Early Thoughts on Hurricane Harvey

This is too much to put onto my Facebook page, even if it might reach more people. FB is already too cluttered with nonsense. I don’t Tweet…besides, this has too many characters. It qualifies as a rant so it belongs on my own personal space…where few will see it. So be it.

Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, June 2, 2015

I recognize this is a new age…one where we elected a president and a Congress who believe government should only be there to help rich people get richer or else get out of the way. If anything comes out of the Harvey/Houston disaster, I hope it’s a serious discussion about how (and where) we choose to grow and develop.

Texas prides itself on its pro-growth ethic. The City of Houston has NO zoning codes, nor do any of its ordinances address land use (apart from subdivision). You own the land and you can do anything you damn well please with it. What we’re seeing on the news is not just due to the unprecedented storm. The storm water has nowhere to go but into our new spaces.

People, by that I mean the VOTERS, especially the ones who stay home on Election Day, need to understand what happens when you pave over so much land that was already low-lying and wet. Harvey may have been ‘The Big One’ but HOUSTON WILL FLOOD AGAIN.

Those liberal, elite, godless scientists have been trying to tell you this for years. You ignore science and facts and logic and truth at your peril. Go ahead. Cut those unnecessary science budgets. Fire all those lefty egg-heads. See where it gets you. See what happens to our standard of living and this country’s standing in the world.

As someone once said, “We elect the government we deserve.”

Shot of the Day – 17 – Another Katrina Anniversary

As noted earlier, I hope to use this space to remember New Orleans in the month of August and Hurricane Katrina on this date. Twelve years ago today, the storm and government incompetence nearly destroyed this amazing city.

A year later, I returned to what was our home for fifteen years to see how it was faring. The impact of that visit prompted the essay that started this blog. It was another five years before the second story appeared but in 2006, I was more interested in making a statement than producing a (semi-) regular publication.

Lakefront Marina a Year Later (10 August 2006)

On the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, in the West End neighborhood, is a yacht club and marina. This is what it looked like one year after the storm. Not having gone through such devastation yourself, you might ask, “Why is the place still a mess? Why has no one cleaned it up?” Maybe the meager government funds we anti-tax patriots have allocated for such things was better spent on food, shelter, medicine and infrastructure. Maybe insurance issues still needed to be resolved. Maybe the marina went bankrupt. Maybe the boat owners lost everything and, with nothing left to come home to, have started all over where they were evacuated. Maybe the boat owners died. This wasn’t called a disaster for nothing.

On one side of the marina was a collection of seafood restaurants…all on pilings over the water. The right table could get you a great view of sunsets over the lake. The oldest of the eateries was Bruning’s. In one building or another, the family sold meals there since 1859. My meal of choice was almost always the seafood platter. Why have a shrimp dinner or a crab dinner or a fish dinner or an oyster dinner when you can have all of them on one plate?

All That’s Left of Bruning’s (10 August 2006)

Eighty percent of the city was flooded. Many houses were flooded and needed extensive restoration though their basic structures were intact. Many houses were ruined and the only thing to do was tear them down and rebuild. Because Bruning’s and all the other restaurants were OVER the water and the storm surge came from the Gulf into the lake, the buildings were battered from many directions.

They just disappeared.

Here we are twelve years later on the same day, hoping the people of Houston will come through their ordeal better. If you can spare a few bucks, organizations participating in hurricane relief efforts include:

• American Red Cross. To donate visit redcross.org, call 1- 800-RED CROSS or text the word HARVEY to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

• The Salvation Army: To donate visit www.helpsalvationarmy.org or call 1-800-725-2769.

• Catholic Charities USA: Visit catholiccharitiesusa.org to donate.

Shots of the Day – 16 – New Orleans – Nancy’s Garden

Nancy’s Garden # 2, New Orleans (20 June 2005)

Because August is the month Hurricane Katrina nearly did New Orleans in, I am devoting all the SOD’s to images from our former home town.

Just two months before the storm hit, I was in the city, enjoying my first post-retirement road trip…staying with friends…eating my way through town and firing away with my first digital camera.

Nancy’s Garden # 9, New Orleans (20 June 2005)

In the Uptown neighborhood, you can find some fine old houses. Some have magnificent gardens. As you can imagine, such a warm, wet place is quite favorable to plant life. For many of the local flora, the challenge is not getting them to grow but keeping them in check.

Nancy’s Garden # 1, New Orleans (20 June 2005)

Thanks to Nancy (and Don) for allowing me to shoot their magnificent yard…and for some fine dining and partying, too.

Shot of the Day – 15 – NOMA Archer

Hercules the Archer, New Orleans Museum of Art (21 June 2005)

After I left New Orleans, the Museum of Art added a fine sculpture garden. The museum is in City Park, a great expanse of land north of downtown that contained, among other things, a stadium, golf course, miniature railroad, ponds and scads of grand live oak trees. It was a great place for early morning runs before work…since our house was just two blocks away.

