Walking In Old Town

Yesterday's weather was perfect for driving with the top down—roof open, in my Honda's case. I headed out towards Cottage Grove in the late morning to shoot a vintage travel trailer I'd stumbled onto the previous week, but no hurry—a leisurely Americano at the Creswell Coffee Company came first. Setting the proper tone for a day out is crucial, especially on a Saturday.

Leaving Eugene I crossed the green hills east of Spencer's Butte on Dillard Road, a narrow route with pot-holed 15MPH curves near its crest, before dropping to join a section of Oregon Highway 99 running parallel to the interstate and Union Pacific's tracks. Traffic was light—serious travelers were on nearby I-5—affording plenty of time to gawk at sagging barns and feel the sunshine coming in.

History in this part of Oregon is like a rusting tractor I passed along the highway—covered by overgrown grass and weeds and forgotten. As a kid this was where I saw my first (and only) Burma Shave sign, and although the area has lost its bustle there are still subtle glimpses of the past here and there. The road itself, meandering, hugging the shaded river wherever it can, invites an easygoing introspection and nostalgia.

And you get where you're going, all in good time. I parked a block off Main Street when I arrived in Cottage Grove and the first thing I saw was another old trailer, parked at the curb across from me. Backgrounds for tin can shots are often visually cluttered, but this wasn't bad. A low angle helped. Then I moved down the street to the feed store, where the trailer I'd come to shoot sat in its cramped space.

The owner intends to restore this Lil Loafer, which was made by Aristocrat. There's a lot of work to do. My parents owned a 1962 Shasta, and whenever I see one of these tiny metal boxes I'm amazed that anyone traveled comfortably in them. Elbow room is a relative term. I didn't have much of that here, either, having to move a chair and some shelving that intruded into the foreground. I left the heavy metal farm gate alone—burning the highlights in later in Photoshop made it less distracting. While I was at it I dodged selected highlights in the trailer, reduced the overall saturation, and added vignetting in Topaz Adjust. But that was later.

The trailer wasn't the sole reason I was in town—I intended to walk around, too. Cottage Grove's never been a large town (9,686 people counted at the 2010 Census) and old downtown reflects this. Remnants are scarce, but still visible in brick and neon. My circuit revealed a few of these, some closed and For Lease, others with new lives and hopeful tenants. It's that way now in small towns across America. I've grown accustomed to seeing martial arts academies with tacky window advertisements in once-proud buildings that held the commerce and heartbeats of their town, and I'm always pleased to discover a coffee shop there instead.

When I left for home I'd purchased a Joe DiMaggio biography at the humane society thrift store, pondered the elegant lines on several classic cars, and topped my day off with dinner at the Big Stuff Barbecue. I'll share some of the photos I took over the next week, but the ribs are all gone.

Garden Delights

I was on my hands and knees in the garden yesterday, which has begun its colorful run towards summer with the lovely Iris in the lead. That's an irresistible photo subject for me (here's a post from 2007), and I wasn't alone—a really fat bumblebee was focused on the flowers for its own purposes.

Since I don't own a dedicated macro lens I rely on a 90mm Tilt/Shift lens, which focuses to about a foot-and-a-half. That's not bug close, so for shots like this I sometimes add a close-up filter, in this case a B+W Close-up NL +1 Lens. I was pleased with the framing at the 90's minimum focusing distance.

"I've never seen Iris that look like these," you say? I confess—so-called artistic liberties have been taken to better match the flowers' already flagrant colors with my perceptions of them. Like the bumblebee, I came away from the garden very satisfied.

Daddy Sang Bass

Rana catesbeiana ("bullfrog" to his close friends) soaking up spring sunshine at the Jackson-Frazier wetland this past Monday. It's the only frog I've seen in several visits to the small site, and my luck to have the 400mm on tripod. Nevertheless, I was surprised to get so close—frogs, like mallard ducks, tend to flee at the approach of telephoto lenses—but he was likely too mellow to care. It was that kind of day.

Nature's Jukebox

It's probably happened to you—a song comes on the radio that you haven't heard in years and it takes your thoughts and emotions to a place or circumstance long out of time, one you'd safely forgotten until that moment. Rediscovering those feelings is like experiencing the original again, with the bonus that you now appreciate it all the more.

