The Price of Silver

Al Kaplan to be inducted into the North Miami Citizens’ Hall of Fame

2011-04-13T18:27:00.000-05:00

North Miami Citizens’ Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Friday, 04/29/11 at 10:30 a.m.

North Miami City Hall, 776 NE 125 Street – Second floor lobby

Join the North Miami City Council to honor two residents, Clarence Merke and Al Kaplan (posthumously), who are to be inducted into the North Miami Citizens’ Hall of Fame for their dedication and activism in the city of North Miami.

The Al Kaplan Memorial Scholarship at Barry University

2010-02-09T20:51:00.001-05:00

The Kaplan family has established a memorial scholarship for photography students at Barry University in memory of Al Kaplan and in honor of his lifelong love of film-based photography. Barry University was chosen both because of Al’s long relationship with the University (he did public relations photography for them for many years) and because the Barry University photography program is committed to maintaining the tradition of film-based photography and darkroom technique.

The Al Kaplan Memorial Scholarship is a merit-based and need-based scholarship designed to assist deserving students of promise in photography. The scholarship will ensure that future generations of photographers can be educated in the “Silver is Better” philosophy to which Al stayed true.

To build the scholarship fund and to continue Al’s legacy, the family is asking those who were touched by Al and wish to make a contribution in his honor to do so towards the scholarship. Contributions of any amount are encouraged. In fact, if everyone who read Al’s blog contributed just $10, the scholarship would be fully endowed and would last in perpetuity! All contributions are tax deductible for United States income tax purposes. Contributions can be made on-line or by mail.

On-line Contributions: Please go to www.barry.edu/giving to make an on-line contribution by credit card. Under the heading “Apply gift to” check the box for “Other” and write “Al Kaplan Scholarship” in the blank.

By Mail Contribution: Checks should be made to “Barry University” and the designation to the “Al Kaplan Memorial Scholarship” should be included in the memo line on the check. Checks should be mailed to:

Thomas Paul Severino
Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement
Barry University
11300 N.E. Second Avenue
Miami Shores, Fl 33161-6695

If you have questions, you may contact Mr. Severino at the address above or by phone or e-mail at:

Office phone: 305.899.4081
Email: tseverino@mail.barry.edu

Al's Obituary and Life Celebration Service

2010-01-11T12:29:00.002-05:00

Al's obituary ran in today's Miami Herald.

Posted on Monday, 01.11.10

AL KAPLAN, 67

Al Kaplan | Quirky North Miami gadfly, professional photographer

BY ELINOR J. BRECHER

ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com

It was easy to mistake Al Kaplan for a species of city hall habitue familiar to most South Florida municipalities: the schmoozy, slightly off-kilter gadfly who never misses a council meeting.

It probably had something to do with his mop of hair -- and his stuffed monkey.

But North Miami insiders knew better. Kaplan, a professional photographer, researched issues as carefully as did elected officials. He understood their implications and posed cogent questions.

``He would love to give the impression that he was nuts, but he wasn't,'' said Scott Galvin, a longtime City Council member. ``He was very studied in local politics. He was very involved.''

Kaplan and his toy sidekick, Monkette, will henceforth be notable by their absence; a smoker, Kaplan died Dec. 29 from complications of a recent heart attack, said daughter Elena Kaplan, of Atlanta.

Born Alan Kaplan on Nov. 9, 1942, he was 67. He was buried in a New Bedford, Mass., cemetery alongside generations of ancestors.

A North Miami resident since his teens -- with a brief Boston detour -- Kaplan ran unsuccessfully for the City Council in 1989 and served on civic boards.

Indisputably eccentric, the tall, rangy Kaplan loved the water and once aspired to be a fishing guide. But after getting his first camera as a bar mitzvah present, he headed toward a photography career, said son Jonathan Kaplan.

Kaplan is best known for pictures of '60s rock stars, politicians, North Miami events -- and himself. A prolific self-portraitist, Kaplan hosted a blog called thepriceofsilver@blogspot.com, and was respected on photo-industry websites.

In 2008, he had his proverbial ``15 minutes of fame,'' as he explained on his blog.

``Amazing. [Photographer] James Mitchell gets the idea of sticking my ugly face on a T-shirt, complete with a cigarette dangling from my lips, posts the thing on an Internet Leica Photography forum, and suddenly orders are coming from as far away as Australia!''

``Al was a polarizing guy in some ways,'' Josh Root wrote on photo.net after Kaplan's death. ``I enjoyed many of his images/thoughts and also butted heads with him in a couple different instances . . . But it is hard to argue that he wasn't a very interesting fellow . . . and a skilled photographer.''

Al Kaplan described himself thusly on his blog:

``Al's art background includes a few years at the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, MA. He majored in anthropology at Miami Dade College and later taught photography there. He spent several years working for various publications in the Miami area [and] used his contacts . . . to pick up a variety of long-term clients, including Barry University, the city of North Miami, the Jamaican Tourist Development Board and Congressman William Lehman.''

His interests, he wrote, ``range from light tackle fishing to politics. He's skilled in black & white traditional darkroom techniques and equally at home with a 4x5 commercial view camera as he is with his favorite 35mm Leicas.''

Elena, a lawyer, said her father was never without a camera.

``It was normal that he was always taking pictures of us,'' she said of herself and Jonathan, a Harvard University doctoral student.

Thrice married, Kaplan was last divorced from antiques restorer Claudia Bailey, who remained close. His first wife, Stephanie Brundage, is the mother of his children.

Elena said her parents ``were married in '64 by a [Boston] justice of the peace seven days after they met. Dad didn't want to get drafted'' for the Vietnam War. ``They fell in love after.''

They returned to North Miami and divorced in 1979.

Galvin met Kaplan in 1989, when both ran for council seats. Galvin won; Kaplan lost.

``Al was a very 1960s hippie Democrat,'' he said. ``He certainly was not the establishment candidate.''

Kaplan served on the city planning commission.

Kaplan made his living shooting freelance news photos, record-album covers, weddings, Little League team portraits, March of Dimes promos -- whatever came along.

Lately, Kaplan was engaged in a self-portrait project -- with Monkette.

``The monkey started as a joke,'' Jonathan said. A childhood toy monkey ``got shipped around'' and photographed in various settings, then ``acquired a girlfriend: Monkette.''

Monkette disappeared for a while, Galvin said, then reappeared about three years ago. Kaplan brought her ``to an FPL protest, to city hall, to Starbucks, as a conversation starter with young ladies. He'd put her into the frame of photos.''

He often spoke through Monkette on his blog, where she endorsed council candidates and commented on the issues.

People who knew Kaplan ``got a chuckle,'' Galvin said. ``He had that great mop of hair and a beard, and he looked woolly and scary. He wasn't one to wear a tie, or if he wanted to make people wonder why he was wearing a tie, he'd wear one. He was having fun.''

Kaplan was ``a bit of an instigator,'' his son said, ``but he viewed civility as a fundamental component of democracy, and when that was threatened, he was upset.''

Friends and family will celebrate Kaplan's life at 7 p.m. Jan. 30 at the Griffing Adult Center, 12220 Griffing Blvd./NE Third Ave., North Miami.

A Celebration of the Life and Work of Alan Kaplan on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010

2010-01-08T09:49:00.003-05:00

Please join friends and family of Alan Kaplan as we gather on Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 7 pm to honor his life and work.

Griffing Adult Center
12220 Griffing Boulevard /NE 3rd Avenue
North Miami, Florida 33161

Eulogy

2010-01-04T17:04:00.001-05:00

The following is a synopsis of Jonathan Kaplan’s eulogy for his father, given at his funeral on December 31, 2009:

"When thinking of my father, the book of Ecclesiastes comes to mind as a work that captures the essence of my father’s approach to life. As the author says in chapter 8, verse 15, “And I commended delight, because a person has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry; for this will go with him in his labor during the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun.” Dad was truly a person who sought to seize life and enjoy it as much as he could. He stayed local to North Miami, Florida (he didn’t like to travel), but he knew the city and its people in all their vibrancy and diversity. His staples were Starbuck’s Coffee and the American fare served at Jimmy’s Place. That didn’t stop him, however, from sampling jerked chicken or any number of the myriad of cuisines in his adopted home city. Not only did he eat the diversity of food in North Miami, but he also delighted in people throughout the city regardless of socio-economic status, creed or ethnicity. As someone said on the memorial thread on the Rangefinder Forum, “What a great life Al had, right to the end! We should all live life so well.”

"Life for my father was something he observed through the rangefinder of a camera. As a photographer, he always sought to capture the essence of what was before him. That meant paying attention to the angle of the camera or the amount and quality of the light in the room. Pop was not a passive participant in life. He knew that one could also shape the picture by the angle of the camera or by letting more light into the room. Life, just like a picture, was a reality you could help craft as well as portray.

"Dad was not a religious person in a traditional way. I remember him once telling me about his Bar Mitzva. The sanctuary was directly above the function hall of the synagogue. Instead of going all the way downstairs to the nosh afterwards he went out the front door of the synagogue and straight to the movie theater to catch the afternoon feature. I also saw a similar contrast in the last month of his life. The night before he first fell ill he lit a chanukka menora in his kitchen. He observed this commandment of Jewish religious life. Yet, not a week later he was complaining to me about the rabbi who had come by to visit him at the hospital. He was upset that the rabbi kept telling him to get up and pray every morning. My father was upset at the rabbi’s “approach.” As was typical in such conversations, I told Dad I agreed with the rabbi. He told me we would talk about it when I next came down to visit him. We never had the conversation as he passed shortly after I arrived at the hospital to see him.

