Doctor HP Flowers

Civic Responsibility

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     Doctor Flowers has been summoned to report for Jury Duty on Monday 27 August 2007 at 8:15 am, sharp.

     Now, what's the punch line?

    

© d070528-062  Court House
  Parsons, West Virginia
  Tucker County
  Monday 28 May 2007

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Window Dressing

Blog Archive:  "Doctor Flowers the blogosphere has gone ballistic over your recent photo 'Window Dressing' labeling it a scandalous insult to all that is good and decent.  How do you respond to these charges."

Flowers: "That photo is merely a collagic symbol of nature, social institutions, and the peculiarities of humankind amalgamated in a surreal stew seasoned by the subconscious."

Blog Archive:  "… they also claim you've been sniffing the nutmeg again."

Flowers:  "It's the TOTALITY OF ALL REALITY, dear sir."

Blog Archive:  "I remind you, this is on the record."

Flowers:  "It's on the record ONLY  when I'm standing up."

Blog Archive:  (… jibbering crackpot.)

Flowers:  (… insufferable moron.)

Title:            © Window Dressing.  r1139-06
Series:           None of the Above
Location:        Douglasville, Georgia
                   Douglas County
Date:             Saturday 11 November 2000

Inherit the Wind

     This is the Rhea County courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee - scene of the July 1925 clash between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan.  The Scopes Monkey Trial.  Evolution versus intelligent design.  Still unsettled eighty years hence.
     I thought of this shot yesterday morning while answering my summons to jury service masquerading as number 0269 on the Monday list, to be specific.  There we sat two hundred and fifty expressionless citizens assembled in a cold cheaply paneled amphitheater suspended in thick oozey atmosphere of complete resignation called to fulfill our civic responsibility. All sighed with relief to hear from the Monday spokesman Judge that, even while waiting to be called, our mere passive presence was inflicting a priceless contribution to justice far exceeding our sub-subsistence $15 per day recompense.
     During the endless pauses between anxious calls to trial the gallery would erupt in a pinball cacophony of cell phone ring tones and glad chatter.  I saw for the first time people wearing some techno-gizmo wrapped around and plugged into an ear for what alien reason I could not fathom.  A vision of the Monkey Trial swept over me - the serious, the stately, the courtly.  Hours later, while hanging around the bar at Manuel's Tavern I overheard Spencer Tracy saying he was o.k. with cell phones but Ipods had to be banned.

    

Title:            © Rhea County Court.  r0326-31
Series:           Courthouses
Location:        Dayton, Tennessee
                    Rhea County
Date:             Friday 25 May 1990

Spring Line over Hayesville

Saturday 23 April 2005
     6:00 pm.  I'm feasting on a Hardee's thickburger in Hayesville North Carolina, rewarding myself with a scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream, and daydreaming about my annual trek early tomorrow morning to the trillium fields by Standing Indian Creek.
     This is it; the third week in April. The peak of the Spring Line hovers over Clay County bidding goodbye to the perigee and preparing to ebb further north completely out of Georgia until the apogee loops it back around again next year.
     Suddenly, without warning my seat and table begin to tremble. The diet coke fizzes and sputters. In a foggy blur, in a split second, one's mind can propose a multitude of possibilities while preparing to launch a jolt of adrenalin for flight to safety.
     As quickly, reality calmed the moment.  Three Hardees employees were seated in the booth behind me taking a break.  One was beset with an attack of intensely nervous foot shaking.  Each overflowed with frustration and discontent.  One had worked too long on the back stove without a raise. The other earned only ten dollars an hour mopping the floor.  All agreed that Hayesville was the pits!  "There's only four things to do around here:  hunt, fish, camp, and party."
     "Have you ever taken a look at your historic court house in Spring, built way back in 1889, with its distinctive Vernacular Italianate architecture.  And it only cost $8,000", I says to myself enjoying the way strawberry cheesecake ice cream tickles the back of my throat.

Title:         © Hayesville Court House. r1158-26
Series:        Court Houses
Location:    Hayesville, North Carolina
                Clay County
Date:        Friday 20 April 2001