Bright Days, Dark Nights

In my college days, money was scarce.  Especially come end of semester.  College club cover charges often seemed wasteful.  The music was tolerable at best, dominated by a techno beat and DJ's who tried spin with complex seriousness written on their face, but were as predictble as a mid-term exam, and usually just as annoying.  I came from South Florida, home of Booty Bass and a Uncle Luke tellin' everybody to Shake that Ass Bitch...Not the best music, but at least you could dance to it without feeling like some drone bubble-bee who needed a 'script for anti-depressants.  So my $10 cover usually stayed in my pocket.

We choose instead to put some fuel and fire into the old automobile and explore the outskirts.  The small towns, the state parks along the gulf or even just down to the student union to watch art be made.  I carried my Canon AE-1 that I bought from a flea market most times and snapped pictures of a culture that was both strange and eerily comforting.  Besides the slow life was cheap and devoid of Starbucks.  Not that I mind starbucks, its just mellower sometimes to sip your mocha inside a warehouse sized antique shop where you are the only customer.

One of my other favorite haunts was St. Marks State Park.  It had a beautiful white lighthouse with a white-washed deck.  We once saw a group of about 10 alligators sunning themselves in a small marsh pond there.  I walked a trail or two, contemplated the Prince Hamlet qualities of Hemingways main characters and his inability to construct decent females eventually driving the 45 miles or so back to campus.

I miss those days of easy travel, when 45 minutes and $10 worth of gas could take me to another world.  Here in the suburbs it gets me to work and back.  But I hope despite the darkness of my recent photography that the nightlife hasn't left a dark-spot on my soul and that the light of simple discovery will always shine through.