"Pop’s relationship to his own religious tradition bespeaks his posture towards life in general. Life, in all its facets, is not something one accepts blindly. Life should be interrogated. One should always plumb its depths and question the assumptions of those who claim to have all the simple answers. This feature of my father’s personality expressed itself in his involvement in North Miami politics and in his conversations with his friends and families. As I grew older, I came to understand that for my father one’s conclusions didn’t matter so much but rather the integrity of one’s argument and that one’s conclusions were well reasoned.

"When I last saw my Dad a few days before his first hospitalization, we had a very vivid conversation about how he was trying to understand and appreciate his life. The conversation had been sparked by his conversations with a friend of his about what tied his blog – The Price of Silver – together. Most blogs are mono-focal; Pop’s was not. As we sat in Starbuck’s, my father related that what he thought tied his life together was that he was a teacher. In the last decade the various photo forums in which he participated and his blog became his classroom. As one person remarked on the memorial page to him on the Rangefinder Forum, “We lost a good friend, one that enjoyed people! He enjoyed sharing his knowledge and swapping ideas with everyone! Our loss is Heaven’s gain!” Even as a little child, my father was always teaching me: scribbling schematic drawings on napkins at Dunkin Donuts, explaining the physics of a car spoiler to an 8-year old, teaching me how to fish, develop film, take pictures, build stuff, tie the countless knots he knew, constantly teaching. Today we say good bye to a teacher, a friend, a cousin, a father – I only hope that I am able to pass on the good that I learned from him . . . may his memory be for a blessing!"

The Passing of Alan Kaplan

2009-12-30T10:07:00.002-05:00

It is with deep sadness that my sister and I relate the passing of our father Alan Kaplan.
He died this afternoon (Tuesday, December 29) due to unexpected complications of his recovery.

A private funeral will be held for him in Massachusetts on Thursday, December 31.
A public memorial service will be held for him in North Miami, Fla in January (more information to follow).

his son, Jonathan

Update

2009-12-22T09:35:00.003-05:00

"Al remains in the hospital, comfortably recuperating. Your messages are appreciated. Thank you." Al's son Jonathan

About Al

2009-12-15T10:36:00.001-05:00

"Al has been hospitalized due to a mild heart attack. He is stable and in good hands. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. We will keep you updated if there are any changes to his condition." Al's son Jonathan

A Four-Plex? North Miami's Historical Luxury!

2009-12-11T18:29:00.001-05:00

Hectic!

2009-12-10T23:23:00.001-05:00

The past couple of days have been bedlam. I have stories still unwritten and photos to go with them. Give me a bit of time! Thanks.

Message On A Bottle

2009-12-09T15:05:00.004-05:00

Jonathan

2009-12-08T22:16:00.001-05:00

`

When my son Jonathan was a young man, and we'd go someplace together, of course I'd always have a camera handy. I wasn't trying to capture this expression. I had no choice, really. The moment he'd see the camera in my hands he'd give me his ol' "Here we go again!" look. It was as challenge to get a different expression.

Eventually he got older and more at ease when confronted with a camera.

Again, this is scanned off a contact sheet, dust spots and all.

I dcn't know what restaurant this was. It doesn't look at all familiar. The camera was a Leica M2 with a 35mm f/2 Summicron

Councilman Bill Valentine And Jonathan Kaplan

2009-12-07T23:05:00.004-05:00

I don't remember what the occasion was but Jonathan was right around his eleventh birthday in June of 1987 and I'd recently bought him a suit. It was probably a Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Miami Shores Country Club and all of the dignitaries wanted to be photographed with him. This shot was with North Miami Councilman Bill Valentine. He's since passed away and his widow Penny Valentine runs the Chamber of Commerce.

The crummy scan is a tight crop off of the contact sheet. Perhaps some day I'll get ambitious and scan directly from the negative.

GEVABROM Passport Paper

2009-12-06T16:45:00.005-05:00

In 1966 when Stephanie and I first moved down here from Massachusettes I got a job working at a studio directly across Flagler Street from the Federal Building. There were several studios nearby offering "passport photos in 5 Minutes" but it was closer to half an hour. We shot sheet film and printed it on this lightweight semi-matt paper. The government specs required 2.5 inch square prints showing a bit of the left ear. We went through a lot of boxes of this paper!

The boxes were handy to store fishing rod guides, hooks, spools of fly tying thread, any number of things. I still have quite a few of the boxes.

Gavaert, a Belgian company, eventualy merged with the German company Agfa to become Agfa-Gevaert. Now even that's gone, and you get your passport, complete with a digital photograph, at your local Post Office.

Just A Reminder From Monkette To The North Miami City Council

2009-12-06T11:51:00.002-05:00

The Price of Silver has a worldwide readership and a sizeable local following. The blog's coverage of local events often gets more hits than our public relations director Pam Solomon's press releases. It certainly gets more hits from Southeast Asia, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, most all of Europe including the F.S.U. countries, South and Central America, Jamaica, the Bahamas, etc.

Here's a piece that appeared in a German website:

Leica Bruger Information Blog
Løst og fast om fotografi af Niels H. S. Nielsen
-Leica Bruger Information-

04 august 2006
Al Kaplan's blog
Al Kaplan er en prominent bidragsyder på www.photo.net Leica Photography forum. Al har sin egen blog The Price of Silver som nyligt blev fremhævet af Yahoo Picks. Jeg anbefaler at du ta'r et kig.

Etiketter: Blogs, kunst, Links

posted by Niels H. S. Nielsen @ 09:44 1 comments

1 Comments:
At juni 03, 2007 12:45 AM, Al Kaplan said...
Thank you very much for including my blog, "the price of silver", as one of your favorites. I wish I could read your blog but I only understand English. I found your site with a Google search.

Send en kommentar

Ain't She Cute? Why I take More Than One Shot

2009-12-05T20:36:00.009-05:00

Click on the picture and it'll get BIG. For about a dozen years I did the photography for the March Of Dimes. John Barret, their P.R. director and I thought the same. He didn't need to explain what he wanted. Eventually he retired, the new P.R. director had his own favorite photographer, and the March of Dimes had moved their offices from nearby Miami Shores all the way up to Fort Lauderdale.

I'm not sure who that sports figure was holding the little girl, or what her name was for that matter, but I shot it back in February 1978, probably at a golf tournament.

In the left hand photo her expression is priceless and his eyes are open. She still looks cute in the other shot but his eyes are closed. That's why I like to shoot more than one shot of a situation, and I shot more than just these two!

A Well Deserved Hiatus Or just Admit That I'm Lazy?

2009-12-04T23:08:00.003-05:00

Or maybe I just have writers' block. Finding the photos in my files is easy enough. Oft times I'll shoot more, just for the blog. Some, like the Art Neuveau sterling silver cigarette lighter aren't really photos. I just put it on the scanner's glass and scanned the lighter directly. The color shots of the crappypark are "stolen" from the Biscayne Times, a monthly local paper. I'd previously writen about the eyesore before, here on the blog. I also wrote about the place way back before Wilma trashed the place, maybe four or five years ago.

One night I'll get a good case of insomnia, or maybe get a gig photographing one of those really cool political fundraisers, the kind where people keep going out the back door for a toke or a smoke or a snort and the allure of the white powder will just be too much to pass up. Then I'll start typing and typing and drinking lots and lots of coffee. I'll get caught up on the captions. For real.

Bayside Park? Or Garbage Dump?

2009-12-03T23:28:00.012-05:00

A coupleof times in the past I've written about this park and included some pictures of fishing and pelicans. Then long after it was damaged by Hurricane Wilma I ran some photos of Monkette looking through the the rusty falling apart chain link barricade to keep us good taxpayers, the citizens of North Miami, away from our pier.

I've got to assume that the insurance money was collected for the damage. Yet here we are years later and nothing has been done? Where's the money?

Actually though, something has been done! The city council and the mayor found some money someplace for outrageous travel expeses, an overly generous pension, health care for life, and increased their salary tenfold. Really nice, huh? More like the scum on the water in that bottom photo.

And they're too damned cheap to increase the paltry advisory board stipends enough to cover our out of pocket expenses. Greedy self centered bastards! They told the city employees that there was no money for raises. They lied! There WAS money, but the greedy bastards put it in their own pockets. Thanks a lot!

And now Biscayne Times contributor Jim W. Harper has picked up the story along with fresh updated photos showing the same old neglect.

Thanks, Jim!

Hell, I Should Be Dead By Now!

2009-12-02T22:30:00.004-05:00

(click ot the picture to make it big enough to read)

A Sterling Silver Zippo Lighter

2009-12-01T12:34:00.001-05:00

Free Food? You Could Starve To Death!

2009-11-30T14:12:00.001-05:00

North Miami's Winternational Parade

2009-11-29T23:26:00.002-05:00

A Cup Of Coffee And Some Intelligent Conversation With Alexandra

2009-11-28T15:26:00.001-05:00

I Could Buy A New Leica For Less Than What These Glasses Sell For!

2009-11-27T21:16:00.001-05:00

Just Lookin' (Eyewear)

2009-11-26T21:11:00.001-05:00

Joan Lehman's Sculpture Studio

2009-11-25T18:16:00.001-05:00

A Spirit Woman? Does She Actually Exist?

