5/27/09 Pat
Visited my friend Robert “Pat” Patterson before I flew to Ohio in April. Pat is family to me. I met him about 4 years ago when I showed up at the Yountville Veterans Home fresh out the Marines and excited about my first photo class. Pat, 83, is a former Marine that enlisted at age 16 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He went on to fight in the Battle of Guadalcanal.
I’ve spent a lot of time with Pat, absorbed a lot of his stories and his past. He grew up near the train tracks in Duncan, Oklahoma and despite living a very modest life of hard work, he is one of the richest men I know. It’s difficult to describe the force of this man but his strength of character and his resilience is unmatched. I know that if there is any kind of afterlife, Pat will be there to welcome me with his bear voice, “Hot Damn!! I told you this shit was real, oh baby, let’s dance.” I could write a lot about Pat and the conversations we have had, but I’ll save it for now. I look forward to eating more oranges with you dear friend, hope you’re hanging in there.
This entry was written by , posted on May 27, 2009 at 2:03 pm, filed under Americans, Personal, Portrait and tagged B&W, california, Marine, Pat, Patterson, Portrait, USMC, Veterans, War, WWII, Yountville. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
1/27/09 The Beginning
After a long time, I’ve decided to start a blog. I’ve been holding out because I wanted to be sure I was ready to generate material consistently. Now is as good a time as ever. As a start to this blog, I’ll be slowly strip-mining my archives. This frame is from 2005, Yountville Veterans Home, Calif.
This entry was written by , posted on January 27, 2009 at 6:41 pm, filed under Americans, Personal and tagged Drums, Elderly, Veterans, woman. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.