Based On A True Story: The Retiring Life

Friday, December 5, 2025

The Retiring Life

Photo: © Stan B.

Perhaps unconsciously it had to do with seeing Great Leader dozing off recently, repeatedly, seemingly incessantly- and FOX news desperately trying to nonchalantly sell us it's because our noon to five POTUS just works so much harder than any man in the office before him (when not cheating at golf).

But I doubt it. Actually, it was a lovely day of many steps but with little to show but two tired feet- as these things so often go... And then, there he was! And no, I'm not belittling old folk- Hell, I am one! Just a photo of a fellow human, being human (in a cute car)... My first decent photo marking retirement.

4 comments:

AnonymousDecember 7, 2025 at 10:47 PM
One surprise I discovered as a cyclist is the amazing number of people who spend time in parked cars. I noticed this phenomenon while trying to avoid being doored. Explanations? Maybe it’s the only place to find peace and solitude from noisy spouses or children in small houses or apartments. Maybe they listen to music. Maybe they enjoy sitting in their vehicle without burning gasoline to drive. Who knows?
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Stan B.December 7, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Heh-heh, all valid I'm sure- but here in the states I'm betting all the above would be dwarfed by the amount of people literally living in their cars!
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Grandmaster Flash- A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind.

Goethe- The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

African Proverb- The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

Ann Landers- Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Edward Snowden- I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.

Mohandas Gandhi- Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Zapata- La tierra es de quien la trabaja con sus manos.

Mark Twain- When the rich rob the poor, it's called business. When the poor fight back, it's called violence.

Milan Kundera- The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Voltaire- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Chris Hedges- Civilizations in the final stages of decay are dominated by elites out of touch with reality.

Christopher Hitchens- I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the US (Libertarians) that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.

Claude Chabrol- Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none.

Carl T. Rowan- It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.

African Proverb- The foreigner sees only what he knows.

George Orwell- The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

Elliott Erwitt- I don't believe that photography can change the world, but it can show the world changing.

Gilles Peress- I don't care so much anymore about 'good photography.' I am gathering evidence for history.

Yogi Berra- You can observe a lot just by watching.

Dorothea Lange- A camera is an instrument that teaches us how to see without a camera.

George Bernard Shaw- A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.
Henry David Thoreau- It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
Robert Dosineau- If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time.

Pentti Sammallahti- Everything I've photographed exists regardless of me, my role is only to be receptive. The most important thing is the luck... behind every good image there is the good luck too. Sometimes when you are in a right place in the right moment, you'll feel that the image is a gift and even that it doesn't matter who's behind the camera.

Robert Adams- Almost all photographers have incurred large expenses in the pursuit of tiny audiences, finding that the wonder they’d hoped to share is something few want to receive.

Duane Michals- Never trust any photograph so large it can only fit inside a museum.

Lisette Model- Photography is the easiest art, which perhaps makes it the hardest.

Andrew Savulich- The best way to make money with a camera is to sell it.

Paul Watson- A person without regrets is a person who has not lived a life of diversity of interests and cause.

MLK- Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Prof. Ivan King- Can we really claim to know anything about the nature of the universe if we don't know the properties, or even the nature, of 90% of its material?

Dr. Wernher von Braun- It is as impossible to confirm them (UFOs) in the present as it will be to deny them in the future.

Dr. Edgar Mitchell- I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.