2009-11-24T13:43:00.006-05:00

Monday morning and Janis materializes on my sofa, drinks a cup of coffee, eats some pastry if I have some, and stuffs my Sunday Herald back inside the plastic bag. Then she heads out the door and evaporates into thin air as she heads down my front walk (top photo). She'll call later in the afternoon with a plaintive "Did you make any more coffee?" She's the stone deaf widow that lives down on the next block.

I lead such an exciting life with all of these beautiful women calling and visitng and begging rides to the grocery an the drugstore.

Just a Copyright Reminder

2009-11-24T09:52:00.004-05:00

ALL of the photographs on this blog are copyright by me unless credited to another photographer, in which case he or she owns the copyright.

ALL of the text likewise is copyright by me, and if you want to use any of the photographs or text for any reason please ask permission BEFORE doing so. I'm sure that we can work out a reasonable financial arrangement. Copyright is regulated by international treaty and in the current world of Google searches it's about impossible to publish text or images anyplace on the planet and not get found out. Any reproduction must appear with a credit and copyright notice.

The blog itself is considered "editorial material" no different than a newspaper or magazine, which means that no release is required for using a photo of any person living or dead as long as the image is used in an editorial context.

Crossroads Village? Not Quite

2009-11-23T22:23:00.001-05:00

The Jazz Player?

2009-11-22T23:41:00.002-05:00

Barry University was one of my biggest clients for about twenty-five years. I watched and documented the change from an all girls Catholic college to a fully integrated co-ed university.

At this point I have no clue as to who the pianist might have been, whether she was a lay teacher or one of the sisters who'd opted to stop wearing the white habits they'd all worn when I first started there. For some reason the public relations director wanted photographs of her. I liked this one the best.

It was taken in November, 1989 on Kodak T-Max 400 film with a Leica M2 and 35mm f/2 Summicron lens.

Pretty Baby And Phillip Michael Thomas

2009-11-21T22:54:00.004-05:00

The Mothers

2009-11-20T16:30:00.005-05:00

Twenty years ago when I made my run for city council my mother (the short lady on the right) and my opponent's mother were out there at their neighborhood polling places weilding campaign signs for their sons. They both lived in the same precinct.

My mom, Ruth B. Solomon, had never professed much interest in politics, yet some of my earliest memories include walking with either her or my grandmother the five or six blocks to the Betsy B. Winslow Elementary School on Eection Day where we'd go down the half fight of stairs to the basement where the voting took place.

Even at the ager of two or three I got the lecture on how we lived in a democracy and it was our solemn duty to vote to preserve our freedoms. I was told that in places like Nazi Germany, Russia, Poland, and a bunch of other countries people didn't get the chance to vote for their leaders.

In a way we really didn't either. Voting was often along religious or ethnic lines. Adult conversation in the weeks leading up to an election was often filled with "We should vote for so-and-so because he's Jewish, and since Hymie Rosen retired we haven't had a Jew on the City Council!" But other times it was "Vote for Manny Goulart's cousin because Manny is Grandpa's business partner. They own the Dean Bldg. in the North End and the Olympia Bldg. in the middle of downtown New Bedford. They're old friends!" and it didn't matter that Manny was Catholic and proud of his Portuguese heritage.

I'm not really sure how these two guys became such good friends but I have my suspicion that it had to do with smuggling. My grandfather had been in the wholesale liquor business both before and after prohibition. Manny owned a small fleet of commercial fishing boats that fished for cod and haddock of the coast of Newfoundland in Canada. Booze stayed legal there. I suspect that all of those boatloads of fish had a layer of fish covering bottles of whiskey and kegs of beer mixed with the ice.

We lived way too well to be doing it on half of the profits from a small strip of retail shops and a four story office building, both of which were half vacant most of the time.

Not Losing, Winning!

2009-11-19T14:35:00.010-05:00

Mayor Christine Moreno

2009-11-18T10:26:00.008-05:00

Howard Neu was the mayor and he'd asked me to chair his re-election campaign. He'd appointed me to the Planning Commission. I declined chairing the Commission but accepted the vice-chairman position. I had way too many things going at the same time. I'd helped him form Task Force 101, also known as The Mayor's Economic Task Force. Then twenty years ago he suggested that I run for John Haggerty's seat on the city council. Running against an incumbant didn't exactly seem like a good plan but he said that he'd help me raise money and endorse me. Why not? I figured, I'll give it a shot. I went to the city clerk's and filed to run for Haggerty's council seat. Within a day or two I heard that Haggerty had decided not to seek re-election.(Did Howard Neu know something I didn't?) I was in! With the mayor backing me I was unlikely to draw new opposition.

WRONG! Next thing I hear is that Howard Premer, the owner of radio station WKAT, had filed for the seat. Now things were getting tough. It would be difficult to raise the kind of money that Premer could just write a personal check for! I considered dropping out until somebody told me that Howard Neu was now backing Howard Premer, not me. Supposedly in exchange for a weekly radio talk show. This was WAR! Never piss off a scorpio, and I was pissed big time.

A few weeks later my wife Claudia and I were attending a Chamber of Commerce dinner at the Miami Shores Country Club. We sat with city attorney Will Splitstoesser and his girlfriend, a young good looking barely out of law school attorney, Christine Moreno. Her father was a realtor and very involved in the city but Christine hadn't been. Christine was sitting between Will and myself as we discussed the upcoming election. Suddenly she asked "How come nobody is running against Howard?" At exactly the same tme, as if we'd rehearsed it, Will and I both turned toward Christine and said in unison "Why don't YOU run?"

Come morning and I started getting phone calls. They were all "Did you hear that Christine Moreno went to the city clerk's office and filed to run against Howard Neu?" A plan formed in my evil scorpio mind! I must admit that the plan likely resulted in my losing the council race by a narrow margin, but even with all his money Premer won by a very narrow margin. Right after the votes were tallied he told me that up until the last precinct was counted he wasn't sure of the outcome.

Getting back to the mayor's race, which is where I'd invested way too much time and effort, a friend who was familiar with the city's politics and the major players, but whose voice wouldn't be recognized by the Miami Herald reporter (this was before caller I.D.) called the reporter almost every day with more juicy morsels about the mayor. No deeds truely illegal, but enough off track to raise serious doubts about him, along with whom to call to follow up on the items. The day before the election the editor at the Herald wrote something like yes, Christine Moreno was young and inexperienced, but there were too many doubts about Howard Neu. They endorsed Christine. She won. She became North Miami's first,and so far only, female mayor.

A year or two later Howard Neu packed up his law practice and moved up to Broward County.

Cheap Film

2009-11-17T22:11:00.005-05:00

I was thinking that it was about time for Walgreens or K-mart or CVS or SOMEBODY to have a sale on cheap color film. I was about out. My fridge had milk, eggs, and butter but no film. The inserts in the Sunday paper had this CVS 200 film at $4.99 a four pack. They also had faster films on sale, but I'm so used to doing the color shots for this blog with 200 speed film I decided not to spend extra for faster film.

Supposedly Fuji makes this film for CVS, and they probably make Walgreens, K-mart, and several other chains film. I grabbed five packages, paid the clerk, and was on my way. Between cheap rebranded Fuji film and Merna's expertise at my local Walgreens one-hour we get all these gorgeous color shots here on thepriceofsilver!

And then there are the times when I use neither film nor camera, like this picture of the film boxes. It was just too easy to put the film boxes directly on the scanner's glass and then scan the image of them.

Hey! Take A Look At My Nuts! (both of them)

2009-11-16T15:11:00.005-05:00

I seem to attract the most oddball females! But they do fascinate me, no doubt. Janis, in the top pictre, is my neighbor, thin as a rail, stone deaf, and widowed going on two years now. She hasn't gotten past John's death yet. She comes over for coffee and wants my Sunday paper when I'm through with it. Once or twice a week I take her to the drugstore and the supermarket. In this photo she was looking for a new toaster. She's terribly shy and won't let me photograph her so I have to sneak the occasional picture from afar. She always puts on a bit of eye make-up, some lipstick, and asks if her hair looks alright.

In a way, though, it's kind of fun. She reads lips, but getting her attention first is the challenge. People look at us funny when I yell "Hey Janis!" good and loud, but they catch on fast when they see her turn her head, cup her hand around her ear, and reply "What did you say? I can't hear you!"

I met Janie at an outdoor last-Friday-of-the-month free jazz concert outside of city hall. She thought it was great that I was Jewish. I've never dated Jewish girls. She was living in an apartment building a few blocks away, the same one where my ex, Claudia was living when I first met her a couple of decades ago. Seemed safe enough, right?

What I didn't know was that the apartment building was now a halfway house for recovering from whatever they were recovering from type people. Then I discovered that she's fixated on food. She knows by heart the menu of every restaurant around, how giod the food is, what the service is like, the house specialty, and if we should happen to drive by a new place she always wants to check it out. A time or two each week she calls to find out what my plans are for the weekend. In between it's "Let's get together for coffee" and if we do she never shuts up.

Thankfully she moved to a halfway house up near Fort Lauderdale. Now the tavel time and the price of gas is my excuse. She's not happy about it but she accepts it. That doesn't stop her from calling though.

