Showing posts with label "black and white" photo farmhouse window junkman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "black and white" photo farmhouse window junkman. Show all posts

Friday, November 14, 2014

Weekend in Black and White - 11/14/14: "The Junkman's Window"

asks us to post a black and white photo. No spot colors. No sepia. Black and white, only.

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Several years ago, an old friend from college got in touch. I will call him E.

He was a few years older than most students, having served in the military before attending college. He was a collector, even then. He worked summers in a bottling plant and confiscated bottling mistakes, such as when Orange Crush ended up in a Coke bottle.

He and his roommate (who I will call J) ---also an older student ---rented a tiny house off campus. I had dated both of them at one time or other ---never a big romance with either. E was a fellow art student. J was an English major and a great wit. (I've always chosen men with senses of humor over good looks or money. A wise choice, I think.)

I graduated from college in 1967 & saw J in 1969 at the only homecoming I attended. At that time, he was a reporter for the newspaper in my college town. In 2001, at the request of my employer to call the newspaper in that town, I asked if J still worked there. He did & had been an editor for years.  He granted my request to send a reporter and photographer to cover my employer's gold-leaf application to the local courthouse cupola.  J & I spent a few minutes catching up, too.

In college, E stored his "treasures" on a shelf that stretched around the perimeter of the living room, above the windows, in the house he and J shared. One weekend, J held a party while E went home for the weekend. When we ran out of beverages, we raided E's bottling mistakes. When he returned, I swear we could hear his reaction back at the campus.

In the intervening years, I ran into E once, at a huge flea market sometime in the 70's.  I hadn't seen him since.  But after he sent me a letter in 2011, I drove to his home to visit.  He owns an old farmhouse outside of our college town. It is filled from floor to ceiling with junk ----er, rather, his "treasures" ---which he sells on eBay. So, when I took photos of his home, I referred to him as  "The Junkman" in my titles.

I mentioned the incident when everyone drank his treasures. I wanted to belatedly apologize for our thoughtless actions. He had no recollection of the incident.

E called last December (2013) to tell me J had died.


"The Junkman's Window"
February 2012
The view of a run-down out-building from
the second story of E's old farmhouse.

I bet it's filled with junk, too.
See my photostream on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cj_proartz
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