Travelin' About

In my attempt to photograph some beautiful older people every week, it was my honor to meet Maida and Jody Meredith who just happened to be celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary.  A friend introduced me because not only are they kind, generous, compassionate people, but their roots in Austin's music history goes fairly deep. Jody "Slick" Meredith and the Round-Up Boys were regular performers at the Skyline Club which opened in 1946 and was popular until 1977.  According to Maida, it was the original, and for awhile, only music venue in Austin. A country-western dance hall in North Austin, Jody played there 4 nights a week, from Wed- Sat for 12 years. His band was the backup for Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Johnny Horton, Ray Price and Marty Robbins. "It was a family place," said Maida who showed me a box of memorabilia, filled with images of a younger Jody performing with a slew of stars. She taught her boys how to dance there and the honk...

Anna still loves participating in art classes. She showed me some of her paintings. So I'm intrigued with beautiful older people. They represent wisdom, experience, survival, knowledge...and I, for one, would like to learn more about them.  I was doing a portrait of my neighbor last week and remembered that she has a beautiful mother who is 95 and full of vim and vigor. So I asked if we could go visit Mom and photographer her. Dorothy loved the idea, because she knows what a treasure her mother is, so we headed over to Anna Scrugg's home where I was greeted warmly and shown some of her lovely treasures. She has the most amazing kitchen - large enough to cook for many and she told me about some of the large parties she hosted from that kitchen. She's been living in her current house for 40 years - at one time you could see Austin's Capitol from her porch - hard to believe with all of the development that has occurred over the years. She was a teacher ...

So, I'm not sure exactly why, but I see so much beauty in elderly faces. Perhaps it is because I have entered the Senior Years myself, but I look around me and am just struck by the wisdom, joy and life-stories that I want to hear and preserve from the cool old dudes around me.  I was blessed to do portraits at a Senior Center in 2015.  That was meant to give me lighting practice and provide the Seniors with an 8x10 image - something that they or their families could treasure.  I got so much more from those beautiful people than I gave. One woman dressed to the nines for the event, bringing along matching high heeled shoes despite the fact that she was 89.  Another woman was turning 104 the very next day. It was a diverse group - one couple from Japan, an elderly German gentleman and a Vietnamese soldier who had helped the US during the Viet Nam War and he brought his medals to show me. One guy wore a gold suit that was huge on him but he was s...