Memory and Canada Geese

 Memory is a strange thing. It is entirely your own. People who experienced things with you in the same time and space sometimes don't have the same memories at all. You can hear them tell an entirely different story. Which perhaps isn't so strange, because we know we don't even have the same perceptions and understanding while things are going down. But after the fact, who's to say? Memories, like feelings, belong to you and have a truth and validity beyond verifiable facts. 

Of course, now that I'm old (ish), memories take on a whole other complex dimension. First, there are TONs of them. Second, my brain is getting a little leaky.  Finally, I keep more and more memories for (with and about) people who aren't around any longer.  Old person's game: "Remember when _____" Thanks to the internet, we sometimes get to validate our memories. For a while, I couldn't find anybody else who remembered that diet Dr. Pepper used to come in a blue can. Well? The internet agrees, and there are even pictures. I remember those cans. Blue is my favorite color, and a young man I loved who had diabetes drank diet Dr. Pepper. 

So what does all that have to do my painting of Canada geese? Well. potentially almost anything. The site of this painting's creation is a park in Alhambra called Almansor Park. Named for a street which was named by the same imaginative Washington Irving fan as the city.  I think I remember that there used to be a trash dump on the site. I know that there was a trash dump somewhere in Alhambra (or at least super-close to Alhambra) where I took photographs in 1976 or 1977. The photographs featured a chimney silhouetted against the setting sun. I still have the prints. (I think, somewhere.)  It's not easy (for me at least) to find much information at all about former trash dumps on the internet. Sensitive topic maybe. You can find reference to the fact that Alhambra Park and the adjacent golf course were built on a landfill.  But they were built in the mid-1950s, possibly before I was born and definitely before I engaged in photography. 

Who knows? I like Canada geese, except that their droppings are ubiquitous and messy. I understand, perhaps because I was told, that they originally migrated between cold climates and temperate climates, but migration is difficult, and some of them have permanently settled in more temperate climates. At least for now.