Taking Pictures

George Kotolaris (1929-1990)

Editing pictures and video is a hobby, but pointing a camera at people can be a bit awkward — for me and for the subjects.  People may like the edited programs years later, but at the time, they tend to groan and joke so I feel a bit self-conscious.

Recently I have been thinking of George Kotolaris, Seattle’s iconic, garishly dressed, and somewhat unhinged but harmless eccentric and gate-crasher. He too had a hobby of taking pictures of people. That was back in the days of film cameras. I doubt if his Kodak Brownie had film in it, but he pointed his Brownie often, asking people to pose, often with his mother, Pansy.

I would regularly see George and Pansy at St. Mark’s, the Episcopalian cathedral on Capitol Hill. Each Sunday from late 1970 to about 1973, I used to chauffeur Joshua Green to St. Mark's for church.

Joshua Green was another Seattle institution. He and his family owned Peoples National Bank, the third largest bank in Washington at the time, before it was gobbled up by US Bank. He came to Seattle from Mississippi when he was seventeen. That was in 1886.

Joshua Green (1869-1975) and his wife, "Missy".
Both lived over a hundred years.

He made his fortune in the shipping business running a mosquito fleet during the Klondike gold rush 1896-1899. As roads and automobiles proliferated in Puget Sound, he saw the handwriting on the wall and in 1927, he got out of the maritime shipping business to devote himself to banking. His shipping company became the nucleus for the then newly formed Washington State Ferry System. He was a multi-millionaire back in the days before wealth got concentrated in billionaires. In 1968, Governor Dan Evans named him Washington Man of the Century.

My brother got the job of Joshua Green's weekend chauffeur and passed it on to me in late 1970 after I got out of high school. I was seventeen. Joshua Green was a hundred and one.

I would help Mr. Green out of the car and up the cathedral stairs, then wait in the car until I saw him come out at the end of whatever Episcopalians do for Sunday service. George and Pansy were often with the congregation coming out of the church, George trying to take pictures of the old man as I would be trying to get him back down the stairs and settled in the front seat of the car. So George was a bit of a nuisance.

Which is a bit how I feel pointing cameras at people — a bit of a nuisance.

Every Sunday as we drove away from St. Mark's Cathedral, and I do mean every time, the old man would remark, “I don’t know why I go there, but I feel better afterwards.”

Outdoor TV

Evenings are warm, the garden is pleasant, and we can pick up our Wi-Fi signal in the garden. For years I have been wondering about watching video outdoors -- like the drive-in movies of long ago.

We finally did it. In these times of social distancing, we can invite a couple over and entertain outdoors and watch the telly, all the while keeping a discrete distance.