Hey folks, if you were at either of those TP festivals I've got a request for you. Id be grateful if you could go through your photo archives and find pictures of Sam for us. That's her in my avatar.

You can send them to the e-mail address in my profile.

Thanks ever so much.

Bill,

      I have pictures from both fest but they are not digital. 

I hate it when I run across a photo of people that shouldn't be gone but are. It's more depressing than you realize...

I remember Sam really really REALLY wanted to meet Don Davis but was too afraid to approach him. Hell, Don was one of the few celebs that I wasn't afraid to approach! So I went with her to meet Don, who as always was just the sweetest person and they had a lovely little conversation before posing for this photo I took. She was proud of the photo and I sent her a print of it after the festival. (sorry for the crap quality; this was taken with my 35mm SLR and I went back later and had the digital copy made from the negatives...the colors didn't translate well at all! The original prints weren't even close to being this contrast-y)

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I've got this one from 04, of myself Sam and Dan. No idea who took it.  Is this an E-man?

Amanda, that's a beautiful portrait.   I have a vivid memory of posing for a shot with Rachel, you and Sam near the woods by the Edgewick.  We had so much fun that year.

You guys are the greatest!

I don't think the e-mail address shows up in my profile, so use this one:

picsofsam(at)blacklodgestudio.net

I don't think that's one of mine, Angel. I'll look through the archives again. I remember shooting a couple of you, Chantene, and Sam there at the Edgewick. Is that the one you're thinking of?

Some kick ass photos there, makes me wanna go to the next one, hope I can make it. I know who Id try and dress as, seeing as my hair is similar to his, I'd try and go as Bobby Briggs.

 Sorry to hear about Sam...I joined TPG too late to get to know her, but she sounded like a lovely girl. Very sad to hear of her passing

"Ive got good news....that gum you like is going to come back in style!"

"I'm a WHOLE DAMN TOWN!"

That's exactly what Sam's extended family from northern California are doing. I'm just helping out. I'll be up that way next week to meet them all, too.

I didn't even know about this?

What happened??????

Kelly

How Do You Live Your Dash?

Check out the Kids' blogs:
The CaleBlog and the Zoe Blog

I sent you a PM, Kelly.

Hey folks, if you've got anecdotes instead of pictures, send them too.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I got those. Thanks so much.

Go ahead and use the one at blacklodgestudio.net

 How would you like to come back to my tardis and take a look at my time vortex?   

What?  I'm with Kelly in asking what happened?!  Sam died and there's a request for photos of her?  Nothing more?  I didn't know she was gone until halfway through this thread.  What happened? When? Why? Where? Etc. 

 It seems a little strange to just post about 2003 and 2004 photos without the rest of the story, Bill. 

Unless...

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Sorry I wasn't clearer earlier in the thread.  My train of thought was derailed by this.

Sam passed on the 1st of November.  Here's the local obit

Her friends and co-workers in the Eureka area are having a memorial this Sunday, which I will be attending.  There was a call for pictures and anecdotes as part of that, so I posted it here.

Oh, that's awful!  "Samara" right?  Poor baby, she was born in 1980?!  Heartbreaking news.  I went back through my festival information and see that she bought her ticket in February just after we started selling tickets for 2003.  That was a busy year!  The photo of Don and Sam together is too sad.  A sunshiny happy day not all that long ago. 

I wish I could supply some photos but the years I worked the festival were times I could scarcely lug around my camera.  Like Amanda, that was 35mm time for me too.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

 ...haven't been there in ohso long.  Will check it out.

I just did.

Miss Price lost her gallant battle with a lingering illness  = from the obituary

I guess the lingering illness was depression and the loss was self-inflicted.  

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Exactly. I was glad to see that the obit didn't specify more. I've seen ones in papers around here where the person felt the need to point out that the deceased had taken their own life. I mean, they say it in a tasteful way, but still. I think death is less about the method and more about the person lost, and that's what an obit should be about. So bravo to whomever penned Sam's. It made me cry as soon as I saw it.

Yeah, it's kind of an odd place for the conversation to have happened, but there you have it. I didn't want you to think Bill and I were just trying to be intentionally cryptic in this thread.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I agree, generally, that suicide should be talked about delicately, out of respect to the family.

I know you have a journalism degree, too, Amanda. Whenever a teacher/journalism textbook discusses writing obituaries, they always say that the information in it is for historical public record and the greater social good, and to not be coy about it. Just say it.  It's the same thing when you write that a person died (as opposed to more gentle euphemisms, like passed away or went to a God, or to a better place.) When a family writes the obit, it's understandably more difficult to do that.

The idea is the more frank we are about suicide, the more the public can recognize clinical depression as a problem, and maybe even other families of suicide victims can feel like their pain is shared. Depression is important to be honest about for genealogy records, too, as there's evidence that mental illnesses are inherited. People constantly use library's old newspaper files to trace their family background.

The more we talk about it, the less shame and stigma surrounds it.  It just changes the way we feel about suicide when it hits closer to us, as it should. For instance, if suicide hadn't been explicitly mentioned here, I wouldn't have known. But I'd rather know.  I'm sure lots of people who knew Sam would. 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Awesome picture Susan,

Thank you very much

Yeah, one of the first jobs I had on our college paper was writing obits (I was also the film critic and assistant copy editor that term). Mainly because nobody else wanted to do it. At the time I was very interested in all the details of the life and the death. It was reporting, after all. Had I written Sam's obit back then, I most definitely would have said exactly how she died and I probably would have done a fair amount of snooping and flashing of my press pass to get more details than I would really be entitled to otherwise.

I'm over that now. I'm detached enough as it is without imposing that detachment on the lives of others. While it would be nice to get people talking about suicide and educating them on the whats and hows...most of the time people just want to be nosy and gossipy and have something to dish about at the dinner table. Hence the reason I am absolutely pleased that Sam's obituary mentioned nothing about her chosen method of expiration. She was too good a person and too delightful a soul to become everyone else's coffee klatch fodder.

The people who knew Sam the best and should have recognized the signs are all painfully aware of how she died. That's more than enough. And for the record, Sam did not suffer from a mental illness. Her demons came from outside the family tree.

I should note that I speak of this in terms of the small town that Sam lived in and the small town in which her family resides. People in those places love nothing more than to dig into the lives of others and use them as conversation starters and ways to make comments on the lives of those they know nothing about otherwise.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."