Jessica Cyders Archives

October 20, 2015October 21, 2015

The Last Rose of Summer

I’ve been struggling with what to post about Mother’s Birthday Season when she’s not here to celebrate it. I’ve made a dozen false starts, but none of them worked. Then, two things hit me today.

I got an email from Curator Jessica that read, “We had our first killing frost last night and my poor basil didn’t make it. This afternoon, while I was lamenting my basil, I turned around and saw one of my rosebushes had a bud that seemed to have weathered the frost. I sang the Grateful Dead to it and thought of you.”
I woke up to a flat tire (a nail nailed me). When I got back from having it patched, I opened the car door and was confronted with the rosebush on the light pole in front of the house. I took that as a sign I should visit Mother and Wife Lila’s Mother.

She was referring to Dark Muddy River

Miz Jessica heard Dark Muddy River because I told her I was considering it for a video about people and places along the Mississippi River that are no longer there.

When the last rose of summer pricks my finger
And the hot sun chills me to the bone
When I can’t hear the song for the singer
And I can’t tell my pillow from a stone

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

When the last bolt of sunshine hits the mountain
And the stars start to splatter in the sky
When the moon splits the southwest horizon
With the scream of an eagle on the fly

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And listen to the ripples as they moan
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

Black muddy river
Roll on forever
I don’t care how deep or wide
If you got another side
Roll muddy river
Roll muddy river
Black muddy river roll

When it seems like the night will last forever
And there’s nothing left to do but count the years
When the strings of my heart start to sever
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And dream me a dream of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
And sing me a song of my own

The song

I’ve listened to that song while riding my bike around Lake Okeechobee on nights that are pitch-dark except for bolts of heat lightning cutting across the sky, and I’ve played it while watching the whirlpool swirl around Tower Rock in the Mississippi. It hits me differently every time, particularly in this context. I’m still going to have to come up with a Birthday Season story, but this will have to do as a space filler.

Click on the photo above to hear it on YouTube.

August 6, 2015

A Garden of Fireworks

Not only did Curator Jessica make me get up early to shoot the Wilkesville Fourth of July parade, she insisted that it would be “fun” to watch the fireworks being shot over the Ohio River at Middleport, half an hour south of Athens.

It was chilly enough that a light jacket felt good. We got a parking place about a block from a decent vantage point, and I set up a tripod.

For you photo geeks, I locked the ISO at 200 because I wanted to force the camera to use a four-second exposure at about f/8. I usually pushed the shutter release when I heard the firework leave the tube. That would capture the rocket tail and most of the display.

I would have liked to have gotten at least one shot with the crowd visible in the foreground, but there wasn’t enough ambient light to capture them, and I was too lazy to walk back to the car for a strobe. Miz Jessica offered to go back for it, but I’ve learned that it’s not a good idea to trust your Road Warriorettes with the car keys. Sometimes they hold a grudge for some imagined slight during the day.

Fireworks photo gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

August 5, 2015July 4, 2021

Wilkesville’s 4th of July

Curator Jessica and I went to Wilkesville to see if Long and Son General Merchandise store was still around so I could update photos of it I had done of it on an icicle day in 1969. We didn’t see anything that looked like it on the main drag, so we stopped into a small diner where we had an excellent lunch and found out that the building was long gone.

On the way out, we saw a flyer for the Wilkesville Fourth of July parade. She gave a squeal of excitement.

I gave Miz Jessica my standard “Do You Know How Many Small Town Parades I’ve Covered?” speech, but she is not one to be denied. The next morning, I found myself getting up way too early to head to the Vinton County town.

They’ll have at least two spectators

“The good news for the town,” I told her, “is that we just freed up a spot for two more people to participate in the parade. A lot of these towns are so small they have to draw lots to see who will be spectators.”

Fourth of July photo gallery

I won’t tell Curator Jessica, but it was fun to see how everybody showed up with their homemade floats and flags. I have to say that I was a little discomforted by the casual way they treated the flags, but I guess the Flag Code isn’t something covered in school these days. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images.

May 4, 2015May 4, 2015

Dean Kahler, Shot at Kent State

I suspect one or two of my readers will grouse again this year, “Why are you bringing up Kent State? It’s ancient history.”

Dean Kahler has a good answer for that: “History will hurt you if you don’t learn about it. It’s important that you learn about it, and it’s important that you don’t forget about it so you don’t repeat it.”

Dean was one of nine students injured by National Guard gunfire on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio. He was a first-quarter freshman, a farm boy from near Canton who was a conscientious objector because of his religion. He had read about demonstrations in the newspapers and national news magazines. “As a farm boy, you don’t get a chance to go to protests,” he said, ” because the cows have to be milked.”

Classes were supposed to be held as normal on May 4, so Dean decided to drive onto his campus to see what was going on. He was in the parking lot behind him in this photo, 300 feet away from the closest National Guardsman, when he saw them turn “with their deliberate motion.”

When he saw them turn, “I knew they were shooting.” He dropped to the ground because there was nowhere to run to and no cover for him.

Like when you pith a frog

[Watch the video to hear Dean tell about the shooting in his own words.]
“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said. He never walked again, but he has turned into a highly competitive wheelchair athlete.

After the shooting stopped, he called out to see if there were any Boy Scouts around who could turn him over. “The only thought that came into my head was if I was turned over, would I bleed more internally than externally? I thought (shrugs shoulders) there’s a 50 / 50 chance that you’re going to die one way or the other. I knew I might die. I had a really good chance of dying, so I wanted to see the sky, the sun, leaves, peoples faces. I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died.”

Dean and my old publisher

I was honored that Dean drove down from the Canton area for the opening of the Athens County Historical Society’s exhibit The Sky Has Fallen that contained scores of my photos. Dean, who was a well-regarded Athens county commissioner for eight years, is talking with Kenner Bush, my old publisher at The Athens Messenger.

Curator Jessica and I met Dean when we went up to the Kent State May 4 Visitors Center to talk about how the historical society’s museum could work with the visitor center on future exhibits about the protest era. I thought he was just a helpful volunteer until it became obvious that he had more than book knowledge about what happened that day.

The man who prevented a massacre

The Center had one of the most powerful videos I’ve ever seen anywhere. When they played the sound of the gunfire, I lost it. That was followed by a clip of professor who probably prevented a massacre. He stood between the guard and the students and begged the students to sit down. When the situation somewhat stabilized, the students took off in different directions “so that someone would be alive to tell the story.”

So, how long am I going to ride this story. Probably every May 4, just like my old chief photographer, John J. Lopinot will send me a message that just says, “Never Forget.”