I’m listening to Sting on a bluetooth speaker upstairs here in our living room. Sting is downstairs in the family room, the album Sacred Love (one of the many I ripped from my CD collection) is playing from my Mac mini. I’m lazy so I’m using the iTunes Remote app on my iPhone to choose my albums from the music library on my computer.
The last vinyl album I purchased new was Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms. According to Wikipedia, Brothers in Arms was the first album to sell one million copies in the CD format and to outsell its LP version. That was 1985, almost 40 years ago. From then on, all I purchased were CDs. But then sometime after the introduction of the iPhone, iPod, and music streaming music services takeover, the vinyl LP began to make a surprising comeback.
Apparently the CD is now on the decline with a resurgence in vinyl. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) notes that in 2022, vinyl sales topped 41M units while CDs came in at 33M (PDF). But where are streaming services in this musical mixture? Well, streaming was 84% of music revenues in 2022, still the dominant force in the music industry.
I note all of this because, in my desire to continue to downsize and “ronny-kondo” the office, I thought it would be expeditious to rip all of my CDs to a hard drive and get rid of all those pieces of plastic. So in 2017 I ripped all that I had and stored my music on an external WiFi capable hard drive. I had intended to link to the hard drive thru my iPad and treat the drive as if it were a CD jukebox, all of my music available at the tip of my fingers. Glad I saved the CDs! the software to access the mp3 files on my hard drive thru the iPad no longer worked. And when it was working, I had a hard time keeping the two of them linked on my network.
So we are back to playing the CDs on the only remaining player in the house. I had to purchase an external DVD player for the Mac mini since it didn’t come equipped with one. And those albums? The ones we got from my Father-in-law are out in boxes in the shed. I think my wife’s brother will be stopping by to pick them up for his vinyl collection. But I don’t think I will be copying and saving them. What’s old is new and what goes around eventually comes back around.
I grew up, as I am sure most people of my era (here for us boomers!) with only a “real” Christmas tree in the house.
According to the Nature Conservancy, nearly 10 million artificial trees are purchased each year in the US, manufactured primarily in China. That’s a lot of faux! However, the National Christmas Tree Association suggests that 25-30 million real trees are sold each year here in the US.
The benefits of real trees are numerous: they are recyclable, produce oxygen and provide a home for wildlife while growing, and have a look and smell that simply can’t be imitated with pvc plastic trees. Although I never knew anyone to have one other than my grandfather, the aluminum tree was quite the design essential of Mid-Century Modern homes during the early 1960s. Stylish! but no smell.
One of the cousins sitting in front of an aluminum Christmas tree. Note the rotating lighting display behind the tree!
Growing up our family would cut trees outside of Reno, Nevada. And the tree we brought home was always a pinion pine. Looking back at some of my photos, I wonder now how the bush-like shape of the pinion pine ever qualified it as a “Christmas” tree? But it did have a wonderful smell! Very prickly, lot’s of sap, and a short squat tree was how I remembered ours.
When we were married I hoped to share the same experience of cutting our own Christmas trees with my family. There are several tree farms here in Loudoun County, VA and we’ve tried a couple of them. Ticonderoga Tree Farm wasn’t far from our home and we visited them a few times. Snickers Gap Tree Farm is a bit farther drive but worth the effort. Their Douglas fir and blue spruce are beautiful. Thinking of fir trees, there are Fraser Fir, Noble Fir, Douglas Fir, Balsam Fir, Canaan Fir, and any number of spruce and pines that make great Christmas trees if you are looking for varieties from which to choose. Not all are available locally but perhaps they are in your region.
I love this picture of my son and I cutting our tree at Ticonderoga; now, years later we have switched to artificial trees. As I recall, we stopped buying real trees when we considered the rising costs of yearly purchasing a tree vs. the one-time cost of an artificial tree. And the faux tree came pre-lit! But I miss the excitement of finding the perfect tree, the lingering smell of pine through the holiday season, and the thought of supporting our local growers. Perhaps we will buy real in the future.
Many, many years ago, back in the early 1960s, our family helped my Mother’s sister and her family plant a tree farm on 10 acres near Laytonville CA. It seems an odd location now: Laytonville in Mendocino County is surrounded by forests. And a tree farm isn’t something you can just plant and leave to nature; the trees have to be pruned to shape and there are always deer wanting to eat the younger plants. I asked my cousin and she said they eventually sold the property and never harvested any trees from it. But I am wondering, maybe a tree farm isn’t such a bad idea for an old retired guy? Support our local farmers! Merry Christmas friends.
