Now I'm 64

Summer 1967. The summer of love they called it. It was my 15th summer. Sqt. Pepper was the number one record. I bought it the first week it was released in the record department at Sear's at Price's Corner in Wilmington Delaware. I played it a lot that summer and got to know each lyric personally. But I usually skipped over the song When I'm 64. I didn't really relate to it. It sounded kind of old fashioned and very different from the other songs on the album. My mother was 40 that year. My father was 45. So 64 was not something that meant anything to me. It didn't even seem like a distant future. It was just part of the title of a song I skipped over.

I'm 64 today.  It's still not one of my all time favorite songs.  But I do understand it now.  How did Paul McCartney in his 20's understand?  The genius of The Beatles.  Only I didn't quite see the genius of the song at 15.  

8th Grade Art History and Rome 2016

  

Surrounded by at at the Vatican Museum my last day in Rome

My father could sketch a little.  My cousin Junior, his nephew, was an artist who did beautiful water color landscapes. My brother's daughter Amanda draws beautiful portraits.  My sister could draw a little.  My ex wife drew very well.  My daughter Katie is an excellent artist. The Sampson's had artistic genes.  MY MOTHER COULD NOT DRAW.  She had absolutely no talent  at all for drawing.  My Aunt Louise, my mother's sister, could not draw.  My mother's mother, my beloved /grandmother had no artistic talent at all. The Roth's could not draw.   My name may be Sampson but the lack of artistic ability is pure Roth. I can not draw anything.  Even my stick men look like a five year old drew them. 

My two nightmares in school were gym and art class.  I could not catch a soft ball or throw a football.  I was raised in a holiness church and I can you now I experienced sanctification praying to the Holy Spirit to keep that softball away from me in the outfield.  Whoever said you can't pray in school never stood next to me in gym class.  Had it rained every time I prayed for rain on gym day my home town would have been washed down the Chesapeake Bay many years ago.  My junior high and high school gym teachers were good men.  They never made fun of me or made me feel inadequate.  Although I already felt that way they never encouraged it.  I always was graded a B in gym class.  Years later I talked with one of my gym teachers and asked him why he always gave me a B.  Obviously I was not a B student.  He told me "You always came to class.  You wore your gym suit and you took a shower. And you never gave me a problem." 

My seventh grade art teacher was never so kind.  She knew I had no artistic ability.  She knew her assignments were way beyond anything I could do.  And she never gave me a break.  She assigned us paper mache animals.  We had to use coat hangers, newspaper and wheat paste to create animals.  I was in a panic.  Other students were already molding the shapes of horses and dogs and even fish.  I decided an octopus would be easy.  I took four coat hangers and a ball of newspaper and formed my octopus.  Of course an octopus has eight tentacles and mine only had four.  But I knew I could never mange bending eight arms into place.  My teacher never corrected me until I was finished and we had to present our projects to the class.  When I presented mine she asked "What is that?"  I said an octopus.  She said it has four legs and looks like a camera on a tripod.  I just wanted to crawl under the table and hide.  Another time she assigned us to make mosaics. We had to draw a picture and color it with pieces of construction paper mosaic style.  Once again I was in panic mode.  I could never draw a picture much less color it with pieces of colored paper mosaic style.  I ended up drawing a big head much like the heads on my stick figures.  I gave it a large head of hair that flipped up on the ends.  I was making That Girl which was a current hit TV series back in the those days.  When she was grading the finished project once again I was asked "What is this?"  I said "That Girl".  She told me "That is not any girl I have ever seen."  I have a feeling if my gym teacher had been there he would have understood exactly who it was and why I made it and would have graded me his usual B.

My eighth grade art teacher was the best.  She knew not all of us were talented but she assigned projects we could at least try to work on with some success.  She also taught us about art history.  She taught us about the appreciation of art not just the creation of it.  We were a small rural school.  Going to Baltimore City was a big journey for most people in my home town.  Mrs. Smith, the art teacher took us on a field trip to Baltimore to see The Agony and The Ecstasy, the movie about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.  I was fascinated with the movie.  I learned about the great artists of the period and got to see their masterpieces.  And this little gay boy also got to see Charlton Heston in a toga  through most of the movie.  I was spellbound.  So there I sat watching every stoke of his hand and every movement of Charlton Heston recreating this great Michelangelo's masterpiece.  We were in the huge and beautiful Mayfair Theater in Baltimore.  Everything about this experience spoke to the little boy from Havre de Grace, Maryland.  Sadly now the Mayfair Theater sits in a shambles in the inner city of Baltimore.  I have taken photos of it on several occasions still remembering the school field trip.

