Paris

Eiffel et Caroussel ©2008 by Patrick T. Power. All rights reserved.

Friends of ours will be getting married in November in Vannes, France. I hope to be able to go, as well as spend a little time in the city I love so well.

L'amitié

L'amitié © 2025 Patrick T. Power. All rights reserved.

Dear friend,

I want to help you, not save you. I want to help you be whole, not just a little piece of yourself.

I want you to stop your self-destructive behaviour not because it's what I want, but because it will lead to an even better you. A you that I think is already quite wonderful—compassionate and warm and giving.

Love,
Me

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Delma and Lupe Get Married

I didn't attend this wedding. In fact, for a long time, I didn’t even know Delma existed. And she had lived right across the street from me!

Based on this slide's date imprint, this wedding likely occurred in May of 1967, so, I would have been about 11½.

Delma Estrada is the eldest daughter of Alfredo and Filiverta Estrada (we knew them as Freddie and Bertha) who lived in a house across the street from us when I was growing up. Freddie had two brothers who also moved into the neighbourhood at about the same time (one next door to him and the other two doors down in the other direction) and many of the children growing up in their households were the same age as my brothers and I, as well as every other kid on the block, so many of us — to use a term from those days — ran around together.

It's very possible that Delma was already living on her own when the Estrada families moved onto Utah Street, which is why I wasn’t aware of her at the time. I think she was my brother Bob’s age (who is nine years older than I am), and he wasn’t living at home in 1967, so it’s very possible that she simply wasn’t around. Or… being eleven years old and all, I might have been too busy playing baseball or round-up (a more grown-up version of hide-and-seek) to have noticed her.

But as regards this photograph, Delma isn’t really the story. The story is her sister Olga.

Olga was a year older than I, and I knew her and would occasionally “play” with her around the neighbourhood. She was just another kid on the block, really, and since she was a girl, she didn’t take up much of my attention. And although she was Catholic, she attended public schools whereas I attended Catholic schools, so as we grew up, we saw less and less of each other on a daily basis.

Fast-forwarding to probably the summer of 1975… I would have been 19½ or so, and while washing my new-ish used 1974 Super Beetle on the street, I heard a voice (the sound of which I can still hear in my head… very Debra Winger-esque, raspy, squeaky) calling out to me and I turned to see Olga sitting on her porch swing, laughing at whatever it was she had just said.

I finished what I was doing and walked over to join her.

Quickly, we became the best of friends. We spent a lot of time together that summer, often just sitting on her porch swing talking and laughing. I shared my Martin Mull and Jackson Browne records with her and she tried unsuccessfully to turn me on to Uriah Heep.

She worked at St. Anthony Villa, a Catholic orphanage on the other side of town, and I was working at Commercial Aluminum Cookware (now Calphalon) when it was located in the heart of downtown Toledo. We each were making our ways in the world while still living under our respective parents’ roofs.

Indeed our friendship became very intense in the first couple of weeks as she intimated to me that she thought she might be pregnant. Until that point, I had no clue that she was seeing someone (he was a friend or roommate of her older sister Mina’s boyfriend), so I was rather crushed. It had been feeling like more than a friendship to me. I was seriously free-falling into love only to be provided an ACME anvil to cushion my landing.

She soon found out she wasn’t pregnant, and we went about business as usual on the friendship front. Unfortunately (for me), her relationship seemed to be developing. It was especially disconcerting since I often sat on my porch playing guitar, whence I could see when Steve or Dave or Thomas — or whatever the hell his name was* — came ‘round to pick her up. What further made things difficult for me were the stories she told about him… stories that painted the picture of a not-so-very-wonderful guy. It was killing me.

I can’t recall where in the chain of events it occurred, but we finally went out on what I believed was a date. (Maybe she’d stopped seeing what’s-his-name… maybe I thought she had… whatever.) I don’t recall much about the day except that we ended up at Inky's on the north side of Toledo. Inky’s is a family-run Italian restaurant near where my dad worked. As a family, we had pizza there once a month or so since my dad did work for, was friends with, and golfed regularly with the owner, Frank Incorvaia. Great people. Great food.

It was a nice night. We had fun. We went home. We kissed on her steps. I trembled.

I don’t know why, but we never went out again. I suppose that she sensed my inexperience. It might have been the third time in my life I’d kissed a girl, so no doubt there was no comparison between what transpired for her that night and, well, what almost gets one pregnant.

Still, I remained in pursuit, while at the same time being able to read the writing on the wall.

At the time, Commercial Aluminum Cookware shared a building with a few other businesses, one of which was National Super Service, a manufacturer of industrial vacuum cleaners. At some point, I’d heard that they were hiring and I suggested to Olga that she apply. She hadn’t been too happy at the orphanage and, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to work in the same building! She applied and was hired. And much to my chagrin, our relationship — whatever it was — began its decline (read: came to a screeching halt).

Not long after starting at NSS, she began seeing one of her co-workers, Jeff, a very quiet, likable guy. He and I didn’t interact all that much during working hours, but we were acquainted with each other. Sometime in 1977, they married. I had begun college by then and attended the wedding with my girlfriend, Lisa Salisbury, whom I’d met at school. I went to visit Olga and Jeff once after they’d been married and I think that was the last time I saw her. She eventually took a job with Jobst Institute (whose claim to fame was having manufactured space suits for NASA), in whose parking lot she died. Or so I was told. My mother mentioned it in passing to me over the phone while I was at school, so I never heard anything about what had happened. I’ve never had the opportunity to ask her sisters or cousins. When she was younger, she had injured her head in her high school swimming pool and I was led to believe that her death might have been somehow related to that. Her obituary noted she’d died after a long illness, so… cancer of some sort?

