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A FOUNDATION AND ROOF, wood and nails, paint and wallpaper, furniture and appliances — all make a house. Memories and family make it a home. We celebrate 30 years and look back from the beginning. I kept a scrapbook, complete with dates and milestones and fuzzy photos. And Grandma’s home movies showed us just days after we took ownership — messy rooms and missing blinds and grassless yard and all of the other imperfections that made it so perfect.

The Inheritance

HE WAS NOT MY USUAL HERO, neither swordsman nor words man. Words are what I have to offer, however, as my Dad’s birthday approaches – the first one we’ll celebrate without him – and I contemplate a man who never needed many.

It’s possible that I knew Floyd Brown better than anyone, but I doubt it. A person encounters too many people over nearly a century, forging friendships and sharing experiences shallow and deep, for that to be true.

I was his son for 64 or his 96 years. Being his son and knowing my father were not always the same thing. He was the father I didn’t always know; now his life is just a part of my memory. As teenage rebellions and self-indulgent 20s yielded to my settled adulthood, there were days then and later when Dad lived mostly a lone wolf existence. That is, until health scares reunited us for the last decade of his life.

What he gave me began with what life gave him.

Dad was deeply acquainted with poverty and hardship, especially during childhood. Life was unimaginably tough for people in his hardscrabble part of Tennessee during the Depression era. Not an educated man, yet he learned quickly from those lean years. He learned contentment because he had so little. He practiced contentment because he needed so little.

He applied that wisdom over a lifetime, not by chasing riches or fame but by mining comfort from the resources he had – both for himself and for the creatures about whom he cared most.

Even later in life, his world remained comparatively small, but he seemed to want little more from it. His dogs, his comfy recliner, his Lunchables, his TV shows. By the standards of his childhood, he was living like a king – albeit a king whose idea of haute cuisine involved a plastic tray of bologna and crackers. I can still picture him in that recliner, thumb-worn remote in hand, with Abby or Rocky or Sadie beside him, perfectly at ease in his small universe.

And that level of contentment is my ambition now, even as I acknowledge how my modern life built around words and images contrasts greatly with his. I try to emulate his simple pleasures, especially when distracted by my worldly wants. (Damn you, Amazon!) Be like Dad, I say, who somehow managed to understand the difference between wanting something and needing it. (I’m still conducting field research.)

Contentment wasn’t all I’ve inherited. My so-called wit and tragic dad humor, too, are rooted in his genuinely funny influence – the sturdy sense of humor his generation wore like armor against poverty, hardship, war, and whatever came next. Papa Bear could find something funny in almost anything, which was probably cheaper than therapy and decidedly more entertaining.

His birthday used to be a reason for cake, neighbor visits, or those yummy apple pies from his devoted friend, Cathy the Mail Lady. Now it will be a reason to remember a man who accidentally taught me that a good life doesn’t necessarily have to be a big one. What does a son inherit from a father who didn’t leave him much materially? Maybe the ability to recognize when what I have is enough.

Perhaps that’s why the last decade means so much to me. We got another chance to be father and son. He got to shine as a grandfather and great-grandfather. And I got one more stretch of years to discover the man behind the father I didn’t always know.

That’s a pretty good gift, birthday or otherwise.

READ MORE:

Papa Bear turns 90!

Obituary

The Relativity of Time

WE MARK TIME and life in years. For the young, those birthdates are merry milestones. For me – halfway to 63 yet a lifetime behind my Dad, who’s halfway to 95 – I’m too likely now to notice and lament the aches that are Father Time’s gift basket. But don’t be fooled: I cherish the passage, too.

Time manifests itself in the generations. On April 1, my grandson turned 1, his first trip through the calendar – a leap year, fittingly. That means, obviously, that I’m celebrating my first anniversary as a grandfather, or “Poppy” in my case. It’s been a seminal year for both of us.