Mayfair Theater, Baltimore 2015I

I made my first visit to Rome in July 2016 fifty years after junior high school art class.  The appreciation for classic art that I learned from Mrs. Smith has remained with me all of these years.  When I travel. I want to experience the food and the art from the location I am visiting.  So Rome as a dream come true.  From the wine, to the pasta, to the Bernini angels I overdosed in Roman culture.  The highlight was on my last day in Rome when I finally go to see the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo's masterpiece.  The room was crowded.  People were standing shoulder to shoulder with no room to move.  But I didn't mind the crowds.  I was back at the Mayfair Theater and twelve years old again.  I could see how Michelangelo created the scaffolding and climbed to the top of chapel exhausted to finish the finger tip of God touching Adam.  There were signs posted saying no photography.  But there were people snapping cell phone photos all around me.  I didn't want a cell phone photo though.  I wanted a real photo for this special moment.  So I worked my way to the center of the room and lifted my camera up, with no flash, to take my photo.

My photo from the Sistine Chapel - July 2016

I had my moment.  Actually only a second.  I was  tapped on my shoulder by a security guard and was told no photos allowed.  I explained I did not use a flash. He said very abruptly "Turn it off." When he left I turned quickly to sneak a photo of the back wall which had Michelangelo's The Last Judgment.  As I snapped the photo the guard returned and said to me "Turn off NOW."  So I  did.  And I departed the chapel after having a very special moment with the arts.  I can't help but feel my seventh grade art teachers spirit was guiding that guard to me just to harass me once more.  But my eight grade art teacher was there also standing next to me smiling.

My photo of The Last Judgement - July 2016

Empty Tombs and Memorial Arches on South Mountain Maryland

Memorials and monuments fascinate me.  When I travel I take many photos of monuments and memorials.  I learn more history than I could ever learn from a text book by researching the stories behind the monuments I photograph.  Not only do the historical stories fascinate me but I am  also fascinated by the detail on the monuments.  When I photograph a monument I rarely just take one photo of the entire monument.  I also take closeup photos of the details on the monument.  The artist who created the memorial put the minute details there for a specific reason that is lost to casual viewer.  

On South Mountain near Burkittsville, MD there is a very unusual monument dedicated to noncombatant newspaper war correspondents.  Burkittsville is famous today for being the setting for the movie The Blair Witch Project. Historically South Mountain is known as the site of the Battle of Crampton's Gap.  It is one of three gaps on South Mountain where the Battle of South Mountain had been fought between Union and Confederate Forces during the early encounters of the Maryland Campaign.   

The monument was completed in 1896.  It is fifty feet tall and forty feet wide. The Moorish arch at the bottom of the memorial is 16 feet tall.  Above the Moorish arch are three Roman arches.  Each arch is nine feet tall and six feet wide.  The arches represent Description, Depiction, and Photography.  Next to the arches is a zinc copy of Bertel Thorvaldsen's Mercury About To Kill Argos.  This was created by the J.W. Fiske Company. 

Above the arches are two horses heads.  

On either side of the main arch are the heads representing Electricity and Poetry.  Under the heads are the words Speed and Heed. 

The monument is fascinating in itself. It's located on the Appalachian Trail makes it of interest also.  But the story and controversy connected to the monument are what truly make it fascinating to me.  The monument was built by George Alfred Townsend who was a war correspondent and novelist.  He bought the land on South Mountain and built home for himself at the site of the Civil War battle.  He built the arch as a memorial to himself and other war correspondence.  There are 157 names of war correspondences on the memorial.  However the names of those included on the monument have been questioned.  Timothy J. Reese, who is a historian and resident of Burkittsville, Md claims that many names do no deserve to be included, while many names that should be included have been ignored due to Townsend's prejudice towards the Confederate journalists of the time.  I have included an excerpt from one of Ree's articles at the end of this blog. 