Years ago, many years ago, back during the early 1970s, my younger brother and I took a road trip in the MGB over to Blackpoint Forest in Marin County, California. It was our first encounter with a Renaissance Faire in the wild as it were, nestled back among the scrub pines and coastal oak trees of California. As I recall, this was during the gas shortages of the early 70s and though Novato was roughly 200 miles from Reno, we must have thought the gas mileage in the MG would allow the trek over the mountains. It did, but the sight of long gas lines was something I remembered to this day.
My brother searched through his collection of slides from that time and came across these photos of our visit to the Faire. It looks much as I had remembered it.
California’s Renaissance Pleasure Faire originated in Agoura Hills in Southern California in 1963. The one we had attended in 1972 opened its Northern California location in 1967. An interesting article on the history of the faire can be found online here.
Today Renaissance Faires, or Festivals take place across the US, many of the largest being held in North Carolina, Maryland, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, Arizona, even Georgia. The Renlist has a great website with listings by state and date. Maryland’s festival at Crownsville is one of the largest, many of which attract over 200,000 visitors over their season.
Apart from the lack of period costumes–nearly everyone was in modern dress– and the white tents set up in the field, the Fiber Festival and Sheep Dog Trials we went to recently had much the same feel as the Renaissance Faires I’ve attended in the past. The emphasis here was on homegrown/raised sheep, alpaca, and angora rabbits and the yarns produced from their wool. Whether knitted crafts or woven fabrics, the exhibits and demonstrations would have been right at home with the Renaissance faires and festivals so prevalent across our land.
There seemed to be a greater emphasis on rich colors in the products being sold compared with the muted tones I remember seeing. In the morning sunlight, knit shawls and scarves shimmered and glowed in jewel tones; yet there were many vendors selling natural or un-dyed yarns for a more traditional homespun-look.
The two-day event was held at Montpelier and attracted quite a crowd. The sheep dog trials were a lot of fun to watch and I can see now where my son’s border collie gets her energy!
KPIX-TV news footage from September 2nd 1972 featuring a visit by reporter Ed Arnow to the Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire, based at the Blackpoint Forest in Novato, Marin County. You can watch the video here, or click the image above to access the San Francisco State University Bay Area Television Archive.
overwhelm, v.transitive. To bury or drown beneath a mass of earth, water, etc.; to submerge completely; to destroy or obliterate by covering with something.
“Sure I can stop by and pick up a few boxes; photo albums, slides, nicnacs and some family memorabilia? No problem!”
It had been four years since my father-in-law had passed away and his wife was feeling like now she could really go through his things and separate out what his children might want to keep. There were the photo albums, of course, and what turned out to be more than 75 boxes of Ektachrome slides: family and work activities captured over the span of thirty years. There were also boxes of framed photos, graduation certificates and medals of accomplishments, the many small items accumulated from a man’s career in the US Army.
There was..a lot.
As she and I talked over coffee, it was apparent she had felt overwhelmed by all of it, was still feeling some traces of emotion even as the relief of saying goodbye to all of it became more real.
When we went downstairs to begin packing my truck, I could immediately understand her feelings: I was overwhelmed at the number and sizes of the boxes stacked in the carport!
They had been married nearly 17 years before he passed away. As much as I had grown to know him, one thing I understood was that he loved his family and he loved documenting everything. And he saved everything. She must have felt swamped to even begin sorting through it all.
I’ve written before about planning ahead for what we will inevitably leave behind (Memories & Mementos). My plan for most of this is to scan the photos and post them in a group album online, ideally a Google photos https://www.google.com/photos/about/ And then, tentatively, dispose of the originals. We bought an Ion Pics2 SD slide scanner thru and online estate sale (I love those!) and so far it has worked well for this project. Here’s the link if you are interested.
As I’ve worked through scanning these, arranging the boxed slides into sets, it seemed easier to group them by year rather than subject matter as I had originally intended. But I’ve found in the past with overly large or complicated projects, the satisfaction for me has come in just getting started, grouping and arranging the subject matter or tasks into smaller goals has brought it’s own sense of accomplishment. And as the stacks and stacks of photos gradually decreased in size and number, the satisfaction of nearing the end of the project has increased dramatically.