That's how I felt the other day as I listened to the precise notes of Evening Grosbeaks, who'd arrived to sample sunflower seeds outside our house. We keep a platform feeder that's a regular meeting place for several crows (they favor the cheap bread) and assorted smaller birds. The grosbeaks were unexpected, and the most welcome of guests because we hadn't had any number of the species visit in—how many years? There was a time when their combined music equalled the best boom boxes around (you could hear them clearly from our mailbox down on the road, fifty yards away), but over ten years we'd accepted that they were a fine memory, and nothing more. A single pair came by one year, three or four another, but they never stayed longer than a day.

And then that sharp, simple song. Call. Utterance. Whatever adjective is appropriate and correct. The replay button has worked for three days and I'll hold it down (extra seeds in the afternoon and evening) for as long as the music plays.

Unforgettable

When I walk through the office door into Thompson's Mills I'm usually thinking ahead, wondering what new photographs I'll find that day. Inside, I catch up on the local news with the rangers and site hosts, and get my gear set up for shooting. Did I remember a Snickers? Then I'm ready to start moving through the building, slowly, just looking.

That's been my routine for almost a year at the mill, but this week I discovered one of it's jewels was out in painfully plain sight—waist-high on that same office door. And truthfully, I only noticed the faded emblems because I'd set my tripod down outside the door, right next to them. Otherwise, my sometimes-tunnel vision would have gone elsewhere.

I was born five years after World War II. The rationing of basic commodities during the war and a real fear of attack by enemy nations are unimaginable today, a fact of everyday life to the men and women who worked at the mill and put up a simple reminder to never forget.

Character

Among Friends

I was at Target last week, waiting in the car while my wife picked up a few necessities. Parking lots are great places for watching people go about their business, and shortly after I’d pulled in a shiny Cooper took a space near mine. A trio of teenaged girls exited as one and headed briskly towards the store’s entrance, synchronized in stride and focused like Hollywood zombies on the phones in their hands. Texting, I’m sure, since they held them in that now-familiar position, like a sort of detecting device—the modern day divining rod.

After they’d disappeared into the store I thought how ill-prepared youth—and that includes young people of any era—are for recognizing the aging process in themselves. It’s apparently easy to spot in others, but up to about age twenty-five no one uses a mirror that tells them the plain truth. It’s around that birthday when many first notice a quarter-century is gone. Suddenly, perspective. It feels somewhat like a magic trick—you think you know how it’s done, but discover you’ve no clue. Aren’t even close. And you feel a little cheated and, belatedly, mortal.

If time were an athlete it would be a world-class sprinter. How else to explain the sudden and unexpected arrival of the half-century mark? (At this point your children may be reaching twenty-five themselves—misery does indeed love company.) If you’ve been lucky or favored by genetics you’ve still got hair and a sense of humor. It’s not easy to keep either. Most everyone tries, in small ways, to delay this process, and like someone trying to catch bubbles in a breeze and put them into a jar, fails.

I’ve only found one thing that offers relief from aging—friends. Old or new, short- or long-term, friends are like a psychological face cream, making one feel young on the inside, where the worst wrinkles occur. Quantity isn’t a requisite, either—one or two can last a lifetime. It’s been estimated that we meet 40,000 people during our lives, so the odds are good we’ll latch onto one or two along the way.

And those are just two-legged friends. I’ve been surrounded by the four-legged variety better than half my life—a lively parade of cats, German Shepherds, and horses—and they’ve filled me with a warm affection that can only be experienced.

As I watched a herd of horses grazing last week their equine friendship was evident, subtle whinnies and knickers given and answered as they maneuvered to new positions, heads down because the grass over there is always the greenest. If I can put words to it, they seemed comfortable with the others’ presence. Grateful might be too strong a word, but why not?

Good friends are like that.

The Traveleer

Yesterday morning I was in downtown Oakland (the Oregon version), savoring a delicious caffé breve at The Hollow Coffeehouse while my wife groomed rescue horses at the Duchess Sanctuary, five miles outside of town. During summer I'll help with a couple of small photo workshops at the sanctuary, but I'm leaving hands-on horse chores to others. Hence my beverage and paper.

