Foot up

I recently went through a large number of photographic prints and slides, throwing them away. Well, not all of them. But a great majority of them — mostly photos taken by me or my ex wife between about 1985 and 2005 or so — were either pictures of things that no longer mean much to me, or pictures of things that never did mean much, or pictures of things that do mean something I’d just as soon not be reminded about, or pictures that were hardly distinguishable from a dozen other pictures, or pictures that simply were bad and didn’t merit hanging onto in the first place. I hung onto several dozen and scanned them. I have a lot more photos in digital form mostly from 2005 on, and by the same criteria I could get rid of most of them, but since they don’t take up space I don’t mind keeping them.

Among the photos was this one showing me at my first morris danceout, the Thornden Morris Equinox Ale in September 1986:

That’s me right of center. That was fairly late in the ale (it might have been the 21st rather than the 20th). My first public dance was at the Salt Museum in Onondaga Lake Park. It was Bampton “Shepherd’s Hey”, dancing middles, and yes, I did try to start moving at the start of the dance — the very first moment of my debut dance, I screwed up.

Another photo, from 1991, is the first I have showing members of the Binghamton Morris Men (aside from the two I knew back in high school), among others attending an Oddington workshop in Syracuse:

I’m near the upper left, with a red bandana in my hand and a melodeon on my lap. It was another eleven years later I joined the BMM.