lamps, mine – ponies, and much more.  They mean a lot to me.  When I was 6 years old, each day I was bused from my insular-isolated farm home to a two room school house in Company Town One (Named for the first mine shaft in Cairnbrook).    It was my first new world experience with the people I learned to know.  That experience of new worlds started me on a life’s journey full of new world experiences – many travels, new towns, new countries, new jobs , new people – spices of life.  This photo means a lot to me – I love it but I don’t want to go back – I want my Street Photos to be the spice I add to my day of memories.

This tree just happened to be felled the day before we arrived. It stood for nearly 100 years. I saw that tree ever day for my first 20 years. Many times I drove nails into it to attach and mend the fence that kept the cows out of our front lawn. They tell me each of those black marks/streaks are the resulting wounds made by those nails!  Standing by that stump brought spice to my day.  Jim Jr and the Horse just saw it as a large old tree stump.

Let me introduce you to Louie, named after Louisville, KY. It was purchased by Jim and Sue to support an Off Track Rescue Farm.   Horse rescue is one of Sue’s keen intrest’s in life.   So a photo of Louis has an emotional spice to Sue’s day. .  Jim keeps Louie on his dash board to demonstrate his love of Sue and to show his support for her horse hobby. So Louis brings an emotional spice to Jim’s day.    Now, Louise’s image brings some meaning to me  because he is in each of my street photos on that trip back to “the people I know”.   I really loved having Louie in each of my photos but the real deep spice he brings to life is between Jim and Sue.

As you swing through life, taste the spice that is uniquely yours, sprinkle a little on your life each day – and share it with others – and watch them smile as they taste your life through the “street photos” you show.