Reading Room

The Reading Room at the Hartford Public Library is really cool.  Especially when I am looking for a reflection photo.  Reflections off the Gold Building are the only other Hartford reflections as reliable.  I will go back there sometime soon.

If you like photos with reflections, please visit James' website Weekend Reflections.

It is Friday the Thirteenth today.  Yikes!  Maybe I should stay inside . . .

Not So Fast

Reid Hollister was a great kid.  Who didn't go to his senior prom or graduate from high school.  The car Reid was driving skidded on a rain-slicked highway.  Reid was just 17 when he died.

There are 3 million new teen drivers in the U.S. each year.  Every year 5,000 teens die in traffic accidents and 460,000 are injured.  From ages two to 34, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in the US.

Reid's father -- a friend of mine -- has channeled his grief into helping other parents and their teen drivers.  Tim Hollister's blog -- From Reid's Dad -- gets 12,000 visitors each month.

Monday night Tim and other experts spoke about teen driver safety at a Hartford church.  The occasion was the launch of Tim's new book Not So Fast:  Parenting Your Teen Through the Dangers of Driving.  Publishers Weekly called the book a "concise, practical, and potentially life-saving book" that should be "required reading for every parent before their teen gets behind the wheel."

Twin Towers

The terrorism attack on the two towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was the defining event of the 21st century so far.  This is a detail from an eighteen foot long allegorical painting by Graydon Parrish, commissioned by the New Britain Museum of American Art to commemorate the tragedy.  I showed it before, here.  Every time I am at the museum, I visit the painting.

Mary and Ruth

On a gorgeous September day, I met Mary in West Hartford Center.  On another gorgeous September day I met Ruth.

Mary was walking three white fluffy dogs.  I learned that they are called bichon frises.  I took some photos of the dogs and some of Mary.  Mary exudes youthful energy, enthusiasm and vivaciousness.

A few days later I met Ruth, an artist from Simsbury, near the same kind of planting.  Ruth is a grandmother just back from visiting her family out west.  She has a calm, poised, mature charm.

Historic Voluntown

Voluntown is a neighborhood in the town of Griswold, Connecticut, on the border with Rhode Island.  A colorful primitive-style mural greets people who stop in the center of town.  A metal graphic on a stand in front of the mural explains what is depicted.  I tried to find out who painted it but I was unsuccessful.

This post is linked to Monday Mural, a weekly feature of Oakland Daily Photo.

More This and That . . .

Pix that might not have carried a post all by themselves.

Skateboarders were practicing their moves when I came across them.  One young man skated alongside, making a video of the action.  They seemed preoccupied, so I didn't interrupt to ask about the video.

An "honor" farm stand in Eastern Connecticut.

Franklinias are uncommon, especially as far north as Connecticut.  They bloom in late August and into September.  Mine is brittle.  It keeps losing trunks and limbs, but it restarts from suckers.

Franklinia were discovered at one remote location in Georgia in the 1790s.  A Philadelphia seedsman gathered seeds just in time, because they became extinct in the wild within a decade.  All existing Franklinia derive from those seeds.

Ken

While I parked my car in downtown New Britain, Ken picked up some nearby trash and put it in the trash can.  We started talking.

Ken is philosophical and talkative.  He has many stories.  He told me stories about playing baseball at UConn.  And football.  And running track.  And setting track records.

I didn't hire a fact checker.  But, I have my doubts.