Notes 4

1. Jerry Green, the president of United Steelworkers of America Local 2599, has been, as far as I am concerned, MIA from his office for the last month.  
2. Most organizations, businesses, and historical societies do not pick up their phones.  In fact, I am questioning if these places even have phones.  Perhaps the directories are filled with road to nowhere telephone numbers that lead to automated answering machines which supply you with the number you have just dialed and the vague explanation, "this particular number is unavailable."
3. Messages on these machines repeatedly go unanswered.
4. I photographed at sunset last night, catching the orange glow of the stacks.  Ontop of the catwalks, my heart was jumping out of my throat.
5. I've started to write a short story, which I hope to try to loosely categorize as "something akin to magical realism," but it probably won't get that far.  We'll see how long it takes for me to sack it.
6. I have discovered a small organic bakery on a side street running parallel to Broad.  It is only open on Thursdays and Fridays, and the baker seemed kind.  Walking down Milton Street to Main this afternoon, the quiet seemed oppressive... everything was still, and the things that should have made sounds did not.  The street is barely wide enough for one car or three people, but its charm appears in the seemingly haphazard array of antique cornices and parapets, and I think I'd like to start photographing in town.  Also, I think I'd like to make portraits of the security guards around Steel, Sands, and the Industrial Park.  I had an amusing and somewhat quintessential run-in with a sleeping security guard a few nights ago.  His name was Alexander, and when I apologetically crept up to his post and said, "I'm sorry to bother you, but..." he jerked upright and jumped out of his desk chair.  Very flustered.  He told me about the lines that used to run from "here" (right above his shack) to some posts over the mountain in Hellertown, back when Steel was in its heyday.  Most of the guards I've met have been relatively adorable old men who at one time were employed by Steel and "do the guard thing" as a second job or because they are retired.  I think my photographs would benefit from their faces and stories.
7. To pass the time, I have taken up needlepoint and cross stitching.  Currently reading Graham Greene, Amy Hempel, and Haruki Muramaki.  Missing western Mass, New York, Providence, and, of course, New Jersey.