TED KENNEDY, 1932-2009

August 26, 2009 By

WINDYDAY2

In the garden of good and evil, life and death, beauty, flaws and complexity–some shall survive despite the temperature, winds or headlines.  I think he’ll be one of the them.

©PAT COAKLEY 2009

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Filed Under: 2009, Death, MASSACUSETTS Tagged With: , , , ,

National Society of Newspaper Columnists Contest Winner

July 3, 2009 By

NSNC2009AWARD

Long time readers know that I am not a marketing genius but even I, after reading this commendation that came this morning in the mail from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, know that my next call goes to the FDA.

I knew I registered this blog name for a reason.   I just didn’t know it was to submit it as a new cholesterol lowering blog column with zero side effects.  My goal used to be to have a column in a newspaper but since that industry is un-employing some very talented people every few days, I’ve got a new goal thanks to Mr. McLeod, judge of this prestigious contest.

I now want to be the first cholesterol lowering blog to get FDA approval.

The Generic name of my blog will be LESSANX.  Long time readers will recognize this, some may even have received a card I made from this post back in September, 2008 when the world began collapsing.  Read it HERE.

Thank you, National Society of Newspaper Columnists and you, damnably insightful Mr. Michael McLeod,  for this honor and for pointing out yet another reason why I named this blog, Single For A Reason.  I have a new name now for, well…ahem..some chronic dating “issues”.

Suffice to say that “Eloquent irritability” is hardly ever call girl training,  (You wanna do WHAT, Mr. Spitzer??) be they high class or low class call girls, nor is it on any top ten lists for housewives of  “How To Please Your Man”.  Go ahead, Google it and see for yourself.

But, if you want a girl to rip you a new one with a good vocabulary?

I’m your girl.

Now, your award winning girl.

Somehow knowing that I’ll never be the soulmate of braying Governor Horses’s Asses of South Carolina has just made my day.

Thank you, NSNC.  I’m honored.

No, really.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: 2009, blogging, Blogs, writing, Writing Award Tagged With: , , , , ,

USA ZIP: 012009

January 23, 2009 By

img_0366

At what point do icicles become a public safety issue?

These and other “deep thoughts” musings –Obama’a stark choice of the Valley Forge reference, the inaugural poet’s line “Take out your pencils. Begin” –have been filling my post inaugural days.

But, today, I’ll just give you this view through my window at dawn. Somehow, just inches from my chair was an image of the somber realities and the promise of this week.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: 2009, ANXIETY, Creativity, Deep Thoughts, Inauguration, Inspiration, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Inaugural Concert

January 19, 2009 By

011809barack

I got a call from an old friend who follows my blog.  She knows me.

She asked how I was doin’– knowing full well my waterworks have been turned on through most of this series. She tells me in so many words that maybe- perhaps- I’m a bit- just a teensy bit over the top on this series–in her words, “You are going a bit “Oprah”, aren’t you?”

Ooooooo, if I were Oprah, dearie, I’d be making money with this series!

But, over the top?  Yessiree.  That’s me.  And, delighted and grateful to be so over the toppin’.  This is the first time in recent years where a historical event hasn’t scared me out of my wits and is marked with a joy and optimism that I remember having as a young person, but then, it was for no damn reason other than I was young.

So, dear friend, and you are… I hate to tell you, I’m just gettin’ started here today.  This is the first of maybe 7 concert photos coming blogosphere’s way.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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This is the fifth in my series called “Driving to the Inaugural.”   I am driving from my computer with the assistance of memory and past images and television and internet. Triple A doesn’t have road service for this journey even though I have a premium membership.  Here are the others in the series:

One

Two

Three

Four

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Filed Under: 2009, Barack Obama, BEHIND THE WHEEL SERIES, Creativity, Life, Personal, Photography, The Inauguration Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

All Eyes On Washington, DC

January 18, 2009 By

alleyesarewatchingdct

This is the third in my “Driving to the Inaugural” series.  I am driving from my computer with the assistance of memory and past images and television and internet. Triple A doesn’t have road service for this journey even though I have a premium membership.  Here are the others in the series:

Day One

Day Two

____________________________________________________________

One could be persuaded by the smiles of the crowds and the President Elect that there is only joy and hope riding the rails into Washington, DC.

The washington post.com reports this morning that homeland security folks, FBI are bedding down in government buildings in order to not get caught in gridlock.

It also reports that when he was nominated in Denver, the Secret Service made the largest order of bulletproof glass in its history.

“The service requested about 5 tons of “transparent armor,” laminated with four layers of virtually unbreakable plastic to resist chemicals, flames and multiple gunshots.

When Obama is sworn in as the nation’s 44th president Tuesday, the ballistic shield will provide a final layer of safety in a massive exercise in presidential security, the culmination of two years of a steady ratcheting up of the protection around Obama to a level unseen for any of his predecessors.”

This moment is complicated in its joy. Fearful in its hope.  But, we as a nation have been here before.   Lincoln’s journey  to Washington for his inaugural was done under threats of secession as well as threats to his life.  He and his family were forced to make the anticipated change of trains necessary back then to continue on to Washington in the cloak of darkness when a creditable threat surfaced at the scheduled change station.

