The Friday Photo
October 2, 2015
No photo today after yesterday’s news about ANOTHER mass shooting.
What is wrong with us, America? Why do we continue to worship guns and mourn the dead?
Category: The Friday Photo
One of my favorite places
The Friday Photo
September 18, 2015
Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina
Waiting on the sequel
The Friday Photo
September 4, 2015
Are Yellow and Orange speaking? Is Beige getting the respect it deserves? My grandchildren and I will find out tomorrow when Drew Daywalt reads the sequel to “The Day the Crayons Quit” at the Decatur Book Festival.
Now she really is GuilfordJane
The Friday Photo
August 28, 2015 
Jane K Fernandes is truly #GuilfordJane now. She was presented with the original skeleton key and lock to Founders Hall during her inauguration Wednesday as Guilford College’s ninth President, and the first woman to serve in that role.
Jane preferred a community-based event that celebrates Guilford. No academic regalia was required. The lei Jane wore was a gift from her in-laws as a remembrance of living in Hawaii when she and her husband Jim were first married.
Sharing the good news
The Friday Photo
August 14,2015
When your friend sends the message you’ve been waiting for all week:
After the storm
The Friday Photo
August 7,2015
With all the negative news about police actions, it was nice to see this lone officer helping people while I was on the way home from work yesterday.
The view from Row 14
The Friday Photo
July 31, 2015
We celebrated benchmark birthdays for my daughter and sister with tickets to see James Taylor tonight. Sometimes the best gifts aren’t things that can be wrapped.
Bobby Jindal doesn’t have much of an imagination
The Friday Photo
July 24, 2015
I posted this photo as a Friday Photo on August 29, 2014, almost two months after Georgia’s Open Carry (Guns Everywhere) law, passed by the Georgia General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal, went into effect.
Last night nine innocent people out for a night at the movies in Lafayette, Louisiana, became the victims of a shooting. Two victims died, seven are wounded.
Republican Presidential candidate and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has signed over 12 bills increasing access to guns and where they can be carried in his state, told the media, “We never imagined this would happen in Louisiana.” Brushing off a reporter’s question about gun control after last night’s shooting rampage and murders, Jindal said the thing to do to do now is pray.
Governor Jindal doesn’t have much of an imagination.
As for prayers? How about praying for reduced access to guns, thorough background checks, removing banning the sale of assault weapons, and serious limits on where guns can be carried?
My family believes in paddling
The Friday Photo
July 17, 2015 
My extended family agrees that the best kind of vacation includes plenty of time outside. Our challenge isn’t what to pack to wear to dinner, but instead, how to get as many boats as possible to our destination.
Coloring is for grown-ups too!
The Friday Photo
July 10, 2015
When was the last time you colored something?
Not with a child, but for yourself?
Coloring, as I have rediscovered since stretching my comfort level at Life Is a Verb Camp last fall, is relaxing and fun. Susan Paul Johnson, an educator and artist, managed to teach this self-proclaimed  “not an artist” to enjoy drawing and coloring Mandalas. I came home and shared what I learned with my grandchildren (they found all kinds of Mandalas for children on the web to print and color, in addition to drawing a few of their own).
Earlier this week Susan shared a link about a free Mandala coloring book. I printed every page the other night and promptly got out my colored pencils.
Try them, even if you describe yourself as “not an artist.”
Reading your fortune
The Friday Photo
July 3, 2015
Lunch today was supposed to be sandwiches and watermelon on some river shoals after paddling about an hour. The weather didn’t cooperate, so we drove back to town for Chinese, and of course, fortune cookies.
Sleeping with the Enemy
The Friday Photo
June 26, 2015
Not a photo this week, but a fond remembrance, in two parts, of a campaign where a picture and few words told the story (It won a national marketing award for “Best Villian.” I wish I could claim the idea as my own.)
When there is nothing funny to say
The Friday Photo
June 19,2015
Jon Stewart got it right, again, last night. It is better than any photo I’ve got.
The Huffington Post includes the video footage.
The waiting begins
The Friday Photo
June 12, 2015
My mother is having complex surgery today. The waiting has begun.
Working the Circulation Desk
The Friday Photo
June 5, 2015 
A Little Free Library is a great way to teach children about being part of a community. Both of my grandchildren took books home to read (and helped add more young reader books to the box).
Two boxes, 8.5 years
The Friday Photo
May 29,2015
We’re downsizing today. These two boxes are filled with documents spanning 8.5 years (and counting) of some of the most difficult, rewarding, and meaningful work I will ever do.
We’ve seen the photos
The Friday Photo
April 17, 2015
Twenty years ago we saw heartbreaking photos of heroes and the injured escaping from the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Instead of pouring over the pictures from that awful day, listen to stories of survival told by Christopher Nguyen and his mother Phuong, and PJ Allen and his father Willie Watson, both recorded by NPR’s Story Corps.
Where’s The Friday Photo?
I didn’t post a photo last Friday because I didn’t think I had anything that was worth posting. What I did think about a good bit on Friday, and other days, was about putting Rural and Progressive on hiatus to figure out if I should continue.
It takes me A LOT of time to crank out posts that are heavy on politics. Fact-checking, reading a variety of sources, double checking, proofing, maybe asking for a review before posting, and triple checking take time. When I worked at home and my schedule was flexible I could pick up and put down posts throughout the day.
And then today Hillary announced. So I signed up and donated to her campaign.
This election isn’t about electing the first woman POTUS (even though we’re behind the curve on electing women to national leadership in America). This election is about children, women, seniors, people of color, my LGBTQ friends and family, the middle class, the working poor, our veterans, energy production, peace, public schools, rural communities, national infrastructure, the arts, health care, housing, food shortages, and our natural resources.
So I ‘m figuring out what Rural and Progressive will be in the future.
Got a suggestion? I’d love to hear it.
Among cousins
The Friday Photo
April 3, 2015
Checkers is a universal language,
The groaning board
The Friday Photo
March 27, 2015
My mother-in-law died peacefully this morning before breakfast.Homemade food began arriving in time for lunch.This photo captures most of what arrived after 5:00 pm.
In the rural South no one ever wonders what they’ll eat when they
have to plan a funeral.