After Forty Years

Forty years had been kind to her, the last time we were together, she was looking pretty ragged, her skin seemed to be just flapping in the wind. It seemed the years were wearing her down, like no one around her cared, It didn’t seem to matter what her fate was to be, for the people of the neighborhood. I guess the people thought her days were numbered. Driving down with Tony, for a day on the Jersey Shore, we park the car a few blocks away, and start walking to the beach. Right in front of us is Lucy, Tony is a little taken back by my reaction, it’s been forty years since I’d seen her, Tony had been hitting this beach over the last dozen years or so, I don’t think he knew her back when she was looking so rough. I had spent the Summers of my childhood on this beach, what a trip, to be back here again, it wasn’t my request, it wasn’t planned. When I’d swim in the ocean, here as a child, her eyes were always on me, it was nice to see, she had pulled herself together. I met Tony Ward back in 91, down in Old City, I was living out in the sticks, just back from California, and headed into Philly for the First Friday Festivities. Pentimenti Gallery was showing his work, wonderful black and white work, the grain a bit big but beautiful. We hit it off good at that show, his work was gorgeous! We had a lot in common, a lot, uncommon. He was out of the Rochester Institute, the same school of another photographer I had met that day. Both these guys, and i have become close friends, so don’t be confused when I mention Lucy, i’m not talking about Bobs Dog. I guess I was a bit of a novelty to them, off on my own, a few Workshops under my belt, armed with whatever information I was able to understand at the time. So its been about 15 years since we first had met, I was having some trouble in my life at the time, and so was Tony. We figured heck, if things are going to be rotten, we might as well have them be rotten at the beach. Funny thing, we get there, and things don’t seem so rotten anymore. Its a hot day on the sand, lots of College Girls in skimpy little suits, its really nice to get away. For the rest of the Summer, we’d be down on this beach, every weekend. It was while talking with Tony, about some Photographic What If’s, that the idea came to bleach an image, and then place it in ocean water, to absorb the occurring salts of that water. He laughed, even harder as I carried gallon jugs of ocean water, back with all our beach junk back to the car. We usually would stop at this spot right off the beach, right at the Margate, Longport Border. They had moved Lucy a little South when they gussied her up, at 125 years, she was looking pretty good for an old Pacaderm. I was glad to see her still at the shore, that there were some people who cared. I guess they fixed her up and moved her, about a year or so, after I had gone West, I had never come back, Grand Mom sold the house. Something like this, this Hulking Beast, is a real anchor to ones youth, those jugs of water, were a real conversation starter. In the bar, they just looked funny, a couple towels, a couple beach chairs, and a couple of brown gallon jugs. This place was even better than the beach, Drunk College Girls in skimpy little suits. This place was paradise, virtually at Lucy’s feet. Funny thing about that water, it worked, I got results. I had been reading that Tim Ruddman book on toning, and it was something that he didn’t write, that got me thinking, one of those Photographic What If’s. Bob had told me years before, that I needed more color in my photographs, I had no idea what he was talking about. He showed me examples in his work, but he wouldn’t tell me how, He left it for me to get on my own, he didn’t want any clones. There must be something in the way these guys were taught, the both of them, just crack the door open a little bit, then send you in.