Who Was Shorpy Higginbotham?

The other day, Friendatella (whose caller identity is "Blocked Caller") and I were walking around the Mission, and we stepped into The Apartment, one of the less pretentious vintage stores in the Mission. The owner has a laid back, affable manner, and we had a long discussion about the many "analog" photographs he has, most of them conveniently categorized and generally informal snapshots that seem to have come from abandoned family albums.

He had an especially interesting series of beach shots from the 1940s taken in San Diego. It was interesting to look at the faces of young men in their teens and early 20s some six plus decades ago. What stories might they have had and what was going through their heads as they stood in groups with their arms around each other with unapologetic affection one would not see even in groups of gay men today.

Such photos in the age of digital images made me glad to recently come across two great blogs I'd never seen before -- Shorpy, named after a young boy working in the mines of Alabama a century ago and Accidental Memories, which also features odd, often historic photos and random bits of intriguing art.

Both of these remind me why I decided to start blogging more than three years ago and that I would like to get more "into" it than I have in recent months. Sometimes I resent Twitter and Facebook for killing off blogs or distracting me. At least I managed to kill off my Friendster and MySpace accounts eons ago, but I hope to make more connections with blogs of this order that have intrigue equal to that of the mystery of Lora Direnzo. Too bad she never got to meet Shorpy.

Solving the Riddle of Lora Direnzo

This afternoon after listening to an NPR piece about the perils of too much internet, too much "Facebooking" and after seeing two Facebook "friends" voting yes on surveys bashing universal health care and supporting Glenn Beck, I was ready to say goodbye to it all -- not life, mind you, but blog, vlog, "personal networking" and all of that nonlife.

Just as this thought was hitting me, the message below popped up in delayed response to this post from more than a year ago

"To solve the riddle of "who was Lora Direnzo"....she was a real person. She immigrated from Canada to NYC, and finally to SFO. She lived many many years on Montgomery St in SFO. She was a flight attendant for The Flying Tiger Line. Her job allowed her to travel "off the beaten track" and she collected music along the way, music of every genre. She didn't look at all like Kim Novak, she was a very tall, dark haired Italian woman. In her youth she was a stunning woman. I flew with her for 25 years and knew her as well as anyone. She never let people get too close. She was a loner, always in her own world. I often wondered if she was lonely, but I think the music was her friend. If you happened to be on the same floor in a hotel while on a layover you could always hear music coming from her room. Sadly she died in January of 2008. She was 77. I was in her apartment once, and was amazed at what she "collected". So...if you own an album with Lora's name on it, know that you are holding one of her treasures. She was a unique woman."
-- CLee

I hadn't even made it to the third sentence before my cheeks were drenched in tears. I can fully explain why or how the story of Lora touches me on such a deep, deep level. Perhaps because I could say many of the things could be said about me -- okay, save from being an Italian woman.

We often think about what our legacy will be, especially if it will not be carried on by our bloodline, by some great work we created or some noble change we brought about. What if all that is left behind is a memory of our strong independence, our sense of taste and style, respect of our remaining co-workers and the scattered debris of our belongings in thrift shop bins. These humble remnants may be the profundity of life. Tonight, I pulled out that record of Lora's and lit a candle for her, conjuring up images of her in her finely tailored wool uniform as she served coffee over the Pacifc with grace and style.