Oakland's barely five minutes from busy Interstate 5, and farther from other beaten tracks. You realize this when a one-lane bridge appears along Old Highway 99 N. Two facts: it's eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and (according to a 2009 inspection) is functionally obsolete. In its heyday (the span was built in 1925) the Oakland Bridge (aka Calapooya Creek Bridge) served two lanes, because cars were smaller then (and freeways unheard of). Today we call it quaint, and Calapooya Creek still meanders along beneath it as motorists patiently wait for the signal to turn green on their end. It's a scenario that sets you up for the small-town atmosphere waiting around the corner in Oakland.

The 2010 Census counted 927 Oaklandians. My count is substantially less than that, but I've only made two trips this year and have a lot of catching up to do. So far, everyone I've met has been friendly, and that counts double in my ledger. So it may not take as long as I thought. Even a clerk at the grocery wished me a great day, and I didn't buy anything from them.

The core of Oakland is rich in architectural history. From Wikipedia: Oakland was the first city to be placed on the state's historic register, in May 1968. The city's two-block business district consists of the original brick buildings built in the 1880s and 1890s. Sterns Hardware has been in operation since 1887. Over 80 properties in the city were constructed between 1852 and 1890. The Oakland Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 1979. When I snoop around with my camera I wonder if the brick buildings and Victorian homes would have fared so well if Progress had built a wider road through here.

After that leisurely coffee I stopped to shoot an old travel trailer I'd spotted earlier. That's the brand in the post's title, and it's not a typo—Traveleer. The company was incorporated in 1946, just as vehicle travel began to boom in post-war America. The notion that you could pull a home-away-from-home behind your car as you traveled the country was a powerful lure, gasoline was cheap, and the road was wide open.

I was happy to add another tin can to my collection, and it fits Oakland perfectly. The Traveleer is historic, retains a sense of (somewhat faded) dignity, and, like the people who live here, isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Rock Candy

My wife's paternal grandmother is famous in their family for her rock cookies. I've sampled them and can say they live up to the name—they're definitely dunkers to me.

Another old-time favorite is rock candy. It's hard to find in stores now, but if you drive through the east side of Zion National Park you'll discover piles of it, tempting your sweet visual tooth.

Sands of Time

Developed in tune to Fleetwood Mac's Sands of Time, from the album Future Games.

The Grab Shot

Photographers generally don't like to hurry a shot—there's less time to consider the composition, focus, and adjust exposure settings. Years of shooting eventually hone the sense of how to do this—the conscious (and subconscious) biases at work—so the actions become involuntary, like writing your signature.

This habit forming is invaluable when a shot requires split-second reflexes. The photo of a young girl on a swing at dusk is an excellent example. I'd stopped for a break in a park along the Columbia River (on the Oregon side) when I noticed her playing. I saw the potential for a stock photo and grabbed my camera and 70-200 from the bag, even as her mother walked toward the swing, calling to her daughter to come in for dinner (while the sun fell quickly below the horizon). I knew instinctively the picture would be stronger as a vertical (leaving room for type at the top), and that I needed to catch her at the peak of an upswing. Oh, and keep everything level, too, while making those adjustments. In about ten seconds.

I took three frames before she jumped down and departed with her mom. In the first her feet went out of the frame (my fault). Her arms were tucked too tightly against her body in the second, creating a dark, blob-like shape. But in the last (perhaps sensing her fun was about to end) she swung as high as she could, arms flying (the sliver of sky between her left arm and torso made all the difference), and I had my keeper.

A combination of Luck, being prepared (camera bag on the seat next to me), and intuition—I'll take that kind of grab shot anytime.

Take A Deep Breath

Here's something I didn't know (or forgot: high school was a while ago)—we're breathing a waste product. And it's not emissions from industrial plants, either—this waste is produced by actual plants, the green varieties we tend lovingly in our gardens and, especially here in the ever-green Pacific Northwest, photograph.

As I set up my tripod in front of this scene I didn't give a thought that the ferns and mosses were invisibly processing, doing their collective parts so a photographer could stop for a few contemplative moments.

On The Surface

I feel like a gambler on a winning streak whenever I visit Thompson's Mills to photograph—over seventeen trips since last July the house has yet to beat me. Yes, it's come close a couple of times—but all it takes is one new, worthy shot to make them fold.

Two weeks ago I stood quietly outside the mill office, gazing without seeing, letting the big space ease back into mind after a month away. Over nearly a year of polite photographic intrusions and I still can't imagine the back-breaking hustle that went on there, and except for those occasions when the rangers fire up one of the ancient motors there aren't any echoes of times past to offer clues. I suppose that's the nature of history.