These fears and complications we feel today are the transparent layers of our past as well as our future.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: 2009, Creativity, Events, History, Inauguration, Inspiration, Life, Personal, Photography, The Inauguration Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Arlington National Cemetery

January 17, 2009 By

jfktax09

This is the second in my “Driving to the Inaugural” series.  I am driving from my computer with the assistance of memory and past images. Triple A doesn’t have road service for this journey even though I have a premium membership.  Here are the other post in the series:

Day One

_________________________________________________________

Arriving in DC before an inaugural (and before they close the bridges to automobile traffic)  gives you time to take a taxi to Arlington National Cemetery.  That is Lee’s Mansion up on the hill through the windshield.

In the course of one year, four million people visit this cemetery.  This weekend alone might account for an additional million if crowd estimates are at all correct.

It was first consecrated as a national cemetery in June 1864 by then Secretary of War, Edwin M.  Stanton, a former rival of President Lincoln’s, who pronounced immediately after his death in April, 1965, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

There are 300,000 men and women interred in Arlington including military from the Revolutionary War right up to today’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy.  Included in the three hundred thousand, located in Section 27, are more than 3,800 former slaves, called “Contrabands” during the Civil War. Their headstones are designated with the word “Civilian” or “Citizen.”

There shall be no burials at Arlington on Monday and Tuesday of inaugural week as there normally would be.

But, on Wednesday, January 21 2008, twenty burials are scheduled as the nation resumes bearing witness to our dead and Citizen Obama takes up the official business of the living.

As he gives his inaugural address if he looks just slightly to his right,  I believe he might be able to see Lee’s mansion and the grounds that contain our history.

If this is not poetry, people, I do not know what is.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Facts about Arlington National Cemetery available on the official website:

Arlington National Cemetery

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Filed Under: 2009, Creativity, DRIVING PHOTOS, Driving to the Inaugural Series, ELECTION 2008, Inauguration, Life, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,

17˚ Fahrenheit

January 15, 2009 By

011509stoneridge2

This is what 17˚ degrees Fahrenheit looks like outside my door around 4 PM.  Tomorrow they predict below zero temperatures and wind chills that sound like Alaska.

I may not open the door again except to photograph skies like this.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: 2009, Creativity, Life, Personal, Photography, WEATHER, Winter Tagged With: , , , ,

A Winter Pond

January 13, 2009 By

011209beaversnow4

The heart of winter.  We are in it.  The only things we are missing are single digit temperatures and below freezing wind chills.  They are coming Thursday.  Thank you High Pressure something or other.

Ode to Frigid later in the week.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: 2009, WEATHER, Winter Tagged With: , , , , ,

Berry Happy New Year

December 31, 2008 By

berryexplosioms

This is part Two of this week’s SAPCC theme “2008″.

The first part touched lightly on loss and ominous changes in 2008 through another “behind the wheel” shot.  Surely, we all have our own stories about this aspect of 2008.  I did not want to end the year, however, on that image or text, although I do not want to ever forget the lessons learned.  I read recently that someone said the opposite of life is not death, but fear.  I believe this.

So, how did I fight the fear?  As it turns out, I fought with two no-risk investments that kept on growing despite the doom and gloom: creativity and children.  It is hard to be consumed with fear and anxiety when someone hugs your knees when they see you come through the door.  It is difficult to give in to darkness when your mission each day is to go out to your world and bring back something worth showing your friends.   And, what I came to find out…to show to myself, to steady my jittery gaze.

I came to realize that consolation is not a magic wand but someone taking the time to simply bearing witness.   I was heartened by special folks around me who unfailingly make me laugh (NkGee), or those who say wise things (niece Alice) or those whose feet grew into the ground as chaos spread (cousin Mary) and those newly found miracle people who create order out of chaos, second cousin or is it third, Mary K–you who love Ebay and special used teddy bears.  Blessed are you who have taken the time.

So, my final image for 2008 is this photograph of the often photographed patch of berries and reeds that I have visited so often in the past few months.  Black ice surrounded it on the morning I took this photograph so I could not get out of the car safely.  I wanted to imbue this spot with an energy that it has given me unfailingly, day after day.

A berry happy new year, new friends as well as old.  I am grateful for your attention and believe in your talents.  Our talents.

Allow me to hug your knees.

©Pat Coakley 2008

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Other SAPCC contributors:

Russ

Mt. Brooks

Conni

Renee

Chris

Smack

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Filed Under: 2009, Aging, ANXIETY, change, Creativity, Deep Thoughts, fear, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Entrance Ramp

December 31, 2008 By

route495-01

My town has easy access to a major interstate.  It was two large industrial parks on the either side of town that in non-recessionary times produces major truck traffic.

I used to complain about them.  Their size.  Their belching exhausts.  When I walked in one of the industrial parks, the noise of the trucks used to compete with my Ipod.

I don’t have any actual numbers but based on my walking and driving, I see fewer trucks, have quieter walks in the industrial park, and realized yesterday as I took this photo on Decemeber 30, 2008, I missed them.

I miss 18 wheelers thundering along the roads, along with other trappings of my life that seem insignificant to what other people are facing but upended me nonetheless.

This is part one of the weekly SAPCC challenge titled, “2008″.  Part Two comes later tonight after the storm ends.  Yes, another snow storm to herald the new year.

©Pat Coakley 2008

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Other Submissions:

Mt. Brooks

Chris

Renee

Conni

Russ

Smack

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Filed Under: 2009, ANXIETY, Creativity, Economy, FINANCES, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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