The old Kmart is still empty. Supposedly it’ll be town down and a new Kroger built, but there’s no sign of any work yet.

It’s my least favorite day of the year, but I learned a few months ago when my father bought the camera he taught me to shoot on – June 13, 1967, while he was stationed in Vietnam. That makes this 50 mm 50 now.

His Pentax Spotmatic is tucked away in a closet, every now and then I pull it out just to trip the shutter and hear the springs and gears do their thing. There’s a comfort in its mechanicalness, still.

I was fifteen and a half when he passed 31 years ago today. He was a math teacher in my youth and my kid headed off to start his college adventure this past week, an intended math major. No genes involved, but still kind of cool to me.

There was nothing nearby that would have been either chained or painted orange. Some construction a block or so away, but that’s it.

Stuck in rush minute again on the way home, always the same two lights.

The paving in N09 is done, not just time before they stripe it with paint.

In the middle of downtown, a view east. This is probably what the area looked like 232 years ago before it was Athens.

Sometimes the patterns in life are subtle and you don’t catch what you saw until later. Some rot outside a coffee shop in the morning, a warning in the afternoon on campus.