A Work Progressing

I am not my brother’s biographer by any means, but on his 91 birthday I feel it necessary to celebrate his life just a little bit. If I do not have things exactly right, I apologize.

He was born at a tough time in history, the Great Depression still held the country in a cold grip. Our mother was young in age, and even younger in spirit. Bob often said that Mom grew up with him. Economics made growing up tough, and relationships were not smooth.

The war came, and the family physically split as my father traveled to the West coast to build ships, leaving Bob as the man of the house at 12 or 13 years old.

Disaster struck as our sister Gayle contracted Scarlet Fever. At that time there was no effective cure. Penicillin was known, but only available for the military. Gayle died in 1944, three days short of her eighth birthday.

Mom had given birth to Edwin Elgin a year before, and Dad still had to work in the shipyards, but Mom was determined to bring the family together, and moved West.

Bob enrolled in Richmond schools, I believe he went to Longfellow Junior High, then he went to Richmond Union High School, class of 1949. I think my mother missed the graduation ceremony because she was in the hospital giving me birth.

The family was still living in wartime housing and Bob had several jobs while still in high school. I know that he worked in the Ford Motor plant for a time, and then he worked at Felice and Pirelli, the F&P cannery in Richmond.

Bob met Dorothy Carraher, and married her in 1950, and had Robbie in 1951. I was an uncle at two years old.

At that time Bob was living in San Diego near the beach. My brother Ed when down to stay with them several different times, nearly drowned, and had many adventures. I missed out!.

The marriage relationship had problems, and I’m unsure if the Army was involved. In any case, Bob signed up for a hitch in the Army, to become a paratrooper. The Korean War was over but the Cold War was just starting.

After basic training Bob was sent to Germany to prepare to defend the Fulda Gap. According to documents discovered later on, the Soviets had thousands of tanks prepared to push though the Fulda Gap at any time. Some reports say that hundreds of tanks were started, and at idle, waiting for orders to go to war.

Bob finished his time in Germany and went back to the his post in Kentucky, with the 101st Airborne. I know this because he had given me a shoulder patch of the Screaming Eagle, which I promptly sewed on to my motorcycle styled hat. Bob had also purchased a Harley Davidson motorcycle like many veterans, and rode it cross country several times.

On one visit he left me the black cloth, white vinyl, visored hat that I wore nearly everyday. And the hat was even cooler with the Screaming Eagle patch sewn on above the visor. Thanks Bob!

I suppose it was possible that Bob would only do one three year hitch, then get out, but then another life changing event happened.

Bob went to a local bar near the post with several friends. A fight broke out between the locals and the soldiers. Fists were thrown, chairs were thrown. Bob stepped up to stop a chair being thrown at his friend. I believe it was the bartender that fired a .45 at Bob’s stomach, and he went down.

Obviously a family crisis, my mother had never flown in a plane, but she went to Kentucky to be by his side. Bob pulled through, the bullet lodged in his spine, and it wasn’t removed. His days as a paratrooper ended, they wouldn’t allow him to jump with the bullet still in him, and he shifted his Army training to helicopter maintenance. He also decided to stay in as a “lifer”.

Eventually he became an instructor in the helicopter maintenance program and was stationed in Virginia. He moonlighted as a cab driver, decided to buy a Norwegian built, 10ft sailing dinghy, to sail on Chesapeake Bay.

He eventually shipped that dinghy to my father, and that’s how I learned to sail.

Somewhere about that time Bob went to Korea for a year. My other brother, Ed, had also joined the Army and was stationed in Korea. They managed to meet up for a small family reunion.

After coming back to the states, Bob was stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington and continued working in helicopter maintenance. For a time he entered civilian life and worked at Boeing Aircraft while maintaining his Army reserve status. He also started a family with Peggy, had two daughters and bought a home in Tacoma.

Then he joined the National Guard full-time and ended his career in the service as a top sergeant, the highest enlisted rank.

By this time the Viet Nam War was raging. Bob had tried several times to get released to go over, but he was refused as the service needed him stateside.

I was playing the odds. How likely would I be drafted when both of my brothers had served in the Army, and one was still in the service? I was drafted.

I was also sent for basic training to Ft. Lewis, the same post where my brother was assigned. On one weekend he came to visit me. I had decided to reenlist for a three year hitch and Bob gave me some advice.

I was just a private, not even a Private First Class, I had no rank, no service medals, I was just a boot with green fatigues. And I was in meeting with a “lifer”, with more stripes than all my drill sergeants put together, and more time in the service than any of my officers. It was pretty special!

Retirement did not slow Bob down. He continued to read volumes of books on everything, he took his truck on dumpster runs, and he bought ten acres of woods near Mt St. Helens.

Going to the woods was his favorite thing. He built a two story cabin with found materials from the dumpsters, and filled his house with “hidden treasures”. All the while developing his skill at creating jigsaw art.

