Remembering work colleague Lynn Ford

It is possible that people who are hard-line, milestone traditionalists might frown on my decision to write and publish this post here and now, but I decided to do so anyway.

Last month marked the 24th anniversary of the passing of a good work colleague and friend of mine, Lynn Ford, shown in the picture leading off this post. The photo graced the cover of a program for a memorial service held for Lynn after his death in February 2002. It was when I recently came across the program while going through a box of mementoes that I got the idea to toast Lynn here.

A shared, enthusiastic interest in pop music served as a bonding tool for Lynn and me in The Indianapolis Star newsroom in the 1980s. We particularly enjoyed reminiscing about Motown artists of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s — the Temptations, Four Tops, Jackson Five, Supremes, etc. And during the Motown discussions, one of us would almost always pause to utter a “yeow” lyric from Rick James’ 1981 hit Super Freak, which was released on the Motown subsidiary label Gordy.

Over time, our discussions gravitated to other subjects, such as politics and current events in the world, country, Indiana and, of course, the workplace. 

Some might call the latter gossip, but neither of us started such conversations with gossipy intent. At some point in these chats, one of us would usually break a serious tone with an aside conjuring a guffaw or snicker, helping to ease the transition to exchanging biting wit, sarcasm and, yes, occasional newsroom gossip.

Before joining The Star in 1984, Lynn had worked for six years at The Indianapolis Recorder, a news publication that served the city’s black community and today is the third-oldest black newspaper in the U.S.

Lynn reached his apex at The Star when he was invited to write a column that ran every other Saturday on the cover of the local and suburban news section. In the newsroom, we called this part of the newspaper “the split page.” (I think early on in my tenure I once asked why it got that nickname, and I’m sure someone explained it to me, but I’ve since long forgotten it.)

Suffice it to say that in house, the split page was regarded as a prestigious spot for any staffer to have a bylined story displayed. And Lynn’s column — accompanied by a photo of him — ran the length of the left side of the split page, the same spot where noted scribe Tom Keating’s daily columns had appeared for 14 years until early 1985. 

Lynn used the column to write about issues or events important to the African-American community. He occasionally wrote people profiles and delved into lighter yet important topics such as the fine arts, which remained a key interest of his to the very end.

He always had a smile and good cheer to share when we crossed paths. But doing that became difficult for him in the first few months after he returned to work following hospitalization and extended time off to recover from a serious stabbing outside his apartment in February 2001. He was assaulted by a man police identified as the former husband of a woman Lynn had been dating.

Lynn and I had a lengthy talk about the experience not long after he returned to work. I recall the conversation vividly because this usually upbeat individual was speaking from a dark place, and he admitted that he was having trouble getting past lingering post-trauma fears in the aftermath.

I’m happy to say I saw the Lynn of old by late summer of 2001, and we had a few more good months of interaction thereafter until his sudden death, which authorities attributed to a heart attack unrelated to the assault a year previous. I do remember that he seemed occasionally fatigued and out of breath in the latter months, but I knew his right lung had been punctured by one of the stab wounds, and I guess I thought that what I was observing was the lung still in the process of healing.

Today, I often think of him when I hear a Motown tune. And I think of him every time I hear Rick James’ “yeow” in Super Freak.

A Yates Mill Pond first for me: ice on the pond and minor patches of it on the trail

When I stopped at Yates Mill Pond Park yesterday for my daily walk, I had no intention of taking pictures because I’d done plenty of picture-making on other recent visits. But ... when you see something you hadn’t seen before, which happened Friday, it was hard not to pull out the iPhone camera and start snapping away.

The primary thing I hadn’t seen at the park before was ice on the pond, and there’s a bit of it in the lead-off photo. That murky, sheened section close to the shore was the only ice in this photo, which is the much larger section of pond on one side (south) of the main pedestrian bridge. 

I selected this photo to lead things off because of what I considered to be much more compelling compositional elements — silhouettes, reflections and cloud patterns — than the ice.

Ice on water was more prevalent elsewhere in the park, as shown in the series of photos immediately below this point. The first seven images below were taken on the smaller (north) side of the pond near the primary wooden pedestrian bridge. The remaining ice-on-water pictures were streams found on the early portion of the walking trail between the first and second pedestrian bridges.   

There were minor patches of snow (some mixed with ice) on the 2-mile trail itself. This was stuff that wasn’t able to melt from the recent warmer temperatures because of how tree branches sufficiently blocked the sun from the ground. 

