What’s so nice about retirement? For one thing, time belongs to me.
My six-year-old mother Elisabeth stands in the kitchen doorway dressed for Fasching, the Bavarian version of Mardi Gras.
Today is the 100th anniversary of my mother's birth
Today would have been my mother's 100th birthday. She was 90 when she died in 2012.
The photo above from 1928 (another treasure from the archive) shows my mother dressed for Fasching, the Bavarian version of Mardi Gras held Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1928. She would have witnessed the Schäfflertanz, or Cooper's Dance, performed in Marienplatz, Munich, which is the subject of the second photo below and the video I found on YouTube.
This video from Reuters news service shows the Schäfflertanz as it was performed in 1928.
The coopers dance every seven years. It allegedly had its beginnings in 1517, when the plague wiped out a good portion of Munich. I guess the town needed some cheering up. The last time the coopers performed the Schäfflertanz was in 2019, so you still have time to mark your calendars for the next event.
Or, you can witness a mechanical recreation every day in the clock tower of city hall on Marienplatz in downtown Munich.
German barrel makers wearing tailcoats, black trousers, white stockings and a bright leather apron dance in front of crowd in Munich in 1928.
Wolf Moon Over Marriott Park — January 2022
in Landscape
The moon is a curious presence. It’s always there, somewhere, but modern humans don’t always pay much attention to it, unlike creatures of the night.
I took my camera with its primary 50mm lens on our evening walk the other day and was rewarded with the sight of the mist-shrouded moon peering through the oak branches in the park across from our house.
Back home, in front of my computer, I created the triptych effect in Adobe Photoshop. Maybe we’ll hang it on the wall one day.