A 1964 Contact Sheet (And That's A Wig)

2009-11-15T11:38:00.006-05:00

I spent the winter of 1963/64 in Boston freezing, taking some photos, partying, working at Zeff Photo Supply in "The Photo District" on Bromfield Street, and being thankful for public transportation. Besides freezing on that bike the streets would get slushy during the day and the ruts would freeze solid at night. Once you got in a rut you were like riding down a railroad track! You couldn't turn out of it. A friend of mine helped me schlep the little Honda up a flight of stairs where it remained until spring thaw. The other shots were in and around Borton and cambridge and no, I don't remember any of their names. It's all there on the contact sheet.

These days almost everybody shoots color with a digital camera, downloads the images into a computer, ant the little pictures on screen are called "thumb nails". This woman was sitting in My usual Starbucks looking over her day's take while her daughter looked thoroughly bored. She seemed very intrigued with the Roleiflex I was carrying, but even that didn't seem to pull her daughter out of her boredom. We talked for a few minutes about how she really likes black and white, and that digital pictures in black and white never seemed to look as good as those shot on film.

I left her with my card, suggested that we might meet up for coffee sometime and chat photography, but that she should finish her editing and get that poor bored little girl home as soon as possible. The girl smiled, but first she wanted to get one more look through the Rolleiflex's finder at the backwards image.

Better Than A Contact Sheet? Hang in there!

2009-11-14T00:36:00.004-05:00

The caption of this photo of the woman with the laptop computer ties in with the photo immediately above.

Friday The Thirteenth ~ First Mug Of The Day

2009-11-13T03:56:00.031-05:00

My friend North Miami City Councilman Scott Galvin got an idea a couple of years ago. I know. Nobody expects city officials to think. He thought it would be nice if you could drive down the street and see American flags flying in front of the houses on patriotic holidays.

He decided to use his expense allowance for something other than weekend junkets and entertaining potential contributors to his next re-election campaign. He bought American flags with the money! Any resident who wanted one could have one for the asking.

That's me there, holding my imported-from-India Leica mug. My fiend Mukul Dube in Dehli came up with the idea for the mugs. He doesn't have a cushy government post with a huge expense account like Scott. He will sell you one though. $20.00 U.S. will get it all the way from Delhi to your door, mug and postage included! The little bit of profit he makes goes to help out poor children in Delhi. They can use the help! Mukul's email is uthappam@gmail.com and he'll accept your check.

Entrance To The Temple At N.E. 135th St.

2009-11-12T08:13:00.015-05:00

It's near closing time, probably about 10 PM. The umbrellas are folded down and there's nobody left to chat with. Unless I'm expecting somebody to show up this is when I'm likely to get a last refill for the day and head home.

I wish it was a bit closer to my house than 4 or 5 blocks. Still, though, it's easy enough to find the place. It's right at the corner of U.S. Route 1, alias Biscayne Blvd. and N.E. 135th St. Head a couple of kilometers west on 135th St. and you're at Interstate 95.

I like sitting outside on the patio. The law doesn't let you smoke inside and most nights in Miami the weather is great. We get a few nights when it's too damn cold or windy, and occasionally the rain will be blown under the roofed over area, but for the most part it's nice enough. The sound system isn't overbearing, and it leans towards classic rock.

When I just want to meditate, lost in my own thoughts, I do. If I feel like socializing I always manage to run into somebody or another that I know, or I can strike up a conversation with someone new. And then there's the eye candy! With four university campuses within a few kilometers of here there are usually at least a few young ladies to spice up the view.

It's a great place to refresh the soul and renew the spirit. Isn't that what temples are for?

Mug Shot ~ Thanks Mukul

2009-11-11T13:13:00.005-05:00

My friend Mukul Dube in Delhi, India sent me this mug. Thanks, Mukul! What a great birthday gift! Yeah, I turned 67 a couple of days ago and I look more fit and in better shape than my balding physician Larry. I got me a flatter belly also. Not to mention that mop of hair! Eat your heart out, Larry the Bald.

I guess this means that I'm going to have to stick my 15mm Voigtlander Heliar lens, that ultra ULTRA wide angle optic, my favorite lens, on one of my Leica camera bodies instead of the lightweight little mostly plastic Bessa L. That oughta build up my arms and shoulders, holding close to a kilogram of glass, brass, and chrome out there at arm's length. Strange, but it's mostly chicks that recognize the Leica name. Or take traditional darkroom courses at school and still shoot film! The Dudes talk about "megapixels" and auto this and auto that and frame rates, all that tech geek B.S. rather than wanting to learn how to make great eye catching photographs.

I like to sit out on my front porch in the morning, drinking my coffee, watching the dogs and kids walk by. I really enjoy watching the neighbor's cat trying to stalk the occasional wayward mouse that didn't manage to get into his hidey hole before it got light out.

The coffee tastes great in that new mug also. If you'd like one email Mukul. He can be reached at uthappam@gmail.com He'll want a check for $20, which includes shipping from Delhi, and the few dollars "profit" he uses to help out the malnourished children there. Obviously he can make good use of more money if you feel generous, and there's a saving in per mug shipping costs if you order more than one at a time, which is more more money for his good work.

The Well Furnished Pad

2009-11-10T12:39:00.007-05:00

It was February,1964 and I'm not sure where in Boston the this was. Probably Norway Street. I'm pretty sure that her name was Barbara but I can't remember his. It's always easier for a guy to remember chicks' names. She's sitting on a big soft cushion. Bean bag chairs were still a dozen years off in the future. None of us minded sitting on the floor. It was pretty common to sleep on a mattress on the floor, no box spring even! Now if I tried that I'd have to crawl around until I got near a doorknob or piece of furniture so I could pull myself up.

Of course when everybody sits on the floor you tend to hang the art work lower too, keeping it eye level. He was the artist.

That Must Have Been Some Killer Headache!

2009-11-09T11:44:00.003-05:00

Contraband Teeth? ~ The Laws They Are A Changin'

2009-11-08T15:06:00.005-05:00

I didn't know that the shell mound even had a name until I went on-line yesterday to get an idea about how far it was from Placida, Forida, where we'd put the canoes in the water. Now I know. It's called the John Quiet Mound and it's over a kilometer east of Placida. It's the biggest highest shell mound in the area and was inhabited by the Calusa Indians a thousand, perhaps even two thousand years ago. They built it! Leftover shells from cooking the clams and conches can make quite a mound over that period of time, even when you start out piling them mostly in shallow water. It's the size of several city blocks and it is over three meters high in places.

In 1973 I went there the first time with Darryl Seideman, a jet engine mechanic, Laymond Hardy, a naturalist and science teacher, and Buzz, a local businessman who was convinced that there was pirate treasure buried there. The real reason we had all gotten together to go there was to check out some rumors that there had been recent sightings of the fabled Florida skunk ape, a large hairy hominid, in the area. We didn't find one.

It was obvious that we weren't the first people there looking for buried "pirate treasure". There were numerous holes next to piles of dirt and old shells. Some of the holes went all way through the mound to the black muck underneath. The record of history shown by the various layers had been destroyed. Now the state owns the place. It won't be developed into condos or townhouses, but now you're not allowed to dig or even pick up fossils and pottery shards that are laying on top of the ground.

These teeth and bits of human skull were collected in the summer of 1973. I didn't dig them up. They were just laying on top. I also collected a bunch of shards of pottery as well as some pieces of flint and quartz that had traveled south either by foot or canoe about 500 km or so.

Laymond pointed out how the teeth were worn flat by chewing corn that still had stone grit from the grinding process but showed no signs of decay. He estimated the bone to be over a thousand years old, judging by the erosion of the bone.

2009-11-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

Those 1970's "Guitar Strap" Neck Straps

2009-11-06T16:29:00.005-05:00

The NIKON strap is like brand new. Somebody gave me a bunch of straps and pouches recently. The two "Hippie Straps" below are from the 1970's. I used them on my Pentacon-Six cameras which are much larger and heavier that 35mm SLR's.

The fabric straps hold up much better than leather straps, but the leather parts still dry out and get cracked. I want to get some rivets and use the Rollie clips off of an old dried out leather Rollieflex strap on a fabric strap.

The straps really weren't "photographed". I just put them on the scanner glass and scanned them directly. I did the same with the bones and teeth,as well as with the Edgeworth tin.

An Edgeworth Sliced Pipe Tobacco Tin

2009-11-05T18:13:00.004-05:00

It's become impossible to locate a lot of the pipe tobaccos of yore these days. They just ain't made no more. I still have a bunch of the metal tins though. One of the small pocket size tins holds postage stamps while another holds paper clips. The larger ones are ideal for storing empty 35mm cassettes awaiting a reload.

Edgeworth Sliced was made by stacking and pressing together a bunch of leaves, along with some other "secret" ingredients, then cutting the sandwich into very thin slices. You crumbled it up with your fingers as you filled your pipe. You could also buy Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, pre-crumbled and in a pouch. It always seemed to get too dried out and burned too hot.

Racial Integration At Barry College

2009-11-04T15:30:00.006-05:00

When I started doing the public relations photography for Barry College in the late sixties it was a Catholic girls college. All of the girls were non-Hispanic white Catholics and the teachers were mostly all nuns wearing habits. In fact so was most of the management and office staff. One of the reporters at the North Dade Journal took over the public relations at Barry and asked me to do their photography. Kathy convinced me that being about the only Jew on campus wasn't going to be a problem. I guess she'd already convinced them.

It was an exciting time at Barry. Sr. Jeanne O'Loughlin became president and embarked on a massive expansion of both the campus and the student body. Probably the most ambitious endeavor was diversifying the student body. When I first came on board there were a few Anglicans in addition to the Roman Catholics, and most all of the students lived in dorms. Everybody was white and female. There were strict curfews. Everybody attended mass in the school chapel on Sunday morning. Parents could be assured that their daughters were safe and in good hands.