I still have a piece of fabric that she gave me. At the time, sewing colourful fabric around the bottoms of the legs of bell-bottom jeans was a thing. It was something she did. It’s the only tactile reminder I have of her.

A candid picture of herself that she had given to me wore out years ago from being in my wallet, but just as I am able to hear her voice still, I am still able to see that picture of her beautifully big-toothed smiling face. It is a face and a picture that I have forever tied to Jackson Browne's "Fountain Of Sorrow"... from his all-too-hitting-close-to-home Late For The Sky record.

I think of Olga every October 13th, her birthday. Until I found the above high school photo, I conjured what I’d remembered in the long-lost photo I’d kept in my wallet for so long.

A few years after she died, I had a dream in which she spoke to me. "Don't worry," she said, "everything is just fine."

Now the things that I remember seem so distant, so small
Though it hasn't really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
— Jackson Browne (Fountain Of Sorrow)

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*Thinking now about this, I'm pretty sure it was George. (ptp, 2013)

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Trouble In The Dining Room

In the dining room of the house I use to live in, a rubber tree plant sat near the window that faced west. Almost every day of the year, I would see the shadows cast by the blinds onto the plant and I would think of the very photo-graphic opportunity it presented.

Of course, what looks pleasing to the eye doesn't always translate so well when photographed. In this case, it's possible that had I re-positioned the plant slightly, or had more than one lens available to me, I might have made a more interesting image.

So, as much as I liked what I saw in the late afternoon of my dining room, I couldn't quite create a print that was as striking. Thinking that cropping it might help, I tried a few variations

Then, I thought I'd try Photoshop's filters out...

I think I like this one best so far (click to enlarge)...

And even then, I don't like it all that much.

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Dried Rose

Dried Rose © Patrick T. Power

Cooper Mini

Cooper Mini © Patrick T. Power

 

Zachary & Nina © Patrick T. Power

Gate

Gate © Patrick T. Power

Trampled

Trampled © Patrick T. Power

This reminded me of a time in seventh grade when I similarly drew my initials + those of a girl I'd been sweet on since third or fourth grade in snow on the playground – easily within view of our second story classroom window. It wasn't until I got back to the classroom that I realized everyone could see what I had done.

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Unless otherwise noted, all writings on this blog are copyright Patrick T. Power. All rights reserved.

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Love © Patrick T. Power

TWLOHA

 

Peinture De Nuit © Patrick T. Power

I decided to play a little bit with this one, adding a dry brush techinique with Photoshop. For kicks.

________________________________________________________

Edit to add (13 November 2024): it looks rather crappy to me now.

Edit to add (7 August 2025): hideous is really a better word for it.

 

Tip © Patrick T. Power

 

Screen © Patrick T. Power

 

Crossbar © Patrick T. Power

 

Open © Patrick T. Power

Tree Line

Tree Line © Patrick T. Power

Delay

I've been thinking of things other than this blog. I've suddenly gotten bored with flickr and have begun photoblogging elsewhere. So, I'll probably pick up here by the beginning of the month.

I know... you're on pins and needles!

Change

In commemoration of the last day I contributed to this blog (January 22, 2007), it is my intent to shift gears dramatically and turn this into a photoblog. My plan is to blog a photo a day. Some days, I'll add text that has something to do with the photo; other days perhaps just the photo. But January 22 is the day!

Sometimes I Lie Awake At Night

Sometimes I Lie Awake At Night © Patrick T. Power

It's not all that often that I have trouble sleeping, but last night (this morning) I did. I've had a cold for the last few days, and while it's on the wane, I was subjected to major coughing fits for most of the time I lay in bed.

Of course, at such times, thoughts conspire with the scratchy throat and before long, I'm taking a photograph of the shadows on my ceiling cast by the crabapple tree outside my bedroom window. Since I was awake, I just had to upload it to flickr.

It's almost dawn as I type this and I think I'm going to go out for a walk, get some cold air in me and come home and go back to bed.

Tigers vs. Cards

Zachary (circa 1988) ©2006 Patrick T. Power

This year's World Series is a bit special for me. Of, course, it's special for any Tiger fan considering the rarity with which the team gets to the playoffs, much less the Series, but this year is the first time my son gets to see the Tigers in the Series after having been a huge fan of theirs since he knew what baseball was about.

For me, one of the coolest things about Zachary getting to see the Tigers play at this time of year is that the last time the Tigers made it to the World Series, he was there — in his mother's womb. In what was probably one of the worst baseball games I've ever had to sit through (San Diego pitchers set a record with eleven walks; if memory serves, there was a hit batsman in there as well), Penny and I, her whole family and then some had what were probably the worst seats in Tiger Stadium — in the lower deck grandstand in right-center field. I recall that I was able to see third base, second base, the pitcher, the right fielder and (every once and again) the centerfielder. I recall that there was a miniature television in our section toward which we and others would occasionally crane our necks.

We did manage to see Marty Castillo's home run land in the upper deck in left field, as well as Chet Lemon making a nice over the shoulder catch of a drive to deep center off the bat of San Diego's catcher, Terry Kennedy. Frankly, we didn't see much else.

The Tigers won, of course, 5-2, and took a two games to one lead in the Series, then went on to win the next two games and the Series.

It was the year that Darrell Evans hit a home run in his first at bat as a Tiger (in the Metrodome in Minnesota) and with his first swing of the bat in Tiger Stadium. I can still vividly recall the excitement in the voice of the Tigers' radio announcer, Ernie Harwell, as he called that home run... I recall thinking at that time that he knew something special was about to happen to the Tigers that season.

I'd like nothing better than to see the Tigers win it again this year, as the first time that I got to see them in the World Series — in 1968 — they won. I was nigh on thirteen years old and their opponent in the Series? The St. Louis Cardinals. There is something about the idea of having the circle complete itself that I like.