Previous Reunions...

Mother and Stephen, Mary and Ellen, and - I presume - Paul and Lee have all returned home from the Furey family reunion in northeastern Ohio last weekend. I didn't go, though I wish I had. I should have known I'd feel this way. The previous reunions - in 1985 and 1996 - were at a volunteer fire department hall in Canton (I believe) and at Uncle Louis' home, repectively, where this latest encore took place. Of course, since I wasn't there, I have no pictures from last weekend. The purpose of this post is to "prime the pump" as it were, hoping to nudge one or more of my siblings - or cousins - to share some of their pics.

Most of the following are from 1985, when Uncle Arthur still lived on the Farm, and the Parker contingent stayed in a cabin at Atwood Lake.

First order of the day is to visit Uncle Arthur at the farm and let the kids see the barn where we played when we were their age.

After we let them run wild for awhile and bleed off excess energy by climbing on the tractor and chasing each other with sticks...

...we got them to sit still for a few shots...

...visited with Uncle Arthur, had some lunch and cleaned up.

At the VFD hall, we took group photos with various configurations. The picture above shows Ellen and Angela, et al, milling about smartly during the Chinese fire drill. The shot below happens to be Mom's generation and mine. I like this particular version of it, wherein Daniel is being directed by his mother and several of his aunts to "Exit, stage left".

Of course, in the cabin at Atwood it took a while each morning to build up enough steam to get the family moving in unison. Above, a young Angela has a cig while David wakes up Grover. I thought all this time it was Oscar the Grouch; much to David's disgust, my Dad always referred to it as "that purple worm".

It was crowded in the cabin, but David and Joey didn't really have to sleep on the shelves of the TV table.

We got them fed and corralled, then worked on getting them dressed for the day...

...then took a few more pictures and went on about our business.

These 1996 pictures, except the last group shot, were taken at the farm (shortly after Uncle Arthur moved out, I believe). The last one was taken in Uncle Louis' back yard. It occurs to me - since I don't see my kids - that I missed this one too, so I'm not sure who the photographer was. I was driving my family up the coast highway in Queensland, Australia...

Mary, Angela, and Cathie gave Drew and some others a tour of the barn...

...then gathered on the front lawn of the farm house for a casual group shot.

Ellen and Allison, next to the driveway, pose across the road from the barn.

Richard and company, Melissa, Daniel and Andrew in this case, all look ready to eat again. Time to load up and head back to Malvern.

This is the Parker subset of revelers, 'cept those in Oz. Also missing in action is Paul's and Lee's daughter, Lauren. I don't know whose dog that is.

As I said, I hope we'll see some of the 2010 pictures soon. In the meantime, Stephen has posted a great painting he just finished of St Philip Neri Catholic Church in Dungannon.

A Few More "Smoky" Pictures...

Taking up where I left off in the last post,

This one looks like there might be a fire in the next draw.

And this one looks like the whole valley floor is burning.

These two illustrate an interesting feature of an early morning drive. When a draw "fills up" (with clouds, or fog, or even smoke I suppose) and it's still driven by a stiff breeze, it shoots up the slope, crosses the road in front of you, slips through a saddle in the ridge above and dives into the next valley. You can't get the full effect in these still shots, because it's the motion that is so arresting. But use your imagination.

The same thing's going on here too, but the relatively minor incident was interrupted by the sun's climb. Clearing an adjacent ridge line, the full effect of the sun was enhanced rather than diminished by the sunlight's diffusion by the clouds. "Awesome" applies here. My first thought on seeing this was the description in the Bible of the Transfiguration.

One last Blue Ridge Parkway comment (for now): I've noticed in my last few trips east that some of the overlooks on this most wonderful of roads are now blocked, or nearly so, by trees immediately below the turnout. The panorama effect suffers and "windows" must suffice. Travelers appreciate the trees on the Parkway so much, the notion that someone should "cut some of these trees back" often causes a great deal of distress as the idea borders on sacrilege. But, on the other hand. . .

Why They Call Them The Smokies. . .

Several of the pictures I re-sized last week provided excellent examples of the reason for the name Smoky Mountains. I think it's fairly obvious - they look like they're smoking.

