Well-Swept Yard

  B2 film Old Ansco B2 film is the same size as 120 film, and is designated B2 by the Agfa. The 120 film format is a roll film that is usually between 60.7 mm and 61.7 mm wide. Most modern films are around 61 mm wide. Thus saith Bard

Well-Swept Yard Remembering why I began this blog as a place to put things about my family. Stories. Photographs. Memories. Half-truths.  Along the way it became diluted by inclusion of other things. So, beginning now I will clean it up and add things as originally I intended. I'm getting old, last survivor of my immediate family, and there are things to be put somewhere. Here is one place.  Will, let's get with it. 

Tenant Farming I was reminded of my mother's family's background this weekend when we visited the Southern Tenant Farmers Union Museum in Tyronza Arkansas. They, the family of Will and Jessie Daffron, moved about central and northern Alabama farming lands as they went. They had no union. They often struggled and they moved regularly.  I wish they had had a union. They had the close-knit family, but I mean something more than that. Such as  My Granddaddy Daffron wrote all his life. Here is something that has come down to me in typescript (one of the daughters began typing up Granddaddy's "poems" years later and unless somebody else in the family has the original handwritten copy then I am afraid it has disappeared.)  I will date it to 1934 because of the reference to the Bankhead law.  And by the way, "dope" was a term that Granddaddy used for "medicine".   The Hayseeder’s Lament By Will Daffron, Millport Alabama What do you think  About the gin

  My father, Julius Page Allen, was a man of few words. Maybe as a consequence, I remember many of the things that he said.  He said to me one day, "I just want to wake up dead."  That is a marvelous attitude, thinking on arrival at that moment without thinking about suffering or guilt or any of the other things that often accompany dying.  He had watched many people die. He knew. He knew that dying could come as the conclusion of a long days of suffering and insufferable visits from relatives who check in on you to see if you are dead yet.  As it happens, he woke up on the day of his death. He had a nice breakfast. I think he did a reasonably good job of running a Norelco around his chin. "I'm ready for a nap." He liked a good nap and took one as often as he could.  At any rate, he lay down. I hope he went to sleep. He did not get up. 

The title of this blog has left some, maybe more than some, maybe many, has left people wondering about the significance, if any, of sweeping yards.  Sweeping is an old custom and for many people a lost skill. Done properly, sweeping creates a mood, a feel, a culmination of well-put effort. Done poorly, sweeping leaves a mess and causes people to reach for the medicine cabinet. Time was, and not so long ago, sweeping, sweeping with a broom I am speaking of, was an indoor skill (please do not mention "indoor" and "yard" and such--all in due course) that would make quick work of tidying things. Patent offices worldwide must have millions, maybe billions, of replacements for the broom and for the act of sweeping. Some of the claimed replacements are plain silly. Racking my brain I find no replacement of the broom as pleasing as the broom.  Swish is nice. Swish is more agreeable to the ear than vroom. Vroom. Need I describe? Of course not. You agree even if you sell Ele

 Or thinking. At least thinking.  About

  Today No. Not today, but back then. It was a nice time. 2019. France   I think it was the  Restaurant le Carré d'Art, Nimes

I brought Philip Glass to campus for a presentation. Some time ago. A colleague and I did a short interview on our NPR affiliate about the visit. We played excerpts from the composer's music.  "My mother would enjoy this," I thought to myself and sent her a copy. Going through her things recently, I came across the cassette I sent. On the envelope my mother had written "Killing hogs I think." Milton Puryeur killing hogs on his land. Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration

  I sold that snapshot. I am sorry. It is a good one and a fine moral lesson. I should have kept the photograph and tacked it above my desk as a reminder and guilt-inducer to stay on track with my tasks.  And this weekend, last one in March 2024, I discovered that I had a second copy. 

June 11, 2018 San Francisco. Visit. Early morning. Thought to myself: I probably need to change money. SF is another country. And that's good. 

Overheard at Magritte exhibition at SFMOMA: "We should use that blue in our hallway"

If, however, Finland has been rated the world’s most literate country, it may also have something to do with a 19th-century decree that a couple could not marry in the Lutheran church before both passed a reading test. “Quite an incentive,” observes Halonen, “to learn to read.” Safe, happy and free: does Finland have all the answers? | World news | The Guardian

Found

The flu can kill millions. In 1918, a pandemic was fueled by World War I. - The Washington Post My mother was eight years old when the pandemic spread to rural Alabama and the farm that the family cultivated. Mama was the only person in the family who did not contract the flu. She was the only caregiver for the family. She remembered that she had to rotate and change bedpans for the patients. Her father gave her instruction on feeding the farm animals. She was a brave little girl.

Were you able to breathe through your ears, presumable you could sense the aromas of sounds. 

There's a difference between "don't remember" and "don't know"

I enjoy seeing this photograph several times a year. Walker Evans

Things we used to know changed. Inconsiderate.