Fifteen years in the future, my grandson will be driving a car, or whatever passes for an automobile in 2039. Maybe I’ll be taking a new set of knees or hips for a test-drive. But why jump ahead? Stay in the present. That’s something that 1-year-olds and 62-year-olds might do equally well.

My grandson’s present features a beautiful smile with nine – count ’em, nine! – teeth. He speaks (often sings) Baby fluently. He wisely refuses to step into toddlerhood, standing and teetering as he teases us. That’s right, stay in the present a bit longer. The future comes at you quickly once you’re on the move.

My present is always rooted in the past. I’m thinking specifically about the recent past. May 3 will mark five years since I had triple bypass heart surgery. I’m still in awe about that miracle. I’ll be forever thankful that two doctors and a physician’s assistant saved my life, allowing me to see the birth of my grandson and other precious things.

Here’s to the past, present, and future.

Grandson Beck (54 weeks old) and Poppy (3,264 weeks old) at Beck’s first ballgame. [Photo by Kyler Brown]

Mike and Me: Forever Young

THERE WAS THE TIME Mike and I transported a car from Memphis to Biloxi after putting the newspaper to bed one night. A favor for his Dad, the job turned into one of those film noir comic-adventures that we usually conjured up fictionally for our student rag rather than one that we actually lived out.

The car was one of those early-‘70s ocean liners whose radio barely picked up the country stations as we barreled through the Mississippi darkness. The coffee and candy bars failed us eventually, and one of us was soon snoring in the passenger seat while the other (OK, me) was head-bob dozing behind the wheel. That’s when our ocean liner became an airliner, sailing wheels-up onto some farmer’s field.

We – and the car – survived intact, although I assure you no one had trouble staying awake for the rest of the drive after that. Later that afternoon in Biloxi, in another strange turn, we witnessed our first and only KKK rally from the hotel balcony as the white sheets marched down an ocean-front boulevard.

*  *  *

My life with Mike Berry was pleasantly intense, drenched as it was in our salad days as the college-boy Mambo Kings of Memphis State University. The wit flowed like the taps of Lowenbrau Dark at our favorite campus dive, Garibaldi’s.

Short on cash but long on hair, we were drawn together by the post-Watergate-era romance of journalism. We plied our craft in the workshop that was the school newspaper, although Mike was always the more seasoned practitioner among us. I learned as much from him as I did in any J-class.

Quiet, thoughtful and a skillful listener, Mike wowed you with his insights – sometimes comic, sometimes deep, sometimes both at the same time. I recall one column dashed off for our beloved rag titled “Spiders Aren’t Such Bad Guys.” Ostensibly about his admiration for the spider’s inner beauty and spunk, it nevertheless weaved in astute observations about our Marine force in Lebanon, the arms race, human rights abuses in El Salvador, and Poland’s martial authoritarians. (Remember Poland?) “We all have our worries,” it concluded. “So the next time you see a spider, give it some credit before you step on it.”

His internship at Memphis Magazine, I thought at the time, was just the first step toward a career of clever observations at the likes of The New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly. Mike was the one I knew would find some level of fame with his writing. And who’s to say he didn’t. Still, I always waited for that book, that tale that only Mike could spin. Sadly, that possibility seems to be the victim of adult distractions and detours. And a thoughtless hit-and-run driver.

I’m thankful and lucky he shared his time on this planet with me and the others in our college coterie. Mike seemed to be the deep but funny soul of our body of creative misfits. I’m sure the passage of time has romanticized it all for me now, but I know the friendship was deep and real, then and now.

*  *  *

Music was probably the other thread of our friendship. I still have a cassette mix tape – although, hilariously, no longer a cassette player – that Mike made for me years after our college days. Songs about summer, they were. We also spent more than a few nights on the Square, listening to local favorites. One gorgeous gal, whose name is now lost to time, performed a cover of Twist and Shout that rivaled the Fab Four version.