Explanations on the internet left me shaking my head, and the pictures used to illustrate the phenomenon were exceedingly poor - typically just low, scudding clouds following a rain.

It might help to realize the Smokies don't always look like they're smoking. If you spend enough time in the mountains, however, you'll recognize the phenomenon when you see it.

Each of these pictures was taken near the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. For years, I'd get to the mountains at mid-day or later after drives of whatever distance. Then I started leaving home in the wee hours to arrive in the Andrews Valley or at Nantahala Gorge or Cherokee or somewhere else just at sunrise.

That opened my eyes and set the tone for a day of photography. I should have remembered the glory of early morning in the Smokies from my first trips through the mountains on Trailways buses in the early 1960's.

The additional pleasure of light to non-existent early morning traffic on the Parkway or even the regular highways of western North Carolina can't be over-emphasized.

Reflections on the Oconaluftee

I mentioned in the last post that, though the 2004 fall color may not have been spectacular, it still merited some attention. My direct shots of the area, (e.g., the first picture below) showed some sign of autumn and certainly suggested a pleasant day in the mountains, but you could hardly tout the splendor of the season to someone who was familiar with "good years" for color.

But when you wander over to the bank of the river and, with your senses alert, your attention settles on smaller details of your immediate environment and you find the river has somehow captured most of the color you'd been looking for, or at least concentrated what had seemed to be the meager hues and tints of the October forest in question.

'Tis true, the blues in these pictures might have been just as blue in late August as they were in mid October, but we're looking for color here and you sometimes have to take it where you can get it.

Okay, now the blue's out and we've more yellow and some admittedly anemic red. But the color still surprises you and you find yourself mesmerized by the combination of the reflected color and the inherent texture of the water's surface.

Now the blue's back and the texture is different enough that the transparent nature of the water adds another dimension and you can study the river bottom as well as the surface.

The point of view has shifted again and the bottom's hidden once more. The surface texture is dominant but you can begin to discern that the previously abstract color pattern once again hints at the reflected trees on the far bank.

One more to suggest that maybe none of the foregoing makes any difference. We've got color and texture, the river reflecting October skies and hints of trees, and an undeniably inviting river, encouraging you to kick off your shoes and cool your "dogs". What more could you ask for?

Some North Carolina Magic...

I've been re-editing pictures this week that I published several years ago on one of my previous websites. First time around they were sized for the resolution of the monitor I had at the time. They looked okay then, but the monitor I use now has much higher resolution and the computer is not as limited with respect to storage space. Ergo, these pics, when you see them will be higher res and, I hope, easier to appreciate.
 

The pictures I concentrated on this week were taken in the Smoky Mountains, mostly in 2003 and 2004. Living in Marietta at the time, it was always a pleasure to drive up into the mountains to visit friends and take pictures. The Blue Ridge Parkway stretches a pretty long way with pictures worth taking around almost every curve. But I have to say that easiest way to use up film - some of my shots were shot on Ektachrome - or, these days, fill up a compact flash card is to spend an afternoon at the Mountain Farm Museum adjacent to the Okonaluftee Visitors Center of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. You make the drive, park your vehicle, and wander around clicking pictures off all afternoon - or all morning if you live close enough and are of that persuasion.

 Now, the combination of digital photography and a good editing program is what we in the aerospace industry refer to as a "force multiplier". And, to illustrate my point, I've selected four pictures for today's post, all derived from the same shot. So, when you go to a place like the Visitors Center, shoot fifty or a hundred frames in an afternoon, return several times over the years, and tease multiple pictures from your "good shots", you end up with plenty of images to supply your blog, should you choose to publish one.

That said, there's not a lot more to add other than that the Visitors Center is on US 441 north of Cherokee and one curve above the southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The river alongside the Mountain Farm Museum is the Oconaluftee River, which rises in the Smokies, flows past the Visitors Center and merges with the Tuckaseegee River east of Bryson City.

These pictures - or this picture if you want to think of it like that - were/was taken 19 October 2003. The autumn color wasn't really special that weekend, or maybe it was a bad year for color, but I have to say that there was enough, reflected by the river, that I was pleasantly surprised.  But for that, you'll have to wait for the next post. . .