Baltimore office view

My client had to step away from our session for a moment and I sat gazing out the window. I was remembering he had told me a moment before that two people had been shot on that street since my last visit.

I stopped wondering why there were bars on the window after that...not that I had really given it that much thought.

My client is a Roman Catholic pastor. He is very passionate about helping the neighborhood become a decent place to live and raise families. He works in this room, in this parish office and is surrounded each day by reminders of the work he has before him.

It is a joy spending time with him and a challange as well. Going there every two weeks is almost like going home to the projects in Philly where I grew up.

How does the light get in?

Dispatch from Cape Cod

Some adventures you never realize you're on until they stare you in the eye and tell you a story you find incredible. Or in my case, several stories, that is until you realize that you know most of them, they sounded familiar as the words were being spoken...you saw some of them in the paper or on the news, and you saw the movie, remember?

While not a photo of any great note (I'm still learning, just got the camera out of the box soon before I left for vacation!) this is my favorite of one Ed Walsh, retired Deputy Superintendent of the Boston PD. He runs a sports cards shop on Cape Cod and he's holding vintage Mickey Mantle cards in this shot. Unseen are the shots of him with Bobby Orr, Ted Williams, and some of the assorted 'bad guys' he busted over the years. Unless you spend time paying attention to the history of the Boston PD you may never have heard of him. But, as my mother-in-law loves to point out, my head is chock full of trivia.

Actually meeting someone as famous in investigative accomplishment as Ed Walsh was a rush. He joined the Boston police in 1955 and retired in 1987. I will not bore you with the number of times he won their medal of honor and other citations. The guy is a walking history of those years in Boston.

The two hours I spent with him in his shop were worth the twelve hour drive back through the remander of tropical storm Ernesto (if I thought I had made bad decisions driving up to the Cape it was just prep work for the drive back!). He should write a book!

I doubt I'll equal Fotoboy's work any time soon...but here's to trying!