Country Roads Take Me Home ...

“Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong …

And driving down the road I get a feeling

That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday …”

     ~ “ Take Me Home, Country Roads”

      ~ recorded by John Denver (1943-1997)

                   ~ 1971

      ~written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert 

                  & John Denver

 A car drives through Geiger’s Covered Bridge on Old Packhouse Road on a beautiful early summer evening in this high contrast monochrome shot I captured in June at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

Geiger’s Covered Bridge is an historic wooden covered bridge in North Whitehall Township. It is a 112-foot-long Burr Truss bridge, constructed in 1860. It has vertical plank siding and an entry portal of stepped square planks. It crosses the Jordan Creek and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It can be accessed from The Covered Bridge Trail of  Trexler Nature Preserve.

Stand By Me ...

“When the night has come

And the land is dark

And the moon is the only light we’ll see

No, I won’t be afraid

Oh, I won’t be afraid

Just as long as you stand

Stand by me

So darlin’, darlin’

Stand by me, oh, stand my me

Oh stand, stand by me

Stand by me

If the sky that we look upon

Should tumble and fall

Or the mountain should crumble to the sea

I won’t cry, I won’t cry

No, I won’t shed a tear

Just as long as you stand

Stand by me

And darlin’, darlin’

Stand by me, oh, stand by me

Oh, stand now, stand by me

Stand by me

Darlin’, darlin’

Stand by me, oh, stand by me

Oh, stand now, stand by me

Stand by me

Whenever you’re in trouble, won’t you stand by me?

Oh, stand by me

Won’t you stand now?

Oh, stand, stand by me”

       ~ “Stand by Me”

      ~ originally performed by Ben E. King

                            ~ 1938-2015
                 ~ released April 1961

      ~ written by Ben. E. King,
             Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

According to Ben E. King, the title is derived from, and was inspired by, a spiritual written by Sam Cooke and J.W. Alexander called “Stand by Me Father,” recorded by The Soul Stirrers with Johnnie Taylor singing lead. The third line of the second verse of the former work derives from Psalm 46:2-3.

There have been more than 400 recorded versions of the song, performed by many artists. It was featured on the soundtrack of the 1986 film “Stand by Me.”

A majestic four point white-tailed deer buck and beautiful doe stand side by side as a peaceful hush sweeps across the field just before a midwinter snowfall begins to tumble from the sky in this high contrast monochrome shot I captured in the park in the late afternoon of a February day.

Huckleberry Summer ...

  “I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”

       ~ “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

      ~ first published in the United Kingdom,   
                     December 1884 
                & in the United States,

                          February 1885

             ~ by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

                     ~ 1835-1910

“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” or in more recent editions, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” is commonly named among the Great American Novels. The work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels, “Tom Sawyer Abroad” and “Tom Sawyer, Detective” and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River, set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer. He was lauded as the “greatest humorist this country has produced,” and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

This young boy is reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn as he sets sail to fish in the Jordan Creek as a summer sundown nears in this candid shot I captured on a gorgeous mid-July evening at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.