This picture was taken during the first post-retirement Road Trip (Roman numeral I, as the Chronicles record it)…and just two months before Katrina changed everything. I had freed myself from the work-a-day life and was reveling in chasing down presidents’ grave sites and seeing anything else that caught my attention at my own pace.

The statue, created in 1909 and cast in 1947, is by the French sculptor, Antoine Bourdelle. The NOMA web site will take you to an image of the work but I chose to shoot it from a different perspective…one that is less documentary and more blended with the surrounding vegetation…as a hunter might lie in wait for his prey.

The fun and the challenge of photography is to present a known object in a way it hasn’t been seen before. After the storm, I suspect much of the vegetation was damaged and it may no longer be possible to view the sculpture this way.

Shot of the Day – 14 – New Orleans, Magnolia Fallout

Magnolia Fallout, New Orleans (2 February 2009)

For the past nine years, I have created calendars with images of places and things. As you know by now, if people are in the shot, it’s coincidental. While the calendar software allows one to identify special dates, I have not highlighted any days of significance…like my birthday, anniversary or retirement date…except for one.

August 29, 2005 was the day Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans. We lived there for fifteen years and while I have no desire to move back, I will always appreciate the experience of living in one of the most unique cities in the country. I have seen what nature (and inadequate infrastructure) did to that city and each of my calendars includes a New Orleans image for August and that special designation for the 29th.

In 2009, I was walking around the Uptown neighborhood near the Tulane University campus. This small magnolia tree was clearly in a favorable spot since its flowers had already peaked and started to fall. I have talked about cropping images to emphasize horizontal elements and I did that here. There was a sidewalk in the foreground and sunlight higher on the fence so I zoomed in to crop those features out. All that’s left are the lines of the fence, a solitary trunk and pink petals on the grass.

(Click on the shot to see it on the full screen)

More to come this month.

Ball Parks – # 6 - Milwaukee County Stadium, WI

5 September 1999

This series began with a stadium that no longer exists. I want to add another extinct ballpark to bolster my life list since who knows how many I will finally accumulate. Many people have succeeded in quests to take in a game at every major league ballpark. I’ve read about some maniacs who do all of them in one season. I’m in no hurry and, since this is my blog and my quest, I’m going to pad my stash with places the rest of you young upstarts can’t get to anymore.

Milwaukee County Stadium (5 September 1999)

I lived in Milwaukee for five years in the early ‘70’s…during graduate school and the first full-time work after that. I was a transplanted New Yorker and would see the Yankees when they came to town. My first date with Beck was supposed to be at a game there. She had the nerve to turn me down with this lame excuse about having a class that evening. I went alone and still remember freezing my ass off. It was September and it can get cold in Wisconsin.

Milwaukee had not had a major league team since 1901, so the civic fathers began that trend of creating facilities to lure franchises…“If you build it, they will come.” The first baseball-only stadium built entirely with public funds, Milwaukee County Stadium opened in 1953 to welcome the relocated Boston Braves…the first team in 50 years to change cities. Its unremarkable design and symmetrical shape changed little over its lifetime save for the occasional seating added or fences moved. Some might suggest that the addition of Bernie Brewer’s chalet and slide into a giant beer stein was the crowning ornament. What was good at County Stadium then (and Miller Park now) are the brats…you can always get a decent sausage in Milwaukee.

County Stadium Sausage Race (5 September 1999)

Speaking of sausages, the Brewers were the first team to have 

this between-inning stunt where sausage-costumed stadium 

workers high-tail it around the warning track to home plate. 

Since then, the Washington Nationals do a Presidents Race

and the Pittsburgh Pirates race pierogis.

County Stadium was where Warren Spahn won his 300th game in 1961 and Nolan Ryan won his 300th in 1999. It was where Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix (right now, I wish his name were Pete Perkins) pitched twelve perfect innings (no hits, no walks, no one reaches base in any way) only to lose the game 1-0 in the 13th inning. Here was where Willie Mays hit four homers in one game in 1961. I saw Hank Aaron play there. He was with the Brewers in the final two years of his remarkable career and hit his 755th home run here in 1976.

Milwaukee County Stadium, (5 September 1999)

Behind the center field fence, the new Miller Park is under 

construction. The Brewers had to play in County Stadium 

an extra year because of construction delays, including one 

caused by a crane accident in July, 1999 that destroyed 

work in progress and killed three iron workers.

Mark McGuire at Bat (5 September 1999)

With the in-laws in Wisconsin, there are regular trips back to America’s Dairyland and the long Labor Day weekend included this Sunday game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Brewers scored three in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game only to give up four more in the 10th and lose 13-9.

It wasn’t a good year for the Brew Crew as they finished 5th in the 6-team Central Division, 22½ games behind the leading Houston Astros. Funny how the Astros are now in the American League and the Brewers are in the National League. Go figure.

Funnier still is the fact that, at this writing, the team is leading its division which includes the defending champion Chicago Cubs. I’d love to see them make the playoffs. Go Brewers.