May 1st - May Day

     May Day - It is a special date for me, it conjures up a childhood memory.  I was six or seven years old. In elementary school the class made paper "May Day" baskets.  They weren't useful in any way. A two dimensional cut out of a basket with paisley white paper that resembled  a doily. 
    When  presented to Ma when I got home, she suggested giving it to Mrs. Pekarz. She was an elderly woman, I thought in her 80's, probably no where near, who lived in a mysterious stone house. Mysterious, because it was the only stone house in the neighborhood.  It sat up on a little hill on the corner of Nut Plains and Half Mile road. Even then my little brain wondered and swirled with questions of its existence, who would build such a fortress and why? I loved everything about that little stone house, as it sat up there shaded by maple trees with a big sloping yard to one side, and a U shaped driveway.  To me it was a castle.  I lived in a neighborhood with a castle! 
    Anyway, Mrs Pekarz had a thick foreign accent, and always had Chihuahuas. Nasty little Chihuahuas with bulging, weeping eyes, and spindly little legs that split into toes, with long nails that clicked on warn floor boards. Chihuahuas who bit, and bit her often.  When Ma and I knocked on the back door you could hear the vicious yapping of her little dog  - only one - and the shuffling of Mrs Pekarz's plastic soled slipper-shoes on kitchen linoleum. The house smelled like many old people lived there, mixed with spiced cooking.  Mrs. Pekarz struck me as a rugged woman, and as mysterious as the house in which she lived.
    My carefully crafted gift was well received with enthusiasm and joy. 
    "I know exactly where to put this", she said.
    Out the back door she shuffled, down concrete steps, across a well worn grassy path  to her garden shed.  Ma and I trundled behind.  This garden shed was a bit well used, worn, tired, and if I recall cram packed with tools, and bits of gardening supplies.  She pushed open its fragile door, turned and placed my May Day basket above the door frame, just inside her tired old garden shed. the one small piece of color and youth.
    I wonder, after all these years if it's still there?  If not how long did it remain. Certainly Mrs. Pekar is long gone.   May Day mysteries. 
    Ma and I walked back home under a warm spring sun, across a sloping lawn leaving behind the mysterious stone castle, and little old woman with the nasty little dog.

Happy May Day

Caccha's on Half Mile Rd, taken in the 80's

Spring to Summer in 2015 Nash and Willow Sunshine - Film

    

       I get side tract often when searching for a particular photo - this was one of those times.  I came across these wonderful shots of  Nash (15 1/2) and Willow Sunshine (3 1/2) and one of Luna.  

     All taken with film - Kodak Ektar 100.  I refuse to give up my SLR cameras - one from the 80's (my first a gift from Dad when I was 15 years old) and the other from the 90's (my Dad's camera I inherited when he passed away).

 There is a rich quality to film photographs, and a sense of longevity not found in digital. 

 Instant feedback and gratification's delayed.

  There is a place for both, don't give up on the old.