Dylan, of course, was a common interest – some might say a common obsession. Mike was the evangelist who converted many to followers of the folk-rock poet. We marveled at the mystery and artistry and imagery of Dylan’s lyrics. The songs transported us to places we wanted to be, maybe the lobby of the Peabody Hotel where a crooked detective or a spy or a smoky lady might buy us a drink and inspire another story.

I’ve already been relistening to those songs as I remember our time and as I struggle to understand Mike’s tragic death. I’m glad he shared his life with me. I’ll cherish the last few conversations we had. I wish there had been more.

I’ll close my remembrance with one Dylan verse that seems to stick with me more now than the others.

She turned around to look at me
As I was walking away
I heard her say over my shoulder
“We’ll meet again someday on the avenue”
Tangled up in blue

Circa 1983, Mike and me. A regrettable image of me but my favorite of Mike. RIP Brotha.

A Rest Stop Between Past and Future

I’VE MANAGED TO PRACTICE photography over the past few months — months made difficult by my day job — but have not ruminated much about those images. A trip to Galveston allowed my wife and I to escape the pressures of work, celebrate our anniversary, and make some memories, which will be ruminated upon here.

Galveston painted herself in shades of gray, pink, and brown. It’s a vintage, lost-in-time city. Our fine dining splurges  deepened that experience and widened our waistlines. I drank in a seascape cocktail shaken and stirred by strong, cool ocean breezes and rowdy waves.

The images here seem to capture our time-travel getaway. I’ll be back to Galveston. It almost seems a place that could host retirement, a notion made more and more enticing by those unsatisfactory workweeks. Time in the present feels fleeting and full of worry, but Galveston reminded me of how much of the past and future is still there for exploring.

My Strawberry Quik Milky Way

GIVEN THE EXPERIENCE of making the images, it’s natural that my photos of the Milky Way mean more to me than they do to any other viewer. The end product is the result, usually, of hours of planning — timing the night-sky calendar, scoping out locations then getting there, and worrying over gear and settings.

I’ve attempted about a half-dozen Milky Way images in the past eight years. I’d say that only two of those ventures yielded good images: This one and my very first attempt (beginner’s luck). Each venture, however, was educational in helping me reconcile what I see with what the camera sees.

The Milky Way, specifically the core of the Milky Way, is the star — usually — of any photograph that manages to capture it. And the core in this image is lovely, its Strawberry Quik color revealing itself nicely during Lightroom development.

What I really like about this image, however, is the tree in the foreground. It provides a sense of place, perspective, and history. Just how many Milky Way galaxies have arc’d their way over this tree during its earthly life? How many comets and meteors have danced over its branches?

This image — a 25-second exposure at 2000 ISO — was captured a few minutes after midnight on Memorial Day 2022 — a day reserved for remembering America’s fallen warriors. Beyond that, I have other specific memories of the personal experience. The New Moon made it an ideal night for dark skies. After scouting several places, I chose a roadside picnic area in Glen Rose, Texas, a 75-minute drive from my home. I used the Photo Pills app to help me with both timing and location, and it even helped me with my image composition. Developing in Lightroom brought all of that together for the image presented here.

There will be other Milky Way ventures for me, but I’m content with the experience and result of this one.

HOOTERVILLE

One of two babies in the nest keeps an eye on Momma Owl as she keeps an eye on her surroundings.

OWLS VEX ME in the same way cats do. What the hell are they thinking? Are they really as smart as they look? How do they (owls, not cats) swivel their heads like that?

They’ve been elusive on my photography journey, too. I’ve encountered few during my tramps in the woods, although It’s probably truer to say that I just haven’t noticed them as they blended still and quiet into the woodwork. That bad luck ended recently when a few birders pointed me to a nearby spot where two sets of barred owls were nesting. 

I spent several hours over a few days observing these magical creatures. Bored anticipation mixed with endless adjustments to settings to be ready when Momma or Papa Owl blessed us with photogenic activity. Fellow camped-out photographers recounted — bragged on? — the shots they captured on days when I was absent: the time Papa brought three turtles to the nest in quick succession, the time when a blue jay got too nosey and WWE broke out, the time when….

