Picturewise, this will be very brief, and I will compensate for the photographic brevity by previewing the very voluminous June 2009 Sampler and July 2009 Sampler articles, which will help explain why this one is so brief.
Sometimes, I can show you only slices of my life, like this May 2 image.
So many great things are gone, and I have little or nothing with which to replace them.
Here is a shot made in New Orleans on the 16th, a going-away shot of CSX’s morningly transfer run for interchange with the Canadian National Railway in New Orleans, making its way back to CSX’s Gentilly Yard, formerly of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, from Mays Yard, formerly of the Illinois Central Railroad, in Metairie.
Due to the fact that the new Wisner Boulevard bridge that replaced this one has a big fence, this shot is no longer doable.
Here is a picture made on the 23rd at the KCS yard in Metairie.
That is conductor Jerry Mangiapane riding the KCS 1906.
The next day was an incredible day, but I can show you only a slice of it.
That means that I can show you only slices of me.
Previewing The Next Two And A Half Months
Again, this photographically brief sampler essay is a good opportunity to preview the very voluminous sampler essays of June and July, and even the beginning of August, 2009.
What I will not tell you now is anything specific about the contents of the image – location, subject, etc. I will tell you that I spent most of the summer of 2009 far from home; so, the content here will be quite different than the usual fare.
During the month – I originally wrote “at the time,” but I changed that for philosophical reasons that I don’t care now to explain but invite you to guess – that the images that you see in this post were made, I justified my existence on this planet by laboring as and being a school-teacher. At that time, I was very good at it, and I was finishing up my second-to-last good school year at it.
I am a passionately curious person. I am a teacher, not merely the kind who works inside of a classroom with children forced to be there. As a passionately curious person who likes to teach, which means to share what one has learned, I have sought out new experiences, and travel does that. Travel broadens the mind. The sampler essay of the previous month shows this, too.
As someone who is passionately curious, sensitive to heat and humidity, and had (at the time) disposable income from a school-teacher job, I would spend the summers escaping from Louisiana to go to other places and learn and explore; you shall see some of the fruits of those endeavors, which I say to point out to you that what I did constitutes work.
Some of the places that I went in the summer of 2009 were not escapes from the heat, others were, and one was what I thought would be an escape from the heat but was not!
Now, as I type this a decade later, I am pondering not only my travels of that time but how my travels might have contributed to the harmful warming of this planet.
I intended to say so much more here, but I just lack the energy to get the words out anymore. So, this is it, for now.
Stay tuned for the next few sampler essays, which will actually, unlike this one, be impressive.
Peace.
Jim
