Caveat: Tree #1724 “Ancient proof of trees’ existence”

This tree is a guest tree from my past. It’s hard to say which tree I’m talking about – just pick one. I took this picture near my hometown (Arcata, California) in Spring of 1983. This was on film, of course. I scanned the picture in July of 2011.

picture

This might be the oldest photograph I still have that I took myself. My uncle Arthur had given me a hand-me-down Pentax camera at some point during my senior year in high school. I wasn’t interested in photographing people at all. I went out and took pictures of buildings and nature and such. The picture above was taken above Kneeland, an area east of Eureka. Most of those pictures somehow didn’t make it through the subsequent years, but this one made it through until I went on a binge of scanning old photos in 2011 – I think I’d recently acquired a flatbed scanner again after not having one for many years, and I had unearthed a box of old photos somehow, and the two felicitously collided.

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Caveat: Oor fire and oor lamp

"Coorie Doon"

Chorus
Coorie Doon, Coorie Doon, Coorie Doon, my darling,
Coorie Doon the day.

Lie doon, my dear, and in your ear, 
To help you close your eye, 
I'll sing a song, a slumber song,
A miner's lullaby.

Your daddy's doon the mine my darling
Doon in the Curlby Main, 
Your daddy's howking coal my darling
For his own wee wean.

There's darkness doon the mine my darling,
Darkness, dust and damp.
But we must have or heat, or light,
Oor fire and oor lamp.

Your daddy coories doon my darling, 
Doon in a three foot seam,
So you can coorie doon my darling, 
Coorie doon and dream.

– Matt McGinn (Scottish songwriter, 1928-1977

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