This past year I have photographed my neighbor's sago palm over and over. I have marveled at the strange way it grows a globe like center before putting on new leaves. The center at times was fascinating, at other times it was disgusting. But always strange. I found the fonds beautiful. I took hundreds of photos of this production of fruit and leaves. BTW do not try eating the fruit. I am told that vets say that they have never been able to save a dog who has eaten one of the fruit. Must be very poisonous.

Another unusual kind of Then-and-Now comparison, except that the "Now" was September, 1948 and the "Then" was 1939 or 1940. This stony villa -- Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" now known as the Kehlsteinhaus -- was a 50th birthday present in April 1939 for Adolph Hitler from the Nazi Party. Perched 6,000-ft. high on top of the Kehlstein Mountain, an Alp overlooking Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, the villa was the Nazi version of a bungalow. My Rolleiflex had a delayed-action timer, so my wife and I posed on the sun porch along one side of the building. I recently ran across a photo of Adolph Hitler sitting alone on a deck chair(!) on that very same sun porch, taken from almost the same angle. That door at the end of the collonade was reportedly to the room assigned to Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress and later his wife for a few hours before they both committed suicide in April, 1945. Today my shot can't be duplicated because the open collonade has been enclosed in windows. The Eagle's Nest is now a tourist site and includes a restaurant (reservations required).