College Days

I was/am a photography bug. When I discovered that I could take pictures, go to the darkroom and produce prints, I was ecstatic. I did a lot of natural light photography - indoors...well, hey, I couldn't afford a flash then, and the ones that belonged to the school were big mallet-looking things that attached to the side of the camera. So, I would go to the "Goose" (the college snack bar and gathering place) and take pictures of my friends as they sat around tables in the afternoon and evening.

Claire (sorry, Yogi), Angie, Pete, Janie, Bill, Ruble, George

Then, I'd crawl through the always unlocked window of the basement photo lab and develop and print the pictures - taking them back to the "Goose" before my friends left. Always black and white (color developing was just coming along), always grainy, usually given to the folks there. But, I smelled of developer and fixer all the time. My hands were a mess because I never used tongs. My clothes were often dotted with white spots when I forgot to put on the apron and got excited about what I was doing.

Some of those photos still exist with me.

Karen tries a vine

This group would often pile into cars and go riding - in the afternoons usually - out to the back side of the gravel pits. We could wind our way through the narrow dirt roads and be completely out of sight of the world. We drank beer, played ukes and guitars, and danced to music from the radios. I'm sure my view is idealized now, but this photo has done that for me.

We occasionally went at night to a different gravel pit and went skinny dipping or just sat on the huge mounds of gravel - never thinking about the avalanches that could occur.