The hours paid off eventually for me. 

I won’t be there when the young ones fledge, but I do remember a sleepy Sunday years ago when I paused my morning coffee on the back porch to rescue a young fledgling from my pool and prop her in a tree to dry out and then resume owl life. It was a close encounter that even my new braggart photog friends could appreciate.  

Barred owl Momma heads off to hunt or set up watch on the nest.

Happy Birthday, Rocky!

THE ROCKY HALL OF FAME has its share of stars, including Rocky Raccoon, Rocky Balboa, Rocky Road, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. Today, however, we celebrate my border collie Rocky, aka Roxas and Rocky Boy. We celebrate because that’s what you do on birthdays, and not just any birthday but birthday No.14. 

Most border collies, I’m told, aren’t likely to see 14. And while Rocky is feeling his age these days, we still take a daily walk or two, and he’s quick to stir when someone’s preparing food in the kitchen — food that might find its way accidentally or on purpose on the floor. His tummy isn’t as tolerant these days and he’s a bit arthritic in those back hips, but he doesn’t complain.

Rocky has a high IQ and EQ. What he lacks, however, is a coping mechanism for storms and/or fireworks; both rattle his nervous system to its core. His melancholy, caramel brown eyes belie his generally happy nature. Gifted to us by my late father in-law, Rocky spent the first few years as an outside dog because, well, I thought border collies liked being outdoors. It’s a decision I’d reverse if I could because Rocky truly likes being around people and the comforts of the indoors.

But outdoors, especially during his younger days, was his place to shine. He liked to have a job and was a faithful companion as I did mine in the yard. Mowing the back property on my tractor, I’d often see him pop into herding mode as if to organize my path; if only we’d had sheep or goats for him to manage. He liked to cool off in the pool after a game of fetch or running the fence with the neighbor pups.

Today, he chills with us room to room and is a champion napper. I’m thankful for him every day.

Up, Up, and Away

HAWKS REVEAL THEMSELVES easily in the leafless winter trees where I live. They are plentiful along the highways, perching on utility lines and poles. They frequently hover in the high winds or drop and soar across the fields of my photo hunting grounds.

I make my fair share of hawk images, but it’s still a thrill when you capture one that fully demonstrates the strength and grace that these birds of prey possess. 

Cozy Cozumel

The sea and stars made for a magical nightcap.

Oh, Mexico
It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low
The moon’s so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right
Mexico, James Taylor

FEBRUARY IN COZUMEL is better than February in, well, just about anywhere. I was lucky enough to spend a few days here with my favorite travel buddy, my daughter Megan, at the invitation of my son and his new bride, who were there celebrating their marriage.

While we didn’t see the newlyweds as much as we wanted — they were off being newlyweds, after all — it was a glorious escape from reality. The wine flowed, the waves crashed, and I made some new friends. (The crocs and bats I can live without, but Javier and Victor, I miss you already!) 

I didn’t take nearly as many photographs as I had planned, by who cares. Too busy making memories!

Warm but windy waves kept us from snorkeling, but made for some nice seascapes.

Reconnecting

IT’S SEEMS FITTING NOW that I commented only twice last year in this blog: on the catastrophic February deep freeze and on the death of our beloved Abby. Covid lingered like a foul odor the entire year, of course, but those two experiences more than anything seemed to paralyze my creative energies. 

I’ve begun to emerge from that slog by rediscovering and relearning photography, the art and the science of it as well as the creative and intellectual process behind it. I rarely made any images while awaking from my dormancy, but I did a lot of looking and listening and thinking. 

I reflected on how and when photography became part of my identity, starting in school with that great old Nikon, my dabbling in sports photography, then later the fusion of nature-art that springs from my love of a good trail. I remembered a point — the point, really, when I was working with the great photography staff of The Dallas Morning News — when photography became less about taking pictures and more about connection. 

Now I’m reconnecting.