At times like those taking photographs seems almost like legal trespassing. I don't go to estate sales because I'd feel sad? guilty? poring through someone's personal belongings, like I knew them well enough for that. Yet, with a camera in hand, I poke freely (and guiltlessly) into the mill's corners and deep shadows, searching for the smallest details left behind by the people who toiled within them. If there's a difference there perhaps it's that I only take items to share, never to keep.

On that day I drifted amongst greasy cob-webbed machinery with an eye out for marks, made by hands (and figuring minds) on the skin of the mill, the personalized scars that have survived the decades to suggest, briefly, what happened during its everyday life. I relaxed, again, and very slowly I saw the tiny pieces of history written without a thought of tomorrow.

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Happy

Nearly two weeks have sped past since I've posted here—our trip to Whidbey Island is already fading from memory (we've been home a week+ now) and then there's my traditional April Excuse (April is the excuse: I almost always slow down during this month). I've taken only a handful of photos lately, nothing special, and words have seemed inadequate to describe my mood anything.

But I'm hopeful. Spring is finally showing signs of life—I wore shorts while doing yard work today because there was something big and bright beaming through the clouds. Even the daffodils noticed. Maybe it'll stick around a while. My wife isn't so sure (yet)—she's headed for sunny Tucson, Arizona, with a friend next week. Hard work, someone had to do it, and all that.

Back to Whidbey Island for a moment. I don't know what I expected to find there—the photographer in me envisioned weather-beaten shacks, grungy wooden boats, fishing nets, decrepit docks, anything befitting an on-the-water location. What I got was—friendliness, in spades, from merchants and other visitors, which is better than flaking paint and Keep Out signs.

We stayed in Langley for two days, its shops and cafés scant blocks from our home-away at the Saratoga Inn. A pair of bald eagles soared by outside our window as we unpacked. Walking into the comfortable common room we met Tom and Carol, who came to live in Seattle from New York in the early Sixties. Like Tom Hanks' character in Sleepless In Seattle they live on a houseboat, but have been coming over to Langley whenever they want to get away for the past twenty years. Now we know why.

We'd planned a few discovery walks, along the shorelines and in a nature preserve or two, but took rain checks on those. Literally. We didn't see any whales, but weren't disappointed. The weather remained rainy, and that didn't matter either—it couldn't shake our good moods. Even Oak Harbor, with its back-to-civilization sameness (every shop you'd expect to find in every other town of a similar size) failed to discourage us as we left the island on Friday, bound for home. Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to stop.

I ended up taking about twenty pictures, but you've all seen mossy oak trees, right? I thought so. We did gather up a couple sacks of loot, though, something we're fairly frugal about these days—there's little space left in the house. I'd surely not expected to bump into a hippopotamus on Whidbey, but when I lost my wife in downtown Coupeville (not an easy thing to do) I wandered into a toy store ("No sir, the museum is across the street") and there it was, waiting for me. I love Folkmanis Puppets, but even if I didn't who could resist those eyes?


I named him Happy, of course, just as I was.

Slow Vehicles Use Right Lane

When I was nine years old the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways arrived in our town, after moving relentlessly southward from Portland (then and still Oregon's largest only metropolitan city).

None of the issues surrounding Interstate 5, such as the conversion of farmland and the beginnings of sprawl, mattered to me or my friends then. All we cared about was heavy machinery. That was our Jurassic Park, where amazing creatures glided by to our delight on gigantic rubber tires, their diesel engines growling menacingly in the billowing dust. Perhaps I romanticize a bit, but Godzilla would have felt right at home amongst all those lime-green Euclid earthmovers.

Too soon, it seemed, the major construction in our area was finished and the big equipment became extinct moved on, towards the California border. A year later we moved, and by the time I entered junior high school I-5 had become part of the local vocabulary.

Not long after that the freeway again took on significance for me when I drove on it for the first time. I can't recall that trip, although it was probably a short one—the smaller state highways still took most of us where we wanted to go. Eventually, though, I had reasons to cover longer distances, and so it is again this morning as I prepare to drive to Washington state, and Whidbey Island, for a few days of R&R. Because our time is limited my wife and I will take the interstate, the most direct route, and that means—Seattle.