It was during this period that the first male students were enrolled (lucky them!) as well as the first black students. The school needed photographs for brochures and publicity. This was shot in January of 1976.

A few years later Barry College became Barry University.

Somebody's Wedding

2009-11-03T21:14:00.003-05:00

Boston, February 1964

I remember shooting the wedding. It was a small wedding, last minute as I recall. I knew the people getting married and they asked me to photograph it. Very few weddings were shot in color at the time. Just as well. The prints would be badly faded by now. I can't recall their names and I haven't seen them since shortly after I did the photography.I was likely shooting with my Canon II-s and 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens. They must have grandchildren by now!

1962 ~ When The Motorcycle Cops Wore Neckties

2009-11-02T08:27:00.003-05:00

A Will Of The Whisp?

2009-11-01T21:50:00.003-05:00

No, it wasn't a visitor from the spirit world. The kids were enthralled by the July Fourth fire works, which were plainly visible from their back yard in Boston in 1963.

Leica III-CK, 35mm f/1.8 Canon, Plus-X developed in Acufine for enhanced speed.

Pipe Dreams

2009-10-31T21:28:00.003-05:00

This was shot in Provincetown during the summer of 1962. Bruce Lowther is on the left and the guy in the middle...well,the name is flitting about in my brain but I can't pin it down.He's the guy who turned me on to Edgeworth Sliced Pipe Tobacco, now sadly just history. He was also living in Boston that winter. It seemed like all the guys were smoking pipes then. You could smoke them in a restaurant or a movie theater. It was considered impolite to complain about it! So we smoked and enjoyed our pipes!

The Toy Monkeys Are Returning!

2009-10-30T22:27:00.007-05:00

Cute, huh? I found this little toy monkey ay a rummage sale at the Congregational Church a couple of blocks away. My ex went there and my kids attended the Sunday school. Reverand Chuck Eastman and I were close friends for years, until he died of a heart attack a few years ago in his mid-fifties. They tell me that I'm an honorary member of the congregation but about the only time I attend services is when one out of town friend or another is visiting.

Well, every few months they hold a rummage sale and sell hot dogs, coffee, and home made pastries. I always stop in, have a coffee and a "something", chat with old friends, and find something that I simply can't live without, so I buy it. An electric broom, a toaster, a gaudy neck tie from the 1940's. Monkette had been wanting to have a baby anyway. I bought her a baby toy monkey. More toy monkey adventures will follow!

The Gas Mask Bag? No, A Camera Bag!

2009-10-29T10:01:00.002-05:00

Growing up in the forties and fifties every town had an Army/Navy store selling military surplus about anything-you-could-think-of at baergain basement prices. Canteens, mess kits, pup tents, and where it was legal, guns and ammunition. College kids carried their books in olive drab back packs. Girls used the shoulder bags for purses. Photographers had a choice of a dozen belt pouches and shoulder bags. Floppy brim "boonie caps" in "jungle cammo" kept the sun and rain off your head.

The original tan canvas Leica bag was only $17.50 back in the mid seventies but an olive drab almost-lookalike was $2.95. I guess all the U.S. surplus from WW-II, Korea, and Vietnam is gone now but other countries are still unloading. This one in olive drab raindrop camo is from the Deutsche Armee.

Peace Marches And Protesters

2009-10-28T07:45:00.012-05:00

The sixties were an age of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was also a time when the younger generation was fed up with being used as canon fodder in a sensless unwinnable war in Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile the leaders of both sides were in a race to produce the biggest baddest bomb ever. Underground nuclear testing had replaced tests in the atmosphere but people still didn't like it. Protests and peace marches took place around the planet. This was photographed in the Boston Commons in the early sixties.

Paul Band, The Matchmaker

2009-10-27T16:00:00.001-05:00

Paul Band had managed to survive World War II as a small boy with his mother. I aways suspected that he might be Jewish, from the stories he told about being cold, hungry, and wandering around on foot, staying with various friendly families. After the war he made it to the United States, settling in Boston. He and I became friends and shared an apartment for awhile. He was very active in the anti-war movement. He'd seen it first hand.

The 1960's wasa time when crossing the Atlantic by ship was having it's final harrah. It was still cheaper to spend three days on as boat than to fly. Stephanie had spent a year attending the University of Geneva in lieu of going through her senior year in high school in Bethesda, MD. It was some sort of advance placement program, taking an immersion course in the French language, and staying with her aunt and uncle. He was conected with the United Nations there. She met Paul on the ship.

Stephanie and Paul exchanged letters frequently. Long distance phone calls were expensive and Paul and I had no phone anyway. One day Paul suddenly decided to move to New York. A week or two later there was a knock on the door. Stephanie and one of her girlfriends had hitch hiked from the University of Michigan to Boston. I invited her in. We ate and chatted. Things "clicked". I didn't want to get drafted, and at the time married men were exempt. I asked her to marry me. A week later we were wed.

As for Paul, I might have seen him once or twice more when he visited Boston.

No Diving From Pier ~1962

2009-10-26T16:05:00.006-05:00

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream get deflected offshore by Cape Cod, cross the Atlantic, and warm up the British Isles and coastal Europe. In the meantime places like Boston and Provincetown are at least ten degrees farenheit colder than the coast of southeast Massachusettes and points south. I grew up south of Cape Cod and thought the water was too cold even then. After all of these years living in South Florida? Provincetown water is COLD! But these kids were having fun, jumping in the water then clambering back up on the pier.

Fresh Caught Bluefin Tuna ~1962

2009-10-25T18:45:00.006-05:00

YES, I know! I'm behind in my writing. Sorry. I'll get caught up.

North Miami Advisory Board Members On Food Stamps?

2009-10-24T22:20:00.006-05:00

My son Jonathan was visiting and playing the "good son", doing my taxes for the year. I'm in a position where I don't need a huge income. The boat and the truck are long ago paid for, as is my photo gear. No rent, no mortgage, no car payments. Real estate tax exemptions because I live in my house and I'm over 65.

"Hey Dad, do you realize that you qualify for food stamps?" He submitted the paperwork. A few days later I got this card in the mail! $55 a month in free food! Now maybe I can afford to live on the lousy twenty bucks I get most months from the City of North Miami for serving on the Board of Adjustment.

(I whited out the account number on the card.)

Provincetown, A Fishing Tradition ~1962

2009-10-23T13:19:00.002-05:00

Bruce Lowther In Provincetown ~ 1962

2009-10-22T15:10:00.006-05:00

I first met Lowther (he preferred being called Lowther to Bruce) in the art room at the New Beford Public Library. In wintertime it was cheaper to spend my free days there than to heat my apartment, and their collection of books went well back into the nineteenth century, so there was always something interesting to look at. Lowther liked to draw. There were several of us who'd spend out afternoons there, staying warm, reading, chatting (softly), and smoking our pipes. It might seem strange now but fifty years ago you could smoke any damned place you pleased. If somebody complained you'd politely suggest that they move elsewhere in the room.

For a few years I stayed in sporadic touch with Lowther. Then I married Stephanie, moved from Boston back to New Bedford for a short while, then on to Miami! I haven't been to New Bedford or Boston in decades now. I've pretty much lost track of everyone. Some of them have no doubt died by now. That's what happens when you can't smoke a pipe indoors! Now all the pipe shops, the custom tobacco blenders, are gone. An era past! I have no idea what happened to Lowther or where he might be these days. He was about 18 when I shot this picture.

Jane, My Lesbian Room Mate ~ 1962

2009-10-21T08:40:00.014-05:00

When I struck up a conversation with this cute chick it never occurred to me that she might be a lesbian. That short hairstyle was very popular with the college girls at the time. We became friends. One night after she got into a bit of a spat with her girlfriend she was at my place visiting when suddenly the girlfriend showed up! After a bit of running around, jumping across beds, and a good amount of screaming, she escorted her girlfriend to the door. (see photos) They soon made up and were back together again.

Come wintertime and I was back in Boston. Jane and I stayed in touch and she knew where I lived on Norway Street. One extremely cold night about 11 PM I was making hot chocolate when there was a desperate knocking on my door! Jane wasn't really dressed for the weather and had just ridden her Vespa motor scooter the couple of miles from near Beacon Hill to my place in the South End.

My household furnishings were typical "beatnik pad", a few chairs, a couple of tables, and a double bed matress on the floor with pillows, sheets, and blankets. It was always cold in there, so after the hot chocolate we were soon under the covers. I wasn't dating anyone at the time, and it looked like Jane wasn't either. We decided to share the place for awhile, just room mates. We went and got her stuff, moving it into my apartment. We were living together for several months. She invited me to be her "date" at a big Christmas party. There must have been close to a hundred people there. She knew them all, and they all knew her. And I was the only straight guy there!

As we circulated around the party she acted like I was her trophy, bragging to the girls that I had I had something (chuckle, chuckle) that their girlfriends didn't have, and telling the guys "Ooooh, I bet you wished that he was YOURS!"

I don't know if it was the drinks, the smoke, or just being around all those chicks, but when we got home she announced that yes, she had occasionaly had sex with a guy, and that once in awhile it was nice to feel something alive inside of her. She easily convinced me to supply the "something alive". I let her put it inside. We did it just that one time. A week or two later she moved out. Some things just aren't meant to be.