Despite years of encouragement from friends, family, and colleagues, I’ve always known how my photographs rate. There are so many incredible photographers in the world, and it is only discouraging when I make comparisons, so I try not to. It’s never been about that anyway. Still … my recommitment to this thing called photography has to come with some level of ambition. Besides “better” images (whatever that means), I’m mainly aspiring to an improved creative process and for an enhanced image-capturing experience, whether that’s when I’m in nature or pointing the camera at people and events.

Exploring how to achieve these photography goals has led me to discover some new influences (including Brenda Petrella) and to appreciate even more one who’s always been a mentor (Sandy Marak). Brenda’s online photography school pops with encouragement and enlightenment, and Sandy, besides being one of the nicest people on the planet, is an impassioned photographer who’s taught me so much. I’ve also had the humbling experience of finding out just how much I didn’t know about photography technology — not just about camera gear but also the tools that can boost my creative process and my post-processing. I finally made the all-in commitment to Lightroom and have revisited each piece of my existing gear and identified the new gear I want to help me improve.

Time to leave behind the paralysis — and the analysis — and get out there.

Ode to Abby

ABBY LIKED TO CURL UP in a good bed, whether that was under the covers with us on cold nights in her younger days or in the cuddly Snoopy dog bed she preferred in her later years or in one of the numerous other dog beds in — I’m now realizing — just about every room of our house. Often it was for a nap but sometimes it was just the most comfortable post from which to survey her queendom. 

It’s a comfort to me, then, to know her final resting spot is such a good one. From the back corner of our happy acre, just below the bluebird house on the post and in the ever-expanding shade of our pecan tree, she can look across the back of our property and up to our house. In the spring, she’ll have the company of our annual patch of bluebonnets to remind her of rebirth and nature’s beauty.

She’s a careful distance from the pool, a place she never quite took to, but with a view that at any given moment might include one of the family enjoying the shade of the back porch. And she’s in the company, within gossiping distance really, of our previous beloved pets, pups Tricksy and Chevy and parakeets Max and Pudge. And she’s likely to see Momma-Lori tossing the ball with Brutha-pooch Rocky. 

Most of all, she’ll see me because this is where I spend a good chunk of my days, spring or fall, summer or winter. The pool is my calm-down oasis after workdays. Sometimes I’m stalking hummingbirds or the moon with my camera. Often I’m doing the landscaper’s paradoxical dance, urging things to grow where they won’t or cutting things where they won’t stop growing. Knowing she’s there now, though, I expect to tramp my way back toward her corner around sunset, lingering in that magic moment before day becomes night. 

*  *  *

Abby was born Sept. 24, 2003, a Libra like me. It’s possible I know more about her lineage than I do my own. Her mom was Dot’s Barkley, whose parents were Mag’s Dot and Button Top Bill. Abby’s dad was Deuce, whose parents were Rosie and Seagull Elliott. I have official charts that go beyond that, showing a whole lot of doggo begetting — and who can blame them with names like Seagull Elliott. All that pure blood is probably the main reason Abby carried herself like royalty from the moment she crossed our threshold. 

2004

Not on the chart but important lineage-wise is Lori’s grandma — known far and wide as Grandma B — whose home we were visiting when we met Abby. It was love at first sight, and Abby came to live with us as a weeks-old puppy. She lived until almost age 18 and could have passed for a young pup until the end.

We discovered early on that, before beds, she liked napping on my legs. She also liked to be chased, nibbled her food instead of making a meal of it, wasn’t a fan of being held, DID NOT like cats (and had a good memory of where they lived in the neighborhood), and did not suffer fools gladly. We also discovered that we were smitten with her.

*  *  *

She was the constant in our lives as jobs became careers, as our kids became teenagers then collegians then career-minded adults themselves.

And as parent-child roles were flipped. Grandpa Brown came to live with us — or with the dogs, to be more accurate — at age 86. Five-plus years later, I firmly believe that their relationship added years to their already long lives. About that time, Abby developed a prancing trot, leading Grandpa to call her  “Abby Whiskers Hop-along Brown,” which was often followed by, “She’s just a-hopping along.”