To date I’ve scanned over 1,700 slides; there remain approximately 1,000 left to scan. But I’m more than half-finished! I won’t be feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out what to do with everything that we’ve accumulated over the years: as long as I have a plan, I’m content. It’s just going to take some time.
This morning I got a haircut at the same barbershop I’ve been using for the past three years. Invariably the first thing the barber will ask me is, “How would you like it cut, sir?” My answer is always the same: just a trim.
And yet…and yet, it’s never the same. Just about every six weeks I stop in at the same local shop, I take the first available seat, and the routine is always the same. A little small talk, generally about the weather; perhaps that I’m retired and can come in early in the day, oh? Your wife is still working? how are your children—grandchildren, what do you think of this or that current topic?
And then, always, every single time: your hair is very thick (meaning hard to cut). Yes I know, it’s a blessing, thank you Mom. But when we are finished, it’s always a mystery, a bit like Monty Hall and the reveal: what’s behind Door Number One? Always different.
My older brother has sandy blond, curly hair. My younger brother has wavy hair, not blond but not quite brown, though all of us sport more gray these days. My hair used to look more like my late Dad’s, dark and full, though he wore it longer than I do and he styled it a bit like Elvis Presley, swooping it back with a generous amount of VO5 cream. I’m salt and pepper now, or “mostly gray” (it was a shock to see that on my drivers license description), and I keep it short. But I never know what it will look like on leaving the barbershop.
This morning I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation of the patron seated in the chair next to me. He carried on quite a dialog with the barber (stylist?) and it was obvious he wasn’t happy with the progress. Fearful of cutting it too short—she had been warned of that—it seemed now it wasn’t short enough. And uneven. He continued to guide and direct the process even after I had finished and was on my way up front to pay. But I noted that he let her know that he would be returning (this was his first visit) and that he expected they would get to know one another, his expectations, how best to achieve the desired goal. Looking good!
It’s been quite a sport of mine wondering what my haircuts would look like when finished. And really? I’m fine with however they turn out. Hairs grows fast and I generally wear a baseball cap anyway. My sympathies are with those guys who are follicularly-challenged: hopefully they aren’t paying the same amount that I do, or at least they get the hot towel and neck rub after the buzz cut. Where are you with your cuts? Very particular in how it’s styled or comme ci, come ca? Do you always make an appointment for the same stylist or do you take the next available chair? It’s just hair, right?
Gimme head with hair Long beautiful hair Shining, gleaming, Streaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there hair Shoulder length or longer Here baby, there mama Everywhere daddy daddy
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it Long as God can grow it My hair
The musical Hair, 1967, lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni. Broadway poster from postermuseum.com
Whether it was growing up in Nevada, or just that we always had a home with a fireplace, it seems our summers included cutting firewood. Not necessarily cutting down trees, but cutting downed trees into fireplace-lengths, loading them into our truck, and then unloading and stacking the wood alongside the house when we got back home.
A cord of wood is measured 4 ft x 4 ft x 8 ft long. Dad liked to have at least two cord split, stacked, and ready for winter before summer ended. As I recall our chevy pickup could hold at the most, maybe one-third to one-half cord? Along with his chainsaw, a five gallon gas can, a wheelbarrow to carry the wood back to the truck and a tool box—that didn’t leave much room for wood. But with the sideboards fitted into place on the truck we could carry quite a bit. Nevertheless, enough wood for burning during the winter generally meant 5-6 weekends spent in the forests north and west of Reno during our school summer vacation.
Though my older brother was only a year older than me, he was larger. I imagine that is why Dad eventually let him use the chainsaw. My job was always to be the carrier, carting the cut pieces of wood back to the truck and “stacking” them so as to maximize what we could bring back. All the work and none of the glory of being a junior lumberman!
Last year we hired a crew to take down four very large trees on our cottage property. These were oaks, walnut, and poplar trees, dense hard wood. I’ve let them lie in place for a year as they dried out and I figured out how to best to deal with them.
I bought a Craftsman ten inch electric chainsaw from Lowes in the fall and started cutting off the smaller limbs and branches and stacking them to burn in our fire pit.
