Well thought-out response, Pete, and I think you nailed it. Plumb’s work seems more detached, exactly, as you made clear, as if she was an outsider looking in. Bill was one of the villagers himself and I believe he was both chronicling and pointing a humorous finger at the world he inhabited. But even when he was making fun of his community, it was loving and never directly mean. I think Plumb’s work is excellent but I still believe Bill’s has more heart.

I don’t want to bore you with personal details but this is kind of funny. At the time “Suburbia” came out, I was working on my Master’s thesis in Journalism at Berkeley — a documentary on environmental threats to SF Bay. I had finished classes and was supporting myself, and the film, by driving a forklift at a warehouse in Oakland. One day I got a call from a classmate who had taken a reporting job at a small weekly in Novato, in Marin County. Their photographer had quit and he half-jokingly suggested I apply. I had taken a basic photography course years earlier and had probably developed a single role of film, so the idea was preposterous.

But I was 23, coming out of the 60’s, and had that sort of recklessness and youthful “screw ‘em” attitude. So I put together a fake portfolio of photographs taken by real photographers and applied. I was hired on the spot. It was a Thursday and I didn’t start till Monday so I spent several frantic days reading everything I could about photography. I didn't’t even have access to a darkroom to practice and had to borrow a camera from a friend.

Ultimately, I faked my way through it long enough till I actually figured it out and ended up staying there for two years. At the same time, I had another friend from the school who had taken a reporting job (as one of the first female sportswriters in the country) at the Livermore Independent and became friends with Bill. That’s how I found out about “Suburbia.” And because Livermore and Novato were essentially the same city in different counties it really resonated. I learned a lot, too, about things like bare bulb flashes, etc.

Postscript: I finally finished my thesis film, which won a local Emmy, left the newspaper and wound up producing a nightly news show (Newsroom) at KQED, the SF public TV station. Because the show didn’t air till 8 each night my mornings were free and I ended up returning to the J School and teaching, what else, photojournalism for several years.

As an old Texas buddy was fond of saying, “Life’s a funny ol’ possum, ain’t it?”