Blog Archives
St. Benedict
This is the back of St. Benedict’s Church, in downtown Lubbock. St. Benedict’s mission is to serve the homeless, the working poor, and the food insecure in our town.
To be honest, I am not sure what the front of the place looks like, but with that reflection in the puddle, the well-used doors, and the brick paving, it seemed like nothing in front would be any better.
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 5.16.2015
Dam Graffiti
There’s a shallow canyon that cuts across the northeast corner of Lubbock; when I was a kid, it was the place where you dumped off your junked car when it didn’t run anymore, or your old mattress, or a bag of household garbage. It was sad that the only real topography in the city was just a long ad hoc landfill. Then in the middle of the 1970s, the Canyon Lakes project began construction, and the junk was hauled away. A series of low dams were built, causing a string of small lakes through the canyon.
It’s a nice place, now, with trails and picnic tables and lakes. And, along the side of the last dam in the chain, there’s a bit of interesting graffiti.
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 5.16.2016
Lining Up
I just don’t have the slightest idea what that skinny PVC pipe is doing, poking out of the building like that, other than lining up nicely with the skinny cloud. Do you suppose the pipe disappeared when the cloud did?
Spur, Texas
photographed 3.14.2015
No one swims
Singer/songwriter James McMurtry’s song “We Can’t Make It Here Anymore” sums it all up:
In Dayton Ohio or Portland Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Spur, Texas
photographed 5.24.2015
Wideness of being
This is my first attempt at a panorama, and was taken from the edge of Yellowhouse Canyon in Lubbock County, Texas.
Yes! In spite of all my talk about how flat it is around here, we’ve got this gem hiding in plain sight. This is (in my opinion) the very best view in the county. We are lucky enough to own some land out here; in theory this view will some day be my every-day view. In practice? Uh…we are still in the planning stages. Normal people would have bought the land a decade ago and been living out here already for nine years. Here’s the thing: my husband’s an architect, and I have a degree in architecture, making us the worst clients ever. We make design decisions, then endlessly second-guess them. We want a big house! Or a little one! Stucco! Or that cool steel that’s made to rust on purpose! It should definitely have a courtyard! Unless a courtyard’s a dumb idea! Something on the house should be yellow, as an homage to the location! But that’s SO predictable! And so on.
On the practical side: it’ll make my drive to work 60 miles, one way. It’s nearly three miles off the pavement. There’s a very steep hill that’s impassable when it snows. It’s a long way to the grocery store.
But this view. This wide and beautiful view…
Yellowhouse Canyon, Texas
photographed 5.29.2015
