Jim Hair

It is amazing to think that there are people quietly living down the street, in our town, who literally “saved the world.”

Willie: Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur 2184D50v110115

from the letter sent to Willie by the French Consul General :

“Dear Mr. Southerland,

It is a great honor and privilege to present you with the Knight of the Legion of Honor medal. Through this award, the French government pays tribute to the soldiers who did so much for France and Western Europe. More than 65 years ago, you gave your youth to France and the French people. Many of your fellow soldiers did not return, but they remain in our hearts.

Thanks to the courage of these soldiers, to our American Friends and Allies, France has been living in peace for the past 6 decades. They saved us and we will never forget. I want you to know that for us, the French People, they are heroes. Gratitude and remembrance are forever in our souls….

To show our eternal gratitude, the government of the French Republic has decided to award you the Legion of Honor. Created by Napoleon, it is the highest honor that France can bestow upon those who have achieved remarkable deeds for France.”

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour (French: Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur) is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the First Republic, on 19 May 1802. The Order is the highest decoration in France.

The order’s motto is Honneur et Patrie (“Honour and Fatherland”), and its seat is the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur on the left bank of the River Seine in Paris

In the French Revolution all French orders of chivalry were abolished. It was the wish of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul and de facto sole ruler, to create a reward to commend civilians and soldiers and from this wish was instituted a Légion d’Honneur, a body of men that was not an order of chivalry, for Napoleon did know that France did not want a new nobility system, but a recognition of merit. The Légion used however the organisation of old French Orders of Chivalry, and so Willie has been awarded the medal rank of “Chevalier” (Knight).

I would often stop and talk to Mike and Diane as they sat near Joy Ann’s Bakery for a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I had seen them together for at least a year before I approached them. Mike’s speech is slurred, so my side of the conversation is mostly nodding and responding to what I think he said. Diane spoke very softly and so there was very little give and take in our few words.

At some point Mike said they had been together for 20 years, and I made a few photographs of them, and gave them copies the week after. I was able to understand that Diane really liked them, except that she would have preferred Mike to be clean-shaven, and he laughed and said there was no way he would shave his beard. Soon after, Diane stopped coming to Main Street. It has been at least a year now, and Mike doesn’t seem to know where she is.

One of the photographs of them I really liked, and submitted it to the annual open juried exhibition at the Richmond Art Museum, and it was accepted. I told Mike, and he thought that was great, and I thought Diane might enjoy knowing that she is in the Art Museum too, so thought I would look for her.

I started at a nursing home near Downtown, and they referred me to another care center who basically introduced me to reality: if Diane were staying with them, they were prohibited from telling me. If they knew where Diane was, they were also prohibited from telling me. I don’t know Diane’s last name, I am not related to her, and Mike isn’t either, officially, and the staff asked if I knew her family? I don’t, and then thought what if Diane doesn’t have family, and because of privacy issues, whoever is taking care of her is prohibited from telling anyone?

If we do not have a family, do we just vanish?

It is amazing to see a photograph of my grandmother, the woman who raised me, who I had only known as a woman in her late fifties, as a girl of eight, with her parents and brothers. The expression on her face at eight was one I knew on the woman of 60, and I wonder if the thoughts she had looking into my camera as I made a portrait of her, were the same as the thoughts this little girl has.

Recently I was asked by a cousin for the date my grandmother came over to America from Wales, and so I pulled this photograph out of the box where my family history sleeps. Seeing it again I am reminded that this is why I became a photographer, and why I value the object that a printed photograph is. I can get lost in the image and the object on so many levels.

I remember these people, and through the image can see outwardly what they must have carried with them through their lives. The photograph is a document of a memory they held, having experienced the voyage firsthand, and seeing the image, I am given a little glimpse into that journey. I wonder who made the photograph and would guess that my great-grandfather handed his camera to a stranger to push the button. It is his writing beneath the image, so the negative must have been his, and looking at the reverse, it was never sent, but my grandmother wrote everyone’s name. I wonder if he printed a number of these and sent them back to the family who stayed in Wales to let them know they had made it to America, and what they looked like aboard the Cedric. I am grateful that my grandmother wrote her brother’s names on the card as I knew they were Mark and Doug, but seeing the card realize that Mark was named after his father. My grandmother wrote in her own style, and at some point I will have it analyzed to see what it tells of her character, and how much of it I remember, and what I might not have recognized. As I type this note on a keyboard I am aware that the words only have the meaning that they are given in a general sense, and the emotion that is carried by the handwritten line is missing. For this also I am grateful that my grandmother used a pen.

One hundred years after this photograph was made, I hold it in my hand and am amazed to have a postcard sent from so long a distance, in space as well as time.

Vicki and I had a great time at the 100 mile radius dinner at the Baxter’s Farm last night. It wasn’t the great food that I was most excited by though, as I have been hoping to find someone with a trampoline to make some photographs of friends flying. Mark was one of last nights jumpers.

Yesterday turned out nothing like I had planned, but it was full of great surprises.
I’m looking forward to another day full of unexpected gifts starting with a beautiful sunrise…

There are a number of great food vendors in downtown Portland. Vicki and I enjoyed Thai, Indian, Mexican and one of our favorites visually as well, was the Mediterranean “Ugarit”.

I have posted more photos of other “shops” at: