Bonne Chance

Abo Ovo, IMMO

Monkey: I love my job. It's the work I can't stand.

DAH: What're you talking about? You don't have a job.

Monkey: Sure I do. I set you up to make jokes.

DAH: And you love that.

Monkey: Yes, I do.

DAH: But you can't stand the work.

Monkey: Listen, my friend. It isn't that easy, making you look good. Or funny.

DAH: Oh, but you sure make it look easy. You never seem to lift a finger. Or move your lips.

Monkey: Don't talk about my lips. I'm particularly self-conscious about how red they are.

DAH: Sorry.

Monkey: Have you always been this way?

DAH: Probably. You'll have to ask my Mom.

Monkey: I won't have to ask her. I'm sure she'll comment on this post.

DAH: Abo ovo, I expect.

Monkey: What's that?

DAH: Latin. It means 'from the egg' - so, 'from the beginning.'

Monkey: You mean you, and being silly?

DAH: Yes, I do. And I also blame that little English history primer parody '1066 And All That,' and I blame Monty Python.

Monkey: Do you really mean 'blame?' Wouldn't 'thank' be a little closer to the truth?

DAH: That depends on how jolly I'm feeling about life on any given day.

Monkey: Excuse me for not setting you up for a joke, but IMMO you do yourself and the world sort of a service feeling happy about smiling and encouraging others to smile.

DAH: I guess. IMMO?

Monkey: Text-speak. Like BTW, FYI, and LOL.

DAH: Do you mean IMHO? 'In My Humble Opinion?'

Monkey. Nothing humble about me, buddy. 'In My Monkey Opinion.'

DAH: Not setting me up for a joke, huh?

Monkey: It was a weak joke.

DAH: And yet, I'm smiling.

Monkey: You're welcome.

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com

Yucca Monkey

DAH: Sit still.

Monkey: These leaf things are spiky!

DAH: This will only take a minute.

Monkey: I don't know how you get me into these things.

DAH: I pick you up and put you down. That's all.

Monkey: You're always putting me down. Seems like you ought to pick me up more often. I can always use a little lift more than I can use a put down.

DAH: I place you carefully.

Monkey: Fine. But why?

DAH: I'm testing something.

Monkey: Testing what? How sensitive my knitted behind is to poky plants?

DAH: It's a yucca.

Monkey: It certainly is. And an 'oucha!'

DAH: I mean the plant. It's a yucca.

Monkey: Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm. But you never explained what you're testing.

DAH: These two cameras. I'm taking photographs of the same things with each in turn, to compare their output.

Monkey: And you think anyone wants to see a picture of me on yucca leaves?

DAH: Not really, although you are very handsome.

Monkey: Thank you.

DAH: I'm just taking pictures of any old thing, different sorts of things, to see how the photos from these two different cameras turn out, and how they differ from one another.

Monkey: 'Any old thing.' Very flattering, I'm sure. So, you're a experimental camera scientist now?

DAH: Just two old cameras, new to me. Both belonged to my Dad. One's 20 years older than the other. Both use 35mm film. I'm just trying them out, learning about them.

Monkey: So, how come you're taking a picture of me with your Blackberry, too?

DAH: I need a digital shot for this blog post, silly. I still need to take the film to be developed and printed.

Monkey: You want it all. Instant gratification AND old school photography.

DAH: That's right. That's me. That's now.

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com

Monkey is usually quieter.

SLO Days

On Sunday Christine and I walked over the Jennifer Street footbridge, through the Railroad District, and into downtown San Luis Obispo. It's a 20 minute walk to the Mission (established before the United States was the United States!).

The annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival was in its second day. Sidewalk chalk for adults and artists, with a section for kids to try out their skills, too. The photos here are from the Festival.

I Madonnari was in the Monday newspaper, The Tribune. As were several other things that made me happy to live in San Luis Obispo County. Such as -

It appears that SLO County has 152 avocado growers who farm a total of 4,200 acres. That's an average of about 28 acres per ranch. One of the avocado growers, a former County supervisor, said, 'We're different than the Southern California growers. We're smaller, owner-managed. Most of us walk our trees daily. They're full of fruit.'

The same page of today's paper reported, with photos, on the third annual Dog Splash Days in Templeton. The Templeton Community Pool is opened for dog swimming, with doggie lifeguards, life vests, dog ramps, and dog swim therapists. Apparently, this event marks the end of summer in some way. After Dog Splash Days the pool is shut down, drained and cleaned. Since it was pretty warm last week, I guess these were the dog days of summer.

The 'From the Vault' section of The Tribune showed photos of the (now gone) Southern Pacific Railroad roundhouse in SLO. A road called Roundhouse is all that remains, but the column mentioned the nascent Central Coast Railroad Festival, of which I knew nothing, but about which I'm rather excited.

Finally, it is WOW week at Cal Poly. 3,500 new students are expected to participate in the university's annual 'Week Of Welcome.' It should become obvious, at least downtown, that the students are back.

The SLO days of summer, which I somehow missed by working a lot, must be over.

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com

Dad's Cameras

My Dad passed away a little more than a month ago. Along with a lot of memories (which keep bubbling to the surface of my busy mind), he left behind a substantial camera collection.

Dad was a collector. And he loved to research and catalog. And he loved photography. And those loves are evident in his cameras.

When I was a teenager, I dabbled in photography. I loved using my Mom's Yashica-Mat twin-lens reflex. I remember the year Dad and Mom gifted me with an Olympus OM-1 single-lens reflex. I was so excited.

I spent time with Dad in the darkroom, developing my first steps in film photography. But as I got older, into my late teens, and off to college, the photo-bug loosed its grip on me. And I couldn't seem to get it to grab me again.

After Dad retired, and his avid interest in cameras gained room to grow, I felt less and less worthy of playing with cameras myself. It all seemed too much: There was so much to learn, and he already seemed to know all of it.

Playing with cameras. That's what I felt I would be doing were I to pick one up and fool around. Even point-and-shoot cameras. Even digital cameras. I was intimidated without even knowing it. It took his passing to show me that.

A few weeks after Dad died, Christine and I were at Mom's house, along with John and Lisa.

Mom: David, you need to look at Dad's cameras, and pick out a couple that appeal to you.

DAH: I don't know. I don't know anything about his cameras.

Mom: Well, Peter looked through them, and read about them a bit, and chose some. He's marked them in the display cabinet.

John: I picked out some, too. Come on, I'll bet there's a couple you'd be interested in.

DAH: Well, OK. But I don't know anything about cameras.

Where's monkey when you really need a straight man to build into a laugh line? Not here now, and not there then, and there wasn't any laughter. Maybe I cry too easily.

But it really was interesting. And as John and I looked at cameras, I knew what I wanted. I wanted the cameras I'd used as a boy, or like the ones I'd used, or seen my parents use. And I wanted to use them, too.

So, I have Dad's first Periflex. He bought it in the summer of 1958, just in time to take photos of his new baby boy. He used it to take photos on the Mauritania when we shipped west from England to America.

Mom said, 'He liked that Leica CL, and he used that.' So I have that Leica CL, and I'm taking photos with it, too. These first photos are probably crap, but you have to start somewhere.

And I've got a Yashica-Mat, like Mom's. I bought for myself. It's getting cleaned and repaired so I can shoot with that, as well.

Maybe you can't go home again. But you can take parts of it with you. And use them. Make something new out of your memories, to keep them lively in your mind's eye. Next best thing to a really good photograph.

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com