A few weeks ago I was driving around the local Mall, before all of the cold and snow… back when the weather was great and it seemed like winter would never start. I was stopped at a light and saw a couple of teenagers, high schoolers, walking toward the metro station.  On the sidewalk, clear view of everyone, bright skies, middle of the day. They wore standard jeans, T-shirts, loud orange shoes. Just walking and talking. A normal way to spend a super nice winter day. And then one handed the other a pipe…a glass pipe. He took a deep hit and passed it back.  Could have been a tobacco bong but I’m guessing it was heroin, crack, or maybe just marijuana. And I thought, as I watched them…how naive I am. To think that I had seen something that looked normal but that was perhaps really just a fleeting glimpse of lives on the edge. Maybe already in a downward spiral. I think of them as anonymous headlines of police arrests, drug deal deaths, stars on the TV show “Cops,” but then…maybe this is the new norm. Do the kid’s parents do drugs? Will they care when the kids end up in jail? Or will the parents already be there? I am from the 60s, there were drugs everywhere. I’m not sure there is a difference. I’m puzzled.On our walkabout yesterday we stopped at a marina south of the airport. The sun was low and I loved the light. The first shot is of Diane standing on the dock with the boats at her back. The second is of some of the boats; I adjusted that shot to give the feel of old film. 

A few weeks ago I was driving around the local Mall, before all of the cold and snow… back when the weather was great and it seemed like winter would never start. I was stopped at a light and saw a couple of teenagers, high schoolers, walking toward the metro station.  On the sidewalk, clear view of everyone, bright skies, middle of the day. They wore standard jeans, T-shirts, loud orange shoes. Just walking and talking. A normal way to spend a super nice winter day. And then one handed the other a pipe…a glass pipe. He took a deep hit and passed it back.  Could have been a tobacco bong but I’m guessing it was heroin, crack, or maybe just marijuana. And I thought, as I watched them…how naive I am. To think that I had seen something that looked normal but that was perhaps really just a fleeting glimpse of lives on the edge. Maybe already in a downward spiral. I think of them as anonymous headlines of police arrests, drug deal deaths, stars on the TV show “Cops,” but then…maybe this is the new norm. Do the kid’s parents do drugs? Will they care when the kids end up in jail? Or will the parents already be there? I am from the 60s, there were drugs everywhere. I’m not sure there is a difference. I’m puzzled.On our walkabout yesterday we stopped at a marina south of the airport. The sun was low and I loved the light. The first shot is of Diane standing on the dock with the boats at her back. The second is of some of the boats; I adjusted that shot to give the feel of old film.