Our kids now have their own fur families, meeting Aunt Abby a few times. It cheers us even as the sorrow of our loss still washes over us. We also take quiet comfort in our sweet Rocky, our border collie who has the brain of a civil engineer, the heart of a child, but the nervous system of a wet noodle. How sad to see him absorb Abby’s passing.

*  *  *

Toward the end of her life, Abby developed an enlarged heart, lost most of her hearing, and (in the last months) had trouble seeing. Still she pranced. She handled her deteriorating situation better than most humans, welcoming our helping hands but never demanding them. As I approach my seventh decade, saying “huh” and “come again” more frequently yet with a lot of prancing left in my own legs, I will take Abby’s strength and character to heart. 

I love my sweet Abby. And I miss her.

Winter of discontent

THE PAST WEEK was one that tested our resolve. Polar air plunged down on Texas, colorbook-shading the entire state blue on weather maps. These images were my momentary escapes from that reality, one in which the state’s electric grid suffered a catastrophic breakdown, leaving millions in the dark and heatless during record cold temperatures. 

My family was without power for 62 hours, during which temperatures stayed well below freezing and bottomed out one night at 0 F. Neighbors were neighborly, and about 40 hours into it, we were lucky to borrow a generator that knocked the chill out of bedrooms and allowed for some hot meals. Our pool froze with damage yet to be determined and, a few counties away, burst water pipes forced my daughter out of her apartment building. Still, we were lucky compared to many. The death toll at this writing stands at 47, a number that will surely grow in the coming days.

With power now restored, a light also will soon shine on the shoddy regulation and poor governance leading to this tragedy. Until then, I’ll find cold comfort in nature’s beauty.

Shades of Sienna

ARE THIS AUTUMN’S tints and tones richer than usual? The foliage on and around my little Earth acre has been especially rewarding this fall. Staying close to home has inspired me to frame those hues differently than the jigsaw puzzle landscapes I usually capture.

Autumn itself seems to have its own set of seasons. It starts with that first cold snap, and snap is an apt word because the crisp north wind and chilling rain immediately sever your relationship with summer. Cold, moist nights then hasten the decay and the advancing shades of sienna. Fall will take a final, literal turn when the trees loosen their grip on their leaves. 

Each year, it’s a beautiful death. 

Summer Hummers

Costa's hummingbird

Ruby-throated hummingbird

THE GNOMES AND ALIENS of the bird world, hummingbirds never cease to amaze. Hyper-active ballet dancers in flight, they fiercely fight off competitors for their sweet-water turf. Their bodies capture sunlight and convert it to kaleidoscopes. They flit and whir in watercolor blurs, hovering one moment — and only for a moment — then vanishing like a bullet from a gun.

And those tiny feet!

Summer is the perfect time to get chummy with the hummys, although my best images date back to a February when I communed with some very tame creatures while visiting the Sonoran desert in Arizona. That, however, was then. This summer, the hummers come to us, but only for a moment.

Sunsets and Satellites

A Beauty-and-the-Beast ending to this day.

Four 30-second exposures of the ISS.

TWO WEEKS REMAIN until the summer solstice, the virtual halfway point of 2020, a rough year here on Earth. On America’s plot of the planet, COVID-19’s impact has been intensified as a nation struggles with an issue that has plagued us since our founding. Images of unity (protest marches) mix with those of division (brutality, destruction, and political bombast).

I turned my eyes and my camera to the evening skies this week, finding solace (or maybe escape) in sunsets and satellites. The International Space Station made loops over Texas for several days, coinciding with a full moon, the so-called Strawberry Moon. 

I’ll keep looking up, waiting for things to look up.

Two views of the Strawberry Moon on two consecutive nights.