The Witch Of Provincetown - 1962

2009-10-20T08:43:00.003-05:00

That wasn't her name but that's what we called her. Every day you'd see her walking up and down Commercial Street carrying that big straw purse. She looks to be at least late sixties with her jowels and throat beginning to sag a bit and her slightly hunched over posture. She ambled along with a slow shuffle. She had a good head of thick hair but the reddish auburn color no doubt came out of a bottle.

She was always the properly dressed lady. She wore short heels, the seams in her nylons were always perfectly straight, the skirt covered her knees by a few inches, and you never saw her without hat and gloves. She did wear a bit too much make-up though. Eye liner and eye shadow had yet to become fashionable but she was made up straight out of a nineteen thirties movie. Plucked and arched eyebrows, rouge on the cheeks of her powdered face, and bright red lipstick.

She never seemed to talk with anyone. She just went about her business, doing a bit of shopping before heading back to wherever it was that she lived. I never did find out where that was, but then I didn't much care anyway. Nor did I know if she was widowed, divorced, an old maid or a lesbian. Over the course of the summer I shot a few pictures of her and liked this the best.

I was shooting Kodak Plus-X in a Canon II-S rangefinder with a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens.

Prescott Townsend ~ A Gay Old Man

2009-10-19T17:03:00.006-05:00

Shortly after I met Rene Ricard in New Bedford he introduced me to Prescott Townsend one weekend when I was up in Boston. Prescott summered at his house in Provincetown and wintered in his Boston house. Both places were always full of people, straight and gay, young and old, and of every race. There were artists and writers and musicians. There was always a place to crash and always something to eat. A few times my new bride Stephanie and I crashed there on a weekend jaunt to P-town back in the sixties.

The photo dates from 1962. I'm going to cheat and lift the following from Wikipedia:

"Prescott Townsend, (June 24, 1894 - May 23, 1973), of Roxbury, Massachusetts was considered a Boston Bohemianism blue blood; the son of Kate Wendell Sherman and Edward Britton Townsend; his mother was a descendant of both Myles Standish and the great-granddaughter of the American founding father Roger Sherman.

"Prescott was arrested on January 29, 1943 for participating in an "unnatural and lascivious act," and was sentenced to an eighteen (18) months jail term in the Massachusetts House of Corrections on Deer Island, although no one in his family applied any pressure to shorten his jail time. The Mid-Town Journal headline of January 29, 1943 reported, "Beacon Hill 'Twilight' Man Member of Queer Love Cult Seduced Young Man" and one month later he was officially stricken from both the New York and Boston Social Registers.

"Townsend is believed to have been the first individual to organize a public conversation about homosexuality in the United States, and the first acknowledged homosexual to officially address the Massachusetts State legislature, where he urged the lawmakers "to legalize love."

"He later began the founder of the Boston chapter of the Mattachine Society; a non-profit organization for educating the public in all aspects of homosexuality, for assisting the individual gay in coping with problems related to his homosexuality, for effecting changes in social attitudes towards gays and for securing the repeal of laws discriminating against gays in housing, employment and assembly

"He opened the first art theater on Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, and was a founder of the Provincetown Playhouse, where the works of Eugene O'Neill where first performed.

"Townsend had for years been suffering from failing health brought on by Parkinson's Disease, and on 23 May 1973 his body was found in the Beacon Hill apartment of John Murray. Murray had been taking care of him during the final years of his life, and the police reported that "when we came in to take charge of the body, Mr. Townsend was found in a kneeling prayer position at his bedside." Of his entire family, only one sister, a nephew and a great nephew bothered to attend his memorial service at the Arlington Street Church."

The Chopper Flew But The Concept Didn't Fly

2009-10-18T20:30:00.006-05:00

This was my first real shoot-for-money job back in 1961. A couple of guys who liked to fly came up with what they thought was a brilliant idea. They designed a helicopter that could carry a detachable cargo pod behind the cockpit. They thought it would be ideal for resupplying the crews of offshore drilling platforms and similar uses.

They got this prototype built but had yet to make any of the cargo pods. I think that they were supposed to be made of fiberglass. I drove out to New Bedford Airport and shot a couple of rolls of take-offs and landings. A month or two later they lost their financial backers and the pods never got built. I never shot any more photos for them. I did get paid for these.

These were shot with a Miranda D and a 58mm f/2 Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar lens on Plus-X film.

Is That Clark Kent Walking Towards The Phone Booth?

2009-10-17T13:40:00.005-05:00

When I was a kid the ten cent comic book ruled! Our parents would have preferred that we read "real" books but at least we were reading. Dick Tracey was supposedly the greatest detective ever, and he had something that seemed really amazing back then: the two-way wrist radio! It was barely bigger than a wrist watch and he could talk to police headquarters with it! He didn't need to find a pay phone or walk around with a pocket full of change.

Another favorite comic book was about Superman, the Man of Steel. He wore a cape and he could fly. I'm sure that I'm wasn't the only kid who made himself a cape out of an old towel and wondered why he couldn't fly! Superman's day job was being a reporter at the Daily Planet newspaper. Whenever the situation requires Superman he'd duck into a nearby phone booth, and stripping off his suit and tie he'd reveal the Superman outfit underneath. The comic books never told us why his suits and ties never got stolen!

The photo was taken near the wharf in Provincetown in 1962. The kids were just hanging out. It was a great place to meet chicks!

Now we have cell phones the size of wrist radios, and phone booths are pretty much a thing of the past. Two more childhood heros displaced by modern technology. But we have new ways to meet chicks!

Camping it up In Provincetown ~ 1962

2009-10-16T14:27:00.008-05:00

I'd stopped off for a late night coffee and Danish at a place I went to frequently enough so that everybody knew me. Suddenly this couple noticed my camera and started camping it up, playing to the camera, and I fired off a few frames. I liked this one best of all. It was just so damned spontaneous! So full of love! I'm glad that I had the camera loaded and ready to go.

The guy on the right, the one wearing the apron, was the one who worked there.

Makin' Music On The Dunes At Race Point ~ 1962

2009-10-15T21:12:00.008-05:00

Sleep way too late, buy a loaf of fresh Portuguese bread at the bakery, get a cup of coffee, and hang out in front of the town hall, I think it was, on Commercial Street, the main drag through Provincetown. When it got too hot it was time to head to the dunes at Race Point at the very tip of Cape Cod.

An ounce of pot was only fifteen bucks, Mexican weed, and not really very good by today's standards, but it was all we had and all we knew and at least the manila envelope (no baggies back then) contained a full weighed ounce. Actually a nickle bag was like as not an honest quarter of an ounce. I was shooting with a Canon II-S equipped with a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens using bulk loaded Plus-X. Bulk loading freed up more money for getting high and picking up the college girls.

Bongos and conga drums supplied the rythm and noise to accompany the guitar, and the more we smoked the more the noise sounded like music to us. Times were good!

1962 Mystery Lady With Red Hair?

2009-10-14T20:41:00.002-05:00

Actually, as I was looking through these contact sheets her name suddenly popped into my mind, first and last! She was a red headed college girl from New Jersey working as a waitress for the summer at an inn in Provincetown, MA. Both she and her room mate had come up to the Cape for the summer. I also remember her room mate's name. So if either one of you, Pat or Jeannie, should run across this blog I'd love it if you'd send me an email. We've got a lot of catching up to do!

This was shot on Tri-X with a Canon II-S and a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens, composing through a Nikon 35mm bright-line viewfinder.

Mike Romano Toking At Number 5 Conant Street, Provincetown, MA 1962

2009-10-13T21:23:00.008-05:00

I met Mike in Boston and the plan was to spend the summer in Provincetown working (as little as possible) and mostly doing some heavy duty partying. We rented the larger (by a few square few maybe) of two tiny cabins behind the house. The landlady was what we'd now refer to as a Native Alaskan or some such but she said she was an Eskimo. She'd married a guy in the military who'd been stationed there. He was from Provincetown of Portuguese decent. They had two little boys.

Mike was one of those rare straight guys with a cosmetology license, and he always had scissors and comb handy. He said it was the best way he knew for meeting chicks. Meeting chicks in P-town in the summer was unavoidable! The town filled up with college girls getting summer jobs as waitresses and chambermaids at the the various restaurants, inns, and bed and breakfasts.

In most cases it was their first experience in really being out on their own. It wasn't like living in a dorm at all. In most cases they came from small midwestern towns with conservative a midwestern culture. Mother had warned them about boys and they knew about the risk of getting pregnant.

What Mother never told them was that there were some men, usually the drop-dead gorgeous ones, good dressers, polite and as well mannered as they were bright and well read, who at best would tell them that they had great taste in clothes or jewelry, but never asked them out on a date. After about a week of that Mike and I had a field day, girls merely for the asking!

Where Is Shirley Now? In 1961 She Was Dancing!

2009-10-12T21:30:00.009-05:00

Here are a couple of shots of Shirley at the dance studio. Again, these are scanned off the contact sheet. The Ricoh 4x4 camera was loaded with Tri-X, I'd just gotten interested in photography a couple of months earlier, and I had no ideas what I was doing!

I got this in an email from Kay, who was our our mutual friend back half a century ago.

"Hi Al,

As for Shirley Seigel, she's been MIA for a long time. I often go back for high school reunions, and she's been on the list that they post of "do you know where these people are?" for ages!"