Along with his home Townsend also built a tomb for himself on the property.  Ironically the tomb sets empty.  Townsend's wife died and was buried in Philadelphia.  Townsend died April 14, 1915 and was buried next to his wife in Philadelphia.  

Townsend's empty tomb

The story and the monument are both fascinating.  There is a lot written about George Alfred Townsend if you are interested in learning more about the man who created a controversial monument and left an empty tomb.

Below is the excerpt from Timothy J. Reese's 
"The Arch bears 157 names, compiled with unmistakable personal bias. Thirty-three of them cannot be identified. Twenty-two have no business being there at all, they being Townsend's personal friends, large contributors to the project, or persons with whom Townsend wished to ingratiate himself. Names were compiled through an imprecise, word-of-mouth method of random collection conducted by Townsend and his network of veteran news cronies. As a result, many names are absent, incomplete, misspelled, or misstated. Several prominent Union and Confederate journalists do not appear at all, overlooked or, in the latter case, omitted altogether due to Townsend's bitter anti-Southern bias. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1711#sthash.tc05ZDMw.d

Information from the Reese's article was taken from this link.    All photographs included in this blog are my personal photos.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1711

16 Tons On A Rooftop in Cascais, Portugal - 16 Toneladas - Noriel Vilela

My father was not musical.  Not even a little bit.  He could not carry a tune.  He would sing in the car sometimes.  It was usually some old country song.  It did not matter what the song was because everything Dad sang sounded the same.  Dad was a monotone.  But he loved to hear Tennessee Ernie Ford sing.  Dad never bought music.  I don't think he ever entered a record store.  But he did own some Tennessee Ernie Ford albums.  Now my Dad was not a church goer either.  But he loved to hear Tennessee Ernie Ford sing gospel music.  He would ask me to put on his Ernie Ford gospel album and he would sing along in his monotone.  He would sing along to His Eye Is On The Sparrow and How Great Though Art with Ernie.  Both songs sounded the same when Dad sang them but that didn't matter.


Tennessee Ernie Ford had a big hit record in 1955.  It was called 16 Tons.  Anyone who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's will recognize this record just listening to the first few notes.  There is a flute playing and then a little bit of snap to the beat and Tennessee with his bass voice starts to sing.  The song is about coal mining and the great depression.  My father liked this song a lot.  He would sing it in the car and try to do Ernie Ford's deep bass voice.  It still sounded like Dad's monotone voice but you could tell the sound meant something to him.  Growing up during the depression I am sure the lyrics meant a lot to him.


"You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt"


Mark and I went to Portugal in the spring of 2015. It was our second trip to Portugal and our second time to stay in the ocean front city of Cascais. Cascais is a beautiful small resort town with many small bars and restaurants. We stayed at an ocean front hotel named Hotel Baia. The hotel had a sign in the lobby saying there would be a DJ on the rooftop lounge on the weekend. This sounded like the perfect way to spend an evening and watch the sunset. So we found our way to the rooftop bar.

The view was beautiful The drinks were cold and comforting. It was a wonderful way to end a busy day of walking in the heat.

I decided a strawberry daiquiri would be a great choice for my cocktail. Something about the ocean breeze and the cold strawberry drink appealed to me. Mark decided to have one also. We sat down in two reclining deck chairs and waited or the D.J. to start playing his music. Then out of nowhere I heard that opening flute introduction that was unmistakably the opening notes to the song 16 Tons. I thought for a second it was the daiquiri going to my head. But no. It was definitely the opening to 16 Tons. For a moment I immediately thought of my Dad and how he loved to sing that song. Then I was suddenly slapped with reality. I was on a rooftop in Cascais Portugal. I was not at home listening to some old country radio station. And this was not Tennessee Ernie Ford singing. It was an upbeat dance version with some deep voiced man singing in Portuguese. Mark asked me "What is that song? It's so familiar." Then he too realized it was 16 Tons.

Suddenly you realize just how small the world really is. I had been to Casais before so the city was familiar to me. I had heard the song 16 Tons many times so it was familiar to me. But it all became very surreal and unfamiliar to see the two being combined together into one memory. Other than going to Italy in World War II my Dad never traveled. But one day in May 2015 on a rooftop in Cascais he was with me once more.


Click on the link at the top of this blog to hear the Portuguese version of 16 Tons Mark and I heard in Cascais. It's fascinating to discover something new but also something very familiar.