The best time of day to pass Seattle is around 2 a.m., but unfortunately our schedule doesn't permit this, so the lanes will be packed with too many people, all moving too fast, when we get there. I'm the quintessential out-of-towner in Portland, never mind Seattle, where I'm an Obvious Rube. I wish they'd build a dedicated lane, next to the one for car-poolers, reserved for those of us who simply want to get out of the way (at the posted speed limit, of course).

BEEP! BEEP! Hey, I'm pedaling as fast as I can!

No Sense At All

You know how annoying it is when someone leaves a party in the wee hours of the morning and leans on their car's horn to let everyone within earshot know "We're leaving now!," and that includes you, who until that moment had been dreaming peacefully? That's how I feel about winter/spring today—it's being a real jerk.

In the weak dawn light yesterday morning I already knew we were in for it—one of the bird baths was wearing a snowy white top hat. As the day brightened my spirits darkened—I'd set the kettle on to heat water for coffee and two minutes later the power went out. I was amazed to find the emergency weather radio and thrilled we had the proper batteries for it, but our local stations didn't seem too concerned with the storm (which would set a record for the greatest snowfall total at this time of year). LOTS of regularly-scheduled commercials, though, and chatter, and not much else. There's a reason I leave the radio off in my 4Runner.

Ah, yes, the 4Runner—and how bad could the snow really be? Well, this wasn't the lovely post-card quality powder we normally experience, this was the wet, slushy, sets-like-cement variety and it was slick. The Toyota (in low 4WD) inched a few paces backward and, continuing on with its square dance, sashayed to the left across the snow and came to rest in an uncompromising position. It might have been a Do Si Do, come to think about it. Did I mention, the ground here isn't level?

After that there wasn't much to do except measure the snow depth, marvel at how quiet the house had become (and at how slowly the day moved except at nightfall), and hope the power company worked overtime.

As it turned out, the snow, measured on the platform feeder in the photo below, came in at nine inches deep. The house remained quiet until thirteen hours later, when the power was restored, we began to warm up, and the internet flickered to life. I shoveled around the Toyota this morning (no new snow) and returned it to its accustomed parking spot—later today the drive should finally be passable (the main roads are now clear). We haven't had a newspaper delivery these two days, but the mail came yesterday (they know how to chain a vehicle), and our best neighbor sent me home with a Thermos of hot water for tea yesterday, and these will all become stories to be recalled in coming years, and laughed about.

Except, this time, winter/spring seems like a bully. Mean-spirited. Able to wreck something for no reason. The weight of the heavy snow was too much for the tall fir nearest the house to bear—it was stripped of stout branches along one side, the long-favored perches for doves and goldfinch, a highway for the squirrels, and an evergreen curtain in the summer for us. Now the strong perfume of fresh sap hovers over a jumble of woody debris. I expect to find more damage when I go into the woods—there were many sharp cracks in the air yesterday—and while I remind myself that this isn't the first time this has happened, I can't quite forgive winter. Not this time. For once, this feels oddly personal, and that makes no sense at all.

From The Lost & Found

My wife developed a cold nearly two weeks ago, I joined her a few days in, and since then we've alternated symptoms and spent quality time together grumbling about what a waste of time it is to be under the weather. I chose that cliché instead of sick because, aside from a few teasing breaks, the days have been unrelentingly gray, wet, and boring company. There are no reliable hints of spring, save for the drooping daffodils and a phone call over the weekend from a friend in the Midwest, who reported that 80 degrees and short sleeves felt really wonderful. Wish you were here!

During my self-imposed house arrest it has been nearly impossible to string two sentences together for any blog subject, or read posts from others with interest and understanding. When I've opened the files all my recent photos have looked alike. I had to do something to snap myself out of it, so that's when I went to the Lost & Found Dept. I can always find something there, some item I've misplaced and subsequently forgotten about.

Only a few minutes passed before I happily reclaimed a bright, cloudless afternoon from 2005 when I was traveling in western Nevada. Like countless other photographers who've loitered a while in Rhyolite ghost town, I was drawn to the imposing shell of the Cook Bank building, where history's shadows still dance at the end of a day, long after closing time.

Hot Rock

If you've ever hiked to The Wave, in Arizona's Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, you may recognize this scene as the entrance to the main theater, just ahead and to the left. I've posted it tonight for one reason—our day has been oppressively drab and wet, we're both in the middle of annoying colds, and lacking a Hot Toddy I felt a hot rock was better than nothing as an antidote to it all.

