Day 326 Tricks and Treats



October 31, 2015


(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

Twelve-year-old Alexander provided a treat for his neighbors with his haunted driveway. Above are two scenes from his creation.
When I was a child, my mother did not allow my sisters and me to go from house to house trick-or-treating. She said she didn’t want us begging at our neighbors’ homes. I think she was also afraid of unknown dangers. However, we were allowed to go to a select few homes of family and friends. Our shopping bags were filled with visits to eight houses. Although her daughters did not go around the neighborhood, our mother often made homemade treats for those who came to our house—caramel apples on a stick, brownies, rice crispy treats. And if she thought the kids were too old (more than 14), she admonished them for acting like little children and refused to give them any treats.

I always loved dressing up for Halloween but not in princess costumes. I liked to dress up as a hobo (politically incorrect to some these days) so people wouldn’t recognize me. Even as an adult, when Halloween fell on the meeting date of the Baltimore Camera Club years ago, I attended as a ghost and left with no one the wiser, except one friend who was in on it. 

Tonight, we had only a few kids knock on our door and we answered—David as a monster and me as a witch. When the knocks stopped, we checked out the other end of our neighborhood and found a haunted scene in a driveway. We learned it was created by a twelve-year-old boy, Alexander. He used tricks of animations, fog, and sounds— everything to make it fun for anyone who stopped by. As a retired 7th-grade teacher, I was amazed at his ingenuity. His display was so well planned and professional that it is easy to foresee a creative career in his future. Although everyone who stopped by his house could get a candy treat, the real treat was this amazing kid-built spooky experience.

My gift today is a haunted driveway.

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> Day 327: When Will Bob Get Naked?


You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 325 Dust Removed



October 30, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)


Photo by David M. Ettlin
I spent much of today in Baltimore at Service Photo, Roman’s Restaurant, the American Visionary Art Museum and Gallery 788. My first stop was at Service Photo in the Hampden area where I entered a packed store in the morning. A special weekend event had been announced, including Nikon techs at the store to clean camera sensors—for free. With a wait of at least an hour, I left my camera and picked it up after other planned stops in the city.

Years ago in the days of film, I was co-owner with Barry Monaco of a camera shop in Severna Park, Maryland. At that time, there were more small photography shops than there are now. Today, with so many people buying photo equipment on-line and in large discount chain stores, small privately owned camera stores are in danger of becoming extinct. There are not many specialty photo stores left in the U.S. This is a shame because these small businesses provide personal service and good advice unavailable from other sources. 

I live 23 miles from Service Photo and it can take 45 minutes to get there in traffic. It is the sole surviving store of its kind in this area and is worth the trip. I have traded in and bought equipment there. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and ready to answer my questions. Their prices are competitive but even if I had to pay slightly more, I’d be willing to do so if that meant keeping this treasured business in Baltimore. 

This afternoon, I picked up my camera with its cleaned sensors and David took a photo of me in front of a Hampden hon mural. 

My gift today is clean sensors.

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More here:
http://servicephoto.com

> Day 326: Tricks & Treats


You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html


Day 324 Connections



October 29, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

A Chinese woman, student in an art class at Anne Arundel Community College, works on an oil painting of autumn in Downs Park.


Just a few miles away, Downs Park is a treasure in my area. Actually, I think that all parks are treasures everywhere. There is something about watching a squirrel, listening to a sparrow, walking under red leaves, or admiring wild mushrooms that bring balance into one’s life. All people should have access to nature within a short distance from where they live.


When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” ~ John Muir


David and I walked a short distance today in Downs near closing time. Everyone we met greeted us and in some cases, we stopped and had conversations. People taking an art class at Anne Arundel Community College had easels set up and were creating their own painted scenes in the park. Other people were walking with their dogs, families or sweethearts. We walked out on the pier and spoke with people who were fishing and saw someone catch a catfish. Some of the fishermen spoke Spanish. One African American man we spoke to, with an amputated leg and minus a number of teeth, told us he had served in Vietnam and told us about the challenges of getting proper medical care as a veteran. Without exception, everyone of all ages and backgrounds connected with one another. 

Parks connect people with nature, but they also connect us with one another and help us maintain sanity in a stressful and imbalanced world. 


One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” ~ John Muir


My gift today is a walk in the park.

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> Day 325: Dust Removed

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 323 Sandy Mind



October 28, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)


Sometimes I have to think for a while, or look at my calendar, in order to remember things that I did on a particular day—even on the same day. Certain things blur and fade quickly. That’s surprising today because I had a root canal and, if I were normal, I would remember that. Maybe it’s my tendency to quickly shove unpleasant things out of my mind. My root canal wasn’t too bad, considering that my mouth was stuffed and propped open for an hour. The dentist and his assistant were good but I did have to use my asthma inhaler before he finished.

Maybe I forgot about my dental work because our oldest daughter FL dropped in to visit later in the afternoon. We always like to spend time with our daughters. And then there was the free movie screening of Burnt tonight. The movie was not five stars but it was entertaining. I guess the afternoon visit and free movie tipped the scale. 

Maybe my mind is like a sandy beach. I write unpleasant experiences in the sand of my mind and time washes them away but I carve good experiences in a stone that becomes even more beautiful as time washes it to a smoothness that I want to constantly touch. 

Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.” ~ Arabic parable

My gift today is smooth sand. 

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> Day 324: Connections

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html







Day 322 Aligning



October 27, 2015

 (If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)



It happens often that I think about someone and that same day I get a phone call or a message from that person. Today was one with an interesting sequence of events.

I met my friend Karen for lunch today at the Szechuan Café. It was a delight to leisurely catch up after a long time. We always have good conversations and our talk wanders from travels to family to health to politics and to silly. I took a photo with my cell phone of her sitting at the table and did not notice until later that her head was crowned perfectly by a curved restroom sign. I did not plan this juxtaposition but I just happened to snap it when her head just happened to be in just the right place.

During our conversation, I showed her some photos from the home of a mutual friend, Max, and not more than 60 seconds later, he walked into the restaurant with a friend. We made introductions and his friend commented that Max had just mentioned my name to him a few hours before. Of course, we had to take a photo. 

Our Chinese fortunes both said, “A good predictor of the future is the past.” We concluded that it was a lousy excuse for a fortune and disagreed with its philosophy…unless... in this case, we look at the immediate past— today. Coincidences are common but sometimes things do align in the universe in strange ways. It happens often enough that I am determined to think positive thoughts and push away the negative ones. I am going to begin imagining myself winning the lottery. Maybe the universe will align.

My gift today is synchronicity.

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> Day 323: Sandy Mind

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html