semillerimages.com - Image of the Week 8.30.06 - Jerry
Steve
You need to look at the picture first.
http://semillerimages.com/iow-link/iow-8-30-06-jerry.html
Jerry is sitting in front of a million dollar house. It has come to
that in San Luis Obispo county. One block from Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo, you need a parking permit to park on his street. Two other
'families' live on his street, the rest of the houses are filled with
transient students. His father bought the house in the 1950's for a low
five figure number. Jerry's father was a printer, he taught at Cal
Poly. Jerry's mother was an english teacher in the north county. Jerry
was born in Wisconsin, went to college, served in the military, worked
a bewildering number of professions including teaching english to
Algerians, and as a translator for an oil company in Saudi Arabia.
Jerry speaks Arabic, German, French, a little Spanish, and has an
expansive vocabulary in English. Jerry married a Canadian born Russian
woman who works as a travel agent. Jerry met his wife at UCLA when he
was getting his masters degree. His wife, Olga, speaks Russian, French,
German, and also has an expansive vocabulary in English. Jerry fits in
his military uniform from the 50's - I have seen it personally and have
a photograph somwhere to prove it. Jerry has an office as messy as my
apartment. Jerry likes beer, good beer, but he settles for the cheap
stuff when friends come over. Jerry and Olga have a son my age, whose
beard makes my little fringe of hair I had look like two eyelashes duct
taped together. Olga and her son Peter attend a Russian Orthodox church
in Santa Maria. Jerry stays home when they go to church. Olga goes to
an orthodox church, but never, ever proselytizes. Both Jerry and Olga
are extremely accepting of anyone, including me. My ex-girlfriend did
not like Jerry and Olga - and I believe it speaks volumes, in a
negative fashion, about her - because I have never met anyone else who
does not like them. One cannot but like them. Jerry and Olga are some
of the most mundane, normal people you would ever meet, but they have
lived amazing lives in an extemely humble fashion. Jerry has no
presumtions. Jerry and I met when we both were working at Hearst San
Simeon State Historical Monument. I cannot remember the exact time we
became friends, but we did sometime in the 90's. Jerry and I rode to
work together quite often. Jerry's mother taught english to a couple of
50 something tour guides still working at the castle, one of whom
became an employee of the United States Government State Department.
That couple live in a million dollar house (or maybe $700,000 I am not
sure, but it's really nice) in Paso Robles. When Jerry would begin
tours at the castle, he would tell the people with video cameras to
take a step forward to allow the people behind to pass. I cannot really
express the way he did this in words here, but it's the only thing that
has ever annoyed me about the man... just something about how long he
would take to say it I think. Jerry never traded tours with me either,
but that was not really annoying because I knew he would never trade
them. Jerry had an old beat up VW bug that we would ride in to work.
Jerry drove 55mph. Always. Jerry never listened to the radio or music
when we drove to work in his car. Neither of us ever felt uncomfortable
for the two hours each day when we did not speak a word to each other
except in greeting and in goodbye. When I drove to work with Jerry, we
would go 80mph the whole way. When I drove to work, we would listen to
various death metal bands, loudly, like I was traveling alone. Jerry
told me, and I believe him, although you won't, that he enjoyed
listening to the various bands - and then he would tell me why and
contrast and compare with previous albums he had heard on rides with
me. I actually did not believe at first he enjoyed them, until he at
length told me why he preferred one band to another. Jerry shocked me.
Jerry took my beloved music at face value, rejected the silly posturing
of the names of the bands, the titles of the albums, and the
incomprehensible lyrics of the songs which he would read in the liner
notes of the CDs, and accepted the music at the face value of their
artistic merit as I do. Jerry shocked me. I would say that I am
relatively hard to shock. Jerry does not like to mow his lawn - if you
can all it a lawn. Jerry rides his old bike all over town. Jerry was
riding by the house of my new car pool mate Jeff when he invited me
over the next day to his house for a beer. A good beer. Jerry thinks,
and expresses as such, that I am the greatest photographer since the
medium was invented. Jerry sees elements of my photographs that I do
not see. I disagree with Jerry's assessment of my skills. Jerry makes a
great subject though. Jerry and I had a beer in his kitchen. I needed
to smoke, so we adjouned to his front yard. A friend of Jerry's bought
him the bench he is sitting on so he and Olga could sit on it and enjoy
the weather of San Luis Obispo in the evening. Jerry and Olga hardly
ever sit on it. Jerry likes women, in a male-ish artistic appreciative
fashion - being that he is in his 70's. Jerry told me that evening that
he liked the 'scenery' along his street. As Jerry and I sat in his
front yard, a young college girl came out of her house across the
street in her underwear to retrieve something from her car. I agreed
with Jerry that the scenery was nice. Jerry's wife came home, and I
convinced her to eat dinner in their front yard. I asked if they had
ever had eaten in the front yard before as we enjoyed a nice repast
with each other. Jerry and Olga, in twenty something years had never
eaten in their front yard before. Jerry, Olga and I enjoyed a
delicious, albeit simple meal in the deliciously pleasant weather
together. (yes, i purposely meant to use delicious twice in the same
sentence) After the meal, I went home and later enjoyed another beer
with my friend Forrestt, and we listened to some music tracks on
MySpace of a band from a television show on the cartoon network that
makes fun of death metal bands. We laughed and enjoyed each other's
company for a time.
Jerry lives in a million dollar house - in San Luis Obispo, California.
Take care,
*steve