Saturday, March 17, 2012

Man Drowning in Lake Michigan 1992

After living on the Zuni Reservation for eight years, our family moved to Chicago so that my husband could do a Sports Medicine residency. Our small family located in Uptown, renting an apartment and a basement studio from photographer friends who had moved North to Evanston.  We settled in, Bob going off every day to his residency program, Ramey to Montessori school, and Teal to spend the afternoons with her babysitter in a high rise apartment not far from the lake. Once I dropped Teal off, I would go for a run along the shore of Lake Michigan, then return to my studio to work. 

In February of that year the lake was cold, but not frozen.While I bundled up to go for my runs, I wasn't terribly cold and I enjoyed torturing myself with thoughts of somehow falling into the cold, choppy water.  One afternoon, as I arrived at the lake, I could see that the parking lot had been closed off, and there were a number of police cars and vans.  Several divers in wet suits were diving off a small wall into the water.  Evidently, in the early hours of the morning, a man had driven his sports car at a high speed directly into the lake, and the divers were searching for both the car and his body.  I stood and watched, hoping they would find him, but also dreading that they would find him since I had never seen a dead person before.  Vicarious peeping Holly was stronger than timid Holly and I stood around and watched for quite awhile as the divers would dive in, submerge, be under for awhile, and then come back up.  But, no luck, and finally, bored, I went off on my run.  Left to my thoughts,  I could only imagine what it would have been like for the driver as he hit the frigid water and went down, trapped in his car, surrounded by the freezing water.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! That seems oh so real to me, after Colin's and my time living in Chicago.

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  2. I own this piece. My wife and I bought it is Santa Fe around 1993. Holly - You and I were in a show together at Sandy Carson Gallery in Denver. I was thrilled to be sharing the space with you. I wish that you could have attended the opening reception so that we could chat. We also have your piece "Deer with Man inside." This one we bought at Parson's Gallery in Taos. Obviously we admire you and love your work. We now live in North Carolina and are showing our work in Wilmington - about an hour up the coast from us. We spend a good deal of time at our summer studio north of Taos. If you are ever in Taos, please let us know if you would like to get together. My email address is jeffchasbrown@gmail.com. Best of luck. Please let us know about future shows. Cheers, Jeff Brown

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