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One More Ride On the Merry-Go-Round.
By Silver Blue
The former carousel from Buckroe Beach Amusement Park, Hampton, VA. Restored and now housed in downtown Hampton, VA, just outside the Virginia Air and Space Museum. One of only a handful of remaining with hand carved wooden carousel horses and chariots.
For slightly more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckroe_Beach,_Hampton,_Virginia
Silver Blue, who remembers when the carousel WAS at Buckroe Beach….
The Monument in Hampton, VA
By Silver Blue
I’ll leave you to form your own opinions: http://weblogs.dailypress.com/news/local/hamptonmatters/2011/01/lawrence_nobles_hampton_statue.html
Silver Blue, who knows far too well how history is rewritten, glossing over the bad parts.
The smell of salt in the air….
By Silver Blue
…and the cry of the gull on the wing.
Taken on the Hampton Waterfront. “The Lure of the Water” – (C) 2013 F. John Barker III/Silver Blue Photography
Silver Blue, who thinks there are few things prettier than the habour lights…..
Give me one more chance on the midway…
By Silver Blue
….let me dance with my feet off the ground…give me back the world I remember, one more ride on the merry-go-round.*
The hand-carved carousel formerly of the Buckroe Beach Amusement Park (1921-1985). Now housed in downtown Hampton.
(*One More Ride On The Merry-Go-Round – N. Sedaka)
Silver Blue, who would trade you the world and its treasures for a moment of one yesterday….
We got COWS!
By Silver Blue
Anytime someone talks about tornadoes, I think of the line from Twister.
The sky looked ominous:
Gladys Smith of Hampton took the following photo (not me):
No immediate reports of injury or loss of life.
Silver Blue, who is exhausted, without power (so I’m over at my parents’) and will go sleep-sleep now.
Look, up in the sky!
By Silver Blue | 1 comment
1It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No….it’s Super Moon!
It…doesn’t look so super does it? Maybe some music?
By the light of the silvery moon…
And the sun’s turned off.
When the moon is high,
And the sun’s turned off.
[“That’s one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind”]
Sous les nuages de la nuit (Under the clouds of the night,)
je marche vers la clairière. (I walk towards the clearing.)
D’un éclat argenté je la vois, (In a silver burst, I see her,)
la lune. (the moon.)
Elle porte les voiles de l’éternité, (She wears the veils of eternity,)
son auréole embrasse les étoiles, ma lune. (her halo embraces the stars, my moon.)
(Sarah Brightman, “La Lune”)
Come on, Moon. Don’t be shy.
May 5, 2012 brought the perigee of the Moon – the time when it is full, and at its closest orbit to the earth…a phenomenon known as the “Super Moon” – it looks larger and brighter than normal.
The super moon doesn’t always happen at the same time each year. The last one occurred in March, 2011.
So, since it was rainy and cloud covered on Saturday, I missed the super moon. 🙁 But… last night, the night after, the clouds broke for 8 minutes between 10:23 and 10:31. Sure, the moon was no longer Full, but Waning Gibbous. It didn’t matter. I wanted to try for the photo I’d been dreaming of. Doing my best, with a 600-1300mm lens, I snapped and snapped, and PRAYED I had the manual focus set right.
Each photo came in clearer… until…
MY MOON!!!!! My SUPER MOON!!!!! I had my shot! Moments later, clouds covered the moon; however, my photo had been achieved. I was able to head back indoors, put the tripod and telephoto lens away, and go to bed, knowing that one more thing on my bucket list had been crossed off.
[audio:https://www.eyesofsilverblue.com/sb-ll.mp3]Silver Blue, who remembers on April 9, when I first took an intense interest in photographing the moon…and how far I’ve come in such a short time.
Jacobi played peek-a-boo
By Silver Blue
1994. The cat that turned up on the back step and was a part of my life until she passed on in 2002. Jacobi. I don’t know how old she was because she never grew any larger. This is from an old negative I scanned in, when I lived in the flat.
Two days before Christmas.
Jacobi was only the second cat that’s ever owned me. The first, Tiger, lived with us in Charleston until he moved to my Grandparents on Dad’s side, where one day he simply roamed up into the hills, and vanished.
[audio:https://www.eyesofsilverblue.com/citw.mp3]Silver Blue… who doesn’t have animals now because I don’t have the time they deserve to devote to them.
Playing Dress-Up
By Silver Blue
Journey back with me to my high school years. (Photographic permissions from Max/Ward Delmar/Lifetouch Photography has been obtained prior.)
I had my hair “spot permed” in my Junior year, to achieve the pompadour effect. I had a top hat that had been purchased for the outfit, but on the ferry ride from Portsmouth to Norfolk, the wind whipped it off my head and into the bay. I still joke about a “best dressed fish” in the bay. (I like my hair best in this photograph.)
Silver Blue…. who remembers the rose after the rain, and agrees…something beautiful remains.
Sing with me!
By Silver Blue
Enter to learn, leave to serve.
This is the motto by which we shall live.
Maroon and gold, our banner high we raise…
Wythe School, Our School, we proudly sing your praise.
Yes, I still remember the school song from my final elementary school, Wythe Elementary, where I attended from 1980-1981.
The school, built in an Art Deco Style, opened in 1936 as the George Wythe Junior High School. In 1950, the new George Wythe Junior High opened on Gloucester Street, and the old building became the Wythe Elementary School. (The original Wythe Elementary School had been built in 1909 and was demolished; the site was repurposed by the Wythe Recreation Association as the Wythe Neighbourhood Membership Swimming Pool.)
Wythe Elementary closed in 2010, and for the first time in over a century, the City of Hampton was left without a school named after Founding Father, George Wythe.
The building went through numerous renovations over the years; on the second floor is an auditorium that used to have a balcony you could sit in (and access) from the 3rd floor. Due to structural damage, however, the balcony was removed prior to 1980. On the first floor was the cafeteria, and entrance to the fallout shelter (yes, there were fallout shelter signs on the building when I went there. I didn’t poke around the property (besides, my allergies were getting the best of me.)
There exists a photo of the school (when it was built as a Junior High) with it’s original windows…:
(Courtesy of the Library of Virginia). (The old elementary school can be seen at the left of the photograph)
The school was about 4 blocks from where we lived, so I could walk, or ride my bike to school.
Pardon the distortion from the stitching of the panoramic shot — this is actually 7 photos stitched into one photograph, as I could not get back far enough to photograph the entire building (due to houses being behind me.)
We were known as the “Wythe Owls”, after the large owls that are over each entrance. (This is the left owl.)
Our school song came from the granite engravings over each door.
Here’s the right owl. I hope that whatever becomes of the building, that they put the owls in a museum, along with at least one of the “Enter To Learn/Leave To Serve” granite signs.
There is talk of making the former school into an adult education center. But as you can see, time is beginning to cause deterioration. Hopefully the city will be able to restore the schools exterior/facade into what we students had been proud of for years.
In 2002 (22 years after I attended the school), the students commemorated 9/11 with the planting of a tree. The granite block (engraved with an owl) says “Growing out of our hopes and wishes for America. The children of Wythe Elementary School, September 11, 2002.”
This is the tree that was planted, a decade ago, and the stone marker.
Coming home, I found St. Francis of Assisi hiding in the azaleas.
(Okay, so the song is more fitting for High School, but hey… how many times is there something actually from Grease 2 that is fitting??)
Silver Blue, who now is off to scrub the pollen from my eyes!
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