Memphis

Voluntine-Evergreen

Max attempts to discourage photography at Cafe Eclectical — the cafe is fast becoming a favorite haunt in Memphis ...

... Dianne, while not encouraging photography, tolerates it.

Mud Island

Ben's Park

Mud Island began as a sandbar off the mouth of the Wolf River in the 19th Century. As it grew it extended where the river emptied into the Mississippi south toward downtown Memphis. A dense forest soon covered it. City fathers worried the bar would eventually block the landing for Memphis. In 1960 the Wolf was diverted across the north end of the bar leaving a peninsula with the Mississippi to the west and Wolf River Harbor to the east. For years there was a small, single runway airport accessible from the city by a pontoon ferry. When we moved to Memphis in the early 1980s the airport was gone and it was home to transients who set up camp in the woods. Today Mud Island has developed into a community of homes and apartments accessible by car with wonderful parks along the river and harbor, a number of shops, Max's school and Mississippi River Park on the southern tip. The latter can be reached by monorail from downtown Memphis and has a hydraulic model of the river from Cairo, Ill., to the Gulf of Mexico.

Max climbs trees and does tricks on a swing in Ben's Park hoping to see some of his friends ...

... his grandmother, below left, hopes for no broken bones.

Long shadows play across the path as, left to right, Max, Dianne and Chi-Chi head toward home along Wolf River Harbor.

Cooper-Young 

Christa, foreground, and Chris, rear, are two of  Brian and Shannon's close friends. Both are pharmacists; Krista teaches clinical pharmacy and Chris is a research professor at University of Tennessee Medical School. They are fascinating conversationalists. Dianne and I always look forward to seeing them.

This is a work week for Brian. He unwinds at the end of a long day.

Photographs taken with a Leica M8