David and Patricia O'Connell were the first people I photographed on the couch, They have a moving company and I hired them to move the couch from Antiques 'N Oddities in Waltham where Mildred Beckwith, Gail Mazur's mother, had found it for me. I met the O'Connells in a funny circumstance. Christmas 1972, I was selling my photographs from a shopping cart at Holyoke Center on Saturdays. One day, there was snow on the ground and I couldn't figure out how I would get through the six blocks from here to there. The wagon wheels wouldn't turn. I didn't want to bother Gail Mazur or Bobbi Carrey, my only friends with station wagons. Why not call one of the movers who advertise in the Boston Phoenix classified'! The O'Connells had the most amiable listing.

I took four rolls of film of Alan Lelchuk for the jacket of his new book, Miriam at Thirty-Four. Neither of us could decide what kind of picture it should be. Should he be nonchalant -- shooting baskets in the playground across the street? Serious -- among the daffodils in the backyard? Congenial -- having tea at the kitchen table'! Resourceful -- talking to women who happen to be walking up Flagg Street? We tried everything. I made postcards of the best shots and sent them to him in Canaan, New Hampshire.

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