Turkey day


Kaiden "Bear" Tobin reaches up to his mother, Aria, for a kiss while Tavian Tobin reacts to a play in the football game after eating Thanksgiving dinner at Aria's longtime friend Cheryl Gray's house.  The Tobin's apartment complex was destroyed in a fire on Monday leaving them homeless. 

I was not able to be home for Thanksgiving but I still managed to get two turkey dinners in me. One at Cheryl Gray's house, who was kind enough to offer me a plate, and the other at Valley News photographer Jason Johns' house with his wife, Susan, and daughter Chloe, which was fabulous so thanks again guys.

Fixin' a hole where the rain gets in...

stops my mind from wandering... 
ehh, not quite, but I'll take any chance I can get to reference the Beatles, he is, however, fixing a hole. -- 
After digging deep into the earth,  Jason Notts of Notts Excavating clears space for a replacement pipe at a water main break behind Lebanon College in Lebanon, NH.  

Junk?

An interesting assignment today.  Ralph "Bozo" Coutermarsh is a collector of junk. There tends to be one in about every American town, someone who cannot throw things away and uses their yard to collect everything, they all seem to say what Ralph told me today as they point to an old boat with a hole in it or a Willy's Jeep with no axles, "Its still good, see! I'll use it someday, people say this stuff is junk but they don't understand."  Ralph lives alone in Strafford, VT on about an acre of land, his stuff has started to creep into part of the road, for 20 years he was not bothered about his collection but now neighbors are starting to raise a fuss.  Ralph has a reputation of being unwelcoming, which is most likely why he was left alone for 20 years. As I was photographing his house today, before Ralph got home, a jogger ran by and said, "you had better hurry up so you're not noticed, he's not the friendliest guy." And the jogger was right, he wasn't the friendliest guy at first, it took about an hour of just talking before I even felt I could ask to take a picture. He said I could shoot the junk but not him so I took it slow and kept talking and eventually he didn't back out of the frame when I put the camera up. He even took me into his home and showed me some of his more interesting guns... I started to enjoy being around, it turns out he is actually a really kind man, just misunderstood, you know, like the old man in Home Alone.  Most of the "junk" he wanted to show me had some connection with his family, especially his father, who died a few years ago.  People develop a sense of pride in different things, its photographs and handmade things for me, for Ralph its his possessions and the abundance of them, the way they sprawl out over his yard, they remind him of his family and friends. I hope he can keep it all.

Learning the blues


Vermont fog

going home

I spent a quick couple of days at home last weekend.  Things are always good there, seeing my family, my dog and cats and all. Sometimes its hard to know how familiar home is until you lock the doors at night-  anyone who has lived in a place for a long time knows what I mean. Your hands develop a memory and just go where they need to go with no thought, as if you can sit back and watch them while they manage the nightly task. Kind of like the controls on your camera after you've had it for a couple years or a guitar chord that you love- fingers snap into place. 
A few photos from the weekend... 
From the airplane... creepy guy in front of me was flirting with the flight attendant. 
"Hey dad, steve."  "welcome home, Jeff. its good to have you back." 
We had a little Thanksgiving dinner since I won't be able to make it for the real deal.  
Garrett County, MD for a court date (the reason I had to come home) 
I'm happy about it too Mom. 
TUCKER fooling around in my volkswagen. 

Soccer on election day.


Warmups.  Girls semi-final game in Nashua, NH.