New Gallery
Greenfield 2004 Gallery
I think there must be some place or time in this world where every individual reaches a state I call cognition. For me this is the point in living from which mostly one does not remember much of anything to the point where one has the feeling that one remembers much.

I do remember three things from Aberdeen South Dakota where I was born, and several dozens of memories from Hickory Hills Illinois where I got to be between four and five. Greenfield Illinois is where memory really takes off, and more importantly; it is when cognition began. It is the time & location where I understood there was a ‘self’ outside of my parents. As an example my Mother almost never disciplined me. In the 1960’s there was a lot of talk about communists and dictatorships. One day along about 4th grade my mother must have told me to do something and my response was to declare that this was not a dictatorship. This was a mistake! She slapped me on the face. She never did that before and she never did it afterword. The memories are vivid, real, and present. Mother just put a hand into that particular one! The excitement over new cars, the Dairy Queen, my sisters boyfriends, quarters collected from said boyfriends to leave them alone, the football games, the basketball games, summers on hot asphalt roads, running barefoot all over the town, bikes in allies, burning the trash out back, cub scouts, church on Sunday, Sunday night & Wednesday evening, and the host of friends.

I’ve written thirteen poems that originate in that place called Greenfield. Here is a link to the Greenfield poetry if you are so inclined.

We all have such a time & place where ‘self’ ‘cognition’ ‘being’ begins. For me it is Greenfield. I’ve been back many times but only once in 2004 with a camera. I finally got around to completing this gallery of photographs from 2004. So here are a few from my past. If you link to the gallery or link to any of the photographs there is a brief narrative that explains a little more about each. Enjoy if you like or find a camera and return to your ‘cognition’ spot.

P.S.: Read or listen to Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid which is fall on the floor funny and an accurate description of the time.