Celebrating A Life

A YEAR AGO, we lost my father in-law, a man who touched many lives besides my own. At the request of my wife and her sisters, I had the honor of putting together a photo book celebrating his life. While many hours went into it, I really can’t say it was work. I love sifting through vintage images and documents and reliving the stories they tell. This book hardly captures the complexity of his life, but it certainly keeps his memory alive for the people who loved him.

Time Travel

FOR MY DAUGHTER’S 30TH BIRTHDAY, we boarded a space time machine. That’s the way it seemed to me, anyway. Our family quartet — one Renaissance nerd, two space nerds, and one nerd herder — convened last weekend in Houston to explore Johnson Space Center, Megan’s birthday wish.

The pull/push of past/future was never more present than in the two Mission Controls we visited. To reach each one we rode separate trams through the NASA campus, a time-trapped paradox in itself. The building exteriors have hardly changed from their early 1960s origins, right down to the vintage, gearless Schwinn bicycles that were donated to the facility when it was established and that now are lovingly maintained and ridden freely around the campus. It’s not until you’re deep inside one of those buildings that the retro furniture and fixtures recede and NASA’s innovative core reveals itself. 

First stop: the future. A few walls away from the International Space Station’s 24/7/365 Mission Control sits the future Mission Control for NASA’s Artemis program, which will land the first woman and next man on the moon by mid-decade and then take the next giant leap for mankind, sending astronauts to Mars. Significant among the many computer screens are the large projections at the front of the room, heart-felt reminders of the price of space exploration: the single Apollo and two Shuttle crews who lost their lives in tragic accidents. Later, we walked the massive building where the Artemis spacecraft are being built and tested; it is a visual representation of the complexity of the undertaking.

Our second tram ride deposited us in the past: the fully reconstructed Mission Control that managed the Apollo 11 mission, 50 years ago, which fulfilled President Kennedy’s dream of an American man walking on the moon. The tiny black-and-white screens, the ashtrays, the three-ringed binders, even the coat rack on the side wall — all of it cast us back in time and made me wonder, “How the hell did we ever pull that off?” We took it all in from the visitor/VIP gallery glassed off from the working control room. Turns out, according to our jovial tour guide, my birthday-girl daughter occupied the very seat that Queen Elizabeth sat in when she visited. “The Queen probably farted in that chair,” I whispered to Megan.  

Both Mission Control visits were humbling experiences for me. Like any good space explorers, though, we pushed forward, meeting an astronaut, visiting exhibits, and dropping some coin on space swag. Astronaut Clay Anderson was funny and self-deprecating, reminding me of the other astronauts I’ve met or read about. He graciously took a selfie with our family. The day ended with a look inside the Space Shuttle replica Independence, which sat atop its transport carrier, then a hearty dinner at a quaint Mediterranean restaurant nearby. 

Time trickles on. I’m so proud of my children as they pilot their way smartly on this planet. And for me, it’s fun to wonder how life might have been different if my own astronaut fantasies had been realized.

Our encounter with The Ordinary Spaceman, Clay Anderson. Who was more surprised?

Starry Surprise

This 20-second exposure (2.8/14mm lens at 5000 ISO) features the Milky Way, the Constellation Orion, and the ISS.

CAMPOUTS DON’T DISAPPOINT. The mid-January weekend at Meridian State Park with some work chums was no exception. A shrimp boil was the highlight of the campfire menu, and the 3-plus-mile hike put my recently repaired arteries to the test.

One clear, cold night, I pointed the Canon at the sky, hoping the Milky Way would pop out of the starry new-moon canvas. Despite the perfect, dark conditions, the galaxy pattern was less defined than usual. I was lucky, however, to capture the International Space Station streaking across the sky in three consecutive 20-second exposures. (I confirmed it later with an ISS tracker.) When it proved too cold to sleep well, I rose early and watched the sun rise over Lake Meridian. 

Campouts don’t disappoint.