As one would expect, the small saw proved ineffective when it came to cutting up the tree trunks. I hoped to buy a larger gas powered saw through one of the estate sales we love to shop. That didn’t work out, they generally sold for more than what I wanted to pay for a used piece of equipment.
So this year I finally bought a new chainsaw. It’s 16 inches, not a beast but it can definitely cut through some wood!
I came across an old photo of my niece out with her Grandpa cutting wood. I wasn’t surprised to see that Dad had continued to collect wood for the fireplace (which by then had been outfitted with a fireplace insert). The photo is likely from the late 1980s, Dad had to be in his sixties by then. It’s gratifying to see that he was still at it, though undoubtedly my brother was there alongside him to help load the truck. I think more than gathering firewood, Dad enjoyed spending time in the woods. It was rugged life that I didn’t appreciate at the time. But the longer I am out with our own small forest, delimbing fallen trees and clearing paths, the more I find I am like him. I still have more trees than time ahead of me and there is work to do. Time to get to it.
Rick, Russ, Ron, Rodney, Ralph, and Randy: apparently the “Rs” were very popular in my extended family. Oh, I forgot Rex, so that makes seven of us with first initial R, last name Hilbig. You can only imagine our mom’s keeping us all straight, let alone how emails could get messed up!
In the 1950s, my birth decade, Rs weren’t as popular as I had thought. Both of my brothers’ names were more popular than mine. David ranked 5th, Richard ranked 7th. Ronald was 15th. You can find your own ranking online here: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1950s.html My honor is redeemed knowing that my middle name, James, actually ranked first during the 50s. In the top 100 popular names, Rs placed 11 times. Sorry Rex, you are 198th! A decade later, Ronald had dropped five positions to 24th.
I only caught on to this confusion of names recently after an email never arrived in my in box. Check your spam folder (I had) was the sender’s suggestion. His email had not bounced back so apparently someone, a recipient, had read it and discarded it— or it ended up in his spam folder.
Emails are tricky that way; they aren’t case-sensitive but they do require a level of accuracy that my spelling can seldom attain. I’ve been plagued by the curse/blessing of auto correct on my iPhone. The “suggested” spelling can be over ridden, but I’m not always aware of it when it happens. (Shakes his cane)
I had given what I assumed would be an adequate amount of time to receive a letter. Four days had passed after a Monday holiday so I wasn’t too concerned not having received the expected correspondence. Luckily the sender reached out to me via text wondering about my reply, or lack of one as it were. He had asked for my home address and I (naturally) thought he had sent the information we were looking for via USPS. But I was wrong.
The postal service will make a best guess and deliver your mail regardless if the address is missing a digit or the street name has been misspelled. But email doesn’t work that way.
He had sent it thru email to my gmail account. Not “my” gmail account, as it turned out, but perhaps one of my relatives. There are quite a number of us whose first name begins with R. So I am guessing that one of them has received an unexpected and unsolicited correspondence. I have a thought to email him, or her, and find out. I’m not sure I want to learn if there are more of us Rs out there that I haven’t met! I know there is another Ronald Hilbig, who lives in Canada. We had already confused people on Facebook. Glad that was straightened out, though he could be a clone. I’m not doubting anything anymore.
“What are we going to do with all of these pictures?”
“What pictures, which ones?” I replied.
“All of them: all of the pictures, photos, albums, frames, paintings, prints, just everything.”
Well, I hadn’t given it much thought, but really, what are we going to do with all of this stuff? We had downsized and moved from our single family home to a smaller townhome several years ago. In the process of getting that home ready to sell, I had taken down all of our pictures, photos of family and family vacations, and packed them away in plastic bins. Now nearly four years after that move we are still wondering what to do with many of these mementos and memories, most of them still packed away.
When I was younger and first started taking photographs, I concentrated primarily on landscape photography. Years before digital cameras became popular I would shoot slide film in my Canon AE1 and occasionally have enlargements printed, many of which I framed and decorated my apartment. The prints are long gone but the slide film still looks great, beautiful rich colors after more than forty years.
I switched to a digital camera, also a Canon, when they came out and began taking more pictures of family and friends, documenting our trips and vacations, birthdays and holidays. And that introduced the beginnings of what would be a lifelong challenge: how to share and display, or store for posterity, the many, many images a digital camera produced.
When I got my first iPhone I was all set. Whereas before, one had to remember to bring the camera (or leave it in the car, always at the ready) an iPhone was the perfect accessory: I never went anywhere without my phone and consequently my camera was always with me.
