Days of His Youth Overhead**+

When this aging traveler was a youth, A&W root beer 'stands' dotted

the mainstream American landscape -- destinations for thirsty youths

who cruised America's 'main drags' at night with their girlfriends

to show off their cars, have a root beer delivered by drive-in

waitresses, then squeal their tires as they left, all powered by

hefty V-8s. All that's a memory, preserved over this aging

businessman's head at Newark Airport -- A&W having been merged and

become part of a conglomerate, just like everything else. Your

ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you harshly

or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please share your superior photographic knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

An image full of meaning, and a beautifull capture. For me, a non american, your words add comprehension to it, though it could anyway be recognized as "typically" american. I really like it!

Since this is presumably a picture of the relationship between the mural and the seated figure, and the mural is permanent, it occurs to me that you could do a lot with the figure/mural relationship, rather than just this snapshot, which I take for a happenstance photo. By choosing your subject and pose, you could heighten the relationship and bring more meaning into the image. As it is, it's a weak relationship; what is the relevence of an overweight man reading the sports page to the mural image? OK, maybe too many burgers and fries could make him that way, but I have to believe there is a stronger image, perhaps more ironic/symbolic/contrasting/complimentary? As for this image his face could be lighter or the whole figure could be darker. Also you are not square to the wall and there's distortion because of it. and for no good reason. It's an interesting image, I suggest you explore its possibilities further.

I take a lot of care in my explanations and comments to ensure that non-Americans are included in my audience and that captures that require explanation for a 'foreign' audience are there.

 

This is an 'American Graffiti' style photo, or a photo on the lines of what was explored first in that movie, and this represents its aftermath -- the symbol of the first American drive-ins (A & W Root Beer) transformed into a conglomerate, merged with Dairy Queen, another symbol of mainstream American drive-ups -- not drive-in, but drive-up, where you walked to the window to get your cone (some states like Wyoming would not allow it to be called an 'ice cream' cone because it lacked sufficient 'butterfat content' to be called 'real ice cream' and it was full of air bubbles, which is what made Dairy Queen able to be dispensed from a machine.

 

Anyway, the generation that grew up on Dairy Queen and A & W Root Beer now has morphed into guys like this older, fatter guy reading the nation's only national newspaper here at the Newark, New Jersey Airport, where there are no car-hops, no 'windows' to step up to, no squeal of hot rod tires, or anything else other than maybe the same root beer, the same cones (as Dairy Queen) and little else except the logos and some memories.

 

The nostalgia has been corporatized.

 

That's what this world has come to.

 

I hope I've helped make it clear through this photo (and commentaries) for those who haven't lived it.

 

John (Crosley)

First of all, this is not a 'snapshot'. I don't take snapshots. Many may consider it rudeness and arrogance to call it thusly, whether you are aware of it at or not.

 

There is reason behind what I do.

 

While you may think it a 'weak relationship' the photo does fill the frame, which is more than most 'snapshots' do, and more than that it's interesting.

 

And the mural has significance (see above) for a significant part of America's population above a certain age, so unless you are part of that age (and since you are hiding behind a pseudonym, I can't figure out if you are or are not), then I can't determine whether you are capable on your own of understanding that 'significance'.

 

If you were, (I doubt it), this photo should have some meaning to you that you can't understand at all; and if you were not, no amount of story-telling or good photography is going to 'explain' it to you, no matter how much technically better it might be made.

 

Is the relationship weak? If you are part of 'this' generation, if may indeed not be. If you are NOT, you probably will never know -- like jokes that need explanation, you should just let this one pass. It wasn't meant for you.

 

The man was kept dark because it was important to place emphasis on the mural, not the man -- he's a secondary figure, plus he was not well-lighted and shadow/highlight filter places an unusual color cast on figures that would accentuate the color he already is cast in and make him badly colored plus to my experience it is not possible to fix that cast (or to select and lighten, either, or even desirable).

 

That was my choice and I stick with it. I make such choices, rather than just 'posting snapshots' I choose my photos for taking very carefully and discard well over 95 to 99 per cent of them, and those that are posted have a reason for being posted (almost always; sometimes I make mistakes, but this is not one of them.)

 

And his obesity is part of this photo as well -- his weight/it goes with the aging theme, referred to in my post next above.

 

As for being 'square with the wall -- sorry, that just was not possible, however 'desirable' that may have been. There were obstructions, then the fat, seated, overweight man moved (and became aware of my photographing). This is it and a couple of other, lesser captures which were totally unworthy.

 

If you're going to critique that's fine and I welcome all warranted and helpful critiques, and some of yours are helpful (or appear intended to be helpful and I take those seriously, but you devalue everything you write beyond your gratuitous introduction of the word 'snapshot' -- perhaps without realizing it.