Papa Bear at 90

IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY DAD, who turns 90 in a few days. He’s a devoted TV-watcher whose heroes ride horses, seduce sexy spies with ’60s-style gadgets, and body slam other men in skimpy tights; a man who prefers the company of dogs to most people; a devotee of apple pies, banana pudding, and – of late – tamales; a man who’s possibly happiest when he has something to worry about: his grandkids, the weather, the dogs, his prescriptions, his grandkids some more.

He’s much more than the sum of this blog post, but words might be the best thing I have to offer for a man who asks for so little – although you can bet your mustache that cowboys, sweet treats, and dogs will play a role this week as we celebrate Papa Bear rounding the corner toward the century mark.

*  *  *

FLOYD BROWN, no middle name, probably never had a childhood. He was born two weeks before the stock market crash that birthed the Great Depression, when the life expectancy for U.S. males was 55 years. He grew up fast in the hills of East Tennessee surrounded by poverty and not much else. He never knew his father, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was young. “We watched our whole house washed away in a flood,” he told me once, the memory making his eyes tear up. His education ended in elementary school, and he began building a hardscrabble resume and work ethic that reveals itself even today as he insists on doing the daily dinner dishes.

One of his early jobs, at the local roller rink, taught him to be a graceful, first-rate skater. His love of movies took root during a stint as a movie theater usher. Amid the many menial jobs, he found time for fun, sneaking off with cousins and friends on beer and moonshine runs.  

Unlucky in enterprise and denied entry into the military (4F because of an inner ear problem), he found solace in the arms of a woman who wasn’t really right for him. With a steady new manufacturing job and a newly adopted son (me!), they started a life in Memphis in a home where he would live for 60 years. 

Soon enough, he would divorce her but keep me. 

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MY CHILDHOOD YEARS spanned the ’60s and ’70s, a period ushered in by JFK and the Beatles with serious detours through Vietnam, civil rights, disco, and Watergate – a challenging time for any single parent, much less a newly divorced one who had barely been parented himself.

Early on, Papa Bear relied on the kindness of relatives (divorced in-law relatives, at that), a smart move that put me in the company of an aunt and cousins who knew a little something about nurturing a kid. I shiver now as I remember walking – or being carried – through the cold, pre-dawn mornings to my aunt’s house before Dad would catch a bus to work. 

Segue to my high school years, when he worked the graveyard shift, leaving me overnight to myself. Luckily, by then, I’d gained enough discipline to stay clear of the teenager minefield of opportunity lost. Still, it was a lonely time, for both of us.

We seemingly parted ways for some years as I made my desperate escape into college, career, and my own parenting venture. Me the occasional son, he the occasional but devoted dad and grandpa, it took a health scare to reunite us for good.

Eating like a college freshman for decades caught up with Papa Bear when his body finally said, “Enough!” and blessed him with a minor heart attack that led to triple-bypass surgery. If I hadn’t already realized he was a 5-foot-4 bad ass, he proved it over the next three months. For an 86-year-old, that kind of surgery is an ass-kicker, but it’s the recovery that shows if you’re made of the right stuff. After 15 days in ICU post-op and another three weeks in the hospital and a rehab center, he came to live with our dogs … and us. But mostly the dogs. 

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ALMOST FROM THE MOMENT he moved in, he and our pups, Abby and Rocky, were like infatuated teenagers who couldn’t stand being out of one another’s sight. Most mornings, they hang out on the back porch, watching for the mail lady’s truck to appear on the next street over. When it does, Dad makes his way up our long driveway to greet Cathy and swap stories. It wasn’t long before she was delivering cupcakes and gifts on his birthdays. 

We could never get him interested in the local senior center, but he finds comfort in his routines around the house: Eating the same lunch each day, playing fetch with Rocky from the shallow end of the pool, asking when the grandkiddos are coming over again, and watching reruns with Perry Mason, John Wayne, and James Bond (when WWE isn’t on).

His legacy isn’t one of work but of kindness. Despite a rough beginning and some lean middle years, he’s always been an optimist with a strong will to do the right thing. He says he wants to live to be 100, so maybe I’ll update this in 10 years. Until then, cheers, Papa Bear!