Blog Your Blessings: Graffiti, Dad Style

I doubt when I was growing up that my parents could have foreseen the day my father would have dropped me off on the side of the road to step out over the highway on a catwalk to photograph graffiti on a railroad bridge. Or that on that jaunt I would find myself eye-to-eye with a train while I was taking photos on the inside of the bridge. Or that we would spend all of a clear-blue January weekday trying like two intrepid explorers (lunatics) to find a graffiti piece that is perfectly visible from the interstate but completely hidden from the city streets that surround it.

I doubt they would have foreseen that Wednesday any more than I would have. We are law-abiding people who do our doodling on scrap paper when we're waiting for phone calls. Graffiti as an aesthetic and as a fascinating subculture didn't rate on my List of Favorite Things until I was on my way out of college.

"Why can't you collect stamps?" dad joked as I jumped into his truck after the close encounter with the freight train.

"Done that," I joked back.

Being with dad for the day--first in Manchester and then in Hartford, Connecticut's capital--was the best part about the Graffiti Experience of January 16. The second best part was enjoying the luxury of seeing the city through my camera (and a clean windshield) as we drove about. Hartford is chock full of interesting buildings, colorful neighborhoods, and activity. We found brown paper murals of people socializing pasted up in the windows of an empty shop front, a mural on a gable wall depiciting Hispanic pride, glass buildings distorting reflections of older structures into Dali-esque illusions, and, always, that wonderful gold dome of the capitol building.

For me, the blessing of graffiti is getting a close look at home, of seeing these cities in all their grimy splendor. We came home with a sense of Hartford's size, shape, texture, and color. Graffiti made us look.

Neither dad nor I earned a penny on Wednesday. Oh well. It would take a fair few coppers to add up to good time with a good person in a beautiful place.

(P.S. There's a mom side to this story, but it deserves its own place. That'll be next week.)

Blog Your Blessings