Trees - Healthy and Green

Tree - Locke Park #1

Locke Parke in Fridley is where I say my photographic journey began. When I was a senior in high school, my math teacher/tennis coach scheduled a test on Senior Skip Day. This was 1984, before these events became school-sponsored trips to Valley Fair. I think the reason why skip-day moved away from the kegger in the park is because my friend, Tony Martie, was shot in the eye with a pellet gun.

Tony was a real photographer, even in HS, and is a Commercial photographer in Dallas. One of his eyes is missing a big chunk of blue. He wore a patch for a while.

Anyway, I missed all of this "excitement" on the student planned skip day. I took my math test, went home, mowed the lawn, and went to Locke Park with a point and shoot camera to take pics along Rice Creek. Certainly not a much fun as getting drunk at Taylors Falls, but more fun than being shot in the eye. Unfortunately, I dropped my camera in the creek. None of the creek shots turned out.

Returning to this park 24 years later...all the trees are a bit bigger. I went to the steep bank where I dropped my camera and wondered why I ever went up there. It's a beautiful park. I can see why I spent all of my youth there. Plus, once, some of my friends and I found a field of enormous pot plants. A week after we found them, it was paved into a parking lot.

I'm excited by these tree images from my Locke Park series. Healthy and green plants, even the Chinese Elm are healthy looking.