First up are these three from Hot Summer Nites, the series of downtown events held in Fallbrook on six different Friday nights throughout each summer. I went to the event on July 9, and drooled all over the classic cars.

(Please note, the paper incorrectly slugged the story as “CARLSBAD,” which I assume was due to the fact that the couple in the photo they chose were from Carlsbad. Don’t be deceived, the picture was taken right here, in Fallbrook!)

CARLSBAD: Hot Summer Nites

BONSALL: Last flight out of Bonsall International Airport

One day this spring, I was driving home from Oceanside with Dori, and noticed that there were several people out flying model airplanes at the old Bonsall airstrip that was scheduled to be closed the next morning for road construction. The airport was in the path of the new and improved Highway 76, and I ended up hanging out with Glen Looft as he took the last flight ever taken there. It was a really interesting story, and here are a few photos that the Times passed over.

MILITARY: New VA cemetery pleases vets

For this story, I drove down to Miramar to take some pictures of a deserted field that will, next year, be developed into the VA’s latest cemetery. San Marcos Pearl Harbor survivor Ted Roosvall was an early and persistent champion of the project.

FALLBROOK: Annual repainting of water tower signals new class of seniors

Another one of my recent favorites, I had been after this story for years. Anyone who’s been to Fallbrook knows about the water tower with the years painted on it. Last month, I went up and watched while the tower was repainted, and, of course, took some photos. Here’s one:

NORTH COUNTY: San Marcos, Fallbrook students celebrate the day

Lastly, I was there for all three high school graduations in Fallbrook in June. Here is one of the graduates singing the National Anthem:

Please let me know if this was an interesting post. If there is positive feedback, I will make a habit of doing this every couple of months.

“I could stand on top of the mountain, and look down the long slope to the ocean, east,” he remembered. “Out in the ocean was this archipelago of little islands, guns on every one of them. Had we invaded, we would have had to go through those guns. I was out there at 5 in the morning, and I would watch the sun come up. It was a beautiful thing, it would reflect (through) the archipelago, it would hit the mountain itself and the sun would come up. I used to watch that every morning.”

CARLSBAD: Veteran recalls Nagasaki two weeks after bombing

When James Henkel tells the story of the four months he spent in one of the only two cities ever to suffer an atomic blast, he starts right where any good screenwriter would —- in the bow of a Higgins landing craft.

That’s where, on or around Aug. 20, 1945, Henkel rode across Nagasaki Bay toward the Japanese mainland and a city shattered by a strange new kind of weapon.

“As soon as we got to shore, they dropped the ramp, and I ran off with my rifle, ready to shoot,” Henkel, 86, recalled during an interview this week. “There was a Japanese cop, standing there, saluting me. Saluting me so hard I thought his arm was going to break. (He was) afraid I was going to shoot him. Had he resisted or tried to get the drop on me, I’d have shot him. But he didn’t have any weapon.”

Henkel said he ran past the petrified police officer and into the most interesting four months of his life.

Read the rest at www.nctimes.com.

And here is a portrait of Henkel that the Times decided not to use. As you can see, a true Marine.

Aside from all the politics and turmoil, there were many opportunities for picture-taking, and many pictures were taken. Here are some of the best. (It’ll be a long post.) Because of the narrative nature of this one, I’ll be turning on captions, as well.

Enjoy!

Mount Zion is situated just off the southwest corner of the Old City, which is bounded by nearly three miles of walls dating back to 1538, and this is a glimpse of the historic Hagia Maria Sion Abbey.

Looking up at the inside of the dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. Many Christians believe the hill where this church stands is where Christ was crucified, also known as Golgotha.

I spotted this cross on top of a gate in the Christian quarter. There was neat stuff like this to shoot everywhere I turned.

Another one from Mt. Zion. In the courtyard between the Hagia Maria abbey and the room where Catholic tradition holds Jesus presided over the Last Supper, this tree was in full bloom.

Orthodox Jews walking to Shabbat services in the Old City. This was taken on our first night in Israel, a couple of hours after our plane landed. Shabbat, or Sabbath, is celebrated beginning at sundown on Friday, and this family was approaching the Damascus gate of the Old City. Hundreds of Orthodox believers were using this raised median to walk to services through a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, which led me to believe that the sidewalk was there specifically for the observant on their way into the Old City every Friday.

And then there are the Texans. Lots and lots and lots of them.

