My father at Quaker Meeting House in Sandy Springs Maryland, 12/2019
Grounds at Quaker Meeting House in Sandy Spring Maryland
I'm lucky and glad to have a father who is a rocket scientist. Just for the fact that I get to say "My dad is a rocket scientist." He's a painter and I guess spiritual scientist.... way into explaining God through scientific means. Some of it makes sense to me.
He's a pacifist. Raised Catholic of German and Irish ancestry. He split with Catholicism in 1966. In the 80's he and I would go to Quaker meeting in Sandy Springs Maryland. It was really just a means to bond for me. But I liked it, I liked the quiet. He's led an odd life as an engineer working for department of defense during periods of his life, working on Skylab, opposing the Space Shuttle cause he thought it wasteful and dangerous and designing things in theory like the Solar Sail. During the Carter years he had his own 2 small businesses. One was to do the math on other folks energy conservation ideas to see if they can get grants to develop them. The other was his own company to develop his own solar ideas. That was a happy time.
Driving range, Route 29 in Maryland
Around my parents house was this bag of rusty old Sears and Roebuck branded golf clubs. I don't think they ever left the house but I asked if we could go to the driving range. I sucked at it but my dad surprised me. He could drive those little turtle egg looking things way out into the field. He has no pretensions, no silly need to prove... The man next to us had his expensive set of clubs, nice clothes and he could not drive even as well as I. He'd hit a ball and swear and swear and swear. I've rarely heard my dad use a curse word.
The Blue House on Michigan Avenue, Portland Oregon
Behind our house in Columbia Maryland 2019
If you look at the stones on the edges of the stream you'll notice how uniform they are. My dad couldn't sit idly by and watch the stream erode the land around it during storms so pretty much every stone you see here he placed there over a period of 2 years. Yeah, he's a strange bird, and the neighbors were baffled. But I see it as just another art project, and it's beautiful......
Kitchen, Columbia Maryland, 2019
I grew up middle class in the 70's. My parents had nice things. The things that stuck were the stereo, and I'm still a stereo freak even in these times, and they took pride in the 35mm Sears camera they had. I could care less about televisions, cars, video games, but the camera, guitar and hi-fi stuck.
Gazebo built by my father behind my parents house, 2019
As I write this we're in the middle of the Corona pandemic. I spoke to my father last week and again he asked when I was coming down and my reply was I don't know. I live in a hot spot called Brooklyn dad, and me visiting you can really harm you and mom so I just don't know. He replied "Well, you can live in the gazebo in the backyard until you're through the quarantine period!"
I wish it were as simple as that...........
JB 4/18/2020
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