Decisive moments and the Cooke house girls

Earlier this year, an image I shot a few years back was picked for a juried show in Richmond. One of the curators called with the news, noting that three of the five images we’d submitted were picked to make up the 20-photograph show. “The judges also picked one of your images as best in show,” he added, “and it wasn’t really a hard choice. They all felt drawn to the moment and strength and stripped-bare honestly of the photograph.” It means a lot that people may like your work, but this was an image in particular that I have looked back on and loved that I was there and all the buttons worked.

That the juried panel (including a curator for the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and David Allen Harvey, the venerable and God-like shooter for decades at Nat. Geo), found it their favorite was very special.I remember the afternoon, sitting on the back lawn of the old and grand oceanfront house down the street. Relatives of this cedar shake compound had come down from Vermont for their annual summer visit, other friends had joined the group and the yard was full of children including my own. I was casually shooting some of the activity and visiting with parents. One pretty girl eased up and stood posing for a second in a summer dress, when her friend came along to eye the situation. A younger toddler was passing through the frame, and on a different day I might have waited for him to pass. Instead I clicked through it, and there it was, a moment of preening and jealousy on a summer day in the grass.

My son at the bus stop

I was away on shoot when Walker had his first day of high school. It was a half day walk through for rising 9th graders, to see the school, walk the halls and get a leg up on the routine that starts in earnest next week after Labor Day. So I wasn’t there at the bus stop to see him off and witness how he started his day. It wasn’t until two strangers knocked on the door that evening around 10pm that the story emerged. Mike and Robin Katz introduced themselves and handed me a bag with cookies and letter. They said their son Joey was also at the bus stop that morning, nervously awaiting his own first day at high school. Challenged by autism, he was facing a new school in a new town. Walker had picked up on this, and befriended Joey on this their first day of high school. After walking them to the street and hearing them tell me what a great kid we had, I returned to hear my son reread the letter to a teary mother. What a great way to start the year. Here’s the letter.

 

Walker:

Moving from Ohio to Virginia was huge leap of faith for our family. Robin grew up here, but when she was just four years older than you are now; she moved to Ohio and has only returned to the area for visits. Michael and Joey have lived in Ohio their entire lives!

As I’m sure you know, parents always want the best for their children and they try to shield them from pain while giving them the freedom they need to grow and experience life themselves. Joey is our youngest and this morning faced going to a new school in a new city, without knowing a single person. As his parents, we were concerned about this, and walked to the bus this morning with Joey with heavy hearts.

 

Our walk home from the bus stop this morning (and again in the afternoon) was much different. Our hearts were full with joy and optimism. This was because we met you. You are a wonderful young man. You appear confident and your actions show great compassion for others. You brought more sunshine into our lives in one day than you could ever imagine. Surely your parents are proud of the young man you have become.

We have enclosed some sweet treats for you and your family. These cookies were made by a company in our former hometown. Again, we thank you for your kindness and look forward to seeing you and your family in the days ahead. We are leaving town early Thursday and will not return until late the night before school starts. Enjoy the rest of your summer and we will see you at the bus stop!

The Health Care Scare

Everyone’s up in arms over the Obama administration’s proposed health care overhaul. And while I won’t pretend to be totally tuned in on all it’s nuances, the biggest concern seems to be the price tag: It costs too much money. It will bankrupt our children. And the level of care will be diminished. Maybe so, but let’s back up. This initiative I believe grew out of a well-meaning concern that some 47 or so million people in US can’t afford health care. I certainly think it’s a noble idea to want everyone in this country to have health insurance and access to the best in health care.


So to those folks who claim we’re moving too fast on this, and that the price tag is too high, I say “where were you in the run up to the war with Iraq?” I heard not near the push back to slow down the process in going to war. The Bush administration did a brilliant job in making Congress and nation feel as though this “inevitable” war was needed in the fastest possible terms (before we could blink). Even today, few people debate the continued cost of hanging out in the Middle East. So lest you think I digress, let me get to where I’m going with this.
If we can afford to go to war with Iraq, we can afford to insure all Americans. A quick look at the numbers.
Monthly spending in Iraq in 2008, $12 billion. That’s right, $12 billion a monthCost of deploying one US soldier for one year in Iraq $390,000.Lost and unaccounted for in Iraq, $9 billion in taxpayer money.Missing – $1 billion in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces.Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq – $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings.Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported – $1.4 billionAmount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items – $20 billion.Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem “questionable or supportable” – $3.2 billion.
The numbers and staggering tragedy have seemingly lulled us into some apathetic stupor. With all the troubles at home including unemployment and the housing crisis, perhaps we can’t blame the American public for turning its attention inward.
Bottom line, lets say we take $47 million dollars out of the $900 billion spent or approved for spending in Iraq through the first half of 2009, and give each of the American uninsured $1 million each to put in escrow to pay healthcare premiums for the rest of their lives. Then we take another (number out of the air) $1 billion dollars to pay for the actual healthcare these individuals may need throughout their life. Done. So for about 1/10 of one percent of what we’ve spent in Iraq, we could have essentially solved the problem of the uninsured in America.
I know there are those who will say it’s not that easy. Because that’s an easy thing to say.