He has slowed down in the last years, he doesn’t race dragon boats in the bay of Tacoma anymore, and he hasn’t played pickle-ball in years, but he does walk the neighborhood under watchful eyes. And he is wonderfully loved and admired, full of wit an humor.

I am in awe of my older brother, and I wish him a great year in 2023.

This is a story from my older brother.

We lived in what was called the Wartime Housing Authority. Dozens of buildings built on vacant land to house the workers who were building Victory ships only miles away. They were cheap rent for two bedroom apartments, with excellent oak floors. The war was over, but we were still there renting.

Money was tight, not as bad as during the war, but there was still not a lot of money for extras. Even .50 cents went a long way to buy food.

At the local Golden Rule Market there was the twice a week shopping trip with Mother. Naturally I spent some time on the aisles that featured toys. I had fixed my attention on a package that contained a balsa airplane. It was a long flat package with some red plastic parts, and some wooden balsa parts that had Air Force markings painted on the wings. It had a price tag of .50 cents.

Each succeeding week I asked my mother if she could buy it. Priorities required that hamburger, pork chops, bread, milk and vegetables were handled first. There wasn’t much left in the budget for tiny aviation.

Then one week, it suddenly appeared at the checkout, and I took it home! I carefully opened the package to take out the various parts. The plastic pieces needed to break loose from the plastic tree. The wooden pieces needed to be punched loose from the die cut balsa.

The directions were simple, it had a nose piece that slipped over the front of a foot long plank that acted as the planes fuselage, there were blue plastic pieces glued to the side of the plank were the wings were slid into a curved groove. The wings were maybe 8 inches long, with the Air Force symbols painted on, and the blue plastic clip made the wings curve slightly to create lift for flying.

There were more balsa pieces for the tail structure that were placed in tight fitting slots in the “fuselage”. There was also two black plastic wheels on wires that were fitted on a bracket beneath the wings as landing gear.

Finally the was the large red plastic propellor fitted to the nose piece and a rubber band hooked to the tail of the fuselage.

The secret was to wind the propellor in the right direction until the rubber band developed “knots”. Then keep winding until the knots went the complete distance. If you were brave, and the rubber band was new, you could get a triple row of knots for a longer flight time.

With a triple wound rubber band the plane could take off from the ground with a standing start. For even more excitement you could launch the plane while standing up with just a little arm motion. If thrown too hard you risked dislodging the balsa wings stuck in their slots.

I had a great hour or two flying the plane from different positions, in different directions. Then I had the idea of launching it from the porch of the apartment in order to get more height. The plane was triple knotted so it climbed quickly and did a slow banking turn to come back towards the apartment. Unfortunately it veered to the side and hit the very tall bush growing next to building, near the top.

It was a dense bush, impossible to climb, very thick, and it was only with difficulty that I could where it was. I knew it was there because upon landing the bush had dislodged a wing from the groove, and it was now laying on the ground in front of me.

This was a disaster, unreachable plane, no more fun. And I had to tell Mom.

There were many options of the best attitude to solve this problem. The attitude I choose was for Mother to immediately get ready to go to the Golden Rule Market to purchase another plane. I probably would have been wiser to use a pleading voice, but somehow it came out as a pouting demanding voice. My mother was not amused.

She did go out to see if she reach the plane, she couldn’t. Then she calmly said that I should have been more careful, and “I’m not buying another”. I repeated my demand several times, my mother continued cooking in the kitchen.

Finally I sat on the couch within her sight, holding the wing in my hands, thinking about my next move. Slowly I turned the wing over and over, then I snapped the tip off with my right hand. Maybe the sound alerted my mother, in any case, she turned her head from the stove to watch me snap another piece, to fall,on the floor in front of me. “Stop that, you are just doing that to make me mad.”

Snap, again and again. The mound of balsa at my feet was growing larger. “I’m not going to buy you another one.”, she repeated. I snapped the last few bits of the wing, then went out on to the front porch.

I wasn’t crying, I’m not sure what I felt, but it wasn’t normal. I looked over the neighborhood remember how wonderful it was to fly my plane. The wind took it higher than I had ever gone. Even now the wind hit my face to remind me of what it was like for my plane.

The bush was also hit by the wind, and it brushed on the building also like a broom sweeping. I noticed movement to my left. I saw the rest of my plane being dislodged, floatng to the ground, the propellor still turning from the last few knots in the rubber band. It lay there upright, on it’s landing gear, perfect… except missing a right wing.

That was 72 years ago, and I remember it like yesterday.

Whoa, I’m stepping into my own world of ignorance. I certainly can use the words, spell them correctly, and add the two dictionary meanings to define the field, but I’m pretty sure I don’t know a thing.

I’m now commenting on it because recently the phrase has been attached to several fields of art, where I spend a great deal of time.

