Sunday, August 13, 2006

Mellow Yellow? Not Hardly!


A few years after Stephanie and I bought this house Mrs. Corrado moved out of her house three doors down. She had two sons, and and the younger boy was about to graduate from the University of Florida. The boys, men really, were going off on their own. Edith no longer needed the big house. Her sons were perhaps 6 or 8 years younger than I was, and we enjoyed the same rock music and mind altering substances. The Doors and Cream filled the air. Then suddenly we had new neighbors!

The Whiteheads had three kids, Shirley, James, and Phillip, ranging from about 9 to 14. Their father, John, was a union electrician, while their mom was one of the last stay-at-home mothers I can remember. It was different times then, and the fact that I had long hair didn't seem to faze them at all. We were all friends and we got along nicely. All the neighbors frequently got together for barbeques or an after work beer or coffee.

Our daughter Elena was about to be born, and all the women and girls around us were excited. Shirley was always coming by to see and play with the new baby. The boys were more likely to be over at Cagni Park playing the sport of the season or riding their bikes and doing wheelies in the street. Then one day they were gone. The Miami area had gone through another complete cycle of booming construction, work had dried up, and John was off to the next place, Orlando I think. I never saw any of them again.

This is a shot of Phillip that I made for no particularly good reason other that perhaps to finish off a roll of film. I'd yet to buy a Leicaflex with a 180/2.8 Elmarit. Back then I had a Pentax SV with a 200mm f/3.5, a Tele-Rokunar I think. No, it wasn't made by Minolta, although I suspect that the company wanted to make people think that there was some connection to the Minolta Rokkor lenses. It really was a pretty decent lens for the money! Today we'd say "nice bokeh!"

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