Monday, November 15, 2010

Out of Season





Not just the poppies and gumplants, but the phone booths! Have you used a phone booth recently? I can imagine a Natural History of Phone Booths. They're on the endangered species list, you know. I have many pleasant and unpleasant memories of phone booth experiences. The passage of time renders some of the unpleasant ones humorous. Like the phone booths without doors placed at busy intersections so it's impossible to hear the other party. In Florida, during warm spring rains, sharing a phone booth with dozens of tree frogs. Some of my earliest photos with an SLR were of the bellies of tree frogs adhered to the glass walls of phone booths. great for viewing how the suction cup toes work. Then, the ones in rural Utah (is that redundant?) that had generators that needed to be cranked in order to make a call. Then there's Eugene, OR, where last year I tried at least six before I found one that worked! At any rate, the next generation will grow up not knowing what these are/were. When I stopped to take these photos, I had actually been looking around for photogenic sticks, boards, etc., basically brown things emblematic of the passing of fall colors, when the poppies by a phone booth glowed like little flames. I stopped to photograph the poppies then walked around and also saw a tumbleweed and some gumplants. The photo of gumplant above includes a leaf from my signature tree. Then the phone booth idea struck me. After taking a few shots by the phone booth across from the high school, I drove over to the 76 station which has phone booths that have frequently frustrated me and took a photo. The best thing about these is the view of the mountains behind the college and in the direction of Spanish Peak. I doubt if I'll have occasion to use this one again. Sad, in a way. I'm still a troglodyte who doesn't like cell phones.

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