The first connection is with photography. I suppose that anything powered by a battery could “loosely” be called “artificial intelligence”, but we photographers allowed it as “automatic” features. We could do it the action, but it was faster to put the camera in “A”, instead of “M”.

Big deal… we would manually select the f-stop, and the battery would power the camera to select the shutter speed.

I remember the days when the battery only powered the light meter. If the battery went dead you could still shoot pictures if you remembered the basic daylight rule.

Now, with the battery in charge of the shutter, your camera was dead as soon as the battery was dead. Within a few years the “auto” function took charge of the shutter, the f-stop, and the focusing. Of course the manual option was available, but only if the battery was charged. Hmm, that’s a clue. Manual operation needed a battery?

The last few years, especially with digital cameras, it was obvious that “artificial intelligence” was alive and well in photography, but we didn’t really call it that.

Last month I purchased a unit that attaches to my camera with a cord, then sends data to my iPad/iPhone in order to control the action of the camera. It could be called a remote controller, but it does so much more. It takes multiple shots at different settings, then blends them into a final product. It truly makes quick decisions to make a very complex photograph. It deserves the title “artificial intellence”, because it goes beyond my ability to duplicate the process.

I paid good money to get images that I could not generate with the normal skills that I have. My control of the machine is minimal, but the images are breathtaking. Question: Are they mine? Just because I paid for it, and hit the start button?

So now I jump to digital art. I’m very much beyond the arguments that define “what is art?” DuChamp settled that decades ago. Digital art just uses digital tools. If the tool is a stylus or a mouse it is still art. If the computer use a data program, it still has a programmer. Or does it?

There are programs that make fractal based designs that are spontaneous. Not common, but they exist. There was a time when “computer art” was seen as very “unartistic”, but that has disappeared for awhile now.

Naturally the argument reoccurs with AI for art programs. The typical program begins with digital images uploaded into memory, and after a few minutes an image pops out that is almost entirely created by the machine.

True the facial features may resemble the image uploaded, but the colors, the background, and the clothing may be completely different. Is it better? Is it the artist’s?

In some regards it’s just a filter. Digital artists have learned how to make filters for years, and recently even free programs make use of filters, and using them is second nature in order to get the desired results. You pick and choose the results that are revealed. You could make them yourself, but it’s easier to use a program. It’s still very custom, and tightly controlled.

This is a new AI program is not the same. If you input a portrait that is full face, straight on- it may give you a version that is a three quarter turn, because it placed markers on the original image, and calculated the turn, and filled in the data to make it right. The program is judged by the amount of correct decisions made.

The program also has gigabytes of memory for models and backgrounds of all sorts. So, the question is not whether it is art, but rather, who is the artist? In order to use the program you must be connected to a remote server to access the computing power. It takes a small fee to generate 100 different images.

I’ve spent about $50 to generate thousands of images. I’ve had a lot of fun, but I haven’t taken ownership of any of them, even if they did use my art in the initial upload.

I do upload my digital files to a company that prints the files on canvas. I sometimes send files to get images printed on metallic media. I have ownership for these files, so why not AI? And I really like the images too.

I need to ponder this…

Sometime last summer, I briefly caught a story about a pilot of a small plane becoming unconscious, and the passenger was forced to take control.

The dramatic part of the story is that the passenger had absolutely no piloting experience. The West Palm Beach flight tower made contact with the plane, found out the model of the cockpit, then gently talked the passenger to land the plane safely. End of story! Maybe.

I think I read the story in those short little news bits with no credits. But apparently it did happen, and several other news agencies had picked it up. Some stories focused on the pilot, some stories on the passengers, some stories focused on the control tower.

I believe Shannon Marshal heard about the story in May of 2022, then wrote his own version in July of 2022.

This time it wasn’t in Florida. It was in Alaska, and it concerned two lawyers trying to get Anchorage, then getting connecting flights to the states. The two lawyers had tickets to Anchorage, but for some reason a local small plane pilot, who was also a pastor, had approached them with an invitation to fly with him immediately to Anchorage. It’s possible that it could have been a longer wait for the commercial flight, but the lawyers changed their plans and went with the small plane.

I was not reading this account, although I found the print version later. I was watching/listening to a very nice YouTube production. The strange acceptance was not the first clue that this was a modified work of fiction. One of the lawyers was sitting up front next to the pilot, and was narrating the story. His voice was a mixture of Barry White, James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman. It was very compelling. The Voice could have been a lawyer, and I would have loved to be a juror.

The second clue in the story is that the pilot calmly mentioned that he had a problem with flying in clouds. He said that the disorientation was so great that he often passes out. As a pilot, he would have checked the weather to Anchorage, and he would have known that the ceiling was 10 feet or less all the way, with thunder and lightning in addition. But he went to the plane anyway, and didn’t tell his passengers about his fainting until just before entering the clouds.

