Another one bites the dust!

Across town, one of the oldest factories is being torn down. It's been there as long as I can remember. I'm not sure what it was originally built for, but it's main use was manufacturing shoes. Genesco Shoe Factory. My sister-in-law's parents worked there when she was a kid. I've known other people who had family who worked there.

It has been unused as a factory for a couple years, now and I frequently thought it would be a great place to convert into loft apartments.

One of the neatest things is, it has it's own water tower. Sticks way up above all the closest building and is old. Guess that is the neatest things about the whole building. It's old. I googled Genesco and found out it was built by the city and rented to the General Shoe Company for $1 per year. It was completed in 1934. Almost 80 years old. And now it's mostly gone. Right after the 1929 depressions, it was the "Savior" of the town.

I took a picture a couple years ago of a sycamore tree that was growing out of the roof. I'd include that photograph, but it's on the hard drive of my old computer that crashed Wednesday. Hopefully I'll be able to upload that data to my new laptop very soon.

I took several pictures of the Genesco ruins last week and it has some great lines. Here are a couple of them along with the water tower.

Loved that sky, too.

And here are a couple I took today.

I have to say, this is the cleanest destruction site I've ever seen. See the first photo.

And oh, the reason I am so fascinated by this deconstruction? I should have been an architect. But that's another blog.

Got my data back so here's the sycamore growing on the roof of the old Genesco building.

Enjoy!

What do you wanna be when you grow up?

Every time I think about doing something to bring in some extra money, I remember my Aunt Annie, about 92, telling me, "I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up." So what do I want to do when I grow up?

I've always loved photography. I bought my first camera in Hawaii at the PX on Fort Shafter. I had checked out the cameras of everyone I saw with a camera and read everything I could get my hands on. So I decided on an Olympus OM1. They were 30% smaller, 30% quieter, and 30% something else I thought was important. I would go to the PX every couple weeks to check it out. Finally after saving up the $300 plus, I told them, "I'll take it."

I loved that camera. Even though I was in Hawaii, I took a ton of black & white photos, learned to use the darkroom, and started shooting "garbage." One of my favorites was of cars that had been pushed off into the sea. There was a strip of beach off Kamehameha Highway that was a cliff with huge boulders at the bottom. There had to have been at least 10 cars lying among the rocks.

Arizona State had just started a program about "garbage," and I thought it was a calling. I still photograph "garbage..." unusual things in common places or common things in unusual places. Commodes are one of my favorites.

Lately, I've been looking at photos on Google Earth and have found some very interesting ones in Tullahoma by a guy by the name of Maurice. Check out this one.

https://picasaweb.google.com/soraxtm

I've been inspired by his technique. Here are a couple of my endeavors.

I don't have the computer program to do what he is doing, but I'm enjoying it what I'm doing and having some fun. 

So maybe I don't have to "know" what I want to do when I grow up. Maybe I just do what I enjoy when I enjoy it. I'm also getting my needle into fabric art. It might not bring in money, but it's the best way I've found to spend my time not making money.

So what are you doing just because it's fun?