 

Snapshots are for grannies; pet rabbits and dogs; the children, and maybe a rim shot of the Grand Canyon. I don't take such photos. This certainly never should be confused with a snapshot. It's not my best photo, but you can look around if you want to find that.

 

As to 'exploring the possibilities' what does that mean? This is a one-time shot; that's it. It's taken and over. The only choice is post-processing and I'll stick with my choices.

 

I'm not thin-skinned with critics so long as they're well-intentioned and you may just have slipped into a semantic trap with your gratuitous remark but it sounded condescending, and condescending is NOT helpful.

 

Your other remarks appear well-intentioned, if they miss the mark somewhat (see above comment to the non-American who commented; perhaps you also are a non-American? I haven't turned to your biography, as I acknowledge each comment with its four corners.

 

You are invited to return here to comment more; and rate away as you wish; I'm not discouraged by low rates -- I make choices and I stick with them. (and I don't rate low in retaliation, either.) I'm a fair player and I do enjoy my critiques (and critics) for the most part, and I've learned a great deal from them; many of them point out interesting relationships in my photos that have gone unnoticed by me that should have been obvious as well as defects that sometimes embarrass me.

 

These comments have been a good place and a place for articulateness for a great many and usually a very fun place which some seek out -- and very seldom -- almost never, a place for contention.

 

I view Photo.net as a vast organization of people helping people, and try to focus on the good, but don't also ignore the bad -- I also am a straight shooter and if something needs to be said, I say it.

 

And again, I welcome you back.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

 

All i can do is just dool over this composition,oportunity and your great eye.

Best regards,Judy

It's a delight to see you return to these pages, Judy.

 

I feast my eyes on seeing your name under 'comments' under any photograph of mine.

 

Highest regards to the 'queen of street shooters'.

 

John (Crosley)

It's brilliant! I grew up in an A & W - which also had the drive up. I can almost see me sitting beside this guy and leaning over to read his paper over his shoulder. (and get fat eating the fries with gravy) Okay - sorry - its not much of a critique. I just like it very much.

I don't so much know whether it's brilliant as it's very evocative. I also grew up with A&W at the end of Willamette Street, in Eugene, Oregon, which was the place where all the cars full of kids that dragged 'main street' turned around, one by one, and often had a root beer.

 

We did NOT have fries with gravy, however, and I don't think it was on the menu, nor was chitlins or pork rinds . . . those might have been regional additions. . . . ;~))

 

When I saw this, I knew many members would react as I (and you) have; by bringing forth long forgotten feelings and emotions from youth -- carhops, hopped up cars, and root beer floats together with icy root beer in thick mugs for a hot summer night. Just the ticket.

 

And this was too, for me.

 

I'm glad it was for you too.

 

John (Crosley)

Oh, John you will probably die, as I think this is probably not one of your BEST pictures. But I sat here laughing because I love the fact that Jan, who by the way is one of my FAVORITE (yes I yelled) photographers on PN thinks it is. BUT, I would have guessed that she would have picked it to be one of them because it is so VIBRANT. I would like it only because there is a man sitting there reading a sports section about Madden and I think how he got drunk. That in itself is funny.

 

I, myself did not grow up eating at A&W because they did not have them in Texas or where I grew up at. But I have had their Fries and they are the best fries around.

 

I was looking for Jan's new pictures that she uploaded and saw that she made a comment on one of your pictures and had to take a peek.

 

Glad I stopped by as I have been busy entertaining my brother and his family. I see you have uploaded some wonderful pictures and must go take a quick look. ~ Jan... Does this look like you did back in the day? ~ hmmm ~ Oh yeah, I was able to carry two drinks up like that no problem, HA! ~ micki

How do you eat fries with gravy with your fingers?

 

And doesn't that gravy stain your clothes?

 

And what is in that muscilaginous gravy, anyway?

 

Only southerners order gravy in everything; it's full of fat and flour and mostly uncooked usually; unlike French sauces which are usually done to perfection over a skillet prewamred and desgiendd to distribute the heat properly -- mmmm that's eating. (French food, not fries with gravy!)

 

John (Crosley)

I can just hear McDonald's trying to upsell your meal....

 

'Will you have gravy on your fries?'

 

'Do you want those fries (and gravy) supersized?'

 

Are grits next?

 

John (Crosley)

As my kids call it Micky D's! My life in a NUT SHELL as they say. AND, I don't ever buy gravy anywhere but I make gravy and I also make fried okra and such. OK, I kid they make great southern dishes like that here in the south but I do make the BEST of these dishes.