But there wasn’t enough of the snow/ice to thwart walkers. I covered the full trail yesterday, and there was always a portion of path free of ice or snow that a pedestrian could land on to avoid the patches. I present a view images of that spotty white cover below. 

I returned to the park Saturday to walk, and many of the patches had disappeared or shrunk. But boy, the trade-off was a very gusty wind, dropping wind-chill temps to 20ish, making Saturday’s stroll the coldest-ever for me there. 

Fortunately, I’d checked the weather beforehand and added a layer of clothing, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. 

Much of the ice on the smaller (north) section of pond and on the streams near the second pedestrian bridge remained Saturday; almost all of it on the larger (south) section was gone. A curiosity Saturday: As I began my walk, there were scores of geese on the larger section of pond and a much smaller number — maybe a half-dozen — on the smaller section. They were all gone by the time I crossed the bridge on the return trip.

To see a larger, sharper version of a photo in this post, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of images from the Friday shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

Fuquay-Varina converts former golf course into a much-needed town park

While reading the local metro daily newspaper one day about a year after moving to North Carolina, I found interesting a story about how the Wake County Commissioners had purchased the property of the former Crooked Creek Golf Club, an 18-hole golf course near the town of Fuquay-Varina in the southern portion of the county. 

In the months afterward, there was discussion about what Wake County — where Raleigh also is located — would do with the land. One idea floated was to develop the land for much-needed housing in the fast-growing area of the state. But there also was interest by Fuquay-Varina to take possession of the land and make it a largely open-air park.

The latter idea eventually won out, and in late October 2022, I got around to checking out Hilltop Needmore Town Park. And by “checking out,” I mean I took photographs of it. I only recently discovered that for some reason, I never did a blog post on that shoot.

So here I am, some three plus years later, correcting my neglect of doing a post from that shoot. 

My visit was timed wonderfully in the sense that I was able to capture my landscape images while autumn colors were still vivid in the area. It might seem odd to present a post of autumn landscapes in the throes of winter, but given how North Carolina recently experienced two uncharacteristic winter storms (Fern and Gianna) a week apart, maybe it’s something that can help boost spirits and morale.

While perusing these photos, take note of the rolling hills and winding paths, characteristic of challenging golf courses. To view a larger and sharper version of a photo, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of images from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence. 

Blue sky, blue heron, weird tree and root shapes and more at ... well, where else?

I hadn’t even planned on doing a post about one day’s worth of pictures when I went to Yates Mill Pond Park for a walk back on Jan. 5. But I was so taken by what I encountered in the forest there that day that I came back for three more picture outings in less than a week. 

So a dilemma struck me after yet another visit to Yates Mill on Jan. 17, when I started taking iPhone pictures because of compositions I was seeing thanks to a rich blue sky that then transformed into heavy clouds 15 minutes into my stroll. 

The question I struggled with afterward: Dare I create a fifth post of Yates Mill pictures in such a short time? I’d never done such a thing involving one specific locale, unless I had planned a series ahead of time. So, I figured now would be a good time to introduce another first here.

You can see the sky I was talking about in the leadoff photo, a sky complemented by some white clouds hovering over the primary pedestrian bridge over the pond. The clouds would thicken and concentrate in a very short time frame — I’d say within 15 minutes — after this photo was taken. 

The first half-dozen or so forest interior photos below I made early in my stroll, and as you can see, the quality of blue in the sky started to fade before going away entirely. I devoted the remainder of the shoot mostly to shape oddities I encountered, whether it was among the trees (dead or alive) along the path or on the path itself, usually because of the interesting above-ground root patterns.

Near the end, I strayed from the path to capture the “new” (well, new to this blog, anyway) building shots on the agricultural land owned by North Carolina State University (even though this land is far removed from the school’s actual campus). 

And at the very end, I spied the blue heron from a distance as I started my recession on the pedestrian bridge. The heron was in the same area of the small pond section shoreline where I had seen it on Jan. 11, and I was excited that maybe I could get close enough from the bridge to get a tight shot of it with my iPhone zoom without distorting the pixelation. 

But alas, as I reached the halfway point on the bridge, a man who had been fishing with a pole in the water on the opposite side of the bridge, turned around and cast his line into the small section, and that was enough to frighten the heron away. 

I really wasn’t able to reach the point I’d been hoping to reach to get sharp photos, but I took some anyway of the heron in flight. The penultimate picture below shows the heron just as it began its escape to the far north end of the pond. The last shot was taken just as it was landing. I took a few shots afterward as it waded in the shallow water, but it was too far away to secure sharpness. 

To view a full gallery of images from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.     

Above and first two photos below: Three perspectives of the same tree.