What? Friday night? No way!

It is said time accelerates the older one becomes, but this is ridiculous! Not much I can do about it other than note it and shake my head in disbelief.

Over lasagna and a glass of wine tonight, my sibling Mel and I "grilled" Rev. John Hinsvark, a distant cousin, about our shared family history. He has been painstakingly gathering and putting together this family tree for some 20 years or longer. I marvel that he has taken on this monumental task.  Bless him!

Tonight is the first time I've actually met him, after years of sporadic e-mail correspondence and Christmas letters. Our dad, Eugene Melvin Hinsvark, died at 42 years of age, and I wondered tonight how much like Cuz John our dad would have looked at the same age, 70 years old. There were some shared physical characteristics; fun to see!

Although this has little, if anything, to do with photography--oh damn! I didn't take a photograph of us together--I have it on my mind and simply had to make note.

John spoke of members of my family he had researched and met with personally, like my Grandma Abigail Claire Sanderson Hinsvark, who had a green thumb that just wouldn't quit! Every time I see dahlias, it triggers memories of Grandma and her delightful garden.

This does have to do with today's photography upload: dahlias! There was a wonderful garden of dahlias in front of one of the veteran's clinics here in Spokane. Thank you, Steve, for the heads up!



Watercolor Effect




Cutout Effect




Poster Outline Effect




Watercolor Effect

I regret not being able to photography Grandma's dahlias, and not having had the opportunity to share my photographs with her, but I will be forever grateful to her for inspiring me to show flowers to their best as I can make them advantage. I know that love of flowers and gardens is in our shared DNA. I get a double dose from both the Hinsvark and Lyon sides of my family!

FAST, Give me SPEED!

I came across a table of used roller skates and inline skates and was immediately transported back in time to when I kept a skate key on a length of bright pink yarn around my neck. I was about nine and we lived in Ogden, Utah where Dad was stationed at Hill Air Force Base. I remember using my key to screw my metal skates onto my sneakers—we called them tennies or vans—and clanking down the sidewalk! The skates always came off, and I’d have to clamp them onto my shoes again. It didn’t matter, I loved to roller skate … fast!

At the skating rink in San Bernardino, CA back in 1964-65, I had an unfortunate skating accident, crashing onto my knees, and I've not been on skates since.

Here’s to skating … F-A-S-T

August 15, 2011



If only I had THESE kinds of skates!