Peter J. Crowley

Fine Art Photographer

Travels on the Railway to Financial Security

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A week since my last post an Orange Engine sits outside the Mendota Illinois Station a leader without followers?
August 15th dinner in the dinning car [very good food] with John, David friends from my car joining us is a Professor from a new college in Southern Cal. The college built on a former military base, a super fund site. A progressive school where you can get an education and a chemical lobotomy a great two for one sale. What a deal! The conversation is spirited, humorous, sarcasm rules and laughter reigns. I find it interesting how obvious the social and economic collapse seems, yet we all ignore it. Not just the four of us but most people I meet along the rails and beyond.
Now a month and a half later it’s raining golden parachutes $700 billion served, ” I see lots of funny men some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen.” {“The Ballard of Pretty Boy Floyd” Woody Guthrie 1939 }

At the top of the food chain the Gods of Possesionville
Shower us below with CREDIT!
You must have! You must have!
Without it you’re not a man. Not worthy.
You must have Credit, Debt, Distraction!
The Gods of Possesionville bring you WAR
[defend your right to waste]
FAMINE
[more large portions, throw it away]
DEAD CHILDREN
[I have a call on my cell phone]
NEW DRUGS,NEW DISEASES
[yes I’ll pick up the lobster,go to the drive thru ATM]
Wash it all down with Lite Beer!
Smoke and Mirrors we see our freedom on
TV-DVD-CABLE-SATELLITE
And somewhere suffocating under a mountain
of paperwork, re-financed, debt consolidated,
over budget, new and improved, high tech, upgrades,
Is your soul, free creative thought, freedom of choice.
I know I am free I saw it on TV!

Boarding in Albuquerque on The Southwest Chief

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This way to board. Reflecting on Albuquerque, stepping away from faces for this edition. This is from my Layered Life series. Some of the non portrait images can be found on this months Prints for People specials.

August Fifteenth and Sixteenth rolling towards Washington I meet Dane a poet on her way to read in Seattle with Jack McCarthy. The coincidence’s and community develop Dane’s good friend is a Quaker who I will meet at my daughters wedding, for the entire westward trip we have no internet except for a couple minutes just after I meet Dane. She shoots an email to her friend to see if she is going to Kirsten’s wedding? Two days later I get the answer as her friends father speaks at the wedding of how small the world is and how I met his daughters friend on the train. Dane introduces me to Jack’s poetry and my first I-Pod experience. I find it fitting that my first time is listening to poetry. Upon finding his website to link here I realize that I most likely photographed him at the 1997 National Poetry Slam Championship, “Voices from the Edge” held in Middletown Ct. Both of these poets are worth a listen for “Poetry like Bread” is for everyone [from the poem “Like You” by Roque Dalton,] published by Curbstone Press. So I’ve rambled here and I’ve rambled there introducing more of the characters from either side of the tracks, past and present.
enjoy pjc

Prints for the People

One more from Flagstaff for now

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After dinner Rees and I went for coffee where we met Wolf and Liberty for coffee and tea. We sat outside and I made this photograph in the wanning evening light. Talk of the state of the world the mix of youth and us older guys disappeared as we found common ground. Most of the people I spoke with whether they were old, young, right or left were uncomfortable with the countries direction. Many unsure of the direction or even who really was at the helm of the ship of state. Personal financial distractions, cultural differences and the constant bombardment of information/disinformation led to an underlying feeling of uneasiness.

August fourteen in Chicago I met Rick in the food court. Both of us going to Olympia to Sunday weddings, could we, are we soon to be relatives? No but coincidence continued to form the Amtrak community for the trip west. Cowboys, poets, exotic dancers, professors, scientists, college students, a petty officer from a tall ship all part of this cast. All sharing experience from Canada to Zimbabwe, all riding across this great nation concerned with what comes next.


I ponder youth naivety, age experience
a youthful sparkle in the eyes
Between here and there
A cynical haze clouds vision
Between here and there.
[excerpt of longer yet unfinished piece]


On the rails the mix worked very well. August 15th a day of poets and a story teller from North Dakota who regales us with of his and his parents, grandparents history of life in the northern plains. His details and colorful remembrances of the last century handed down oral history amaze me. The good and bad times, a high school football coach, teacher, farmer, traveler, veteran, I was too enthralled by his tales to photograph or tape his exploits, across the aisle from him was an older women who confirmed and added to the local history lesson. A station stop to stretch our legs and he was gone leaving us with the feeling of his easy laugh and of times gone by between here and there. His North Dakota slogan and his laugh rings in my memory “Forty below keeps the riff raff out.”
The Cascades and Washington, loss of my I-pod virginity to come. enjoy pjc

Seattle and beyond