The Other Night...

Bluegrass music wafted up from the shop just beneath me. It was Bernie, tinkering with buckets full of tools he’d pulled from his old suburban. He said it was time to clean it out and clean it out he did for at least a full 3 hours. And while I enjoy a good bluegrass song as much as any music aficionado might I have to admit that the three-hour stream of fingerpickin, boot kickin’ mountain music issuing forth from the 5 c.d. changer did wear on me, just a little.

My throat was starting to hurt (the onset of a cold I feared) and I was trying to concentrate on the story spread out before me, as with each turn of the page The Brothers K was growing more in depth and intense. It was great writing and I wanted to soak in it, let the words tumble into my mind allowing my imagination to carry me along.

I rose and went to the window with intentions of making a comment to Bernie, something that was to be a veiled statement of frustration. But when I opened the window my frustration flew right out of it and into the cool night air, never scathing even a hair on Bernie’s wise old head. The light stopped me. It always has.

The big “barn” door propped open, fluorescent light spilling out of the shop and onto the back of Bernie’s half loaded vehicle. I ran, grabbed my camera and snapped off a few quick shots, the first couple being taken through the screen because I didn’t want to ruin the scene by being noticed. Bernie is camera shy.

The camera caught things as I wanted it to, the light on the doorway, Bernie blurring by trying to finish up for the night, and the darkness that lay just beyond the side doors of his old caravan. It’s a simple picture and I love it for that exact quality, its simplicity.