Still the problem remained, what to do with all of these images? Before cloud storage enabled us to archive unlimited amounts of data, and images, I would back up my digital images on the computer and eventually transfer them to CDs. Great for storing photos, not so great for sharing them.
I’ve since been uploading many of my photos to Shutterfly. They have sharing options and also print capabilities for cards, enlargements, even photo books. I have friends who use digital frames that act like mini slideshows; the newer frames allow uploading the images to the internet (cloud servers!) and as long as the display is connected to the internet, any family member can view the display. Bluetooth or wifi-enabled devices are another option.
I’ve been printing photobooks now for years. They have taken the place of photo albums in our home. But like albums from our past, they have started to take up room on the book shelves. We visited friends recently and enjoyed looking through one of their old leather-bound albums, many of the photographs in black and white or sepia-toned. One could almost imagine the passage of time slowing down for a bit as we leafed-through and commented on their old family photos. It doesn’t feel quite the same when you scroll thru endless images on your phone!
I still don’t have a solution for the boxes of photos and albums we have accumulated through the years. We have thought about scanning all of the “pre digital” images. I am a little distraught over having lost or misplaced the CDs I used for “safe secure image storage” in the past. I have found several of the CDs I created have not held up well: the data has either become corrupted or otherwise unreadable. Perhaps storing the images on a DVD would work better. At some point I will probably upload all of our images to Shutterfly or some other third party service. I’ve put many images on a small external hard drive, not sure if that is my final answer yet or not.
What about you all? Is this a problem you have faced before? Any possible solutions you have tried successfully? If so, please share your success stories in the comments below. Love to hear from you!
He’s sitting leaning a bit forward in his chair—with his upright posture it could even be a stool. Though out of view, his hands are resting comfortably, naturally at his side, not fidgeting. The pose is classic three-quarter view, the head turned towards the observer. He wears a dark grey striped suit coat, red-patterned tie over a crisp white shirt, a small lapel pin the only piece of jewelry. A full head of graying, nearly silver hair, warm flesh tones, a slight smile. The umber background appears to lighten around his face, darkens towards the bottom of the painting. The size of the painting, and the intricate gold frame, indicate that this is a corporate portrait, too large to hang over the mantle in one’s home but not out of place in a lobby or a corporate boardroom. He is a Distinguished Gentlemen whatever his occupation might have been.
What is it about us that we will memorialize our presence in this manner, capturing our idealized selves for posterity with oil on linen canvas, known and yet unknown? I bought this painting at an estate auction, the artist and the sitter both strangers to me. I don’t know them but I know a bit of their history and they both take their place in a very long line of artists and portraits made of distinguished gentlemen.
Have you been to a wedding or perhaps been in that lineup of groom and his best man and groomsmen? “Where do we stand? Where do we look?” And most importantly, “What do I do with my hands?” Some portraits handle the problem of hands by not painting them in, giving us only a portion of the subject. Perhaps the easiest solution is that of Rembrandt’s: tuck the hand under your coat. I like Franz Hals’ clever solution: his subject holds onto a book (which he has written) and the composition forces us to consider the book as nearly an important element as the subject’s own face.
One would expect the face to be the center of attention in a portrait (portrait: a likeness of a person, especially of the face, as a painting, drawing, or photograph. from the Latin “portrahere,” translated as “to drag out, reveal, expose.”) Yet in several of these historical examples, the hands or even the costume appear to be the center of attention. Perhaps the purpose here is to reveal or expose the character and nature of the subject even more so than could the face. Titian’s “Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap” ca 1510, overwhelms us with his beautiful ermine collar. Likewise the voluminous red robe and white wig of Largilliere’s “Portrait of a Gentleman” nearly obscures the smiling face of the sitter, though viewed up close, the rosy complexion and red lips reinforce the color palette and sense of privilege. The portrait of Juan de Pareja by the Spanish painter Velasques from 1650 was shocking at the time for the identity of the individual portrayed. I wonder if perhaps the white delicate collar, contrasting with that beard and full head of hair, was also a bit of a shock? All of the portraits shown here include some type of shirt or collar of white separating the flesh tones from the darker clothing.
