Picture Records, A School Photo Album, Fourth Page
I'm kind of aware of the fact that I don't post as frequently on Flickr as I used to. One of the reasons is that I had several albums, with dozens and dozens of photos, and I made the posting of those albums into projects that consumed a fair amount of time. I have several other albums, but there's only one that is both full of photos and full of photos of a high-quality and/or contains lots of photos with highly-interesting content. When the time comes to post that one album, I hope I remember to do it.
Meanwhile, here's a little morsel, an album I've had for a while. I don't, in fact, remember where I bought it, but it was pre-Iowa, which means either South Carolina, Florida, or the Missouri triangle as the source of purchase. For some reason, I have the state of Maryland attached to my memory of where these photos might have been taken, and where the school might be. Don't know why I have that memory, as there is no intrinsic evidence to support that association.
Most of these kids are smiling. This photographer had The Knack, and, to be honest, I worry about the kids who aren't smiling. My most haunting memory of going into the Arkansas Public Schools, K through 12 (I participated in a program called "Poets in the Schools," (though, of course, I was never a poet), until I got fired for being a bad boy (and my indiscretion does not even make for a very good story), oh yeah, my most haunting memory, is how in kindergarten, just about all the kids, rich and poor, black and white, were boiling over with irrepressible enthusiasm, and by the time they were sophomores and juniors and seniors, they had been sorted out, and the kids who as kindergartners were no less able, no less inventive, no less alive, were now, after the democratizing socialization process, shunted aside, deemed lesser, slotted to change tires down at the Firestone store, or put on an apron and primp the lettuce at the local grocery. And that was before Wal-Mart had done the worst of its work. Even the teachers, at least some, if not most of them, participated in the process. They would point out the troublemakers for you, and speak sneeringly of them. The experience was uplifting, and terribly disheartening, which is how I feel about my wonderful, dastardly country.
Picture Records, A School Photo Album, Fourth Page
I'm kind of aware of the fact that I don't post as frequently on Flickr as I used to. One of the reasons is that I had several albums, with dozens and dozens of photos, and I made the posting of those albums into projects that consumed a fair amount of time. I have several other albums, but there's only one that is both full of photos and full of photos of a high-quality and/or contains lots of photos with highly-interesting content. When the time comes to post that one album, I hope I remember to do it.
Meanwhile, here's a little morsel, an album I've had for a while. I don't, in fact, remember where I bought it, but it was pre-Iowa, which means either South Carolina, Florida, or the Missouri triangle as the source of purchase. For some reason, I have the state of Maryland attached to my memory of where these photos might have been taken, and where the school might be. Don't know why I have that memory, as there is no intrinsic evidence to support that association.
Most of these kids are smiling. This photographer had The Knack, and, to be honest, I worry about the kids who aren't smiling. My most haunting memory of going into the Arkansas Public Schools, K through 12 (I participated in a program called "Poets in the Schools," (though, of course, I was never a poet), until I got fired for being a bad boy (and my indiscretion does not even make for a very good story), oh yeah, my most haunting memory, is how in kindergarten, just about all the kids, rich and poor, black and white, were boiling over with irrepressible enthusiasm, and by the time they were sophomores and juniors and seniors, they had been sorted out, and the kids who as kindergartners were no less able, no less inventive, no less alive, were now, after the democratizing socialization process, shunted aside, deemed lesser, slotted to change tires down at the Firestone store, or put on an apron and primp the lettuce at the local grocery. And that was before Wal-Mart had done the worst of its work. Even the teachers, at least some, if not most of them, participated in the process. They would point out the troublemakers for you, and speak sneeringly of them. The experience was uplifting, and terribly disheartening, which is how I feel about my wonderful, dastardly country.