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Showing posts from March, 2017

Gary Redux

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Gary It took me a while to get this picture (taken by David Soffa) of Gary.  But here it is, at last. Gary was one of the most memorable kids in the St. George Homes back in the early 1970s simply because of his voice.  High Pitched doesn't really come close, rather pre pubescent sums it up.  Like a few of the other kids Gary had a fixation.  Comic Book superheroes, to be sure.  But not their images, more like the words used in their exploits.  Think Batman and think Pow and Zap and BOOOOM! At some point in his formative years those comics were all he had and he managed to incorporate all those adjectives and verbs into his reality.  Even in this photo, Gary is about to smile.  He laughed a good deal.  Laughed and smiled when uttering those action words, laughed and smiled when being hit by other kids in the home.  His agggression was sublimely passive and that further inspired his tormentors.  Of all the kids I recall, Gary was perhaps the most lovable.  His histrionics

Charles and Gary

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They were among the most memorable.  Charles and Gary.  Gary I'd heard about.  His "thing" preceded him.  Charles I met first.  Waiting outside the office of the director,  thinking about the interview questions they's ask and what it would be like to work in the residential treatment facility, Charles approached me.  "I'm not like the others," he said in his deepening voice.  Quickly changing the subject to his black raincoat, his most prized possession, Charles was convincing.  Maybe he's right, I thought.  "I'll soon be leaving here," he said.  "You probably won't get the chance to know me, but I wanted you to know I'm not like the others." Charles wasn't leaving.  He was, in fact, lucky to be there.  It was better than that other place he'd been forced to call home: a closet. The story goes that his father was a visiting professor from Japan.  When his mother got pregnant, the father would have none of

After Love

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In celebration and memory of the late Derek Walcott, West Indian poet and Nobel laureate.  This poem occupies a place among my favorites of all time. Love After Love The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

Egg Salad TV

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This is Leonard.  You would never want to have the responsibility of waking him up in the morning.  Not when this picture was taken.   He was about 12 or 13 here.  Like the few things he came to the group home with, his bicycle was very important to him. My introduction to Leonard was abrupt.  It was the day I came to the home for an interview.  Lunch time. A few of us potential "counselors" were waiting to be interviewed in the living room of the large house that was home to the offices and director of the St. George Homes.  The boys that were placed in two other nearby homes came to this home for lunch.  They were in an adjoining room watching cartoons when a fight broke out. A thud; someone hit the floor. One of the counselors jumped up and opened two sliding doors.  I followed.  When he pulled one larger kid off a smaller one I went over to what appeared to be the victim.  He was curled in a ball and crying.  I bent down and tried to roll him over to see if he was hu

Exercises

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I had the good fortune of having a photographer for a roommate many years ago.  It was 1970, the beginning of my life away from home.  After a year in Houston, Texas, as a VISTA Volunteer I wound up in the Bay Area.  Seeking draft counseling and the opportunity to hone my social justice skills I ended up working in a care and treatment facility for emotionally disturbed teenage boys. Because there were so many conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War, the place was approved for alternative service.  We were non-violent young men working with very violent youth.  The Feeral Selective Service (draft) law said that approved service had to "dispute your life and involve sacrifice")  This did.  That's why we worked 3 day live-in shifts and got $50.00 a month plus room/board.  Thought these homes were privately owned houses, it was an institutional setting.  The training and support we received was questionable, at best, ineffective at worst, but the experiences and stories