2009 archives, part 2

Three  more from 2009, with the general theme of hanging out.

First, on a warm April evening, these teens congregate at the theater at Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington. The river had been up and gone down, so the lowest levels of the park were covered in mud and wouldn't be cleaned until after Memorial Day.

Here, in August, is a guy in a motorized wheelchair feeding birds at the park.

I used to take old bread down there and give to the birds myself. Then I read that for ducks and geese, that's pretty much junk food. Pigeons, I don't know.

And here's one from June of that year, taken at Virginia Point Park at Kenova, W.Va., at the mouth of the Big Sandy River. Some mayflies found their way onto a spider's web. Pardon me if my mourning is subdued. I've had a couple of summertime day trips ruined by swarming mayflies.

2009 archives, part 1

I was looking for something and got an idea. Why not go way back in the archives to say, 2009, the year this blog started, and dig out some photos to show? Some of these you may have seen before. Some have not been put on line.

So over the next few days, I'll run two or three a day, as long as there's interest from either you or me. We'll have the usual blog stuff, too, but I just felt the need to look back a couple of years.

First, some photos from the Point Pleasant river festival that year. Here are a lot of sternwheelers tied up to the city's riverfront park ...

And here is a closeup of one, the Juanita.

I liked this boat in particular because in the early to mid 1980s I did a piece for the Huntington newspaper about the three remaining working sternwheelers on the Ohio -- the Lady Lois of Merdie Boggs in Catlettsburg KY, the Donald B down at Maysville KY and the Juanita of AEP at Lakin WV. Back then, a fellow by the name of Worthy Love worked on the Juanita as a deckhand of sorts.

The Juanita has since changed hands, and on this particular day I chatted with the fellow who owned it.