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Soon after I woke yesterday morning, here in Rio, Wisc., I looked out the kitchen window and saw the faded red needle on our ancient, round, steel thermometer pointing to just a notch below the freezing mark. Wet, warm snow was falling; tree branches were wondrously, windlessly weighted in white. Several inches of new snow beckoned to be removed from the driveway and sidewalks, so I hastily ate a bowl of granola and then went outside and walked behind my snowblower for a couple of hours, listening on earphones for most of that time to a live broadcast of lawyers presenting a defense, of sorts, at the impeachment trial of President Donald John Trump.
Later in the day, I found that the New York Times Web site offered a cellphone video, an hour and twenty-three minutes in length, of a dinner hosted by Mr. Trump and attended by big-ticket donors. I listened to a bit of it and was reminded of a photography assignment I accepted in Honolulu a few years back. When I looked up the pictures I had taken, I found one of them kind of humorous, and I thought some of you faithful readers might enjoy seeing it, too.
As a general rule, I believe Pictures Should Speak for Themselves, but you will forgive me, I hope, in this instance, if I provide some annotation. The date, I believe, was Monday, May 15, 1972. I took a picture that day of the evening paper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The headline was enormous bold print followed by two lines more modest in size:
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Wallace Shot
Hit 3 Times After Maryland Speech;
Condition Called 'Critical but Stable'
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Coincidentally, the occasion for my photo assignment was a visit from a Maryland resident, Judy Agnew. (That’s Mrs. Spiro T.) I would think she was glad that day to have so sweet an alibi.
Did you know George Wallace was the forty-fifth governor of Alabama? Do you know how many spouses he had in succession? Three. Don’t get me started on coincidences. Don’t get Mr. Trump’s defense team started.
Clare Boothe Luce was hosting a cocktail party in Mrs. Agnew’s honor, at Mrs. Luce’s home, 4559 Kahala Avenue. I mention the address not because I see any coincidence there, but I thought you may find a reason to want to know. Oh, and you might recall, Mrs. Luce was a former congressperson, a former United States ambassador. Are you hearing echos? She was born in 1903. You do the math. When I took her picture, Mrs. Luce was very nearly the age I am now.
No, I don’t know why she was wearing an eye patch. If you find out, I’d like to know.
So, anyway, the Republican Party of Hawaii asked me to shoot (I should say take) candid pictures of the big-ticket donors and other esteemed guests at Mrs. Luce’s house. Why me? Well, probably the Republican Party of Hawaii had not heard of the mishap I had experienced the previous November, when I took photos at my cousin Jane’s Honolulu wedding. Jane is still married, though, to my now-cousin Bob, and they act like they may have forgiven me. Flash photography, I have never liked it.
So I took about five dozen pictures that evening, on Tri-X. Maybe half the frames show guests as they are shaking hands with Mrs. Agnew. Eventually, when the event was winding down, I asked one of Mrs. Agnew’s Secret Service agents if he would take a picture of me shaking Mrs. Agnew’s hand. He told me agents weren’t permitted to do that. They could not occupy their eyeballs with a viewfinder while on duty. I said (for real), “Too bad Governor Wallace didn’t have Secret Service with him today.”
The Secret Service guy told me (for real), “Oh, but he did. Oh, yeah. Somebody’s in trouble, oh, yeah.”
I said, “Oh, my.”
So I asked someone else to take my picture, I almost remember who. It was with my camera, so I’m claiming credit for it. It is the only posed picture of the evening, and it is the picture I thought might amuse you. I probably had not looked closely at it in forty years, or maybe ever, but I took a good look last night, and it made me smile. It’s a rather bad picture for several reasons, which maybe you will notice, but the things I like about it you might miss: (1) Mrs. Agnew looks good—relaxed and warmly sincere; (2) my belly in 1972 is flat, which it is not now; (3) I am wearing, as a camera bag, a khaki canvas gas mask pouch from probably the 1940’s, purchased I don’t remember when, in a surplus store, and I loved that ugly bag, long ago lost, and this is the only picture I have of it.
Finally, my friends, best of all, Reason No. 4 is this: in this photograph I am wearing what I hope had to be the worst haircut I ever received in my life. The worst. And, guess what? I survived that haircut. I have been blissfully, Trumpianly unaware of how bad it was until just about this very moment. How is that for a coincidence, I ask you!
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Thanks very much for looking at these photos with me. I wish you a pleasant impeachment trial and, soon, a perfect presidential election. God bless the United States of America.
♦
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