Aunt Ruth and Her Nephews Herb And Nat

2009-10-11T10:34:00.003-05:00

Aunt Ruth is my mother and her older sister Lillian had three sons and a daughter. We lived in New Bedford but Lil was married to Harry Shapiro, a cigar smoking attorney, and they lived in Brockton, about thirty miles north of New Bedford. It was an hour's drive through two lane winding country roads that ran down the main street and through the center of every little village along the way. The interstates were still in the planning stage at that point, but every few weeks either we'd drive to Brockton or they'd drive to New Bedford.

That's my mom on the left with her typical 1961 permed hair chatting with her two older nephews. Nat, the tall one, had graduated from Clark University in Worcester, while Herb had made the family proud. He was attending Dartmouth, one of the prestigous top "Ivy League" schools. On rare occasions my cousins visit Miami with their wives and we'll get together for lunch or dinner.

Shirley Seigel ~ 1961

2009-10-10T17:26:00.004-05:00

I spent part of 1961 at my grandmother's house in New Bedford, MA a couple of blocks away from where Shirley lived. Whenever I'd go over there to take her out her dad would get me involved in a major discussion on the international economy, capitalism vs. communism, and most of all, the economic theories of his idol, Adam Smith. I was probably the only teen in all of New England who got daily lessons on Smith's theories of a free market economy. He never did win me over, but I learned a lot about the politics of economics.

Shirley looks properly bored in this shot, in no particular hurry to finish dressing or put on her make-up, because her father was only perhaps half an hour into giving the evening's economics lecture to me. I must admit that it did give me some insight into the ways of the world, but I would have rather spent the time learning more about the ways of his daughter! Shirley is another one of those people that I haven't seen in about half a century. Maybe Kay knows where she is and what she's doing these days.

At this point I was shooting 127 film, probably Tri-X, in one of those cute little twin lens reflex cameras, a Ricoh 44. This crummy scan is made off of the contact sheet.

Cousin Joel's First Smoke

2009-10-09T13:23:00.002-05:00

1961 was the year Joel turned 11. I guess today I'd get thrown in jail for child abuse but my Aunt Anne, Joel's mother, was offering me cigarettes when I was about that age. She did tell me that Kent cigarettes were milder and I should switch from Marlboros. At the time both of my parents smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes. Joel is probably lighting a Kent because Marlboros had "cork" colored filter tips. A few years later I did switch brands, to unfiltered Camels.

The photo was shot in our grandmother's living room on 127 Tri-X, probably with a Ricoh 44 twin lens reflex camera. We were most likely all dressed up to go to temple for the Jewish holidays.

Normandy Prep ~ Spring 1961

2009-10-07T20:53:00.007-05:00

I'd dropped out of high school a couple of times. I guess I was bored. My mom thought that I needed the diploma to go to college and she enrolled me at Normandy Prep on Normandy Isle in Miami Beach. I did manage to stick it out there, and Roger Kalins, the son of my mom's best friend lived nearby. He got me interested in photography. Soon I was developing and printing my own photos. He was a couple of years older than I was and had a pair of Leica III-f bodies and a few lenses.

Normandy Prep needed somebody to shoot candid and posed shots around campus for the yearbook. I got the "job". This was a set up shot. After forty-eight years I don't remember their names. I think that I did a pretty good job for a rank beginner! This scan is off the contact sheet although I still have the negatives.

Getting Ready For The Photo Session ~ 1961

2009-10-06T19:49:00.002-05:00

Last night I was surprised to an email from Karisa, otherwise known as Kay. She's five weeks younger than I am and we've known one another since toddlerhood when we were the only two kids on the block. Over the intervening sixty-five or so years we've managed to sort of stay in touch with one another. Recently I've been digging through my old files and ran across these photos of Kay. The scans are directly off the contact sheets.

In September 1961 I had just gotten my first 35mm single lens reflex camera, an Exakta VX with a 58mm f/2 Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar lens. It was loaded with Tri-X and I was staying at my grandmother's house in New Bedford, Mass. At the other end of the block my childhood playmate Kay lived. I needed a model and she was willing. Here are a few shots from the session.

Another Couple of Shots Of Kay

2009-10-05T22:48:00.004-05:00

It's been years since we've met in person. It would be great to take some current pictures of her.

The Yellow Box, A Sexy Lady, And Me

2009-10-04T16:39:00.008-05:00

That good looking thirty-something woman is my mother back in 1957. We'd moved to Miami the previous October, and here we were staying for a few days at a motel in Marathon, in the Florida Keys. Even at that early stage of my photography career I think that I shot a pretty decent bathing beauty picture. The camera was the Ansco Memar that I'd bought with my Bar Mitzvah money about a year before.

The "Stand there, look at the camera, and smile!" shot was one my mother took of me. It was in front of the little apartment building where we lived, 1260 N.E. 136th Terrace, only about five or six blocks from where I live now. I have no idea what the "dress up" occassion was. Maybe the Jewish holidays?

Kodak film still said made by Eastman, and the big competition was Ansco which came in a red box. I'm not sure just why I used Kodak film. Better advertising perhaps? My camera was an Ansco Memar, made in Germany by Agfa

How I Gained All This Weight

2009-10-03T19:58:00.007-05:00

Jan. 1972 found me photographing this barbeque and I'nm not exactly surewhere or why. I think tat it was at the Point East condo project at or shortly after the grand opening. It's a wonder that I didn't put on two hundred pounds back then. I was photographing breakfasts, brunches, dinners, barbeques, cocktail parties, and the food was plentiful and tasty. I must have a fast metabolism. I always look like I live in the middle of a famine!

A First Time For Everything

2009-10-02T22:50:00.005-05:00

January,1972 at the old North Miami Armory! It was try-outs for the annual Miss North Miami Pageant and it was my job to shoot pix of all the contestants. For several weeks every issue of The North Dade Journal would feature pictures of the girls, and I was forced to spend endless hours all over town in their company. Photography can make for a tough life!!!!

At the time the public schools here were just starting to be desegregated and I think that this was the first year where we had a colored contestant. It'd be a few more years before "black" became the word of choice. No, I don't recall her name.

Notice the ash tray on the table? The red check mark and red circle around the ash tray had nothing to do with the ash tray. It was the editor's way of saying "Print this one!"

Good Ol' Charlie Zarzour

2009-10-01T16:16:00.003-05:00

Charlie's actual city job was code enforcement officer, driving around town checking for code violations and making sure that people had pulled the required permits. He hobbled around on crutches but he didn't let that slow him down. He also was the guy who set up the table, the coffee pot, and the cake or cookies for the break during city council meetings or at Miss North Miami Pageant rehersals.

When my daughter Elena was little she'd "help" Charlie put out the plates, forks, napkins, etc. and then help him clean up afterwards. Her reward was mostly having a knee to sit on and some interesting stories to listen to, and he was always "Charlie, not "Mr. Zarzor".

Muskie's The Man ~ January 1972

2009-09-30T22:51:00.006-05:00

I'm betting that Jim Kukar was editing Miami Magazine by January 1972 and sent me on this shoot. He's the guy that first got me interested in politics when he edited The North Dade Journal, and here we are thirty seven years later and I have a pile of pix on the table next to the front door, and we'll be meeting up for lunch in a day or two so I can give them to him.

Later that year he got me floor passes to both the Republican and Democratic conventions on Miami Beach. I was really immersed in politics that year! I'm not sure exactly where this was although I suspect that it was on Miami Beach. It was dark out on the street so I had a little electronic flash on my Leica, and for a lot of the pix I was shooting I was holding the camera with arms outstretched over my head, trying to shoot over the people in front of me.

I really like the shot where the background lights are all squiggly! I was using a slow shutter speed to pick up a bit of the ambient light, and while the flash stopped the motion of the people I wan't holding the camera very steady so those lights sreaked. The position of everybody's hands also helps makes for a rather dynamic picture.

The young lady was photographed with available light. Strange how hair styles and short dresses back then look just like they do now.

The American Society Of Magazine Photographers

2009-09-29T22:21:00.004-05:00

As usual that photo of me on the card with the impish grin was a self portrait. There was a certain amount of prestige in being a member of ASMP. You had to have a history of published photos and be sponsored by members. You couldn't just mail in your money and join. They published a magazine, Infinity, and were one of the sponsors of the annual Wilson Hicks Photojournalism Conference at the University of Miami. You'd see the latest work by the world's top journalistic photographers, listen to picture editors discuss trends, look over and handle the newest cameras, perhaps even get some sample rolls of a newly introduced film. You'd meet up with old friends, make new friends. A lot of those people are gone now, a few I'm still friendly with although we rarely see one another.

As the news magazines got replaced by TV news many photographers startedshooting other things. ASMP became The American Society Of Media Photographers, but that common thread was gone. Wilson Hicks, the last picture editor of Life Magazine, put together a good photojuornalism department at the University of Miami, but the market had changed, Wilson passed away, and an era came to an end.

Canoe? What Canoe? I Don't See Any Canoe!

2009-09-28T22:56:00.005-05:00

I loved that little 1984 Honda station wagon. It got close to 40 MPG on the highway and it was easier for me to get the canoe on it than the VW Microbus that I bought back in 1972. The canoe had been blue when we boughtit in 1973 for our summer Grand Tour of the American West. About as far as we got was visiting Stephanie's folks in Las Vegas and Dick Kehrwald in Sheridan, Wyoming. We never did get to the Pacific.

