I'm done

I’m done
ruminating on my failures,
rehashing my mistakes,
cowering in my shame,
beating myself up,
discounting my accomplishments,
feeling sorry for myself,
and making excuses.

I’m done
analyzing
my second-grade trauma,
my adolescent depression,
my college shame,
my business failures,
and my financial losses.

I’m eighty-one.
I’m physically fit.
I’m stubborn.
I have cancer.
I don’t give up.
I’m a survivor.

Why school vouchers create economic disparity

The arguments seem to make sense at first. School vouchers allow low-income children to attend better schools. They get to use their allotment for schooling that will make them more productive citizens. It seems so egalitarian.

In practice, however, it doesn’t work that way at all. Here in New Hampshire, they are called “Education Freedom Accounts". The program was sold as a way to help low-income students in bad public schools transfer to better private schools.

What actually happened is that 75% of the students getting voucher money were already enrolled in private and religious schools.

What vouchers have done is to reinforce class discrimination. And wealthy Americans understand that. For all their claims of promoting educational equity, they understand that it gives their children an advantage over working-class children. Their children get to attend private schools on the public dime that leads them to better universities. After college, their children end up with better employment opportunities. And they want it that way. It’s one of their two biggest reasons for championing school vouchers.

The second reason is even more odious. Greed! Vouchers also slash their private school tuition costs at the expense of working-class taxpayers. And now that the limit of income eligibility has been completely eliminated, New Hampshire’s wealthiest families get their tuition paid with your tax dollars.

State Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut has no interest in providing a fair education for all New Hampshire school children. He has advocated for expanding the school voucher program and increasing the amount of public tax dollars going to private and religious schools. He projected that the program would cost $3.3 million. It actually cost $27 million in its first two years of operation.

Here are the facts:

Private school vouchers don’t work in rural New Hampshire.
Vouchers simply don’t provide school choice for students living in rural areas of New Hampshire. If these students are even able to use a voucher, their families probably can’t afford or manage the long, costly commute to a private school.

Private school vouchers don't fully serve low-income students.
The cost of tuition, books, uniforms and fees at private or religious schools that accept vouchers usually exceeds the voucher amount. This makes these schools unaffordable for most low-income families.

Private school vouchers undermine New Hampshire’s public schools.
Vouchers divert desperately needed public resources away from our public school systems to fund the education of a few students at private schools. We could better serve our children by using these funds to make the public schools stronger.

Private school vouchers do not save money for New Hampshire taxpayers.
The reduction in students from those public schools from which students leave for private voucher schools does not decrease their operating costs. It costs the same to run a public school for 200 students as it does for 210, but vouchered students take their share with them. This creates public school deficits and tax increases.

Private school vouchers do not lead to improvements in public schools.
To the contrary – by siphoning off public school funds, vouchers make it more difficult for public schools to make improvements.

As a result, most New Hampshire school vouchers are used by wealthy families whose children never attended public schools in the first place. These families can afford to pay private school tuition without help from working-class taxpayers. Private school vouchers are simply a way for wealthy families to get a taxpayer-funded discount on their private school tuition. And our public schools, which educate 90% of the state’s students, pay the price.

Vouchers not only widen the educational gap between working-class and wealthy families. They reinforce economic disparity.

Jaguar 3.8 Mk. II Sedan

On the first day of my first job after college, I was driving west out of Boston on Route 2 in a decrepit and rusty 1958 Volvo 445 station wagon — one I got for free from the side of a road. It was on its last legs, but it got me to my new job.

It was a warm summer morning, and the driver’s window was open. Suddenly, a pristine white Jaguar 3.8 Mk II sedan with a red accent stripe on the side streaked by at speed. The sound of its exhaust is something I have never forgotten. It was delightful.

To my surprise, the Jag was sitting in the parking lot when I pulled into my work. The owner was walking into the building, so I jumped out of my car and caught up with him. Malcolm Lee was to become one of my lifelong friends.

I was talking on the phone with him recently, when Malcolm told me a story I had completely forgotten — how I saved his life.

Shortly after we met, I went over to visit him with two coffees on a Saturday morning that he had told me he would be working on the Jag. His parents were in Europe, and he had the place to himself for a few weeks.

When I drove down the long driveway, Malcolm was under the Jag doing something. As I approached the car, I discovered the jack had fallen over and pinned him underneath. He begged in a weak voice to help him. I dropped the coffees, reset the jack, and lifted the car off him.

Malcolm was bruised but unhurt. I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t decided to stop by.

Soon after, he traded the Mk II for an E-type coupe, but that’s another story.

50 Barn Cupolas

I have been photographing barns for more than 40 years. During that time, I noticed that many old barns have elaborate cupolas. So I began shooting close-ups of the cupolas.

I selected fifty of the most interesting ones to include in my new book, 50 Barn Cupolas. Each cupola is different, and each one expresses the pride that its original owner took in his barn. Some have been lovingly restored – others are on their last legs.

The book explains how old New England dairy barns came to have cupolas. It takes you back to the nineteenth century when dairy farmers turned a ventilation problem into an opportunity to express their individuality. It also documents the way fifty nineteenth-century carpenters creatively executed the same project.

