Photo Prayer 2021-37 -- Hunnicutt House
I still think of the Hunnicutt House in the early 1970s as a magical place where left-wing intellectuals and political activists shared their lives with entomology researchers and philosophy students like me. Unlike me, those others pursued their ideals single-mindedly, or so it appears to me, me the one who drifted. What a zig-zag path I’ve traveled! I can just as easily think of myself as addled or blessed. Theodore Roethke’s poem “The Waking” applies. Perhaps I learned by going where I had to go. If I felt my fate in what I could not fear, how daring I have been and continue to be. Look! I’m putting my words in front of you. For some reason I am confident you will nod and understand. Even as we speak, now becomes history. We cannot snap the shutter fast enough.
1973 photo of Nancy Folbre, now professor emeritus in economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
then posing in the Hunnicutt House, Austin, Texas, built 1872, moved 1925, demolished 1974.
Image copyright 1973; text, 2021 by Danny N. Schweers.
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Comments
Elaine wrote:
Nodding. Understanding. [DANNY REPLIED: At first, I was puzzled by your two-word comment. Then I looked at what I had written.]
Julie wrote:
This may be your best yet, Danny. The photo you chose captures my particular place at this particular time, and your words echoed my own, which were thought alone in my head, not an hour ago. As for being addled or blessed, there are equally numbered cadres in both camps as they look in at the who/what/where/when/and how of my life. Absolute truth in snapping the shutter fast enough. Absolute truth. [DANNY REPLIED: Glad it resonated with you so strongly.]
Hugh wrote:
I was thinking about Rothke the other day and how much I love his world view. Like Kertesz in words, for me. [DANNY REPLIED: Kertesz, yes! Love that you paired him with Rothke.]
Alice wrote:
The world is a better place for your having followed your "zig-zag" path. [DANNY REPLIED: What happened was that I would pursue physics, philosophy, publishing, typesetting, business, graphic design, and website design until those pursuits stopped moving me or became dead themselves (typesetting). One reason I never became a professional photographer was that I did not want what I loved to turn into work.]
Bill wrote:
I have fond memories of Hunnicutt House, for instance a potluck at which someone brought live grubs. They were kind of bland, but hanging out and laughing about them was great. You say “Even as we speak, now becomes history.” And history becomes incorporated into the next Now. How blessed we are to be able to watch it happen! [DANNY REPLIED: One of the entomologists in the house would have supplied the grubs. Ronald J. Prokopy, 1935–2004, was especially partial to them.]