Savannah days/Bird on a wire.

April 30, Sullivan.

Rummaging through my computer I found some old souvenirs, Savannah in the winter of 2005, seven months pregnant with Dylan, blues days, days of endless rain, alone in a wrecked trailer, waiting, oblivious to the beauty of the city, sulky in its irrelevant glory.

Savannah days/Nature morte.

April 30, Sullivan.

Savannah days/In memoriam.

April 30, Sullivan.

Savannah days/Home.

April 30, Sullivan.

A trailer with a view.

April 30, Sullivan, Indiana (38 miles, field in front of Napa Auto Parts.)

Today.

April 29, Martinsville.

Yesterday.

April 29, Martinsville.

A trailer with a view.

April 29, Martinsville, Illinois (34 miles, fairgrounds.)

Signs of war.

April 28, Palestine.

I first noticed them in Carmi, a few days back. Signs on the streets in front of homes, Tony J. Tiddix, U.S. Marine, Ted Glenn, U.S. Army, Scott Glenn, U.S. Army at the next house (brothers?) I counted six in less than a block in Gordon, last the village before Palestine; in Robinson, the town before that on highway 33, they sported a waving U.S. flag at the top above a yellow strip, in Gordon a big yellow ribbon crossed at the top and underneath the names on a white background. The signs read from U.S. Marine to Army to National Guard to Air Force, the gamut of the armed forces of this country, and sometimes they seem to be on every corner; modest houses, well-tended cottages, all-American lower middle-class homes in the heart of America, the bread and butter of the troops in Iraq coming from small towns and villages like these in southeastern Illinois, where, I imagine, the jobs are scarce and the prospects limited.

A trailer with a view.

April 28, Palestine, Illinois (52 miles, rodeo grounds.)

Spring is back.

April 27, Toledo.

We've entered spring again after moving back into winter since leaving Texas, naked dark trees, except in the lowest-lying areas, and not the promise of a bud. And then.

A trailer with a view.

April 27, Toledo, Illinois (88 miles, American Legion grounds.)

A trailer with a view.

April 26, Mt. Vernon, Illinois (48 miles, fairgrounds.)

A trailer with a view.

April 25, Carmi, Illinois (59 miles, White county fairgrounds.)

The picture doesn't do justice to the lot, beautifully wooded grounds, an enormous, stately elm (I think) by the front door.

Illinois days.

April 24, Flora.

The driving is flat, corn fields and more of the same, farmhouse dotting the road, silos like exclamation points on the horizon, gone are the daily beauty of the drives, I had forgotten about Illinois.
Endless driving as a photographer for The Jacksonville Journal-Courier, crisscrossing nine counties all day long and in all weathers, Schuyler, Brown and Morgan, Scott and Cass, Sangamon and Greene, and into Pike and Macoupin, Sundays my favorite, alone on the shift (and I met Fridman photographing the circus, a big happening in a town of 15,000 people,) the frog jumping competitions, the church pancake breakfasts, the harvests, the farmers at the cafe counter, the county fairs, listening to the week end programs on NPR, Steve Copper laying out the pages on the desk, his quiet wit, always a welcome in his eyes, the picture of debonair but the ultimate professional; flat, boring Illinois - and I miss all of that.

A dress rehearsal for the Berea Church cemetery walk outside of Ashland, Illinois, a Sunday assignment a long time ago, des souvenirs bucoliques.

A trailer with a view.

April 24, Flora, Illinois (50 miles, Charley Brown park.)

A trailer with a view.

April 23, Carlyle, Illinois (42 miles, fairgrounds.)

(Poor) Earth Day.

April 22, Hillsboro.

Today is Earth Day, not that we would know it. At this circus recycling seems to be a foreign word, and the Latino community in this country in general I've noticed to be the most ignorant in regards to the environment.
And yet, just next to the lot today there is a recycling center, the irony, and I've been mulling over starting a recycling service at the circus, trying to convince people to pitch in and make a small difference. It would be a matter of finding recycling centers along the way, setting up bags where people could bring their recyclable items and gathering them up at the end of the day; the main problem would be where to stock them, space is precious in the traveling circus world, trailers are not spacious, storing is not an option, you learn to go bare, to strip down.
To be continued.

A trailer with a view.

April 22, Hillsboro, Illinois (61 miles, sports complex.).

Birthdays.

April 21, Mascoutah.

There was a double birthday party today for Noricella Rosales, who turned eight, and Georgia Cainan, who turned five.