the board was looking pretty empty all week - so, as not to feel like a sloth, and bank some features for InSight next week, i spent a couple afternoons feature hunting - had a couple nice, just slice of life finds - people (okay, kids) out playing or whatever....
first feature day...
the first day i was driving about and spyed a bunch of kids playing on a sidewalk on a small sidestreet, headed their way and saw this woman cornrowing a little girl's hair on her porch - so i hung with them for a while and tried to work it to get one of those pix that is more or as much about the "feel" it evokes as the scene it shows - not sure i was totally successful, but not bad for a feature find....
kids are so interesting, the little girl was just kind of staring out across the street as the other kids played, patiently waiting her turn to join in while her aunt finished the cornrows on her 5-years' worth of never-been-cut-very long hair (it was taking her forever!), and she starts singing - blue houses, white houses, green houses, brown houses, brown houses, brown houses - her voice trailing off as she repeated the last part over and over again....
and then it was on to eating packets of Kool-Aid like dip n sticks
next feature day....
the next afternoon, i went out to hunt in a trailer park - i usually don't look for features in enclosed subdivisions - like trailer parks, or the kinds of new neighborhoods where the houses are all variations of a common structure - window on the right on this one - window on the left on the next one - and the street names all follow a common theme, usually involving trees or some shakespearean thread - but this day i did -- for all the cars parked at each of the homes, there was surprisingly little evidence of life - saw 3 boys playing in their side yard, and just to bank something, i stopped - walked back to their yard, and they were gone - hey, no fair! but, it turns out they'd just gone to the back fence where they were joking with a friend who lived in an adjacent park, the 2 separated by a barb-wire topped fence - you weren't supposed to go over the fence to the other side - though they knew of a hole in the fence that you could squeeze through.....wasn't sure what this would bring, but it turned out okay - i mean nothing too cool, but just a decent typical summer day kids life pic....the boys were so excited about maybe being in the paper - on my way to my car, i could hear them yelling to their mom as they rushed in the trailer - "hey mom, guess what?!!! we might be in the newspaper next Tuesday!!!!!" you'd think they'd won the lotto - good to know being in the paper still holds some appeal!
then recently....
saturday, after the volleyball, i headed down to the park for a "community services and volunteer fair" - basically, info booths set up from various local service orgs, the hospital, etc, a christian band playing and the "kids activity area" - replete with all the usual suspects - face painting, mini ring toss, balloon animals, and yes, prepare yourself, the moonbounce - i didn't even go near that one! hung out with a little girl and her puppy, succumbed to the face painting, then saw this lady caught up in the worship band music....and that was the day
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