Normally I would have clicked out of the video, but I was fascinated with his voice, and the next literary take in the story. Marshall writes that they both took turns pressing buttons on the microphone while saying “Hello, hello?”. That sounded remarkably real.

And he made mention that someone responded with the question, “Why aren’t you using normal protocol?”. It was a cargo plane passing close enough to relieve the call for help. As the lawyers explained the situation, the cargo plane turned to fly in a circle in order to stay in range. That also sounded real, and I don’t remember any mention of that in the Florida article.

The cargo plane then contacted the Anchorage Control Tower ro take over communications. No mention of how this was accomplished. Again, I was about to change channels once again, but then a remarkable analogy was about to take place.

The Tower told the passenger pilot that the Tower could see him, even if the passenger could not see the Tower. And the passenger could hear his Voice, and he must trust, and obey his Voice in doing whatever he says. Or bad things will happen.

Suddenly, the light clicked on and I wanted to listen to the rest of the story. It was a great analogy, even to the extent that the passengers were not to look out the windows to view the storm. They were to only listen to the Voice and do what it tells them, and when it tells them.

Several times I teared up as I listened. It was a good production. As a believer in Christ I liked the clear analogy. Only one problem…

There was never an indication that this was fiction, based loosely on a real story. Were there clues that this wasn’t real? Certainly, but the story was so exciting, engaging, and maybe even “Hey, I think I just heard something about this…” and both Voices were so compelling.

There was no mention of Shannon Marshall in the YouTube so maybe he doesn’t exist. Even the print version of the story was a guest entry in a community blog.

Does it matter that it might not be real?

Good stories are good!! Truth is better.

I’ve taught various levels of photography to college students for about 35 years before retiring. I had several moments of “flash” awareness, where a basic concept grabbed me, and I understood some of the nuances.

My favorite moments were the “double meaning” concepts like “focus”, “contrast”, “depth”, and my favorite, “perspective”.

With a camera, the words can be used in several different ways, and all the ways are important to master. Some people only pay attention to a single definition, because it takes less time, and the moment is fleeting.

One can look at the viewfinder and think “perspective”, so you check for railroad tracks disappearing into the distance, or fence posts receding over the hill. It’s much harder to realize that the view is seen from your standing height. What is the view from kneeling, or laying down? We generally don’t know because we are trapped by time.

It’s a good idea to first become a master of time, before we become a master photographer. The captured image is a “frozen moment in time” even if we are caught up in the frenzy just before the click of the shutter.

With some manipulation of controls you can stop the action as if there is no movement. Or you can follow the action for sharp detail, leaving the background in a slight blur. This takes a lot of practice to decide how to handle the image desired.

The finer points of perspective takes even more practice and more time. Every image that you make will be seen from the perspective that you take. That’s a truth that should be tattooed on the finger that pushes the shutter.

Expanding that concept to communication with others is a worthwhile exercise. Every point that you speak, comes from a perspective that you take. We can rightfully ask, “Where are you coming from?” Are you standing solid, or on shifting sand? Are you looking down from a distant, safe, high point, or are you on the same level? Are you looking up from a hole in the earth, and everyone seems to be striding like giants above you?

The concepts of photography extend to real world “perspectives” if you allow it.

And don’t forget his sword.

The Greeks and their wonderful myths. A little like the Peanuts cartoon with the character always being followed around with a rain cloud above his head, we have Damocles with a sword above his head, held suspended by a single thin thread.

We don’t know much about Damocles. It appears that he was a courtier during the reign of King Dionysius of Sicily, approx. 400 bc. At one of the many banquets, Damocles was going on and on, about the virtues, power, and magnificence of the King. At some point even suggesting that he wished he could change places with him for just an hour. The King finally had enough of the talk, and had Damocles approach him.

He gave him the robes, the crown, and the scepter, and sat him on the throne. “Here you go, Damocles”, we exchange places!” But the last thing the King did was to pull a single hair from a horse’s tail, and tie it to the pommel of a great sword, and suspend the sword directly above the head of Damocles while he sat on the throne.

Cicero used a version of this story to teach that to have virtue is more enough for a complete life. I think that storyline has gotten a little lost. Today, we just think of the impending doom of having the thread break, and a great sword crashing through our skull. The problem with painting a great scene is that it is hard not to focus on it.

We all walk around with the certain knowledge of our impending doom. It’s all in the timing, and the strength of the thread.

Damocles didn’t last very long in the story, he asked the King to reconsider, he didn’t realize that there might be consequences to power.

King Dionysus removed the physical sword, but Damocles still was under a sword that could take his life at any moment, it can be called the “circle of life.” We are here for a time, then we are not.

As I get older, and I go down this road a little further, I plan to write of the journey. Let us both hope the thread continues.