the photos that never were

So I took these photos last week, a couple, here and there. And for some reason or another they've been denied any shot of ever being in the DE, so here they are making their live debut!!

I took this photo of Bob Reed last Thursday when I had mistakenly left for my writing class an extra twenty minutes early and had time to talk to him, whom I found outside the communication building. Who's Bob Reed??? You, mean you dont know? Well, if you were here, you'd be one out of two us at SIU who have no idea who this person is.

Apparently, he's old news and has been in the paper numerous times (hence there being no need for a feature photo of him). He sure is old, but Bob definitely has a story, one I'm sure hasn't been heard by everyone here.

Bob Reed is an elderly man who lives just off of campus. Bob has a disease. of some kind. one of those kinds that make you not walk or talk so good anymore. and Bob raises flags on campus. Nowadays, he only raises about 6 or 7 flags per day, but, according to him, he used to raise many more on a daily basis. He's just got to where he couldn't do so many any more.

An interesting fact is that Bob can't fold the flags. can't. He rides a three-wheel bicycle that has a basket in the rear to hold all the bundled up flags for him to un-wad and hook to the ropes.

I like this photo. I like Bob. According to Phil Greer, retired Tribune photographer/editor and photojournalism instructor at SIUC, there's a photo story in Bob. Also according to Mr. Greer, when the flags aren't on the poles, Bob has all of them laid out on his porch. I would like that photo. I want to do a photo story about Bob Reed.

Everyday, as I'm walking to class, if I were to count how many students I see picking up or carrying or reading copies of the Daily Egyptian, I'd probably die. . . from. . . counting. . . a lot. It's that much of a part of life at SIUC. Everyone reads it.

BUT YOU KNOW, the DE has competition here on campus, those damn MONTHLY NEWS MAGAZINE PROGRAMS such as "alt.news 26:46" that want to steal away all of our non-paying student customers with their PBS SHOWS, so there's no way the Daily Egyptian can run a feature photo showing the alt.news crew filming on campus. WHO CARES if they just got nominated for 11 Regional Emmy Awards? That ain't news, thats competition! That'd give them way too much publicity and all our 25,000 readers would go watch PBS every month instead of reading our daily paper.

SERIOUSLY.

I'm not mad about it though, I love the DE and everyone that works there. I just like the photos and need to rant about them if I'm going to put them on my blog.

Okay, thats it for today. I haven't played a video game in forever and I think I'ma go play some Battlefield 2 before I go to bed.

TB