The Lune Viaduct

Anytime I revisit the photos I've taken in England there is a likelihood I'll discover one (at least!) that I've not processed before, or considered carefully. It's no different than days gone by when transparency films were my currency—there are always a few frames that slip by, unnoticed, to return as a happy surprise later on. So after setting a pair of lambs free in the last post, it shouldn't surprise that I'd follow with more of the engaging English countryside, and wool. After all, it was the heart of spring along the Dales Way.

The peacefully grazing woolies here are dwarfed by the architecture of the Lune Viaduct, once part of the national railway system and now restored, and retired. England in the early 1960s began dismantling much of its rail system, focusing on so-called main lines at the expense of shorter spurs to smaller villages and towns. (We see the same emphasis here in the US—a map of national passenger train routes demonstrates how few remain.)

It was a sunny and pleasantly warm afternoon when my wife and I passed the viaduct—we stepped carefully across slippery rocks in a shaded stream and huffed/puffed up the flank of the hill to enjoy the view looking back along the steep-sided valley we'd just walked through. A few minutes later we were scrambling over another fence stile, looking ahead across a new field, the Lune and its company slipping from view until the next visit.

All Eyes On Spring

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold:  when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.  ~Charles Dickens

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~Hal Borland

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Of all the trips my wife and I have enjoyed across thirty years, my favorite is (and will likely remain) our walk along the Dales Way in England, in May of 2008. I've probably said this elsewhere but it deserves repeating—that was one time everything came together, just right. And perhaps, because it was during the spring, I've lately come to anticipate its arrival with more enthusiasm than I'd mustered in the past. Personally, autumn has always been Number 1—its light attracts my senses in ways no other season does. And let's face it, green isn't a unique shade in the Pacific Northwest. Evergreen has real meaning here.

The 2012 edition of spring is shaping up as a slow starter, with winter forecast to hang around for a while. I might have to tune in to the Masters golf tournament in April to see dogwoods. But we had one of those days this week that Dickens described so well, which offers hope that Borland, in his turn, is also right.

A Picture Out Of Time

Until last week I had no idea who my ancestors were, nor a clue where they came from (although I heard Scotland mentioned once).

Growing up, I don’t recall my father saying much about his father. Somehow I knew he’d been a butcher, and that his name was Fred. That was it, until my mother, years later, told me his name was Wilfred—not Fredrick, or Alfred, my initial assumptions. I’d never have guessed.

He died in 1944, six years before my birth, and as I’ve learned recently his father (my great-grandfather Andrew) had also passed on prior to my father’s birth. Maybe it was because he’d not met his grandfather that my dad didn’t think it important to mention mine.

So when I Googled Stormont the other day I wasn’t expecting much. It’s not a common surname, yet barely an hour later I had a precise ancestral path leading to the late 1700s. The emigration began with Samuel (and his wife, Martha) in 1772, when they left Ireland for a new start in America, in South Carolina.

I hadn’t been Irish for an hour when further online research revealed that Samuel, with other members of his church, had migrated from Scotland to northern Ireland—so I was a descendant of Scotsmen. I kept at it for a couple of days, running down any leads I discovered, and in the end the information petered out with grandfather Fred.

While Samuel Stormont remained in South Carolina, other members of his family moved to Indiana in the mid-1800s. Eventually some—like Andrew—went on to Nebraska. Wilfred took his family to South Dakota, too, as I was surprised to learn—Dad hadn’t said anything about living there. But he was a small child then, and probably didn’t remember. Finally, for reasons I’ll never know, the family arrived in Oregon, probably in the 1930s. And here I am.

I haven’t found any photographs (or paintings) of my new-found ancestors, except for Wilfred’s later years (cameras were a luxury item when he was young). But I did stumble upon a Web page showing headstones in Archer Cemetery, in Patoka Township, Gibson County, Indiana, where there’s no shortage of Stormonts, including great-grandfather Andrew. It’s kind of strange, seeing your name in all that eternally crumbling stone, even when it's misspelled. As I've told people for years, "No A, no E, no U."

I’m content with what I’ve learned about our family origins—I’ve no desire to track down other descendants who came after Samuel. It’s enough to know where the name originated, and this, from The Internet Surname Database: The name means the hill (mond or mont), covered by brushwood (storres), and this place was first recorded in the 12th century.

That would have been a picture.