Wordless Wednesday

Lost and Found

The internet is an amazing tool.  I was looking at a flickr site (photography) 15 months ago and discovered a distant relative.  We share a great aunt - the photographer Lou Goodale Bigelow.

I really had quite forgotten about this connection.  I found this fellow by Google-ing my great great aunt's name.  I wrote the fellow and said that I'd love to connect, but he never got back to me, and now I think I know why.

I was checking back in on his site tonight, and was delighted by some new images of "Auntie Lou"s that he had posted.  Then I found an album of his dedicated to Herbert Lyman Bigelow Jr., who just so happens to have died this Dec. 30, 2011.  In my muddled mind of fuzzy memories, I realized who Herbert was.  Herbert was the son of Herbert Sr., my great-grandmother's brother.  There is a
family scandal involving Herbert, which perhaps I will share later, out of respect for the family right now.  Suffice it to say that all family ties with Herbert Sr. were severed.  I know my grandmother, his niece, found him living in the mountains of Boulder Creek, Ca. in the late 1960s.  He had another family, and other children.  I have no idea if Herbert Jr. is part of the original family or the second family.

In any case, I was reminded that LGB's father, Lyman Goodale Bigelow, was a pioneer in early flash powder photography.  Here is a photo of my great great grandfather (the handsome devil).

Great great grandfather, around 1890.

His daughter, Lou, grew into a photographer in her own right.  In addition to taking a portrait of Wallace Simpson (long before she met the king and her future husband), she took this photo of Charles Lindberg.

Charles Lindberg, photographed by Lou Good Bigelow

My mind is reeling tonight with family stories.  I've emailed my dad, since I'm out of town, with the news of Herbert Jr.'s passing, and asked for any information he may have.  Stay tuned.

For more information on Lou Goodale Bigelow, read this.

Post Script: Dad reports that, indeed, Herbert Jr. would be his first cousin.   My research today indicates that Herbert was, in fact, married 3 times.  My dad is stunned that I've found his first cousin, 15 years his senior.

Watching the Sky

Watching the sky in Grass Valley

People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game 

People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball 

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go 

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time 

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go 


--John Lennon

The Rose

A phoenix rising

Thirty feet above the ground

Bursting from some old scrub bush

Dark with dead limbs

A yellow flame

Of cool moist flesh

A solitary bloom

Against an azure sky

The long view...I can't even see the rose at the top. Can you? One long cane, no leaves, climbing up and up and up. We see it well from the second story windows.

San Francisco Sky

A beautiful sky yesterday in this city by the bay. A good wind was blowing most of the day and yet the sun was warm on our faces, calling us to look up, look up. It rained on the drive home down highway 280 south. Fat rain drops hit the windshield, scattering the dirt. Moments later the sun, again. All the drops evaporated, leaving no trace.