Some common sights in the Old City (left to right): Hats for sale in the marketplace; a road sign on the side of a who-knows-how-old building; Hebrew writing; the evening sun breaking through into the market.

Before leaving Los Angeles, everyone in the class had to identify a story we would report while in Jerusalem. Mine focused on the Mamilla cemetery, an old Muslim graveyard adjacent to a construction site where the Wiesenthal Center is building a museum of tolerance.

Muslims are concerned that the museum encroaches on sacred space, but Jewish supporters of the project point out that the site held a parking garage for decades. The blue fence separates the construction site from the cemetery.

The old gravestones engraved with old Arabic were amazing to see.

I took most of these on our last day in Jerusalem, after doing an interview at the nearby Independence Park. It was cold, windy and overcast, making a stroll through the cemetery an appropriately somber experience.

Another grave marker bearing Arabic. Some of these dated back hundreds of years.

From Jerusalem, we traveled about 10 miles north to Ramallah, which is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. I was surprised at how severe the topography was in Israel and Palestine -- rocky hills like this one were the norm in and around Jerusalem.

Things are pretty beat-up in Ramallah, after decades of conflict. Here, a pair of Palestinian flags are in need of replacement. I'm sure they'll still be there for a while, though.

While we were in Ramallah, we visited a refugee camp. The UN had been there at some point.

There were a lot of children in the camp. This little guy came into the doorway of a tiny convenience store as our group was passing.

The refugee camp was a truly unique place. Many of the streets were too narrow for cars, and power lines jumped from building to building with no apparent order. Many of the buildings were permanent, making the place feel like more of a fixed community than a transitional place, like we usually think of when we hear "refugee." But most -- if not all -- of the people there are waiting to return to their ancestral land, which for many lies beyond the Israeli border.

This boy followed us for a few blocks.

A few more scenes from the camp.

We also visited Hebron, a historic city torn by conflict and division. There were some remarkable images there, including this concertina wire in a closed-off alley in a shuttered marketplace.

Our last stop was Tel Aviv, where we stayed for three nights before flying home. Most of the photos I took while there were in the old port city of Jaffa, because it was far more photogenic (Tel Aviv is a modern metropolis, not too different from San Diego in many ways.) Jaffa is known in the English Bible as "Joppa," and is cited as early as 2 Chronicles 2:16 (it's also where Jonah found a ship leaving for Tarshish).

The bell tower of St. Peter's Church in Jaffa. As you can see, we enjoyed beautiful weather during our stay by the Mediterranean.

There's a beautiful seaside park in Jaffa that rivals anything San Diego has to offer. It's like they built this little dock specifically for photographers. :)

There was also a boardwalk by the water that was being absolutely pounded by surf that day.

You always look for good light as a photographer. You have a really good day when it follows you around instead. That's what it was like shooting in Israel and Palestine.

I don't know what this says. Probably something important, like, "No photography, or else!"

Israel is a fascinating place; you should definitely go if you get the opportunity. Comments are always welcome and appreciated! :)

After five years as a full-time local reporter for the North County Times, Tom now writes a weekly column for the Times called “Sincerely Fallbrook.” (An archive of all his stuff since last summer can be found here.) Recently, driving to and from Oceanside, we have noticed that Caltrans is getting ready to widen the road. Tom’s column this Sunday was about the third bridge that’s going to be built over the San Luis Rey River at Vista Way, and so, last week, we headed out to take some pictures at that intersection. The paper didn’t run any of them, so we decided to post them here, nice and big, along with the first part of the column. We hope you enjoy. :)

A tale of three bridges

By TOM PFINGSTEN – For the North County Times

First there was the simple arch bridge —- two stone-and-asphalt lanes built in 1925 to carry motorists over the San Luis Rey River west of Bonsall.

It had style in the same way black-and-white films did. Sophisticated, you might say, especially considering the farms and groves that overlook the antique span.

But then it was too narrow. Passing a big rig was delicate business on your way out to the beach in the 1980s and early ’90s.

So they built another bridge, this one twisting over the river in an elegant curve and wide enough for two trucks to pass each other comfortably.

It felt like a superhighway compared with the original.

But then two lanes were too few.

Sometimes, in the early evening or on a hot Saturday in July, cars would be idling by the dozens atop that big span, their drivers wishing for another lane in each direction.

So, early this year, construction workers cut a swath in the afternoon shadow of the newer bridge, from riverbank to riverbank, and began to prepare for a third bridge.

Read the rest of the story at nctimes.com.