The nice thing about a cartop canoe or boat is that it shades the car. It really does make it cooler! There were several reasons for the camo paint job. The blue fiberglass had become badly faded and chalky by 1984, I got a good buy on a bunch of cans of spray paint, and it just looked neat. I could keep the car under a tree, even on the highway!

The Price Of Silver Copyright Notice

2009-09-28T07:45:00.002-05:00

That phone number is long gone but the address still works, although now the post office would prefer that you you use P.O. Box 61-1373, North Miami, FL 33261-1373

Do not use any of my photographs for any reason at all without written permission. I took them, I saved them all these decades, and I own the copyright. The reproduction rights can be very reasonable with permission. Without permision? You'll get to pose for a series of photos that I always wanted to do depicting the way that half starved alligators tear apart their still living prey.

Memorial Day, 1971

2009-09-27T17:44:00.004-05:00

This is another one of those circa 1971 photos. The kid is now over forty years old. I have no idea of their names. All I know is that we didn't learn a damn thing over the years. We're still sending troops halfway around the world to get killed fighting other peoples' wars.

The lower photo shows Mayor Bob Hough with City Clerk E. May Avil.

Statue Of A Peccary

2009-09-26T17:22:00.001-05:00

The heavy set guy is North Miami Mayor Bob Hough. I don't remember why that statue of a peccary was there, who the other guys are, or why one of them was getting a key to the city. It was 1971 and probably shot with my Minolta Autocord.

Thank You Flo Tiger!

2009-09-26T11:12:00.004-05:00

Some sort of evil critter(s)invaded my computer night before last. Flo managed to get me straightened out and back on line. What I need to do is get some new images scanned, so just hold your horses! Exciting things are in the works.

City Clerk E. May Avil Being Sworn In, May 1971

2009-09-24T19:03:00.002-05:00

E. May Avil was North Miami's city clerk about forever. The city named the public library after her.

It's All Smoke And Mirrors

2009-09-23T22:57:00.003-05:00

From Hollywood, CA ~ Cheap Czech Film

2009-09-22T16:24:00.003-05:00

Checking Out The New Clothes Dryer

2009-09-21T16:33:00.005-05:00

It was the tail end of May, 1971 and Elena would be born June seventh. Here Stephanie is admiring the new clothes line in the back yard. Drying clothes in the breeze and sunshine was considered a good thing back then, no pesky homeowners associations and zoning regulations to keep you from hanging clothes on the line. Disposeable diapers had yet to take over the market. In fact there were diaper services that would pick up your dirty diapers once a week and leave you nice fluffy clean ones!

There were a lot of things different in 1971 compared to today. Now women attempt to quit smoking before getting pregnant, and wouldn't dream of subjecting their children to cigarette smoke. Not then! A week or so until delivery and Stephanie is sitting out in the yard holding a cigarette in her hand.

A few years later, with Jonathan on the way, we got an electric clothes dryer. I'm probably the only one left on any side of the family that still smokes.

This is another one of those shots on 120 roll film with the Minolta Autocord.

Tina Prevatt

2009-09-20T20:50:00.003-05:00

June 1971

Mayor Bob Hough And The Start Of The Failure Of The Dream Of Pepper Park

2009-09-19T08:45:00.004-05:00

June,1971

The BIG Day

2009-09-18T23:07:00.002-05:00

Saturday I get to photograph a WEDDING in Vero Beach.

Why I'm Resigning From The North Miami Board Of Adjustment

2009-09-17T11:18:00.006-05:00

I've given a lot of thought to my resignation and drank a lot of coffee mulling it over in my mind. Here's my reasoning:

When Councilman Scott Galvin got elected to the North Miami City Council a few years ago he called me up. He wanted to appoint me to the Board of Adjustment. I told him that I'd put in enough years on city advisory boards, how several years before I had to use the excuse that my mom had just passed away and I needed some time, and I resigned from the North Miami Planning Commission. At that time I'd also stepped down from serving on the boards of directors of The Greater North Miami Chamber of Commerce, The Mayor's Economic Task Force (I was one of the founding members)and The North Dade YMCA. Life was a constant whirl of membership meetings, board meetings, breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings. At some point you want your life back.

Anyway, Scott and I had been good friends for years and here he was begging me to please serve on the Board of Adjustment. It seemed like he wasn't going to take "NO" for an answer.

I agreed, but no tie and jacket, scruffy didn't-shave-for-five-days (Did I start that style?)and the shoulda-got-a-haircut-last-month look. I started going to Board of Adjustment meetings, getting into discussions with the head of the Planning Department, chatting with the city attorney, and riding all over town checking on the properties that were seeking variances. Now this is a PAID position! For each monthly meeting I get $10, a rate set back about 1960. It didn't cover my gas expense! It took me over a year for the city council to finally "double the salary" to $20 because "there's no money in the budget!"

For many decades the Board of Adjustment was an "advisory" board and the council would still hear the petition and make the final decision. A recent change in state law changed all that. We no longer "advise", we "decide"! I thought that the added responsibility was worth more money. The council thought otherwise. "There's NO MONEY in the budget" I was told.

Of course not! In the past couple of years the council awarded themselves a gold plated health insurance plan FOR LIFE, a generous expense account, and a fantastic pension plan. All this with no money in the budget? And the board members be damned!

And then a few months ago you selfish greedy bastards gave YOURSELVES a ten fold increase in salary with no money in the budget. The water plant is falling apart, the mains are leaking more water than they're delivering, the sewers are in pretty much the same shape, the parks are in deplorable condition, and there is a freeze on hiring and salaries but you self centered ass-holes found the money to increase lining your own pockets by a factor of TEN!

Last night's agenda was full, yet I was really hoping that we'd barely have a quorum. I'd planned on reading this, then perhaps getting up and leaving, all of those variance seekers left standing there with their expensive attorneys. It's enough to make you cry, isn't it?

Put a decent offer on the table and we'll have a starting point for a discussion. Sounds fair to me. It should also be retroactive to the date of your salary increase. Scott, now it seems like I'm the one who is refusing to take "NO" as an answer. Give me a "YES".

The Country Club Luxury Of Beautiful Aventura, Florida. Waterfront Living At Its Best!

2009-09-16T10:27:00.010-05:00

These days Aventura is an incorporated city pretty much sandwiched between U.S. 1 and the Intracoastal Waterway and south of the Broward County line. The first time I ran into the name Aventura was in the early 1970's when it was the name of a new country club and I was doing the photography for a public relations agency that was representing them.

The golf club was renamed Turnberry Isle, and Aventura was applied to the area as a whole. Condos were built and a very successful large regional mall was constructed there. What nobody seems to remember is the place that was there half a century and more earlier. Even the Florida East Coast Railroad had a station there.

There were a number of roads running east from U.S. 1 through the mangroves towards the Intracoastal Waterway. For the most part they were cinder roads made from crushed and graded cinders, the mineral left over after coal was burned. Plentiful and cheap. There were a number of tourist traps like this museum, along with small motels and restaurants along the highway but back aways were rental apartments, rooming houses and tiny houses. These have long been gone in favor of apartments and commercial development.

I Was First To Arrive, Monkette Was Pissed

2009-09-15T08:48:00.004-05:00

As a photographer I got in the habit of getting places on time or even a bit early. Monkette didn't want to go to a party at a bayside restaurant where everybody would be drinking. She really can't hold her booze. Later when she looked at the photos she noticed that there was a yellow toy bear on an adjoining table. It isn't very often that she gets to go a party with other toy animals, but she really blew it this time. She'd stayed home.

Flo's Birthday Party

2009-09-14T09:07:00.013-05:00

I got one of those fancy email invites to Flo Tiger's birthday bash. Her late husband Spencer had been one of my best and closest friends going back about 35 years. His sister Donna had passed away a few years ago also. Most all of the Tiger clan that I knew so well for so many years is no longer with us. But somehow Spencer had managed to meet and fall in love with this Miami Beach Jewish chick, Flo. They married, and a few years later Spencer was gone too.

I went to the party at this bayside restaurant and met lots of people I'd never met before. The two women with me in the bottom photo, Di and Michelle, were Donna's friends from high school. There were no Miccosukee Indians at the party.

As usual I was using my 15mm Heliar lens on a Bessa L. I also shot a bunch of pictures with Flo's Nikon DSLR. I never once looked at the LCD screen on the back of the camera to check my pictures. I knew they were just fine.

Al Kaplan, A True Visionary Looking Out For North Miami's Future! North Miami's Best Choice For Our Next City Manager.

2009-09-13T09:49:00.017-05:00

An email to Councilman Scott Galvin:
Hi Scott,

Things were going along so nicely when I resigned from all of my board positions, and then, good buddy, I let you talk me into taking a seat on the Board of Adjustment. I think that it was 1971 when I first got on the Youth Opportunity Board. Between city advisory boards, from vice chair of the Planning Commission to the Disaster Preparedness Board, and being on the boards of directors of the Mayors Economic Task Force (I was one of the founding members), the Greater North Miami Chamber of Commerce, and the North Dade YMCA, I must have a cumulative total of about sixty years of civic involvement, based on the years on various advisory boards.

That involved a major rewrite of the city charter. When I asked the city attorney "Why me?" she said "Because you're the only one on the Charter Review Board that understands this shit!" When I handed in my rewrite she said "Oh, I just wanted your opinions and suggestions. I didn't expect you to do the rewrite!" Anyway, we went over it together, cleaned up some language into proper legal terminology, and until the latest rewrite large sections of the charter were my writing. I suppose some still are.

The city could do worse than to hire me.