Wednesday, November 19, 2008

On the Road, part ########


I miss Charles Kuralt! I always tried to watch his series "On the Road". This is where he climbed into a motorhome with a film crew and traveled the backroads of America to the roads less traveled to tell stories about people and places.
My blog is named on the road as a small memory of the journeys one makes throughout life winding up where one does, sometimes by accident sometimes by choice.
Coming to Mexico was by choice or maybe accident, I'm still undecided on that one.

According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was the success of Steinbeck's Travels with Charley It seemes that John Steinbeck and Kuralt were said to be good friends.

Anything from strange and unusual hobbyists to unusual families, along with the basic fun of checking out unknown places is what Kuralt's focused on during his "On the Road"' series. The appeal was that Kuralt was never knew where they were going to go next.

He also hosted the CBS Sunday Morning program from 1979 to 1995. I had to get up early sometimes on Sundays but I always enjoyed seeing the program. His pieces caught the beauty of the American countryside, sometimes using images and sounds with no voice-overs to effectively capture the scene.

So I think I am going to start another section to document some of the photos that I have taken over the years, the place I have been and maybe the places I want to visit. This means that I will have to dig out the old faded 8 x 10's of some old news shots I have from when I did photos for the newspapers in San Francisco, hopefully the stabilizer of the rapid processor have kept the images from decomposing in the file cabinet that I have them stored in.

Maybe I'm taking on too big of a project but why not, at least my On the Road is still being traveled.

Hopefully...

6 comments:

Bob Mrotek said...

Good for you, Ken! I still miss Charles Kuralt. Both he and Steinbeck are idols of mine. I have read all of Steinbeck's books and every time I think about the frog scene from "Cannery Row" I still get a laugh. I just can't wait to see what you are going to go with this. I wish you all the best!

Tancho said...

That's just what I need is a kick in the ass Bob!
Thanks, we will see what happens. I may show up on your doorstep with my camera one of these days.........

Bob Mrotek said...

Okay, Ken, we'll leave the porch light on for ya :)

Michael Dickson said...

Bob, we have something in common. I read all of Steinbeck´s books when I was in the Air Force. Long, long ago.

Bob Mrotek said...

Michael,
Then we have two things in common. I was also in the Air Force a long, long, time ago. In fact, I was stationed at DLI in Monterey not far from the real Cannery Row that Steinbeck wrote about and that is where I first became interested in Steinbeck :)

Michael Dickson said...

And I was stationed up the highway at Castle AFB in the San Joaquin Valley. 1963-64.

Would have preferred Monterey.