 

BUT I will never get better brussel sprouts as I did in Carmel. And how about that Garlic Icecream like they have there in Wine country on the way to San Fransico from Salinas. YUM YUM! HA!

In the (about) only quotable words of George Bush (Senior), 'don't like Brussel Sprouts, never did, and now that I'm President I still don't like 'em' and I'm not gonna eat 'em.' George Herbert Walker Bush on Brussel Sprouts -- in perhaps his most quotable quote, paraphrased here.

 

Gravy instead of sauce is fine, but unless you've been to France and learned that French bread is for soaking up those fine sauces (not for eating with a slab of butter, as Americans try to do) you've missed something. And garlic ice cream, is something that is from the Gilroy Garlic festival, an oddity and nothing more. Yum . . . Humh . . . . I haven't tried it . . . . so I cannot say . . . but anything that combined cream-like things and garlic can't be all bad but the sugar sounds superfluous, and it probably should come with its own frozen prawns inside, ready for a quick re-heating for prawns scampi in cream sauce . . . . (ever Crosley, taking things to their simplest, and re-inventing things . . . then working with basics to come up with something that may not have been tried before, whether it be gastronomy, law or photography.)

 

But everything's been tried at the garlic festival, of course, however hot, dusty and crowded it gets as the residents of the Bay Area and South Bay strive for something that looks like a 'heritage' though the Garlic Festival isn't THAT many years old.

 

California has so many people, so many people new to the state and so many people without heritage at all . . . .

 

But many older adults grew up throughout the Midwest and even California going to drive-ins as youths, and stopping in the summer's heat for an ice-cold mug of A&W root beer, or a root beer float, amidst 1955 and 1057 Chevys and Fords with the occasional eye-stopping and throat clutching roar of a Corvette (however could any student afford a Corvette and the girls THEY attracted? or be lucky enough to have parents who would buy them one, while I drove a buckskin tan 1955 Ford station wagon, stock, (or the laughing stock) of the region, or so I felt, on those rare days when my father would relent and keep his Tuesday promise by Friday or Saturday and actually let me drive it on a weekend night. (Usually he found a reason to withdraw his promise -- he didn't like this or that thing and the promise was withdrawn . . . . making dating impossible that way, and friends with cars very precious friends indeed.)

 

(I went to university in NYC, where a car was a hindrance instead of a help, which was a distinct advantage. For a nickel I could ride the NYC subway anywhere in the four boroughs (not Staten Island --that was a nickel in the Staten Island Ferry, scene of my first photograph on PN, from my first roll of film ever). And at Coney Island and also at 42nd Street, there were the famous Nathan's Coney Island Hot Dogs, something that later were exported for a while to the rest of the US but at outrageous prices.

 

NYC was a delight of tastes and upon arrival there, an A&W was never thought of again, until the following summer again in Eugene, where the throngs again hit the A&W stand.

 

It's one reason why the film 'American Graffiti' struck an instant chord with American youth and became so iconic -- whether or not it had an A&W Root Beer stand --it had a drive-in and teenagers driving around at night, eyeing one another, the hot summer night belonging to them and theirs, and that lone Mexican radio station on the air, XERB, I think with the inimitable Wolfman Jack and his gravelly voice echoing throughout one-third to one-half of North America at a wattage that I think was immeasurable.

 

When you look down at hip-hop and its progeny, the filthy lyrics, the gangsta movement and all that represents today's youth, remember that it's just a way of saying 'it's 'us' vs. 'them' (the older folks) and 'we get it' and 'they don't' or 'our culture' vs. 'theirs' which is the necessary differentiation for growing up.

 

In Russia, there has been a recent movement to soften all hard vowels, to change the sound of various words -- a sort of slang which has a universal softening sound and a complete change of pitch for the language -- prevalent only among the cognoscenti -- (over now, mostly, I think), but such 'lingo' changes are something that sweep from Moscow to St. Petersburgh to regional centers like Nizhny Novgorod to other, more remote places like Rostov-na-Donu in the South and Primorsky Krie in the Russian Far East more slowly, I am told, but hastened by modern telecommunications.

 

Now, everything becomes 'popularized' and then it becomes a 'fad' and soon enough it becomes 'commercialized' at which point it becomes available to the adults and it loses its cachet among the cognoscenti (the young people) who then go searching for new language to appropriate for their own--to set themselves off with.

 

It's an ever-changing process.

 

For grandparents it was '23-skidoo' and raccoon coats.

 

Now it's unimaginable things that once you learn them, they're already out of date (if you learn of them, they're already uncool, unless, perhaps you're a teacher . . . or a counselor).

 

(pardon the discursiveness - it builds on a recent conversation I had with a much younger group of people)

 

John (Crosley)