Rough day yesterday. Just absolutely rough. Suffice it to say that I screwed some stuff up that shouldn’t have been screwed up in the first place.
Yes, Chuck messes up in life. So I’m in a bit of a self-loathing, Chuck-hating mood right now…
And I need something, anything, to change my outlook. Well, I do have this ticket to the Big E… maybe going there will cheer me up.
If nothing else, I can see if my three photos – The Star-Barn of Harmony Corners, Beecher Creek Falls or Jesus Saves – picked up some ribbons.
And if all three images pick up some silk, this will be the third consecutive year that every entry I placed in the Big E returned some sort of stripe.
Okay, Chuck, just get in the car and drive to Springfield.
Honestly, this year’s photo competition season has been a mixed bag. Third place here, honorable mention there, made it to the wall here, complete shutout over there… My run this year wasn’t as strong as last year’s run, and I think I’m starting to feel some pressure and depression over it. That, and just this end-of-summer start-of-fall malaise I’m going through… It’s now up to the Big E to cheer me up. Give me something to root for.
It’s about 1:00. I arrive at the Big E. Man, it looks like every parking lot is full. No matter… because I’m an exhibitor, I get a one-day parking pass. So let’s go in and –
LOT FULL
Okay, Lot 1 is full. Well, I can still park. Where’s the nearest parking area?
It’s Lot 9.
And Lot 9 is about three counties away from the Big E. Well, it felt like three counties. And all the lime-shirted traffic controllers kept guiding me away from one lot, away from another lot, at one point they almost guided me right off the property.
Finally I found a parking spot about a mile away from the ticket booth. Geez, maybe I should have just paid $10 and parked in one of those temporary lots that 11 months out of the year are business parking lots and front lawns.
Okay. Let’s just go to the New England Center and see how things look. Wow. Lots and lots of pictures this year. I know my buddy Bob Burger snagged two blue ribbons, while blog reader Julie “Chemgallhws” snagged at least a second-place ribbon for a photo of the Big E’s sidewalk clock at twilight.
Okay, here we go. Star-Barn of Harmony Corners… and…
Okay. We’ve got a good start. White ribbon for third place.
Man, the New England Center is humid today. How many people are here? Hundreds? Thousands? Is the entire population of Connecticut in this building?
Hard to breathe. Gotta sit down.
No, wait. I have two other pictures around here somewhere… Beecher Creek Falls is over on this wall, my landscape picture… and…
Now this is interesting. Beecher Creek Falls is my second “flowing water” picture to ever earn silk at the Big E, as Poestenkill Cascade snagged a blue ribbon two years ago.
Wow, I can see the air in front of me, that’s how humid it is in the building. Maybe I should go over and get one of the Big E’s eclairs or cream puffs. Yeah, that’s exactly what I need to eat. Something thick and sticky and fattening on a super-humid day. I need that like I need to ingest some caulk like it was canned cheese.
So as I took a picture of my picture of Beecher Creek Falls, someone walked up to me. “You know,” she said, “You could enter this competition next year.”
I looked over. It was a Big E volunteer. You know what? I’m going to have some fun.
“If there are pictures like this,” I said, “maybe I will enter next year, if you think I should.”
“Yes,” she smiled. “You should enter. But I wouldn’t suggest you enter that picture you just took with your camera.”
“You mean the one of this river?” I smiled.
“Yes. Once that person enters the picture, he can’t enter it next year.”
“But if I took a picture of that picture, could I enter my picture of that picture next year?”
“I’ll have to check,” she said, looking a bit confused at the possibility of something like this occurring. “Let me talk with the organizer of the photo competition.”
Okay, I’ll let the joke go for a couple more minutes. Oh wait, here’s Jesus Saves on this wall –
Okay, NOW I feel better. Not “dancing on the rooftop” better, but at least there’s a part of a smile.
I also walked over to the photo competition director’s desk, and let the organizers know that I was just goofing with one of the volunteers, no harm no foul. All of us had a good laugh about it. What, you thought I was going to leave that poor girl hanging like that? Silly you.
Okay, now all I have to do is find the parking lot where the Blackbird is located…
About an hour and a half later, I found the Blackbird. And about another half-hour later, I finally got out of the Big E parking lot.
So let’s do a little recapping…
- Jesus Saves becomes the first picture since The Jumbuck to earn blue ribbons in more than one competition.
- The Star-Barn of Harmony Corners becomes the first picture garnered by my Kodak Medalist II camera to take a silk.
- Beecher Creek Falls picks up its second ribbon, after scoring a third-place stripe at the Vermont State Fair.
- Jesus Saves now joins Poestenkill Cascade (2012) and The Jumbuck (2013) as Big E blue-ribbon winners.
- Three consecutive Big E entries… three consecutive years where all entries received silk at the Big E.
Okay, that almost feels good.
But now I have to think about next year. I have to concentrate on what I did right and how to fix what I did wrong.
How to fix what I did wrong… hmm… sounds almost like how my day started out.
Chuck The Writer 
Success. that’s what your E ticket will bring!
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NICE!!! Next year pay the $10 for parking!
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Congratulations, Chuck. Well deserved, indeed.
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Congrats, Chuck! I like that “Jesus saves” photo. I don’t understand the “technology,” as I’ve said before. I never progressed beyond my Kodak Instamatic eons ago. But, as I’ve express delight and even awe at what artists see—especially variations in color and details that we mortals would never see, I am delighted and awed at what you and other photographers see that we mortals would barely give a glance. I’ve seen that sign on City Mission a thousand times & it barely registers other than the ORIGINAL City Mission & its new home. The Jumbuck would never have registered. Congrats again, Chuck and good luck in future competitions.
PS Your experience w/parking reminds me of friends who drove to NY State Fair. We told them park in downtown Syracuse & take the bus right to the main gate. They insisted on driving. They forgot to note the color of their parking lot. Leaving the Fairgrounds, they took the shuttle to 6 of 7 parking lots trudging for miles & almost 2 hours before finding their car. Husband & wife were no longer speaking to each other, kids were screaming, all utterly exhausted!
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