Rainer Maria Rilke said of a new year, " And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been." Unfortunately, I doubt this is going to be one of those years. 

I'm talking to the glassware if that's your concern.

The hurt's gone but not the memory.

You can estimate the age of a person by the number of pillows they need.

This photograph dates to 1899 and shows my Grandfather and Grandmother Allen (Julius Henry Allen, Lillian Eremine McKinley) on their wedding day. Showing front and back of the card photograph. The notes were made by Lucille Allen Back of photograph. No month/day has been determined for their 1899 marriage. This was the second marriage for Julius. His first wife, Josephine Farmer (also known as Mary Josephine and Josie) died 11 May 1897.

Repeal and Replace Nobody said it was going to easy With apologies to a couple of really rational guys. 

Congressman Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, owes an apology to radio station KASU and to the countless people who regularly donate to the station. Crawford’s recent monthly interview on KASU concluded with the congressman telling listeners that Congress ought to ax federal support for public broadcasting. Crawford said this on a public broadcasting station. As I thought about what I had just heard, I suddenly had a vision of Crawford as a guest, having enjoyed a nice dinner, saying to his host, “Thank you for a very fine dinner. Now, drop dead.” Shame on you, Crawford. William J. Allen Jonesboro Letter to the editor of the Jonesboro (Arkansas) Sun, February 22, 2017, page 4 (print). Crawford's interview can be heard at http://kasu.org/post/representative-crawford-takes-listener-questions-talks-travel-ban-and-funding

Written by W. T. Daffron, my grandfather, of Millport Alabama, probably in 1932. It was the height of the Great Depression.  The Hayseeder’s Lament What do you think About the gink And all this high-brow clan Who congregate And advocate Bankhead’s reduction plan We raise our cotton For markets rotten We freely will admit But it’s a fact This Bankhead Act Don’t help a doggon bit We plant the seed And tend the weed Side dress with guano We plow and hoe Keep on the go No rest so help us Hannah We work and sweat Just fume and fret And worry every day Haul it to town And with a frown Give half the stuff away We have to sign On dotted line At every turn we make Then buy permits And send remits With that we can rake We pay the ginner The real winner In this old game of chance His biz is brisk He takes no risk Your see that at a glance We count our dough And hope to go Right out and buy a shirt

Overheard in Christmas decoration section of a local store.  I don't know why you like that one. It doesn't look anything like an angel. Might need to include that in my Prolegomena To A Study Of Pretty Bad American Christmas Decoration.

"Google Domains" lists the following Top Level Domain suffixes. The explosion of TLD's has an impact on those of us who have used TLD's in Google searches. The impact may not be as serious for those who search for things at educational institutions (an example these searches: ["coral mortality" site:edu] ["slave narrative" site:edu or site:org]. On the other hand, as a photo historian I will need to lengthen the domain search to "Wet Plate Collodion Tintype" site:edu OR site:org OR site:photography OR site:academy. Even then I may miss a useful domain.  The source of the proliferation may because it will be a boon to commerce ["road bike" site:bike].  Is it really worth the bow to business? By the way, when I searched for ipad site:cheap I notice that I got ad results from ordinary .com's.  Source:  https://support.google.com/domains/answer/6010092?hl=en   More information at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Int

Begüm Yamanlar   Begüm Yamanlar, untitled (1/3), from Zone Series  Begüm Yamanlar, untitled (2/3), from Zone Series Begüm Yamanlar, untitled (3/3), from Zone Series Begüm Yamanlar, an Istanbul photographer and video artist explores the mystery and uncertainty of space, urban space, rural space and objects in indeterminate space.  Her Zone Series consists of landscapes that simultaneously invite and repel, give the viewer easy entrance tempered by doubt or dread.  Each image includes a path running from the viewer's location into a forest until the path curves out of view or disappears in an unexplained fog. Would I step into the scene? In a dream perhaps; otherwise I move on to the next image. But I always return and contemplate, wondering if I haven't detected a whisper from the image. The artist clearly has a catalog of tree trunks, limbs, foliage and fleeting spots of light. She uses these judiciously in a way that pulls the individual ima

In Facebook: Many years ago, around around 1970 I guess, I was in the back, passenger part, of an Afghan truck. I don't remember where I was going. Doesn't matter. I was sitting on a wooden bench along one side of the truck. On the bench on the other side was a wom an holding a baby (with a husband or brother next to her). The woman wore a chadri (burka); she was covered from head to foot. The baby began crying. The woman raised the chadri enough to suckle the baby. My eye caught sight of the mother's breast. I quickly looked away. Then I sneaked one more glance. In this natural, universal act of motherhood and babyhood I had seen the breast of a woman whose body was otherwise hidden from me. The truck was quiet. The passengers were content that the baby was in the arms of its mother sucking for nourishment and contentment. I felt content too.