he spoke to me and he said..

"this isn't really all of me. it's not enough. i don't want to start there."
so i went back to the landscape and i took the camera out and started snapping again, and just sort of listening to what he had to say, to the stories he told. some very interesting things had happened in his travels through Europe, for one, and i never knew, but if i had just stopped and listened.....
see, because i got so wrapped up in what happened to him in Kansas that i kind of forgot that here was this person with so much more, with so much to tell..so now that's what i'm doing, just kind of sitting here, snapping pictures and listening to what he has to say.
Manfred has so much to tell....

from Manfred's window..

dabbling.......finding his home

1

After the rain and thunder-storms of July had come and gone, leaving us with dew-drenched grasses and cathedral-skies in our backyards, the house on Gesrah Street was more quiet than it had ever been. Daddy had been dead and gone for nearly 7 years by then, and Charlie left in '49, and no one was sure where he was now. Momma didn't ask after him anymore, and I knew enough not to say anything that might conjure up unecessary worry. Momma wasn't more than 52 or 53 now, and she was as healthy as she'd ever been, but when it came to Charlie and his affairs, she'd just as soon as not think about him at all, except as the little boy she remembered from way back when. Last I heard from him, he was in Maine, at Ogunquit, staying with an old friend from his fishing days. He said he was looking for work and wasn't sure when he'd be home. He said he'd keep in touch and to take care of Momma. I haven't heard from my big brother in 3 years.
These days, it was just me and Momma in that big, lonely house on Gesrah Street.