50 Barn Cupolas is available in both digital and printed versions.

Barn Cupolas

The word cupola is derived from the Greek word kupellon (a small cup) and the Latin cupella (a vault resembling an upside-down cup).

Cupolas evolved during the Renaissance and became extremely important architectural elements. They spread across Europe and became status symbols placed atop government buildings and the homes of royalty.

Cupolas served various purposes, but they were primarily used to add aesthetic appeal to the building they topped. Larger cupolas were sometimes accessible via an interior stairway, giving occupants a vantage point to look out over their surroundings. Smaller cupolas, known as lanterns, were often designed to provide extra illumination for the space below.

Cupolas were produced in various shapes and sizes but were commonly square or hexagonal and much smaller than the structure to which they’re attached. Large, extravagant cupolas appear on some of the world’s greatest buildings and are often dome-shaped and large enough to be a major architectural feature on a building.

As dairy farms grew larger in the late 1800s, they began storing more hay. Intense heat could build up to the point of spontaneous combustion when fresh air was cut off from a barn full of hay, destroying both the hay and the barn. And stale air didn’t just smell bad. A source of oxygen was needed to replenish the air consumed by humans and animals.

Cupolas became an iconic feature on barns because they provided a means for heat to escape and fresh air to enter. Classic barn cupolas were mounted over a hole in the roof and usually louvered to catch the wind that was forced up the sides of a slanted roof. The fresh air flowed through the cupola and down into the barn. The downward angle of the louvers kept rainwater out while allowing fresh air in. Cupolas also provided enough air to allow hay to naturally dry while stored in the barn.

Farmers took great pride in their barns. They were the biggest single investment farmers made, so it’s understandable that many put elaborate cupolas on their barns to make a statement about their pride and prosperity.

Farm Silos

Silos were first used on farms in the 1880s to store silage, a moist and fermented fodder made from a variety of plant materials and primarily fed to cows. Silage had higher energy and protein levels than dried hay, making it possible for dairy farmers to keep their cows in reliable milk production during the winter months and provide year-round income.

Storing silage for several months involved keeping moisture levels high while keeping oxygen levels to a minimum so fermentation could take place. Round wood silos became popular because they minimized air leakage. Their vertical staves were held tightly in place by iron bands, equalizing the outward pressure and eliminating interior corners where the silage could spoil.

The fermentation process unfortunately produced silage acids that gradually deteriorated the silo. By 1900, wood silos began to be replaced by other materials that were more resistant to deterioration from silage seepage like masonry, steel and even glass. These newer silos produced better results but don’t have the visual appeal of the early wood silos.

Broken Barn -- Littleton NH

Northern New England still has many of these lovely old barns along it's roadsides. When an old barn falls out of use, it's not long before it falls altogether. I want to capture images of as many as possible before they disappear.

Discouraged and Despondent

at the selfishness and avarice in the world,
narcissistic world leaders who destroy lives
and families and even societies for no other reason
than to sate their voracious appetites for power,
opportunistic politicians who lie and cheat
their way into office and then use their position
and influence to line their pockets,
predatory international corporations that justify
their exploitation of the world’s finite resources
and the public as their rightful prey,
wealthy individuals who look down on their less
“successful” fellow citizens as inferior
and somehow less deserving of happiness,
and even average American families who
feel unconditionally entitled to indulge
their selfishness at the expense of
starving families around the world.

Coffin Nails

I’m now almost ten years older than my father was when he died from a heart attack and emphysema caused by 50 years of smoking Camel cigarettes.

He was one of those guys who always looked debonair with a cigarette in his hand. There was something about the way he held the cigarette between his fingers with his wrist at a jaunty angle. Some other men and a few women could pull off that casual but elegant pose, but most of them died young like my father.

Because I wanted to be like him, I started smoking Camels at fifteen. Full of teenage bravado,I called them coffin nails.

My children shamed me into quitting after learning in school about the dangers of smoking. “Stop smoking, Daddy. We don’t want you to die,” they pleaded. And it worked.

That’s probably why I’m almost ten years older than my father was when he died.

Once Upon a Time

“The sky is falling. The sky is falling,”
said Chicken Little to Henny Penny.
Cocky Locky believed her and told
Ducky Lucky who told Goosey Loosey
who passed it on to Turkey Lurkey.
But Foxy Loxy was hungry.

We’re so traumatized by knowing
the end of civilization could be near,
that we can’t bring ourselves to do
much of anything about it.

We keep passing it on to our friends
on social media who pass it on
to their friends on social media
who pass it on to their friends.
But the politicians are hungry.

“The air is dying. The air is dying,”
said the scientist to the politician,
who kept his mouth shut so his
oil industry donors would keep giving.

“The species are dying. The species are dying,”
said the naturalist to the politician,
who kept her mouth shut so her chemical
industry donors would keep giving.

“The soil is dying. The soil is dying,”
the farmer said to the politician,
who kept his mouth shut so his
big ag donors would keep giving.

This is not a child’s bedtime story.
This is a horror story about the fate
of your grandchildren and
great-grandchildren.