Some places yearn to be photographed.   Granger, Texas is always on my visual radar.   Just minutes north of our Taylor home, this picturesque community of around 1500 residents is adorned with character.   The surface of West Davilla Street is cobblestone brick, so very nice.    I try to hold off posting too many photos of this town, but the early-evening light was just too good to pass up this week.  No real explanations are needed, but the lion is the mascot for Granger High School.  

Seen during this morning’s stroll in Taylor.    It’s really little more than a grab shot, but was glad the cheap little Olympus working this time.   There have been numerous misfires lately.    A reminder, Monday is dubbed World Photography Day.   Every single day is photography day, but we do like to promote things, do we not?

Just as the sun began to come up this morning I was at Georgetown’s Cooper Elementary School to document the beginning of the school district’s year.   Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but I think this was the 50th year to photograph the start of school, beginning in 1974.   The photos posted are mostly self-explanatory.   The opening photo (with those red doors) is a dad waiting to drop his fourth grader off at Cooper.  Also with them was big sister, 14, off for her freshman year at Georgetown High School.  In the last photo, a young fellow salutes during the Pledge of Allegiance.  The art on the wall behind him is a cougar, the school mascot.   I still don’t understand why districts start so early now.   We always started right after Labor Day.    My grandsons in Georgia started two weeks ago.   The faces and emotions make opening days a pleasure!

The last time I took photos of Taylor’s Immanuel Lutheran Church was during their Pilgrimage to Bethlehem in early-December, a Live Nativity I’ve photographed for years.   The first time I noticed the church was when we first moved here in summer 2009, when driving along U.S. 79 from Hutto to Taylor.   Immanuel came into being in 1888 with the help of recent German immigrants to the area.   In 1894 its first sanctuary was built, but a fire destroyed it in 1916.   Members wasted little time in rebuilding their church, with a new building dedicated in August 1916.   That’s the one seen in these photographs.  Sermons were conducted in German well into the 1940s.  A well-maintained cemetery, its first burial in 1889, is nestled behind the church.  When looking for something to photograph Tuesday evening, the late-day light was wonderful there, the Waxing Gibbous moon shining through the clouds.  Just a stone’s throw from the Samsung Semiconductor plant site, the church continues to thrive.   And I’ll continue to document it.  

There’s no specific farmer profiled here, just photographs seen while driving around the prairie the past few days as farmers continue harvesting their corn crops.   One photo includes the site for the Samsung Semiconductor plant in Taylor. It seems out of place,  but it will be a presence for years to come.   As someone moving here to bypass unchecked growth, my feelings are mixed.  

Another set from recent daily walks, just some tiny landscapes, mostly closeups of plant life seen in Taylor.   I’m particularly attracted to small bits of  delicate morning light embracing botanical things.    Those scenic vistas aren’t usually found during my strolls.   I see what I see.  

During those occasional long road trips, I try make time to visit the town where I was born and raised from the early-50s to 1970.    Texarkana is a twin city, residing in both Texas and Arkansas.   These were taken on a quiet Sunday morning, mostly in the downtown area.   The opening photo is along State Line Avenue.  The left side is Texas, across the yellow line is Arkansas.   In the distance is the United States Post Office.   Union Station, which opened in 1929, has been closed for decades, but Amtrak passengers can still catch the train behind this massive structure.  In 1973, while studying photojournalism at University of Texas in Austin, I took photos inside the depot with a 4×5 view camera.   Even then it was closed, but the doors were open, with not a No Trespassing sign to be found.    Not so now.  Apparently the depot has  financial backing for renovation from several sources.  In 1958, my first grade class and I boarded a northbound train for 19 miles to Ashdown, Arkansas, where each kid received a colored baby chick for Easter.   Other downtown sites are being refurbished, including the Texarkana National Bank building, the one with birds flying over.   The structure with fire escapes was once Hotel McCartney, also getting new life in the near future.   The Perot Theatre opened as the Saenger Theatre in 1924.   When I was a kid, it was called the Paramount.   Back then, if you were African American, there was a separate entrance, seating only allow in the balcony.  Texarkana native Ross Perot brought the theatre back to life as a performing arts venue in 1980.   I didn’t know that Otis Williams, founder of The Temptations, was born in Texarkana.   He moved to Detroit at age ten.    The Dr. Pepper mural, on the Arkansas side of downtown, is great.    A construction site at 16th and Pine Streets shows progress on Parks Elementary School.   When I was growing up, this was the site of F. Ben Pierce Junior High, plus Texas High School.  In the late-1960s, Texas High moved north.  The old high school was still there last year, but progress happens.    The last photograph is the two-bedroom one-bath house where I grew up in the Rose Hill neighborhood.  I’m surprised to find the house still there.   It looks vacant, abandoned.  Much of the old neighborhood has fallen on hard times.  When growing up there, our street was cobblestone.  We had three beautiful old-growth pecan trees.   When my mother died in 1977, I sold the house for $20,000.    One thing that’s survived is Tiger Stadium, pictured at back left in the house photo.   It’s still the home to the Texas High School Tigers.  The only people interested in this post likely have a connection to Texarkana.   It will always be my hometown.  

This was taken tonight as the last hazy light faded away, the sun a pastel afterthought.    The technical quality is problematic, but the mood is satisfying.   The green in the foreground is a field of struggling cotton.   I’m hopeful this summer’s heat will allow its harvest.

A few photographs from recent daily walks in Taylor, all birds this time.  Whistling Ducks are particularly interesting.  I’ve never heard one whistle.  Who comes up with these names?    A reminder, I don’t waste a lot of time taking these.   The strolls are meant to be exercise.   So far, I’m still taking walk photos with an inexpensive Olympus camera purchased not quite three years ago.   It’s as light as your mobile device, but allows more options.   That camera is beginning to act up a little, but I paid half of what most of you pay for your smartphones.  When walking, traveling light is important.

With only a 20% rain chance, I was surprised to find a good bit of moisture this evening in Coupland, just a few minutes south of our home in Taylor.    An intense shower didn’t seem to phase some horses along a county road.   It definitely cooled things off.  That’s St. Peter’s Church of Coupland, also St. Peter’s Cemetery.    When returning home, I was greeted by dry Taylor streets.   Rain comes and goes in a heartbeat here.