My favorite of the lot is also the most recent. Jamie Wyeth’s painting of Andy Warhol and his daschund Archie, from 1976 places the subject squarely in front of us. Shocking white wig, white face, white shirt collar, and an exposed arm with hands holding Archie who also stares right at us. Quite a portrait indeed.
When I took art history in college, and later saw great art in person, I was always struck by the discrepancy of size. Paintings reproduced in books or viewed as film slides projected in a classroom gave no indication of their incredible power when later viewed up close in a gallery. Many of them were quite large, far larger than the 8”x10” framed photographs of family that many of us have in our homes. Even those seem to have shrunk down a bit as they have been replaced by images viewed online or in a digital frame.
As an artist I’ve never done a portrait, not even a self portrait. I had any number of life drawing classes in art school but the subject matter never really captured my attention. Perhaps at the time, if I had seen one of Chuck Close’s paintings up close, and really discovered his use of texture, then I might have attempted the challenging genre. The best of portraiture reveals more than surface texture, paint colors swirled across stretched canvas. It can reveal the subject, a psychological study perhaps, but great paintings also reveal the artist. I don’t know which takes precedence, we do after all want our portraits to at least resemble the sitter; but we lean in even closer when we feel we are reading the mind of the artist, following his thoughts.
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. Isaiah 64:4 ESV
TOP IMAGE Portrait of a Distinguished Gentleman, by Stephen Craighead
TOP ROW Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap, by Titian ca. 1510 Portrait of Samuel Ampzing, by Frans Hals1630 Rembrandt Self Portrait, 1636 Juan de Pareja, by Diego Velázquez 1650
BOTTOM ROW Portrait of a Gentleman, by Nicholas Largilliere, about 1725 Portrait of the Artist, by John Vanderlyn 1800 Portrait of the Artist, by Charles Loring Elliot 1850 Portrait of Andy, by James Wyeth 1976
BOTTOM IMAGE Ron With Smile and Arms Crossed, Owen Mills
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.1 Cor. 13:13
The first season of HBO’s series The Last of Us has just concluded with a ferocious, though not-entirely unexpected ending. If you are not a fan of dystopian, apocalyptic survivalist dramas, then this show probably has nothing for you. But after watching this season’s nine episodes, I wondered if it had left behind many of it’s ardent fanbase, those who have played the game it is based on and were expecting more of the same.
I have not played the video game but am familiar with the first-person action genre: the goal of surviving hazards and shooting and/or killing as many of your opponents for high scores is not my cup of coffee. But I am interested in the world-building and dramatic choices that go into creating these immersive environments. Granted that an episodic television series can not deliver the same level of adrenaline rush that games can, I wonder where the series can excel apart from recreating or mimicking the gameplaying source material. And it seems to me that the television genre, because of its ability to control the physical environment, pacing, and character development, manages to give us an experience that transcends the game.
Here is where many of the online comments, hundreds if not thousands in numerous blogposts, took issue with the show: it is too slow, and there aren’t enough of the infected (this world’s version of zombies) to kill. The show lacks the very thing that made it exciting, engaging. But its ability to create deep space, a world in which recognizable characters can interact, make choices, and experience the repercussions of the choices they make, I think vastly outweighs its deficits.
That being said, the world (or societies) that writers Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have envisioned post-apocalypse is deeply disturbing. Societies are either fascist, violently revolutionary, or ravenously monstrous. It struck me as odd that the only safe spaces are inhabited by couples (Bill and Frank; Marlon and Florence). The juxtaposition of enduring relationships, developing ones, and doomed relationships such as Henry’s and Sam’s gives the show depth that a video game can’t. It remains to be seen whether the community in Jackson WY can endure as a welcoming environment or not: Silver Lake and it’s small community led by the show’s only apparent man of faith, and the Fireflies’ group in Salt Lake City, proved to be exceedingly dangerous to the show’s protagonists.
In a world absent of faith, where hope is expressed as “endure and survive”, love really is all that remains. In “The Last of Us”, the cost of love is exceptionally high. Joel and Sarah; Joel and Tess; Ellie and Riley; Bill and Frank; Henry and Sam; even Kathleen and her brother Michael (resistance leaders or brutal Hunters) are all doomed relationships. Perhaps the story of Joel and Ellie offers more than merely surviving, but the cost, at least to others, has been significant so far. Season two is expected in 2025 and hopefully will be filmed again in Alberta, Canada. At least the landscapes are impressive.
My Retired Life 