55+ trailer PARK in Florida????

? of the day: Now that I am of a certain age & seeing as I reside in the vestibule of God’s Waiting Room, I wonder: Are there any Adult’s Only Trailer Parks? I know your immediate answer certainly, but I say Nay Nay, not those fancy ones, where everyone is required to maintain their space w/garden gnomes, pin wheels & gazing balls filling their lush  gardens. Where the well manicured lawns sit above mailboxes that proudly display license plates from the home state & the homes are called “manufactured housing”. 

I mean a trailer park, my friend. (I sounded like McCain!) You know the one, it is filled with run down mobile homes, jacked up on cinder blocks. The awning that once hid the offensive blocks (if any at all) is now broken w/peeling paint. The towing bar is still in place, rusting & hazardous. The grass lawns are patchy & dead in most places, exposing sandy dirt, and filled w/weeds. Standing in the door, gossiping w/each other are 2 old battleaxes, each wearing a dirty house coat/dress, with a torn pocket & a broken snap exposing most delicate of areas. One pocket is stuff w/Kleenex & the other a pack of Marlboro Lites.  One old bat has her hair up in pink plastic rollers & the other one has stringy gray hair that is definitely what one would call “flyaway”. The sound of multiple meowing is coming from the trailer across the lane. That is where the cat lady lives. People hate even walking by it. Even though the windows are shut tight & the old lady only comes out at night, the smell of cat urine wafts through the holes in the floor of the rotting trailer.

2 doors down lives one of many gin soaked WWII &/or Viet Nam vets, still wearing the once white undershirt they had on the day their wife died. It has holes in it & is thin from many washings. Their khaki colored slacks hang loose around asses that are wasted away, poop stains are visible. The old coots spend their time in their recliners watching TV & reliving their glory years. Should anyone ever have grandchildren to visit in the park, they grumble & fuss, as if they lived in Shangri-la. The only pot “luck” in the trailer is when the old Viet Nam Vet finds his lost stash &it still has something in it other than stems & seeds.

Does this 55+ park exist? If so, please send me the info. You see, now that I am of a certain age I am scouting out my retirement villa, where I can reside without fear of being robbed of my millions. (I am going to stuff all my cash in fire resistant cans, that fit into the holes in cinder blocks. I will then put them under the trailer to prop up the sagging floor.. Damn it to hell, I didn’t mean to tell you that! I don’t need your help after all, I will find the place on my own.

Sniff Sniff…

(c) Karrel Buckingham 2010

old lady photo found here (check it out!)

Wisdom...pluezzzeeeee...

Owl in camo
Originally uploaded by karrelbuck

I want to be a good photographer. Since I was a teenager I have had this dream, even though I never pursued it as family got in the way and I just shot to not miss the moment. But now I have time, time to learn, time to set up shots and time to Photoshop...but, I never set up a shot. Old habits die young. Also, I can think of nothing different to shoot. Where I grew up, in Pittsburg CA, I had many different venues at my finger tips, historical sites, the beach, mountains, rivers, foothills (different that mountains), rocky coastlines, sea lions, beautiful city (SF), ugly city (Oakland), capitol (Sac), tall trees, old trees, and on and on and on. (I don't want to go back, I am just using that to set the scene for what I have now.) Here in the Tampa Bay area, everything is clean and flat. I have local parks (the all look the same) and the beach. A small clean city. And I can drive in either direction and encounter the same. I don't want to be a bird photographer, but when you live in the largest estuary in the state (Tampa Bay) then birds are in abundance.

The thing is - what do I want to shoot? I haven't gotten excited about anything yet. I start a continuing ed Photography class at HCC in 2 weeks, I hope that I get a different perspective.

I don't have a lot of fancy equipment or money to shoot birds. Plus, everyone shoots birds. And landscapes. I want to get my OWN style. So, consider this my plea for wisdom. In the meantime, I am going to search Flickr for ideas.

Just a back up to my first paragraph - when I grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area I lived in East Oakland for a while and I hung out in Berkeley, this was in 1969. I was very social, and it was my dream to be a social worker and make a difference in the urban areas. You know that story, how many of us didn't want to do this in the 60s and early 70s. My dream was to make a Black and White book of faces from the Oakland area. I am sure this book exists by other authors in other cities as well as Oakland en nauseum. But that was my basis. Then when I was into rodeo's in the early 90s I wanted to do a photo essay of rodeo kids. Here is my problem with shooting kids, in this day and age I think parents would be reluctant to have someone taking pix of their little children, so I back off. Now, one of my favorite shoots is Toys on the Beach. But again, I am reluctant to shoot children, so USUALLY, I shoot the abandoned toys.

Peace - KB

Another day at the beach

Hi, hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. For some reason my is rarely spent with my children. This year when it was resolved the kids weren't taking me anywhere, Jeff & I drove out to Anna Maria Island. I wanted to go down to Sanibel, but with the price of gas I was happy with Anna Maria. Anyway, we ate at the City Pier on the Intercoastal side. Not crazy about it, I would rather eat at The Sandbar on the Gulf side. After that we drove over to Coquina Beach and I walked around and got a few pictures. I thought this little guy was cute. Shortly after this pix, he demolished the castle!

When I came home it was hurry hurry, and finish some blocks I committed to making for the Quilting Guild meeting on Wed. First was a Dr. Cat (will post later) and also a block of Tara. I haven't finished that, but I am close. Then I did some digital scrapbooking. Also learning Scott Kelby's 7 best Photoshop Tricks. GREAT book.

So you see, as always, so much too do - so little time. My favorite scrapbook page is here

Been so busy - but I didn't forget about you

I bought the Adobe Vlog program the other day, as soon as I get it together I am going to become a Vlogger but for now.

Been really really active. My birthday was 4/16. Hope (my granddaughter's) was 4/20. So we went to Disney on 4/12 to Bibbidi Bobbidi Salon and Hopey became Princess Jasmine. I made her a Shutterfly book. It is so cute and she was beautiful. That night we ate dinner with Prince Charming & Cinderella. What a nice day we had.

Then on Sunday, my daughter, Nicole & I went to Epcot for the International Flower & Garden Festival.

Then last weekend My son Danny, his daughter Kaitlyn, 6 & I went to Canveral National Seashore for a Jr. Ranger Program. I am working on digital scrapbooking pages for Kaitlyn's book now. Here is one of them.



I will post the links for the different elements, papers when I get home tonight. They came from ScrapGirls & Digital Freebies mostly.

We are leaving shortly to go to Lakeland & have dinner with my in-laws. I was going to make her a cell phone purse today but then I found out my iron burned out & so I abandoned the project. I will mail it to her. They are going back up to Michigan next week. The reason the iron burned out is the other day I was sewing and embroidering something. For some reason I didn't put the iron up - guess I just thought I would be a second - and went to tend to the embroidery machine. Low & below I started smelling burnt - the ironing board pad was burning. So anyway, no I can get the iron I want. Funny how it works that way.

Here is one thing I made recently. This is Kaitlyn's: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2153/2425214109_8ac004b142.jpg and http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/2425215279_52e81335d7.jpg. I have finished Hope's also, but I forgot to take pictures and I can not for the life of me get Nicole too. Hopefully I will go by there tonight and get a few.

Alright, better go, Jeff will be here in a minute & we will need to head on out. TTYS - I promise! Peace KB

OH - I ordered a new camera - it will be here Monday. An Olympus SW790 - I can't wait!