Lucky 13

The 13th came on a Tuesday this month. It arrived with blue skies and a brisk breeze.

Day 13 of 365, that is. Not December 13. The number 13 when associated with a date always triggers a detour. Please follow along.

When I started part-time at The Sacramento Bee on Monday, Oct. 20, 1980, the chief of the copy desk was an old, gray-haired man named Hugh Bale. He was gruff, but more bark than bite. As the top copy editor, he was the arbiter of all English usage in The Bee. He could be overruled from above, but no one below him on the copy desk could challenge his edicts.

By November, I was working three or four days a week anxious to please in the hope of turning the part-time work into a full-time career. Listening to Hugh Bale and his edicts was a focus of my attention at the time.

"Friday the 13th has arrived on a Thursday this month," I remember him announcing on Nov. 13, 1980. He said it to no one in particular. And in December it arrived on Saturday and in January it arrived on Tuesday. Each month Hugh Bale would deliver the same edict with the same stony seriousness as his edicts on the hyphenation of compound adjectives. It was so. He had a wonderful, wry, understated sense of humor.

Each 13th I raise my No. 2 pencil in salute to Mr. Bale. I still blush with embarrassment with every typo I fail to catch in my writings.

The 13th day was the first cloudless day since -- well, since I started this 365 photo campaign. It is really hard to get inspired on days muted in grays and mist. The arrival of the morning sun chased me out of the house and into the backyard.

I loved the contrast between the evergreen shrub and the fall colors on these saplings. I had to run this through Photoshop to get the yellow stars to pop out the way I imagined them, fireworks on a deep green sky.


The power pole in the far corner of our backyard.

Photoshop sizzling high voltage with glowing edges overlaid with the hard light mode. Hot!

The Wife planted a pool in the backyard about four years ago. It has a rock waterfall. On top of the waterfall is a garden Buddha statue I picked up from Target or some other equally inappropriate place to find Buddha statues. Next to cats, this statue will be one of my favorite subjects over the course of this journey.

The Buddha in repose. This is a macro shot turned on its side. Glad I figured out how to get the macro lens to work.

The Wife planted the pool beneath a 60-foot tall Modesto Ash tree. We've trimmed it back a few times, but we still have to cover the pool with a net from October until the New Year. This photo is the reflection of the statue in the water as seen through the leaves and the black net.

Day 13 of 365